OK, I think Dan is just being evil by using these letters right after last week's comment battles regarding disclosure! :)

Damn Dan, you rocked this column.

Cynara. Had the same feeling. Thought hotdog, new letters... And then. ..

Lord of all hosts, Dan - your advice to STUNG is misleading. I am assuming Connie - like Bailey Jay - has a cock (I googled her - now need to explain to IT department). Connie outed STUNG as someone who has a kink for women with cocks.

We can debate whether it's fair that STUNG will face consequences for having a relationship with a woman with a cock (he shouldn't of course, but many women won't date bisexual men - see the 1 drop rule). But he will and he has a legitimate concern about being outed against his will.

If we can agree that people have the right to control when and if their sexual orientation and kinks be made public, then STUNG is entitled to that as well and has a legitimate gripe.

STUNG leave Connie the fuck alone. You treated her like a dirty secret for years and even now you clearly want to keep her as a 'back-up girlfriend'. Spend some time growing and thinking about what you want, and how you treat the people around you.

I just wanted to comment on ADULT'S statement that she got wet in the diapers so it must have turned her on. Recent research has found that vaginas will get wet in response to sexually relevant stimuli regardless of desire, or even for no reason at all. Also, some women can be very aroused, but their vulvas just don't get very wet. In other words, the equation: wet vulva = desire is a sexual myth. It seems like a really prevalent myth, too, that can cause people a lot of confusion and stress when they compare the 'arousal meter' in their vagina with the one between their ears, and then for some reason they think their vagina is smarter. It's not smarter ladies!! You are!!
I don't assume an erection means the person it's attached to wants sex or is aroused. 'Wetness' is no more reliable than a stiffy (or the lack of one) for telling what's actually going on with a person.

Right. Connie, this guy is a jerk.
Piss him off.
LW: how old are we talking? You're 18, 19 yrs old?
All over facebook. Can't even begin..

Yes Dan, very very funny. Evil they say you are. Big word, to hit our favourite sex columnist with.
But you know, shoes and fit.

@8 LavaGirl: Right on target!
Sheesh--this week's Savage Love (Angry Girls and Diaper Pails) is all about two overgrown babies: STUNG's butt sore because Connie, the trans woman he treated like shit for four years called him on his bullshit all over Facebook and ADULT's diaper-obsessed boyfriend who won't take his GGG girlfriend's no for an answer.
...did I just beat Hunter to his weekly wrap up six days early...?

Thank you, Dan, for excellent advice yet again and Jay, for offering STUNG a vocabulary lesson.

I understand that the artwork on the column had to do with the STUNG 'signature,' but is there any particular reason why it's a Powerpuff Girl?

@11: Maybe because Buttercup looks angry?

Um, Adult, did it ever occur to you that the extra moisture in your vagina was a heat based response not a sexual one? While I never played with an adult diaper, I imagine it is constructed like an infant one. A thin wicking layer, a thicker cotton type layer, and a plastic layer to hold in moisture. This must also hold in a ton of heat. I know that even a thinner sanitary napkin can trap heat in my vagina causing it to lubricate more, not out of sexual excitement but to cool it off.
Explain to your AB boyfriend that GGG goes both ways and emotionally blackmailing you into sex that makes you uncomfortable is not going to happen anymore. Though you may find yourself single as for him ageplay appears to be the price of admition

@12 I wish it was Bubbles, she was always my favorite.

I think Tim Horton has a great point. You can identify however you want, and you can know yourself to be, in your mind, a person of gender X, if you still have the equipment of gender Y, it is unreasonable to expect those you are potentially having a sexual encounter with to see you as purely X. What they see is a human with equipment Y. And if they are typically not into Y, it is reasonable for them to toss in the disclaimer of "I'm into X, but I've been seeing this person with Y that identifies as X." That's not disrespectful. You shouldn't expect people to see you exactly as you see yourself in your head, with no regard for the physical aspects readily apparent.

STUNG got a slap on the wrist when he should have gotten a kick to the nads, especially considering he had the gall to refer to himself as a "nice guy" in his sign off. Leave Connie alone, so she can find the decent men out there who would be proud to be associated with her. And refrain from indulging in your "kink" until you can do so without robbing a person of her humanity. Shameful.

