Many women have written to Lovefraud about husbands who they’ve come to believe are sociopaths. They were astounded to discover that, not only was the husband cheating, but he was having sex with men.
Lovefraud reader eyeswideshut writes about this in a recent comment to the post, After he’s gone: looking at the sociopath through open eyes. She asks:
Now that I know he is also gay, is sociopathic tendency in married gay men not common as well? When I read the stories of the women in the book (“Straight Wives”), many of the men sound like sociopaths as well. Have you studied this phenomenon? Is it possible that gay men who choose to live the lie of married life are likely also socios?
To this, another Lovefraud reader, Leslie, commented:
On the third extended date I had with the SP, I turned to him one night, after we’d been together, and said, “Have you been with men?” Something in the way he’d made love made me think he had. He stared at the window and said in a monotone, “I have never made love to a man.” It was the same monotone he used to deny that he was living with a woman when I asked him that a year later. He was. I don’t have hard proof, but I know the guy had had sex with men.
Then alohatraveler commented:
I have heard from another victim of my sociopath that he was starting to get more “experimental” when she knew him. She knew him after me. He was expressing an interest in having sex with a man, but of course, with a woman present, because he was “not gay.” We both also saw an ad that he posted looking for sex with a transsexual. Then he placed an ad where he wanted a traditional type of woman.
“Not a gay bone in my body”
Shortly after I met my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, he proclaimed to me, “There’s not a gay bone in my body.” I had no reason to doubt him. But when I left him after two-and-a-half years, I learned a lot about his sexual activities:
- He had sex with at least six other women during our relationship.
- He was heavily into Internet porn.
- He solicited gay male prostitutes.
- He tried to arrange threesomes and looked for swinging couples.
In short, he wanted sexual thrills. The more different kinds of thrills, the better. I’m lucky I didn’t get a serious disease.
Screw anyone
Sociopaths are hard-wired for sex. They have an excessive need for stimulation, excitement and sensation. They also have no fear and no inhibitions. From a sexual perspective, that means a voracious appetite and anything goes.
Dr. Liane Leedom writes that sociopaths only want two things. One of them is power. The other is sex.
So when it comes to sexual orientation, I believe sociopaths are neither straight nor gay. In short, they’ll screw anyone.
Lovefraud has heard from gay individuals—men and women—who were involved in gay relationships with sociopaths. I asked several of them if they thought the sociopath was actually gay. They all agreed with my theory and said the sociopath was not gay.
Sex with an agenda
This does not mean, however, that sociopaths are out of control. On the contrary, to them, sex, and sexual orientation, is just something to be used in order to achieve their objective, whatever that is.
Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the case of James McGreevey, the former governor of New Jersey. McGreevey, you may recall, resigned from office after proclaiming in a news conference that he was a “gay American.”
The truth was that his political career was imploding under a series of scandals. As I wrote in a review of the book written by McGreevey’s wife, I believe the former governor played the gay card because it was the best way to spin his political collapse.
Sociopaths use people for sex, and use sex to get what they want. Anybody who suits their agenda will do.
If it suits their agenda to be married with children, then that’s what they’ll do. But if sociopaths indulge in same-sex relationships, in my opinion, it’s because they’re sociopaths, not gay.
Haha – I am laughing at your expressions again
“damn”who got me pregnant, what are they thinking of my body compared to xx”.do they want my V or his Ass, her ear or my armpit”..where did this VD come from”.”
It’s the way you put it Erin. But a very serious subject indeed. The sad thing is the whole focus has become sex as the ends rather than sex as the expression of sentiment and emotion in the underpinning relationship. It’s empty – kind of like the sociopath. And the porn industry seems to perpetuate the myth of the always available woman – always up for it, always ready, willing and able.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t actually know any women like that. I knew a few in my youth who were into one night stands, but for most it was a passing phase that ended when they had a serious relationship or got married. Now they’re just as likely to dump the relationship for a bit on the side rather than saying no and remaining true to their partner. It seems being faithful doesn’t hold much currency these days for men or women. It’s not fashionable – it’s more trendy to have ‘friends with benefits’ or a ‘discreet encounter with no strings’ or ‘F*** buddies’. I don’t understand it.
