Use jealousy to improve your sex life

MH sex columnist Nichi Hodgson reveals how unleashing jealousy can lead to greater passion in your relationship
 
Sexual jealousy, prevailing wisdom tells us, is a toxic weed. Unless it’s rooted out, it will suffocate and poison your relationship, turning passion into paranoia. Yet some people get off on jealousy. They cultivate it and feed on it to get more from their sex life.
The most extreme example of this is cuckolding porn, in which one partner has sex with someone else, while the other looks on. During my brief stint as a professional dominatrix, this was a commonly requested scenario. Clients would book me (and often, a hot male assistant) to pretend to be his wife or girlfriend, then force him to watch another man pleasure me.
As crazy as it sounds, the cuckolded got off on the feelings of uncontrollable jealousy and betrayal. For me, the cuckolder, the sense of being multiply desired gave me a generous ego boost. It can work the other way, too – your partner might actually enjoy watching you with another woman. Might.
But we’re talking extremes here, and you don’t have to go nearly that far to make jealousy work for you. We all feel jealous from time to time and playing with those feelings can be exciting. In ‘jealousy play’, the aim is to push your partner to the edge of erotic distance from you, before drawing them back again – more lustful than ever.
Let’s say you’re sick of hearing about your girlfriend’s handsome colleague. Make a point of mentioning every woman you have a flirtatious interaction with for a week. A taste of her own green-eyed medicine will either send her sidling up to you as she reasserts her commitment or, even better, it will morph into a complex erotic game that revolves around slowly turning up the dial on each other’s jealousy.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

To take it further, go to a bar and allow one another to flirt and be flirted with. Make a pact that the one who secures the most attention has to ‘apologise’ to the other however the victor sees fit once you’re home. To make it authentic, don’t let the people you flirt with know about the game. This co-conspiratorial element will cement your loyalty to one another; when you dump the woman you’ve been chatting to and take your girl home, she’ll want you like never before. And given that it’s easier for women to secure attention from men, you can also prepare yourself for ‘compensation’.
Figure out the finer details before you leave the house: is it OK to accept drinks, for example? And what if your partner becomes the subject of repeated advances? If at any time your jealousy starts to overwhelm, remember: someone else’s appreciation of your partner confirms your status, too. In a long-term relationship, these games resurrect the sense of a chase. You can play hard-to-get with one another again. Plus it provides flirts like me with an ego-stroking fix.

FANTASY FICTION

If you prefer visual stimulation, stick on some mutually enticing porn and work the characters into your dynamic. Cuckolding scenes might seem like the obvious choice but a solo-show or clips featuring couples, where you’re able to more readily imagine the participants stepping into your own scene, will generally work better. One of the most outrageous nights I ever had was when I told a casual hook-up that his oral skills were inferior to that of the last guy I’d slept with. He spent the next six hours begging to differ. Of course, playing this card can easily backfire. It worked for us because I already knew the guy in question – I knew he’d respond well to the challenge. Many men would just have been insulted. So if you’re going to play the game, everyone needs to be happy with the rules before you start. Trying it out on the next beautiful woman you secure for a one-night stand is highly unlikely to have the desired effect.
For all its negative potential, jealousy is a healthy human response to competition. It gives you an opportunity to remind yourself and your partner of just how highly you value them, of their erotic standing and of your own. The game is designed to affirm, rather than question, the connection between you. That said, the degree of jealousy it’s wise to provoke in one another very much depends on your emotional and physical proximity. A long-distance relationship, for example, is generally being tested enough. Hinting to a partner thousands of miles away that you might be up to no good with Holly from the bank is only for the most robust of relationships.
Occasionally of course, a sensation of jealousy can be a rightful gut reaction to another’s suspicious behaviour or infidelity. In this case you may find yourself unwittingly cast in the role of real-life cuckold. Only, in those circumstances, it’s just plain cheating. Jealousy play is all about invoking that fire – with none of the fall out.

THE RULES OF JEALOUSY PLAY

1 Don't tell your friends about it The involved may view your dynamic as an opportunity for them to explore their own fantasies. Keep your games removed from your everyday lives.
2 Watch porn for inspiration But never put your relationship under the strain of acting out cuckolding scenarios for real. Just get a sense of what themes work for the two of you.
3 Experiment with role play In turn, describe a scenario where the other partner sleeps with another person. Always use distant fantasy figures and never people you know.
4 The cuckolded calls the shots Not the cuckolder. Letting them set the boundaries ensures nobody gets hurt when any genuine insecurities are trampled on by mistake.
5 Never do it when arguing Only play when you’re on good terms with each other. And never reference any past infidelities. That’s not fun – it’s mental torture.