Of Cuckolds, Hotwives, Stags, and Vixens

Considering the recent posts about fantasies, consent (in our marriage and in the lifestyle), and my weird kinks, I figured I would stay in a similar realm and discuss some lifestyle terms and how they relate to our own fantasies and my weird kinks. I recently updated and added definitions in our sex term glossary, which led to an interesting conversation between Erin and myself about the term hotwife. From that conversation sprung the need to write this post all about bulls, cuckolds, hotwives, stags, and vixens.

The crux of the conversation came about as I was rewriting our definition of hotwife. For ease, I’ll reproduce that definition here rather than send you to the glossary:

“A hotwife is a woman in a committed relationship who has sex with other people (I think it’s safe to say mostly other men, who are often called her bull) because both she and her partner think it is sexy for her to do so. Hotwifing differs from cuckholding because it lacks the humiliation aspect. However, given how masculinity is perceived, there are some people who argue that there is always an element of humiliation if your wife has sex with other men. We whole-heartily disagree. See also stag and vixen.”

I had used a phrase that Erin objected to, and we got in a lovely debate about grammar. I say lovely because I’m a writer, editor, and proofreader and as such, I love getting into the nuances of words and phrases and comma placement (viva la Oxford comma!). Erin not so much, but she humors me.

To What Did Erin Object?

I had written the line “a man agreeing to let other men have sex with his wife.” She didn’t like this because she felt it implied the woman had no choice. As in, if I agreed to let this guy, this bull (we’ll call him Liam for this example) to have sex with Erin, that was it: They had sex. She had no say. She felt my wording implied I could give Liam consent to have sex with her.

Not at all what I meant. She’s not my possession, and I cannot give consent for her. I can give voice to her consent if I know what she wants—she likes it when I tell other guys what to do to her, after all. But this relies upon me knowing what she wants.

My argument was that because I can’t give her consent to someone else, me agreeing to let Liam have sex with Erin is merely giving my consent that I was comfortable letting the act happen. Now imbued with my blessing, a necessary component of hotwifing, Liam has to get her consent before he can fuck her. Or she his, depending on who is the the pursuer.

Either way, my consent for them fucking has been given. Everything else that still needs to happen for them to actually fuck still needs to occur.

So I Changed It

Erin preferred “a man agreeing that his wife can have sex with other men.” I admit that this phrasing implies more power is placed in the woman’s hands and that the agreement is between the couple rather than between the husband and the other guy. After all, in some hotwifing relationships, the husband never meets the other guys his wife is fucking. And that’s fine!

However, as you can see from the definition above, even that phrasing isn’t what we ended up using.

Hotwife: Why Is This Even a Term?

Erin brought the word hotwife to my attention many years ago, which given our…hmmm…how to say this? Given that I’m the porn consumer and she isn’t, and that it seemed to be my fantasy more than hers, it’s funny that she discovered the term first. Of course, what I didn’t realize back when this came into our vocabulary is that Erin was already nursing a pretty solid MFM kink, so maybe it makes perfect sense that she discovered this before I did.

My interest in seeing my wife getting fucked by other guys stems from the following kinks:

1. I think she’s beautiful and sexy. It turns me on that other guys think the same and want to fuck her. It’s even hotter when they then get to act on it.
2. She’s sexy as hell to watch and listen to when I’m having sex with her, but I get a better view when I can see other people doing it. Watching real people have sex is better than porn. Watching my wife fucking is even better.
3. I like sluts. Legit, one of the hottest things for me is a woman who likes sex, wants sex, and will do what it takes to be satisfied. For Erin to want to be fucked by two or three guys at once, that’s fucking hot to me.

All of this led to me being very comfortable with having a MFM very early on in our swinger experiences. Jeez, we must have been like 26 or thereabouts.

We Needed Hotwife Because of Cuckold

I knew the term cuckold, but I also knew it didn’t apply to me. I don’t want Erin “cheating” on me—cheating being in quotes because in a defined cuckold relationship, the woman is allowed and encouraged to have extramarital affairs. It’s a massive pet peeve of ours when nonmonogamy is defined as cheating.

I don’t want her insulting me and saying other men are better lovers than I am, but I also have no problem with her telling me if another guy has done something she likes, something that’s better than I do, or even if he’s got a bigger cock. I don’t get off on being dominated or humiliated by her fucking other guys. However, I do want her to enjoy sex with other guys.

It’s weird how fantasies/kinks play out. On the one hand, I want to be able to sexually satisfy my wife. On the other hand, I want her to be so sexually voracious I need to call in backup to help me sexually satisfy my wife. And yet, I feel there is no conflict between those two.