I hope I don’t come across as sexist here, but I can kind of understand men having the biological urge to spread their seed as wide as possible – that’s genetically programmed into them – still no excuse for cheating mind you. But WTF are the women doing? And seriously with regard to your son’s ex = what woman really loves a penis in her mouth? I mean come on – they pee out of that!
I had heard of the anal trend in America with regard to purity pledges – that’s kind of a paramoralism – we’ll do the full act THIS way and then I will still be a virgin. But imagine the rumours that spread about those girls … can hardly be complementary. Then again – lots of them are doing it so maybe it’s the new norm. I seriously don’t get it. WOmen I know of regard sex after the first few yrs of relationship like another household chore to be taken care of from time to time lol Maybe they’re just tired out after work and all the other responsibilities women hold these days. I don’t know of any women who are ready to jump in the sack at any hour of the day – maybe I am just mingling in the wrong circles!
I have heard of people imitating those porn scenes. One man told me online of a situation with one woman and four men – I had to ask how that was possible. They obviously don’t seem to be worrying about diseases – he went so far as to tell me ‘we’re a very clean group’ – yuck – condoms don’t protect against everything and some infections have no outward symptoms till it’s too late. No sex is worth dying for.
That must have been pretty awful for your son to hear all that – what girl in her right mind would be boasting about exploits like that? Ten yrs ago she would have been called a slut or a skank, but now this sort of behaviour is normalised … what is the world coming to? I am rapidly turning into a prude! I hate it – it’s so superficial and symbolic of this fast superficial throw away lifestyle we live in now – now people are disposable too.
It funny reading all your posts..
It’s just that the sex thing with this man was so strange.. I have had good sexual relationships.. and when in one .. the man doesn’t want the woman to do anything that isn’t comfortable…
This man talked continually about how he loved my body.. that my shape was perfect for him. That God must’ve made me for him.. and I felt no sexual attraction..
And Like I think and my friends commented.. you were feeling something innatedly that wouldn’t allow you to get that close to that man..
I think anal sex is a perversion.. and I don’t any of my girlfriends that like.. a couple tried it once and said it was horrible.. plus it can mess you up physically…
And I agree why would a heterosexual man want to have sex like gay men do…?
I wnet through a phase with this man where I thought that I was losing my sexuality and it was horrible.. when he touched me at times it hurt… even his fingers on my arm.. it was like claws…
Yes.. thank God.. I didn’t marry him, but I never would have..
This man had like four children with miscarriages … and he was married four times… and lenghty marriges.. but he told me that the wife before the one that died.. would sleep in beds with the children and not with him.. and she told him that sex was only to have children and that she didn’t want any more. Then she had an affair, divorced him, and married the guy….. soooo… something is off just plain off with the guy. And the woman before her, according to him, was the one that liked anal sex, was an alcoholic, was violent, came after him with a knife and according to him and his daughter, molested all three of her children. And he was married to this woman for like 10 years.. and the child that she had with another man before he married her… overdosed…
Crazy people! I have never heard of so much craziness and trauma.. and remember this man is so spiritual .. he claims that he is a guru…
I need to feel that close safe feeling while in bed.. that comforting connection…
And Polly.. I agree.. I am becoming prudish.. I have never had a man touch me that way in public.. it was degrading.. and insulting… men who love you, don’t want to objectify and degrade you.
I don’t want to get into any thing strange sexually and it seems to be getting more and more bizarre..
What it was is that we never had any real connection. He contrived the love love love… he needed a place to live.. he wants to be married.. and he was attracted to me and I was moving into a new house.. He just came after me.. with everything that he had.. and I never felt it for him.. we fell into the ‘marriage’ like roll because it just happened.. this man is used to being married and he knows what to do around the house, etc.. he goes through the motions and says the words.. but I felt little real emotion from him.. except when he was crying about his child that died.. and even that was because he couldn’t heal him.. like he thought he was God or something.. when I wanted to understand the molestation by his wife to his daughter.. he told me a bit but didn’t want to talk about it too much.. he didn’t want to think about it.. Yet, this girl revealed this to me a virtual stranger in the first 2 hours that I met her. Everything is and was off with these people… and I had no connection to him.. and certianly no physical connection.. we had no sexually chemistry..