Wanted to agree that Dan should never have said OP2 is turned on when in the diaper. Dan, I know you don't want to get too much involved with ladybits, but surely it's widespread knowledge by now that a wet vagina doesn't mean arousal, and vice versa?

Ew to the dudes in the comments who think they can figure out Connie or Bailey's genitals by conjecture or Googling. LW didn't include whether she's post op or not. And honestly I don't think it excuses the behavior.

What if Connie, instead of being trans, was a dominatrix? Would STUNG have been justified keeping her his dirty little secret since Obama's first term because hey, kinks can be embarrasing?

Of course not. And the commenters who think STUNG was in the right because Connie (maybe) has a penis are showing off their own transphobia.

Connie (if you do read this) I'm with the other ladies in the comments thread - this nice guy is not nice. In fact I wonder if he wrote Dan just to embarrass you back.

Sorry, but I disagree about Mr I'm a Nice Guy and Connie. First of all, he said Connie has been contacting him and he's ignored her, so for those saying "leave her alone" - he is. Secondly, she allowed herself to be kept his secret - as Dear Abby always says, no one can take advantage of you w/o your permission. If she didn't like it, she could have left. And finally - most likely he grew up believing that if you have sex w/a penis you are gay or at least bi. Definitions have changed, sexuality has become more ambiguous - but for most people, if a guy is sexually active w/a dick, he's gay or bi. Dick can belong to another guy or a trans girl, but piv makes "straight" sex and p/p makes "gay" sex. You don't have to like it and can work to change that definition, but for now that's the way it's generally seen. And if you are a chick-w-a-dick, you are, to most people, a guy playing dress up. Unless you are truly familiar w someone who is trans, your definition of a "true trans" is "have you had genital surgery?" Because if you are a guy w/a vag or a girl w/a dick, you are not really a guy or a girl - girls have vaginas and boys have penises and getting people to understand that's not always the case will take decades!. So yeah, lw thinks this is something to hide, it's kinky, whatever - because it's not the norm and it sounds like that's what he's striving for.

Grizelda, nice post @10.

Bookaday, yes, she did. And now, one hopes she learnt from her mistakes, as one does, and stands a little taller.
A little wiser.

Are you saying that trans women are required to get a bunch of super painful, super expensive plastic surgery for you to recognize them as not "guys playing dress up?" Wow. That's pretty damn transphobic, too, as is this assumption you're making that Connie is pre-op. STUNG doesn't say either way.

Not everyone has $10,000 lying around to spend on bottom surgery, bookaday, nor has everyone the inclination to go through with a months-long, very painful ordeal (I know people who have done it) just so random dudes they don't wanna fuck respect the gender they present.

Did Connie "allow herself to be used"? No more than the other 10,000 lovelorn fools who write in to Savage Love, putting out in the hopes that a FWB arrangement turns into something more. It probably didn't help that STUNG treated her as a shameful secret in a world which is overwhelmingly biased against transgender persons. (Kind of like this comments thread.) If he wanted to be that kind of asshole, STUNG should have hired somebody.

STUNG says he's been seeing Connie for four years, and that he figured out she loved him "at some point". When was that point? Four months into the relationship? Two years ago? Last week? My sense it that it was probably sooner rather than later. Still STUNG strings her along so he can get all the kinky trans sex until he meets the "new girl", in fact STUNG would probably *still* be stringing Connie along if the new gf hadn't accidentally outed him on the Facebook.

Why are some menz so focused on Connie's presumed cock, when STUNG, who probably was sleeping with others on the side, probably exposed Connie to their STI's? Hurt feelz aside he should have told her he was seeing other people, so she could make a decision whether STUNG was worth the risk.

Ugh. Someone who outs you for your kinks without your permission in an attempt to destroy your new relationships is a truly shit person. STUNG, keep staying as far away from this controlling piece of trash as much as humanly possible. The fact that you treated her poorly--with her consent--doesn't change anything; now that you know what kind of person she really is, stay far away. The question "can I trust her" has already been answered, by her, in the most blatant way possible, and it's "no."

