Comments

1
Fishing for compliments? Reading Dan has made my marriage stronger, too, by giving us a language to discuss kinks, fantasy, sexual preferences, and monogamy*. Thank you.
2
brevity is the soul of wit.
3
Jeez Louise, for a minute there I thought that the first letter was from my ex, he dumped me in a very Dan Savage way, and in the end it turned out to be for the best.

For a while I thought about thanking Dan for helping me with a great relationship and now I'm thanking him for a good breakup; life is weird as heck.
4
I am concerned that at times the cavalier advice of DTMF or similar, snares the occasional person who really doesn't know what they might want. I know that I've dumped someone (once after 3 years) because of such advice and man did I regret it. However, I suppose it's a bit like ladders: do you really need to be told that when you put the ladder on unstable ground it may tip over? (Not saying I'm unstable or anything....) In other words, I guess one should use the advice carefully.
5
mmmm makes me wonder why Auntie Seattleblues thinks Dan is depraved and immoral.
6
Anyone care to lay odds that Vancouver's partner found someone new and suddenly discovered that her libido wasn't dead after all?
7
"REALLY, everything's great except the sex."

- regrets
8
avast2006 is right. I bet her libido kicked in long enough for her to hook a guy who has more money.
9
@6: In a sense, but not how you're stating. Some people enjoy the initial rush of a new relationship and then their libido drops off a cliff after being with their partner for a relatively short period of time. A previous ex stated that they had stopped being interested in sex (after a year or two) with a number of their relationships.
10
Seeing as how a large percentage of Dan's letters are from the EGETS-set, should Savage Love be renamed the EGETS Better Project?
11
@9: Oh, I'm completely willing to go with your implied prediction that her libido drops off a cliff again with the next guy. I was just struck by how she was apparently willing to live with a sexless relationship for years, and then all of a sudden it was intolerably cruel of her to continue to inflict that on poor, dear, Letter Writer. I smell a sudden, selfish dump by her because he was now in the way, with a clumsy attempt at prevarication to mask it.
12
@9 lol oh I think Dan is spot on.
13
Oops, I meant @8. What you said wasn't at odds with my belief.
14
@11 It depends on how old the LW and partner were when they started dating. Dan's been writing for so long that a teenager could ostensibly be 35 now (if he was 13 and started reading in 1991). But, I suspect that this was a relationship that started when they were in their early 20s. And the partner was just discovering herself. She might have figured out she wasn't going to want to be sexually active and it was time to come to terms with that.

Coming out as asexual is probably just as hard as coming out as homosexual.
15
I assumed Vancouver's ex now has a girlfriend (her name is Alberta, she lives in Vancouver) .
16
@ 13, She cooks like my mother and sucks like a hoover?
17
oops, that was supposed to be @15
18
@4: You realized after the dump that you really did want to date a motherfucker after all? Because DTMFA only applies to MFs. Motherfucker detection is a useful skill - as is knowing yourself and what you want, and sometimes you have to make mistakes in order to learn useful skills.

@7: Nicely done.
19
@14 But you have to understand that any time a woman dumps a man it's because she's a being a manipulative bitch who has Something Better on the side. That she might have been just as unhappy and frustrated as he was, or that she had time to come terms with sexuality never enters the picture.
20
@19 THANK YOU!
21
What an excellent and positive way to start the year. Thanks Dan!
22
@ 11: I was with you up until #11. You might be right, and the LW definitely should avoid any chance of finding out any details about her sex life and drive post-relationship, but there's no indication--even if her libido makes a spontaneous, mysterious reappearance as soon as she gets a new partner--that she'd already gotten the hots for New Partner before breaking up with LW. Some people just don't work out well together.

It's just like when a man breaks up with a long-term partner over the issue of marriage and/or kids, and is engaged/expecting with someone else three months later--it doesn't mean he planned it that way, it just means he wasn't all that into her. The same is probably true for the LW's girlfriend, if she experiences a mysterious libidinal resurgence with her next partner--she just wasn't all that into him.
23
@18: It's so much easier to romanticize a partner that you're not with, isn't it?
24
@19: Definitely. He was totally happy but for the sex, but that doesn't mean that she was.
25
Never underestimate the libido-crushing power of birth control pills. Lack of ovulation often means no sex drive. Try an alternate method of birth control before writing off a good relationship.
26
@24 - there is a very good chance there was no desire because she was otherwise unhappy. Still, I'm with Avast - she suddenly found her libido again, with someone else, for whatever reason. This does not make her a manipulative bitch, or him a whinger. Man, the bad sex/intimacy is a SIGNAL folks...a big indicator of other things.
27
@ 26: Yeah. If she suddenly found her libido again, it doesn't even mean she knew something was really off with LW; we often aren't able to accurately assess how into our partners we really are.
28
@14 if watching what my friend has gone through vs what I've gone through is any indication, it's harder.

People at least understood me, even if they thought it unnatural. People don't understand someone who has no drive whatsoever, they can imagine I feel for someone of the same sex what they feel for someone of the opposite sex but they have trouble imagining feeling nothing
29
"I have read your column on and off for most of my teenage and adult life; so long, in fact, that I cannot remember when I began to read it. In addition to being a deeply informed source of information about sexuality and how to be safe, informed, and dumb as a stump....."