none..where I was concerned.. I didn’t like his approach and I didn’t trust him and he was contriving this soulmate connection with me and I never felt it…
We developed this doing doing kind of existance.,, his mother, the house,, the trauma with his daugher… we went out to eat,, and movies.. and I cooked and we did things around the house.. but I never felt a bonded physical connection…Even on the first date… I wasn’t attracted.. and he held both my hands and looked into my eyes.. and I thought…. umm..he’s handsome, but…It was like being with a serious professor.. it was my light and sense of fun that carried us… he ate the food that I cooked and slept in my bed.. and did things around the house.. it was like we had been married for 50 years… and it was boring…
I recall in the beginning.. he would make these goo goo eyes at me and smile this stupid smile.. and it was stupio.. and I was laughing inside.. but I stayed..
but actually, I broke up with him often.. I would pull away and he would suck me back in…
He was chemically attracted to a woman that likes anal sex, is an alcoholic, comes after him with a knife and he had two kids with her.. And said that sex was fun with her and that is why he stayed…
well, I had no attraction.. and I am a healthy woman.. and know what real sex is with a man that I love.. and I have none of those perversions…
So I think.. God kept him away from me.. or my inner knowing….
But why would a man stay with a woman or over a year.. with so little sex? I even told him that I didn’t love him and that I wasn’t attracted to him and that he kissed like a lizard… and he stayed….I got so sick of his hands all over me.. his touching me.. his stupid awkward attempts..
Yet.. we could run around town and have fun… at times…
Strange. .. so strange….
“And Like I think and my friends commented.. you were feeling something innatedly that wouldn’t allow you to get that close to that man..”
Same here, Style. Though I must admit I was physically attracted to my sociopath, even though he was one of the lousiest lovers I ever had. I did like his touch, I did enjoy his company (most of the time) and I was hooked to him, but I wasn’t really in love. Maybe I had unconsciously registered all the warning signs he gave me that he wasn’t genuine, I don’t know. I wasn’t in love, so why was I so blind?
Eileen,
I think we get ‘hooked’ on the concept the ‘dream’ of the man/woman connectio… I think that they play on it.. to get whatever it is that they need in the moment..
Mine even told me in an argument towards the ends that a woman builds her life around a man..
think about it.. in my house.. I was being the housewife to his manliness.. I was cooking gourmet dinners. He would come home to a clean, excellently decorate home and I would do his wash.. all he did was bring me flowers and chocolate each Friday.. and he sent most his money to his kids and ex… So, I had a man to ‘play’ the wife to.. even though I didn’t want that role.. I wanted romance…
but my conditioning hooked me in as he hoked me in.. and I am an excellent homemaker… So it half heartedly filled my needs…
but he wasn’t paying for it.. like men should.. he was living in my life…
a girlfriend told me” Heck.. what a deal this man has and you make him look good..”
It was all ‘role’ playing.. with no real guts to it.. it was a contrived life.. and I was never happy in it.. but I went with it like some job I was assigned .. assigned by him, and societal doctrine that I was reared in…
that’s how I’ve figured it out anyway…
there was no sex, little connection.. just playing the roles…
Wow…of everything I’ve read on this site this has hit home the most, and ElleJay my story is so similar to yours. Unfortunately, I did do things I regret.
Virtually everyone who ever meets the ex thinks he’s gay. Often it felt like being with my best gay friend or a girlfriend more than anything–he knew more about clothes, makeup, hair and skin than I did. He likes to say that he’s extremely hetero and that if he was interested in men he’d pursue them, but he just isn’t interested…but if you look at it as a power trip and not even about sexuality, it makes much more sense. I was easily able to discover his indiscretions with women, but never did find any indication that he tried to get anywhere with men. However he did fantasize heavily about me with other men or threesomes with men, and also offered me to other men. He considered that “generosity”.
When it came to sex he’d get this odd, dead look in his eyes and seem to be following a script of what it meant to be masculine. He followed a policy of “everything but no means yes” and also was searching for couples, wanted me to be with other men, hell he’d have loved it if I’d been with a whole football team. For him. By his generous permission.
