— Meet the men who get turned on hearing about their partners’ sexual past

“We sometimes use her vibrator and pretend it’s an ex”

When 40-year-old Louis* and his wife have sex, he thinks about her exes. He pictures her with them, in scenarios based on real encounters from her past. He might even imagine himself as them, or ask his wife to recount racy stories when they have sex. While this might be the very last thing many people would want to think about, for Louis, it’s actually a turn on.

The pair have been together for 12 years, but around five years ago Louis started feeling curious about his wife’s past. One day, he asked her about her exes and previous one-night stands. “I couldn’t keep my hands off her while she told me,” he recalls. “I’d never asked any of my partners that question before. My wife was surprised that I wanted to know what other men did to her, how she liked it, and how it felt for her.”

While society has largely moved past the idea women should save themselves for marriage, we are still obsessed with their sexual pasts. This can materialise in TikTok vox pops about women’s ‘body counts’, in so-called ‘virginity auctions’, or in private romantic relationships, where former lovers are often the source of jealousy, competition, and insecurity.

But, while many squirm at the idea of their partner doing anything sexual with someone else (even retroactively), some are wildly turned on by it. They might get off thinking about a spontaneous one-night stand their partner had, role play as an ex during sex and recreate a specific encounter, or simply encourage their partner to indulge them in sultry stories from their past. And, like with all sexual interests, there’s a fetish – and therefore a subreddit – dedicated to it. Welcome to ‘hotpast’.

The subreddit has nearly 86,000 members, and predominantly consists of men. (As a comparison, a counterpart subreddit for women to share hotpast stories of their partners only has 202 members). Hotpast is particularly steadfast in its conversation topics – users can only post about the past sexual exploits of their partners, with talk of cuckolding (being aroused by being cheated on), hot wives (encouraging your spouse to cheat on you), swinging and plain old cheating banned. Posts tend to consist of tantalising anecdotes – “She blew a professional footballer in a car park” – stories of how couples are incorporating the fetish into their sex lives – “Having sex in the same places she had sex with other people” – and advice, sometimes about navigating occasional pangs of jealousy.

Why some men fetishise their partner’s former sexual activities may in fact be tied to those more typical feelings of jealousy and insecurity the stories inspire. “This transformation may represent a process called ‘eroticisation of fear’,” writes psychologist and sex therapist David Ley, “whereby people overcome something they fear by turning it into a sexual experience, transforming the power of their fear into an erotic engine.”

This is a sentiment echoed by many hotpast fetishists, including 33-year-old Martin*. “The fetish felt like the antidote to the insecurity and jealousy I was dealing with early on in my relationship,” he tells British GQ, explaining that these feelings stemmed from the pair’s imbalance in sexual experience. Martin lost his virginity to his current partner of over a decade, but she’d had several sexual encounters before him. To counteract the jealousy, he tried to reframe the encounters as arousing instead. Now, he “masturbates to thoughts of [his partner] doing sexual acts with her exes often.”

That’s not to say the fetish is always about jealousy. For Louis, it’s more about being part of his wife’s past pleasure. “I’m sure she’s had a few great times in bed without me and I wouldn’t want to shame her into thinking she can’t think of those again since we’re married,” he says. “I’d like to enjoy those times with her. We sometimes use her vibrator and pretend it’s an ex; when she [orgasms], she’ll [think about] him and their past, and what they did at [a particular] moment.”

Both Martin and Louis have been with their partners for over 10 years, and have each divulged their fetish. They both say their partners are happy to share details of their sexual past – but that the fetish is very much theirs. “It’s been a slow process. I try to [incorporate it into our sex lives] when possible, but not pry too much,” Martin says. “The technique of this fetish is to not overplay your hand and constantly ask for details during sex.”

Still, where things become complicated is when the question of who this fetish is really serving comes up. Many men I spoke to suggested that their partners sometimes, as one of them said, “grow weary” with what can manifest as a barrage of questions about their sexual history. There might be a risk, then, that men put their own hedonism before their partner’s enjoyment or comfort.

In these instances, fantasy storytelling might be a more suitable alternative to recalling genuine stories. Fifty-year-old Tony* says this worked for him in previous casual relationships. Referencing an affair he once had with a married woman, he recalls: “She even got to the point of either embellishing activities or creating elaborate stories about adventures that were fiction or fantasy. In any case, they were plausible in so many dimensions that it fed my desires.”

For some, like 53-year-old HK, the fetish is just another way of keeping the spark alive in long-term relationships. “It’s definitely kept my interest during rough patches in our 26-year marriage,” he says. “I enjoy thinking of how others must have been excited and aroused seeing her.”

Hotpast, like consensual non-monogamy and ;polyamory, hint at an increase in both open-mindedness and a lack of possessiveness in modern relationships. “I suspect that these men likely tend to be lower on antisocial tendencies, higher on empathy, and lower on characteristics of ‘hostile masculinity’,” wrote Ley, “but this remains to be seen empirically.”

37-year-old Bradley* from Canada – who says he “doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body” – appears to fit this description. “I love thinking about [my wife] in sexy, pleasurable scenarios, and I’m happy she had an active and fulfilling sex life before we met… and since,” is the simple way he explains his fetish.

As to why there doesn’t seem to be many women interested in the hotpast online, it may, in part, speak to a wider trend of niche internet sexual subcultures being dominated by men, rather than a lack of women fantasising about their partners’ pasts. The r/CuckqueanCommunity on Reddit has nearly 100k members – though this pales in comparison to the 1.2 million on r/Cuckold.

However, it could also be down to the fact men have historically had a far great license to be promiscuous than women, and so fetishing their sexual history isn’t as taboo-breaking. As Ley pointed out, this can be linked to Freud’s Madonna-Whore complex; maybe more men are realising that they can both desire and love the same person, which might actually help them “create a new, more holistic view of their wife”.

Whether the men of hotpast actually want their partners to act on these fantasies is another matter. When asked about this, most of the men give the same response. “It’s fun to think and fantasise about, but I’m not 100 per cent sure I’d want to have her do it,” admits HK.

Tony agrees. “We talk about how I’d like to watch her have sex,” he says. “I’d like to watch her in an MFM threesome or in a scene or activity that’s from her wilder adventures. It sounds good, but I’m not sure I’d really want to sit back and watch. There’s concern with jealousy. Will I be upset about things she’s doing? One’s imagination is often better than the reality.”

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