Woman worries her husband might be queer after he develops a lisp, parties naked on a boat with gays

Ladies, do you ever wonder what your husband is actually up to when he tells you he’s going to go naked sailing with his gay friends?

Okay, obviously we’re being a little facetious here, but there’s at least one woman out there who’s starting to think there’s something her hubby’s not telling her after seeing his photos from an all-nude seafaring trip he took with some gays.

What’s a gal to do?

In one of Slate magazine’s recent “Dear Prudence” advice columns, an anonymous woman writes in about her husband who *gasp* has a gay friend from high school.

Apparently, before they were married, he took a trip to visit said friend, spending time with him and other gay men. At one point (it’s not clear if this occurred during the same trip) they even went sailing together, “where all of them stripped naked and drank beers.”

Wait… where can we find friends like that?

Anyway, the writer says she’s seen the pictures, so it doesn’t sound like her husband was necessarily hiding them from her, nor was he denying that naked boat party happened.

But here’s where things get a little complicated. The woman then precedes to list other reasons why she suspects her man might be gay, rattling off some rather old-school stereotypes: He’s “particular about his appearance and grooming,” and he even “recently started to lisp.” Lol, okay!

She alleges she told a straight man all of this, and his take was that “no straight man would have” sailed naked with gays. (We don’t know why she’s trusting the opinion of another straight man, but that’s besides the point.)

“Am I correct that he is probably at least bisexual?,” she asks, closing out her letter.

In response, “Prudence”—a.k.a. columnist Jenée Desmond-Harris—dissects the woman’s quandary, bit by bit.

He’s particular about his appearance? So what! It’s called self-care, and more straights are into it now than ever before—that’s why the term “metrosexual” is a thing of the past (and thank goodness for that.)

He lisps? “It’s unusual but not unheard of for an adult to develop one.” Besides, a lisp certainly doesn’t mean someone is queer.

And, as for that privates-in-the-wind gay sailing trip? Who wouldn’t want to do that? Prudence’s two cents: “This strikes me as an activity that would be among the very last things someone who was gay and trying to hide it from his wife would do.”

After that, the gloves come off, and that’s where Prudence lays into her writer a bit: “The only real red flag about your marriage here is that you are asking a random, probably-homophobic straight man, as well as me, a stranger, to weigh in on your husband’s sexuality.”

Ooh, the shade!

But Prudence’s ultimate suggestion falls in line with the same advice you could give to any couple who fears they might not be on the same page: Why don’t you talk about it?

“Stop playing detective and sit down for a heart-to-heart with the person you married,” the columnist writes. “If you still don’t believe what he says or trust him to be honest, deal with that rather than asking someone else to judge him against a list of stereotypes.”

I mean, if she’s so worried, why doesn’t she just ask to join for the next all-nude boat party? And, if she doesn’t want to do that, can she at least pass our number on to those gays? We’ll bring the sunscreen!