Being trans doesn't entitle you to do that kind of shit. Being trans and treated like a dirty little secret doesn't entitle you to do that kind of shit. Being trans is not an exemption from having to act like a decent human being. What the fuck, people.

STUNG: In the future, break up with people who are in love with you but who you aren't in love with. Resist the temptation to treat them badly.

@rowing at dawn: I’m not saying trans women or men are required to have surgery. I’m saying that for many, many people, trans is not something understood all that well and to those people, your genitals should line up w/you gender – people don’t get it otherwise. Is it fair? No. Is it something that can hopefully one day change? Sure. You’re right – many here are making the assumption that Connie has male genitals. Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t. However, from the sound of the letter, she probably does; otherwise I don’t know that LW would be so freaked out that people know he was sleeping w/her. People hear you’re sleeping w/a woman w/a penis the automatic thought is “wow, I didn’t know John was gay! He must be, as he’s having sex w/a penis.” If Connie didn’t want to be a secret, she needed to put that out there to LW from the beginning. Yes, she was a lovelorn fool like so many others who write in to this column. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t have some responsibility towards how the relationship turned out. He says he “figured out” she was in love with him. If she didn’t tell him – again, her responsibility to be honest about her feelings and what she wanted from him and the relationship. And I think you made quite a presumption yourself to assume that STUNG was sleeping w/others on the side. Maybe he was. Maybe it was not an exclusive relationship. Maybe Connie had other partners too. A brief letter to an advice column leaves out too many details for us to know exactly what happened between them for 4 years. Connie was wrong in outing him, he should move on, she should move on, and he needs to be honest about with himself about what he wants in a future relationship as well as honest about his past relationship w/Connie to any new partners.

My initial response to stung was something like "trans people can be assholes too." Then I read comments numbers 5 and 6, Tim Horton and Hunter, which made me realize ignorant assholism is a trait that can be also found among straight boys. Who would have thought?
All and all I think Dan's advice this week in both cases were fair and enlightening.
Jay- you rock!

Holy shit people... a relationship with Connie is not a kink! The fact that STUNG considers it a kink speaks to his objectification of her and his total lack of respect for her humanity.

@26: "The new girl and I weren't dating anymore, but it still was a betrayal that Connie told her—told anyone—about our relationship and my kink."

Could you explain why you think "our relationship and my kink" means "our relationship and our relationship?" Usually, when people say "and," they mean two different things. We can test this quickly, by asking if this sentence looks odd:

Could you pass the salt and the salt?

Either way, outing someone as having had a relationship with a trans woman is a nasty, shitty thing to do. Being trans doesn't make it any less so.

Especially when it's explicitly an attempt to destroy someone's new relationships, in order to make them socially isolated and more easily victimized. This is Abuse 101 stuff, kids.

So how much commission did Bailey Jay earn for writing half of this week's column?

Um, yeah... I actually did. He considers her an object, not a person.

He doesn't seem to have a kink for transwomen... she's the only transwoman he's dated, he doesn't seem to have sought a transwoman when they met, nor does he speak about any other any other trans-related kinky behavior (i.e. watching trans porn). He's conflating "I like her" with "I have a kink" because he considers her a freak, not a person.

Dude, this was covered in Jay's response. Don't be obtuse.

Sorry... @30 is a response to @27

@offwhite: He considers her an object, not a person.

Nonsense. The fact that someone has a kink for a certain type of person (women with cocks, men with vaginas, subs, doms, etc.) doesn't mean they consider such people to be objects.

@30: You don't like him. We've established that. That means nothing. Outing someone--for anything-- in order to destroy their relationships makes you a shitweasel. His question is "can he trust her," and the answer is absolutely not.

There's no reason to think he doesn't also have a kink that doesn't involve trans people. Jay's response seems to be largely fantasy, based on wanting to lecture people on How Things Should Be and to chastise the LW for acting as if he lived in the World That Is rather than the World Jay Wants.