As Erin and I discussed what all this meant and how my own desires worked in with the MFM (or MMFMM maybe eventually), we knew cuckold wasn’t cutting it as a label. And then she gave us hotwifing.

One might ask why we need labels. Because when you are looking for potential playmates on swinger websites, you need to know the right words if you want to get the right partner.

A Spectrum Approach to Cuckolds

In exploring this topic, I discovered something new (to us): cuckolding can be said to exist on a spectrum. On one side, there is the masochist cuckold, who gets sexual pleasure by being humiliated and degraded by his wife or girlfriend and her bull. On the other end of the spectrum is the alpha cuckold, who does not want to be humiliated. In other words, a stag.

In this blog, we’ll continue to use cuckold to mean the masochist cuckold and stag to mean alpha cuckold or the husband of a hotwife. I feel like those are the more generally accepted uses of those terms.

Hotwifing Is More Known Now

Back when Erin first introduced the term, it didn’t seem to be in circulation in porn. (Remember we’re talking 15 years ago when online porn was more limited.) Cuckold porn and cheating wife porn was a thing even back in the video-store-rental days. MFM has always been a thing in porn (but much more rare than FMF), although sometimes it was delegated to the “bisexual” section (and yet two women playing with each other is somehow still a heterosexual interaction…). 

Now-a-days, hotwife porn is its own genre. But it still gets mixed in with cuckold porn as if there isn’t a difference. Erotica featuring a hotwife plot still bears the cuckold label. I see people on message boards and forums stating very absolutely that any guy who lets his woman fuck another guy is a beta cuck bitch and deserves to be cheated on. These posters fail to see the difference between being cheated on and having a consensual threesome. And that whole “his woman” bullshit. But hey, assholes will be assholes.

But, hotwifing is becoming more mainstream. People are getting the difference. And there is an emphasis on why and how it’s different from cuckolding. Progress!

I’m Really Not a Cuckold but…

I like cuckold/cheating wife porn. Not usually professional porn but homemade stuff in which the wife is having sex with her bull, being filmed by her husband, and commenting how much better or bigger the bull is. Or even ones in which the wife admits to cheating on her husband.

I don’t “put myself into it” or identify with anyone involved. I guess I could see being the bull in a cuckold situation, but it’s not really my thing. What I turns me on is the story element. Which is also why I like caption porn: You can get a whole story in one picture.

These hit my “I like sluts” kink because the women doing whatever they need to in order to get sexually satisfied.

These also hit my “I like people enjoying their kinks” kink. Which is why I follow the exploits of real people on Twitter, like Secret Stag and Secret Vixen. Or reading blog posts like the one Hotwife463 wrote for the Front Porch Swingers. Or listening to the podcasts like That Couple Next Door and Swinging Downunder. Some good hotwife material there.

I have no desire to be locked in a chastity cage, but reading about how some wife keeps her husband locked up for days and then goes and fucks other people…damn! People enjoying their own kinks is super hot.

Hotwife Vs. Shared Wife Vs. Slut Wife

I see these terms being used interchangeably, and understandably so. But I can see how each has slightly different connotations.

Yes, I am that much of a pedant.

As I touched on above, when Erin and I were discussing wording, there was a question as to whether my phrasing (boom!) implied ownership or possession of the woman. Which then led us to talking about if that was part of the appeal of hotwifing.

For me, it’s not.

I imagine for some people it is, and I think that is more implied with the term shared wife.

Shared Wife

If I’m sharing my wife with another guy, that implies she’s mine and I’m able to make that decision. After all, I can’t share something that isn’t mine. And even though we all know sharing is caring, that expression implies you care about the person you are sharing with not the thing being shared.

A shared wife sounds like a prized possession whose husband wants another guy to get a turn with her if only to show off how awesome she is…and by extension how awesome the husband is to have her. “Dude, my wife gives the best blow jobs. Honey, come over here and suck his cock to prove it.”

Or like in a porn when a guy bets his wife as collateral during a poker game, only to lose and she has sex with the winner. She’s being used as his property to be bet or offered at his discretion.

I don’t mean that shared wife is being forced to have sex with people she doesn’t want to. Only that there is a element of control/possession involved in the interaction.

And that can be hot, don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking people who want that element of possession.

Potentially Sexist Language

The reason Erin didn’t like my definition of hotwife, with possibility of reading it as possessive, is because that phrasing, like some other common phrases in the swinging world, has sexist overturns.