I actually did participate in some things. At first, when I was very young, it felt naughty and rebellious and experimental. But soon it spiraled out of control and felt demeaning and empty and it had nothing to do with me, other than I was his property to show off. If I didn’t comply he’d get that disdainful look and just shut me out as not being as “advanced” as he. That was big with him, telling anyone who’d listen how vastly superior we were to others because we were realistic about how humans aren’t monogamous and went with that instead of trying to fight it. Having had an unfaithful father and boyfriends, that was appealing at first…avoid the pain by making fidelity a non-issue. HA.
When I think about some of the things I did (threesome with one of his family members, oh god how in the world could I have remotely thought that was in any way okay or normal???) I feel awful.
And I agree with those who say they aren’t sure about what’s normal now. Sex with the ex was always very detached but I give him some points for technical merit, and he knew how to bring on the romance and put me on a pedestal (while, like you experienced Ellejay, making me feel like a piece of meat too, though I didn’t really understand that until I got away from it). Now I’m just starting a relationship with someone I’ve been good friends with for a long while, whom I trust and find extremely attractive, especially the fact that he’s very comfortable in his masculinity. But I struggle with the sexual part of it a bit, I just feel like my context is all screwed up. I hated, hated, hated how sex pervaded everything with the ex…yet don’t know what is normal between two people who love and trust each other.
Luckily he’s a loving patient man who witnessed some of what I experienced…I’m going to need some handholding!
Now that the ex is in fact an ex, I am more or less NC–use a third party to intercept communication and edit it down to just specific business questions I have to answer. But last thing I read directly, he’s outraged that I regret all of this. Says I could have said no, I was fully complicit, and any other twist of the story that you can imagine, the time he must spend mulling it all over. And that’s the hardest part, because logically speaking, he’s right, I could have said no. But how do you explain the freakiness that is trying to live in that situation?
At first I wanted to defend myself but realized all that does is give him what he wants…any sort of attention at all. Nope. I gave him enough. He gets nothing from me.
Thanks everyone so much for sharing, I wouldn’t wish this confusion on anyone but it’s comforting to know I’m not totally alone in it. I’ve felt like such an idiot for staying so long in something that was so bizarre, yet at the time I couldn’t see it clearly. I became expert at dissecting out the bad s**t and saying “see, but he’s so fun and smart and nice and he stopped doing all that stuff (maybe) and and and…”
Black Deer – try to forgive yourself – these men can convince us to sell our own mothers if it suits their needs. You were taken advantage of. Simple.
Style – that’s exactly what we were – props that made them look good and normal. But t hey have none of the relational warmth that properly belongs in a relationship.
Polly…
yes.. good way of putting it.. I was the prop of the ‘wife’ looked the part, had the things to make it so,, acted the part for while…
then when I wasn’t as he saw me.. he told me that I messed it up because it had been ‘perfect’…
umm… like in those movies.. THE STEPFATHER…anyone ever see those..?
I realized that he had this vison of me… and he loved his vison.. maybe, the way that I look, and certain things about me.. He was so focused on the vision that he didn’t even try to really get to know me.. I was to fit into his plans..My name was even similar to his mother’s and she really liked me…
I am a petite burnette.. phycially fit.. long hair.. and he told me that he had a vision of me before he met me..
could sound romantic.. if he let it develope and cared enought about me to get to know me.. but his agenda was his needs to be met and FAST..he circumvented any real connection…that might have occurred…
he went from first date to a proposal of marriage in lighting time.. and I told him repeatedly that it was going too fast. That I was uncomfortable and that I had never moved this fast and I didn’t likeit..
But what I wanted was irrevelant…
hence.. no physical connection.. hence, why I never really fell iin love, hence why I become more and more uncomforatble around him and became resentfull…
I have these regrets.. that I let this man into my life.. when I was so happy.. and doing something for me.. and he infiltrated it and took me down a different path…and that it wasted my time, and caused me anxiety and gave me false direction and hope… and he did not fulfill his promises..
Had I adverted this .. I would be in a different place… and maybe, much better in my head…