Jay, like the rest of the clueless, is conflating Connie with Trans Women. Connie is a person, and a shitty one; she is not an avatar for transness. Once you've gotten yourself to a point where you can acknowledge these facts, then you can chastise other people for not treating her like a person.

If a trans person acts shitty, and another person treats them like they're an asshole, they are not the one failing to treat the trans person like a person. Treating someone like a person includes noticing when they're a bad one.

There was just a great opinion piece on Slate about why genital configuration does matter. http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/… I totally get why trans folks don't want the world focused on what's between their legs, and I deeply sympathize with the dilemma of surgery. I also think that most humans do have opinions about whether penises and/or vaginas are a turn-on, and it doesn't make us transphobic if care what kind of equipment the person we're dating possesses.

From the tone of STUNG's letter (especially the need to declare as straight) I'd be confident betting that Connie has a penis. This is why Jay's reply struck me as somewhat unrealistic. Jay's saying Connie is fully a woman (true!) but she's ignorning the fact that Connie's penis is probably precisely what drew STUNG to her, and also why STUNG doesn't want anyone to know they're dating. The penis is the whole point of the conflict...so what good does it do to act as if it's irrelevant?

STUNG obviously considers sleeping with Connie to be a fetish and something to hide. At the end of the day, STUNG is closeted (as a straight guy who likes a woman with a cock) and doesn't appear likely to come out any time soon. Connie appears to want a normal, non-closeted relationship, so I'd say there's not much point to having them talk it out, other than for mutual apologies (him for fetishizing and being ashamed of dating her, her for outing him). It's a poisoned situation because STUNG and Connie have incompatible relationship goals.

FWIW, I feel for Connie. She deserves respect and the full human experience of a public relationship and I hope she finds happiness.

My response in support of STUNG would have been the same for anyone who involuntarily had their private lives exposed. If he were poly and their third exposed them, if he were a sex worker and his client ex posed him or if he were having am affair and his partner exposed him. You are an ass hole for outing someone's private life with the sole purpose of sabotaging their world. Exceptions apply for those seeking to undermine others. See e.g. Ted Haggard and Eliott Spitzer

(seeing how text looks while typing on a cell phone while drinking at an overseas airport. Feel instant bond with Savage on mutual loathing of air travel. And awe of youngins' and their ability to coherently type on mobile devices. back to my hole. Carry on)

Damn, Eudaemonic... defensive asshole is defensive. Did you just call Jay clueless about transwomen? Perhaps you didn't notice that she IS a transwoman? I'ma go ahead and prioritize her informed opinion over your vitriolic nonsense.

@37: Are you seriously so daft that you don't understand that "Do not out someone's very private information in an attempt to destroy their relationships" is a rule?

Do you not understand that "But I'm trans!" is not an excuse to be an abuser?

Given that you and Jay both seem not to, I'm going to go ahead and prioritize literally anything over your uninformed opinions.

@Jay: "I think STUNG should try to see every woman he sleeps with as fully human, regardless of their genitals."

There is nothing wrong with people entering into relationships that are primarily about sex. Such relationships do not imply that either party sees the other as less than fully human. This is classic conservative sex-phobic bullshit.

There is also nothing wrong with people caring about the size, shape, and/or type of their sex partners' genitals.

Just for a moment, let's leave the issue of being trans out of it. (you will see why in a sec.)

Letter Writer has a relationship with a woman. He has it for four years. He keeps that relationship a secret from everybody. She puts up with this because she loves him. He eventually meets another woman, and starts dating her, too. Without telling First Woman. First Woman finds out, decides she's had enough of this being kept secret, since it apparently enables, among other things, for him to sleep around on her, and tells Second Woman, "Hey, that guy you've been dating is in a relationship with me."

Is First Woman really that much of an asshole for outing her cheating boyfriend? Really?

Definitely it's okay to have preferences about a partner's genitals. I might seek or reject a partner based on a variety of criteria, and the sexual experience is a big part of that. It is also imperative to treat everyone as fully human. It's always incumbent on me to be a decent person, to care about my (potential) partner's feelings, to see them as a whole person rather than a sex toy, and to treat them with respect.