Shared wife is one. Wife swapping is another. The act of two men swapping their wives implies ownership of the wives. That husbands can decide to exchange spouses for an hour or so. “You can play with my toy as long as I can play with yours.”

The idea that women are objects that belong to men is so ingrained in our society, it’s even used in a lifestyle that is empowering for women. Weird to think about.

I’m sure many of the people using these terms aren’t thinking of them this way. Likely they aren’t reading into these nuanced meanings the way I am.

But I am that much of a pedant.

Because Erin and I believe these terms imply that level of possession, we will refrain from using them…except in those cases in which that possession is intended. We don’t want to yuck someone else’s yum. After all, 24/7 slave play is a thing, and if a couple consensually creates that ownership power dynamic in their relationship, with the husband controlling who his wife is fucking and when, awesome for them! We like when people enjoy their kinks.

But we want to avoid casually using potentially sexist language. We both believe words matter, and if society can reframe the words and expressions we use, that can change the way some people behave.

Slut Wife

A slut wife is a married woman who loves sex and gets it from guys who aren’t her husband. She might be a hotwife or vixen. Her husband might be a cuckold. Or she might be flat out cheating, with there being no consent or even knowledge on her husband’s part.

Bulls

One thing I find interesting about the terminology around hotwifing and cuckolding is the crossover of the term bull, the Other Guy who comes in to fuck the woman. And one thing I like and find amusing is that the bull is often described possessively:

“I enjoy watching my wife get ready for a date with her bull.”

It’s not always used that way, but it seems to be quite often. I like this because it implies the choice is ultimately the woman’s…which it is.

Interestingly, now that I’m thinking about it, in my shared wife examples above, I would hesitate to label the other men as bulls. I feel like if the hotwife activity is a form of domination in which the man is dominating the woman, then bull wouldn’t be the appropriate term.

Hotwife Vs. Stag & Vixen

More recent additions to my lifestyle vocabulary are stag and vixen. I prefer these terms to hotwife for a couple reasons. First, the definitions of word-parts making up the word hotwife very literal: hot being sexy and wife being a married woman. However, hot is relative and being married is not required for this sort of interaction.

Yes, I am that much of a pedant.

Cate of Swinging Downunder tackles this aspect of the terminology in her article in the January issue of ASN.

Second, hotwife refers only to the woman in the relationship. But the act of hotwifing involves consent from both the man and the woman, it requires that the couple be involved together. There is no term that goes along with hotwife that describe the man with a hotwife (other than awesome!).

I have a similar issue with the term cuckold in that there isn’t a word that defines the woman who is with a cuckold. However, there are terms in the BDSM vocabulary that work, like mistress. As noted above, slut wife would work as well. I’ve seen cuckold wife, but that feels inelegant.

Furthermore, I’ve seen couples call themselves a hotwife and cuckold to define a fully cuckold relationship. Because hotwife came about as a distinction from cuckold, this doesn’t really work…however, it also makes sense to combine them because one word defines the woman and the other defines the man.

Stag and vixen are more concise and describe both the man and the woman in the relationship. By applying the label to the individuals, it is possible to separate the members of a couple. After all, it is possible for a stag to date someone who isn’t a vixen. Not all couples are into the same kinks, and there’s nothing wrong with that!

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Erin’s a vixen in that she enjoys MFM threesomes and likes the idea of having a few more guys in the mix. She fantasizes about being the center of attention of a gangbang, having a few guys just pass her back and forth and use her. She likes the idea of me being there, but she also really enjoys it when I just sit back and watch. When she can make eye contact and watch me jerk off. We’ve discussed her playing with her bull at a time when I’m not around; we just haven’t arranged it. Yet.

I’m a stag. I like her being a slut wife. It’s impossible to know exactly how far I’m actually comfortable with Erin going, but as far as I can tell, my limits are past hers. I like the idea of being the emcee for gangbang, doing more to facilitate it going smoothly than actually participating. I fantasize about going to an adult theater or glory-hole venue and her getting her freak on. Or her being picked up in a bar and banging the guy in the restroom or in the back alley. Hell, I think I’d be cool with her getting picked up at a bar even if I was there.

All things I am sure she will never be comfortable doing.

Though…it is the New Year…. What do you think, honey? Should we make a New Year’s resolution to focus on stepping up our stag and vixen game?

If you are into hotwifing, slut wives, shared wives, or stag & vixen play (whatever you want to call it), Cate and Darrell of Swinging Downunder are currently working on a series about this topic on their podcast. Drop them an email if you want to get involved.