Standing naked in a tenth-floor hotel room, Venus picked up her phone, scrolled to her boyfriend’s name and clicked ‘call’.
The Canadian office worker had been dating Dan for just one month. They’d matched on Tinder and, from their first meeting, she’d been drawn to his charisma, boyish smile and curious questions about her love life.
But she wasn’t meeting Dan at the high-rise hotel in Vancouver that evening in 2015. As he picked up her call and asked how she was, Venus turned to the muscular stranger who was lying on the bed beside her.
‘That experience blew my mind,’ Venus, now a podcast host in her 40s, tells the Daily Mail. ‘It was so sexy. I got to hear my boyfriend on the phone and he was losing his mind.’
This was Venus’s first experience with cuckolding, a fetish where people (usually men) are turned on by their partners having affairs.
That night Dan (an experienced ‘cuck’) listened as Venus slept with another man – the so-called ‘bull’ who had replied to the couple’s online advert describing their fantasy.
‘I’d done a lot of things, but I was nervous. I’d never had a guy listen on the phone before,’ Venus says.
‘I was just expecting it to be a fun, hot thing. I really wasn’t expecting the next-level closeness that it brought me and my boyfriend at the time. It sounds odd, but it was very bonding and very connecting.’
Venus, now a podcast host in her 40s, was introduced to cuckolding through her partner in 2015
In the US alone, six million couples describe themselves as ‘active’ cuckolds – equating to around 4 per cent of the total population
Bizarre as the idea may sound, Venus is far from alone in this feeling.
In the US alone, six million couples describe themselves as ‘active’ cuckolds. That’s around 4 per cent of the total population.
And that’s before you consider the number of people who want to try it: a 2018 study by social psychologist Dr Justin Lehmiller revealed that 26 per cent of straight American women had fantasized about cuckolding – compared with a staggering 52 per cent of straight men.
All of which is of little surprise to Catherine Drysdale, a sex and relationship coach who has discussed the topic with countless couples during her six-year career. ‘Essentially, cuckolding is when the wife is cheating on the husband, but the husband is aroused by the cheating elements,’ she says.
‘Why are they turned on? There are some elements of humiliation, degradation, emasculation at play. Sometimes the husband will sit in a chair and observe. Sometimes they participate.’
Some may have even introduced cuckolding as a way to ‘eroticize’ and therefore conquer negative feelings of jealousy – while others might incorporate it into an already non-monogamous relationship, she adds.
Cuckolding’s popularity is of little surprise to Catherine Drysdale, pictured, a sex and relationship coach who has discussed it with countless couples during her six-year career
She says that people are turned on by cuckolding because they are aroused by elements such as humiliation, degradation and emasculation
This was the case for John and Martha, who had been sexually active with other couples for four years before they tried cuckolding in 2023.
‘We had been swingers but one day we had an experience with another couple that made my girlfriend want to try cuckolding,’ John tells the Daily Mail. ‘The man was so amazing, Martha said she wouldn’t be able to go on without having him again. I agreed to become a cuck for two weeks to test it out.’
That first cuckolding experience – during which John watched Martha make love to the other man – was ‘overwhelming and hugely impactful’, he says, adding that ‘it was wildly erotic… I was very much focused on Martha’s reaction.’
Excitement such as John’s certainly marks a shift away from the stigma that has traditionally been attached to the term cuckholding, after it was coined back in the 14th century and used as a slur.
‘The word «cuckold» comes from the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests,’ sexologist Lilith Foxx explains.
‘If you look at the word’s later usage – for example in the Victorian era – it refers to how women would have children with other men but have their husband raise the child as their own.
‘Its usage is often associated with the subjugation of women, and these poor, hapless men being duped.’
More recently, Foxx points out, it has been used as an online insult to ridicule other men – as Hollywood giant Will Smith discovered when he was mocked as a ‘cuck’ after his wife Jada Pinkett Smith revealed she’d had an affair in 2020.
But, clearly, that idea is changing.
Sexologist Lilith Foxx has pointed out how the 14-century term is ‘often associated with the subjugation of women, and these poor, hapless men being duped.’
When actress Jada Pinkett Smith (left) revealed she’d had an affair in 2020, her husband Will Smith (right) was mocked as a ‘cuck’ online
Take Jane and Andy, a couple from Texas who have been married for 21 years. Their interest in cuckolding was ‘organic’ at first when Jane told her husband about a sexual experience she’d had before they were married. ‘It was clear Andy loved the idea,’ she says. ‘Things grew from there.’
Their first experience came in 2015, when Jane met up with a former boyfriend she’d stayed in touch with.
‘Andy always thought my ex was a likely candidate and would constantly push me his way, fantasizing about me and him,’ Jane says. ‘Then, one night, I met up with him – and it happened. We slept together.
‘When I came home, I chickened out of telling Andy. But he could feel what I had done and asked me directly. When I revealed what had happened, he went wild, telling me how much he loved me. That’s when I knew it was all real.’
In the decade since, they have experimented further – with Jane continuing to cuckold Andy, now with a close female friend.
But are male cuckolds really as wild about the fetish as they may claim? Or are they simply giving in to their partners’ desires for fear of losing them if they don’t agree?
For Will, who started cuckolding when he was 21, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
‘I don’t think that cucks are weak men,’ he tells the Daily Mail. ‘In fact, I think they’re strong men in knowing the stigma and still trying to allow their partner to have pleasure.
‘Calling somebody a «cuck» has become an insult – that bothers me deeply because people find all sorts of ways to find pleasure in this world.
‘I don’t feel that we should be insulting people. We should say, «Hey man, whatever works for you».’
The word ‘cuckold’ comes from the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests
For couples who do want to spread their wings, then, where should they start?
Relationship coach Catherine Drysdale recommends going slowly…
Perhaps begin by flirting with someone at a bar then do a ‘temperature check’ with your partner to see how they feel.
Based on that, you can then gradually increase the intensity of the experiences.
‘There needs to be constant communication and all parties need to consent,’ she says.
And it’s certainly not for everyone, Drysdale stresses. Couples who struggle with relationship anxiety and abandonment issues may not be the ideal cuckolding candidates.
Podcast host Venus, who had that steamy hotel encounter, agrees. And though she and her partner eventually broke up, she has continued her cuckolding adventures and now sees it as an essential part of her sexuality.
‘It takes emotional strength, maturity and strong sense of self to open yourself up to that world,’ she says.
Looking back on that hotel night, does she have any regrets? Absolutely not, she laughs. And with that, it’s back to the tenth-floor suite…
Some names have been changed