I think STUNG is struggling because he views his taste for transwomen with cocks as a fetish and separates it from his daily identity...probably in large part because a large part of society would be shocked and reject him because of it. It's similar to the dilemma closeted gay people faced in, say, the 1950s, which of course is why many of them lived dual lives, and some of them probably saw their sexuality as something on the side from their public persona (and maybe self-identity) as a "typical" family man or woman.

When society advances to the point that all kinds of genderqueer identities are more accepted, we'll have fewer cases like STUNG and Connie. In the meantime, I feel for both of them. Relationships are hard enough to navigate without all the judgement and stigma of the current context.

Now if the LW happened to also be a piece-of-shit evangelical pastor and vocal LGBT basher, I think many of us would be much more okey-dokey with an unwilling outing of his penchant for chicks with dicks.

@40: If they were in an exclusive relationship, and in a world where being accused of liking "chicks with dicks" wasn't social poison, you'd be right. I'm not sure one way or the other about the first, and completely unconvinced of the second. As is, it sounds like you're saying "If we leave out the issue of the bullets and the gunshot wounds, shooting someone isn't murder."

We don't live in a world where telling someone about someone else's relationship with a trans woman and/or kinks is neutral. You out a gay person, or a trans person, or a kinkster, or a sex worker, or someone who's slept with any of those people, you're an asshole. You do it specifically to destroy their relationships and weaken their access to social support, you're a real piece of shit. Connie did the second one.

Being a trans person who was treated poorly changes nothing about whether it's acceptable to try to destroy other people's lives by betraying the secrets they've trusted you with during intimacy, in order to control them. That's because that rule applies to people. If trans people are people, then that rule applies to them too.

@avast2006: Is First Woman really that much of an asshole for outing her cheating boyfriend?

The analogy fails because the First Woman hasn't actually outed anything about LW's sexuality.

A better analogy would be a lesbian-identified female LW who's secret male fuck buddy learns that the LW is dating a woman, becomes outraged, and posts "Hey, that woman you've been dating is in a relationship with me".

In my opinion, yes, the fuck buddy is a huge asshole for being overly possessive, mischaracterizing the nature of his relationship with the LW, acting on his jealousy with the intention of harming the LW, cyber-stalking, and maliciously outing her as bisexual.

And LW would be a fool to follow Dan's advice and contact the fuck buddy ever again.

Ahh, I should have known our resident MRAs Hunter and Eudaemonic would back up that piece of shit, STUNG. Poor Connie. She deserves so much better than someone who uses her, treats her like a "kink" and a "dirty little secret" for four years, and then cheats on her. Yes, she allowed it to happen; hopefully she's learned a valuable lesson and won't stand for being treated like a fetish object rather than a human being. STUNG, leave the poor girl alone so she can find a real "nice guy."

And @43 specifically: Wow, your transphobia must be behind that mahoosive leap you made between "Connie outed me to the new girl. The new girl and I weren't dating anymore, but it still was a betrayal that Connie told her—told anyone—about our relationship and my kink" and "try to destroy other people's lives". Er. STUNG's life is far from destroyed. He faced a minor amount of embarrassment in front of someone he's not even dating anymore -- so much for "destroying his relationships." Seriously, the dude acted like a complete douche for four years -- a momentary amount of embarrassment is just desserts.

*deserts. Sorry.

LR1 lost me at "I love her" but 'I'm not in love with her". STFU. I hate that shit.

It really depends on how STUNG and Connie's relationship was officially defined. If they were both completely clear about it being a friends with benefits situation without the possibility of a relationship Connie was in the wrong, if STUNG was being more ambiguous than that he's in the wrong.

There's nothing wrong with keeping a strictly friends with benefits situation secret/quiet. There is something wrong with leading people on after they've told you they love you.

Um, Connie put up with being treated as a "dirty little secret" for 4 years. I know you mean well, but by casting her as the helpless victim, your patronizing her. If it lasted for 4 years, then at *some* level, they had agreed to keep in on the DL. And she had to know she was not his 'girlfriend' in any real sense. She violated whatever agreement (and however loathesome you may see that agreement as) in order to undermine his relationship with the new girl. And now she's despondent? Did she really think her doing that was going to push him back into her arms and a meaningful, happy committed relationship?