It is interesting.

Danny's career dispensing "advice"
coincides with the period when
America's family structure disintegrated,
out of wed birthrates skyrocketed,
STDs became ubiquitous and far more lethal,
and the social fabric of this civilization frayed, tore, then ripped apart.

Substituting humanist Gommorahan social mores for Traditional Heterosexual Marriage has been a disaster.

It is amusing to watch Danny;
on the one hand,
chortle that he is "Winning!"
while,
on the other,
he feigns concern for the social chaos and mayhem that has become America.

Does Danny connect the dots yet?

We notice he finally dropped "Every child deserves..."
Did he finally realize that the lifestyle he advocated created the abuse and suffering and neglect he pretended to be saddened by?

Doe Danny (or any other HomoLiberal) get that increasing income inequality is not a function of Rich Vice but of Incompetence among the Degenerate Gommorahan Masses?
Does Danny get (or care) that the lifestyle he advocates creates "adults" without the life skills required to succeed

The Rich are not taking your stuff; Danny, Goldy, Chuck; the "poor" are just too fucking inept, dysfunctional and unprepared to survive on their own.

Compare the circumstance of people raised by their two married biological parents (a percentage of the demographic that is shrinking to nothing...) to ALL OTHER "family" modes.

Your head will explode.

Traditional Heterosexual Marriage was the institution that created American Prosperity.

The current generations are Trust Fund Brats who have squandered that social heritage and the prosperity it created.

alas.

The End is nigh.

The limits of what you can steal from the next generation are being reached.

Gommorah will consume itself.

It is sad, we suppose.
But it is what this generation has chosen.
Who are we to judge?
We can only chronicle.

you will be mourned. but not missed.

30
oh,
and yeah;
the smart money says V's ex is getting her brains screwed out every day and twice on Sunday now....
31
After yesterday's epic and today's way-longer-than-it-needed-to-be letter, I am wondering what what the hell ever happened to editing for concision.

If I wanted to read something circuitous and interminable, I'd pick upGame of Thrones again.
32
Re: the second letter--I think I may have helped a young couple deal with this same issue, based on my years of reading here. I am a mentor to a teenage girl through BB/BS (she's 17). She told me (in front of him) that he likes her feet, and she takes her shoes off for him whenever they're together, which she hasn't done for previous boyfriends. I told them that there's nothing wrong with that, we each like what we like, and it was no big deal. I'm hoping the positive, non-shocked response helps both of them deal with new experiences as they go forward.
33
@29: While reading that letter, my cat farted. Your thoughts are made of cat shit. Confirmed, causally.
34
And I have to ask why is everyone so sure the first LW ex is now channeling the characters of Sex and the City? Nothing in the letter indicates that's what happened. Hell he even says she said she doesn't want sex in her relationships.

And even if she is out doing the Denver Broncos so what? I mean if she wasn't attracted to him that seems like a good reason to end the relationship rather than spend years pretending.
35
33

your cat farted because it eats your shitty cooking.

your cooking is cat fart. bon apitete.
36
Of course, the LW's ex could simply have developed the 6.5 year itch. People change.

Peace
37
What if the sex is ok( even w major ed), cooks ok, wonderful massages but everything else sucks?? Always tells me how much he wants me ( can't erect a thing) and how he wants to do this that and the other position. Over affectionate, maybe trying to make up for the other. Refuses to go to urologist. Tried different ed drugs. Didn't work. Oh well. So in the mean time- this looks like one of those in the mean time relationships. I've given him plenty of time to help himself. What to do???
38
@37 I'm confused, the relationship you describe doesn't seem to suck? If the ED is the problem then maybe lay it on the line and say that he needs to do more then avoiding it. However you should also ask if yourself if the problem can't be or if he won't fix it can you live with it? 'No' is an applicable answer.
39
@undead ayn rand

"A previous ex stated that they had stopped being interested in sex (after a year or two) with a number of their relationships."

I know one definite case of this (female), and maybe a male case. These people are bound to become themselves unhappy, and make their partners unhappy if they practice monogamy.

Any idea how usual this is ?
40
@37: Yeah, what #38 said. Confused here too. You said "...but everything else sucks" and then proceeded to give examples where the only thing that demonstrably sucked was the erectile dysfunction. (Well, and his refusal to do anything about it, which admittedly could easily grow into a dealbreaker.) But you even said the sex was okay, apart from the ED.

Is there some reason a vibrator or a dildo isn't any good for making up for it? Or as Dan likes to say, "how big is his forearm?"
41
@37: "What if the sex is ok( even w major ed), cooks ok, wonderful massages but everything else sucks?? "

There's nothing wrong with finding someone more compatible for you. It's good,but perhaps not right?

@39: I don't think it's necessarily uncommon, from outside that scenario there's external stressors and unsureness of self involved, but I'd rather not make any real assumptions. I'd rather just hope that things work with them in the future. Either they find happiness and it's reflected in their sexual bond, or if they're just not as libidinous at their core, perhaps they'll find a happy balance with a future partner.
42
Re the first letter: "metastasize" is the operating word. Dissatisfaction is a plague but rejection is a cancer.

Please wait...

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