@Eudaemonic #43:

in a world where being accused of liking "chicks with dicks" wasn't social poison

You need a social group that isn't full of cissexist/heterosexist assholes if you think a man dating someone with a penis is social poison. Treating a lover like a dirty secret for any reason is dehumanizing. The reason might be an understandable, valid fear of social (or even violent physical) reprisal; that still doesn't make treating one's sex partner poorly okay. People get to determine their own closets because those relate to themselves alone; they DON'T get to demand that other people stay locked up in the closet with them. This is the difference between outing a trans person and pointing out that you're involved in a sexual/romantic relationship with someone: in the first case, you're outing someone else concerning an aspect of their identity that doesn't involve you in any way; in the second case, you're disclosing a true, socially-relevant fact about your own relationship status. Dan has written many times about why dating while closeted is unfair and perilous at best (and often simply impossible); I would argue that not being closeted (in whatever respect) is part of the necessary baseline "good working order" (i.e. not being a self-loathing mess) requirement for dating at all.

@48: annoying cliche it may be but it is enormously common. Of course you can love someone and not be in love with them.

I will agree with @50 that many are reading way more into the letter than is there, in the sense of whether he 'strung her along' and kept her as a DLS, or they just both agreed to the DL relationship. I'm assuming the latter because if she had not agreed to keeping it secret, then it would have naturally come out in the course of 4 years.

I suppose the plain fact is we don't know. But I can't come around to seeing her as justified for what she did. It was a dick move, you'll pardon the pun. The lecture from Jay is largely off the mark and apparently written for the general public, not this letter writer.

@47.... both are now considered acceptable... (deserts and desserts....) But i'll let nocute be the final arbiter...

http://grammarist.com/spelling/just-dese…

@46 - we don't know the new girl is the only one Connie told. If it was on Facebook (we don't know that either, but...), she surely wasn't.

Also, the fact that he was not seeing the girl any more does not change Connie's intent. And his question was about trusting her further. She intended to sabotage his new relationship, whether she did or not.

@45: Ah, I should have known that our resident huge fucking liar would lie about anyone who didn't pretend that members of the Designated Victim Caste were always and only victims, even when they act like total assholes.

@51: "You need a social group that isn't full of cissexist/heterosexist assholes if you think a man dating someone with a penis is social poison."

Cool story. You still don't get to out people for having a non-normative sexual history.

"Treating a lover like a dirty secret for any reason is dehumanizing. "

Cool. You still don't get to out people for having a non-normative sexual history.

"The reason might be an understandable, valid fear of social (or even violent physical) reprisal; that still doesn't make treating one's sex partner poorly okay."

You're an idiot if you think this is an excuse to out someone for having a non-normative sexual history.

I thought about quoting every sentence of your post and replying with "Cool. You still don't get to out people for having a non-normative sexual history." It would be wholly valid, but not the best use of my time.

You. Don't. Get. To. Out. Other. People.

Everyone who is still confused, read the previous line until you are no longer confused. If you think your Designated Victim Caste status exempts you from this rule, keep reading it. You. Don't. Out. Other. People.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

@40 - That's exactly what I was thinking. But a lot of other commentators seem more focused on Connie's maybe-wholly-imaginary penis than the social dynamics of the situation.

I'm sure it mattered to STUNG what was in between Connie's legs, and that whatever she did have worked for him (for four years.) But STUNG didn't disclose, and it's a huge leap for commentators who aren't in a sexual relationship with Connie to presume that she's a chick with a dick scratchin' STUNG's chick-with-dick itch. This assumption feels caricatured and pornified to an extreme.

We really don't know, and unless Connie or STUNG comes in and tells us we're not in any position to find out. And I doubt the commentators focused on Connie's genitalia have fucked enough trans people IRL to know what's common or likely in this instance.

But even if Connie's cock looms as large IRL as it does in the imaginations of certain commentators, I don't think it qualifies STUNG's heterosexuality. I mean, if a guy who likes chicks with dicks is somehow less than straight, where does that leave peggers? Crossdressers? Are they also less than straight, or is this a real-penises-only type of phobia?

Eudaemonic -- I'd re-examine STUNG's motives in sending this letter before labeling Connie the abuser in this situation. STUNG says "Connie outed me to the new girl", not "Connie got on FB and wrote a tell-all." Yet STUNG wrote in to a nationally syndicated sex advice column to tell us all about this "betrayal" and how it's so hard on *him*. It seems to be for this "nice guy" that if you out him to his date, he'll out you to the world; and you'll get to read about it on The Stranger while the peanut gallery goes on about the dick they think you have. That sounds mad abusive to me, more so than confronting the other woman privately.

I dont see this as any better or worse than standard scorned ex behavior. As pointed out in post 51 above, Connie isn't outing him in the classic sense...she is revealing something about HERSELF. True, she is revealing it out of spite and to someone outside her circle....so by that rationale, it DOES suck... but it is unfair to hold Connie to dual standards. If she had a vagina, then she could express herself...but because she has a penis, she needs to keep quiet and not rock this guy's boat. Ridickulous. (sic)

And as they say.... two people can keep a secret...if one of them is dead.

@ 56 rowing - seems to me that if Connie has no penis...then there is no letter sent to SL... if there is no penis, then the guy doesnt have to even bother with "straight"... if there is not penis, there is no issue... (but... of course... i don't know with absolute certainty)

Before I start, I shall agree with Ms Lava's post #21.

This is one of those letters that raises questions right and left.

[I consider myself a straight guy] But how many of those reading the letter would disagree? How many would say he's rounding?

[but for the last four years, I've been having an affair with "Connie," a trans girl I met online.] *But*? Does LW mean to imply that some in society don't consider straight men in affairs with trans women straight; does he think that himself (and, if so, just because of the affair, or because their sex life is, shall we say, trans-specific)? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt about calling her "Connie" in quotation marks as an alias.

[ It was just casual at first, but over time we developed a deeper personal relationship but kept it hidden.] The commentariat and the responders seem to state it as given that it was LW only who wanted it kept hidden, but we can't say with certainty that it was his secret only (if Mr Savage and Ms Jay have further information that was edited out, I call a foul) or necessarily even primarily his. Connie could be presenting publicly or perceived as a cis man, a cis woman or a trans woman - and there's orientation on top of any of those as well. If I were forced to guess, I'd agree that the letter gives off the feeling that keeping it secret was his doing, but there are multiple possible secrets here, as well as different degrees of how secret they kept the affair.

[At some point, I figured out she was in love with me. I love her too, but I don't think I am "in love" with her.] I'm on the fence about asking "Why not?" or not.

[Several weeks ago, I went on a couple of dates with a girl I met on Match.com.] Was there an implicit agreement that he shouldn't, did Connie just think so, or was it explicit? DADT?

[The new girl posted about our dates on Facebook,] A Shiny Golden Fact! Even here, we could create a question, though, about whether the post violated a DADT.

[Connie saw it and was upset, and then Connie outed me to the new girl.] I doubt many of those among the assembled company will be disinclined to sympathize with Connie's being upset by the FB posts. As for outed - how? If LW weren't so inclined to overlook Connie's situation {editing?}, one's mind might well jump to the "outing" constituting Connie's revelation of both the affair and her having a Ginsburg, as Mr Horton and at least one other poster have suggested. But again, there are various possibilities. If LW were the one insisting on secrecy, just revealing the affair could count as "outing"; "she outed me" could attach to the wrong-thinking idea that dating a trans person shames the cis person who does so.

[The new girl and I weren't dating anymore, but it still was a betrayal that Connie told her—told anyone—about our relationship and my kink.] Ms Jay and Mr Horton have already offered contrasting interpretations of LW's use of *kink*.

[Right now, I can't look at or speak to Connie, but her friends tell me that she is despondent.] ...about what she did? ...over the breakup? ...about having wasted years of devotion on him?

[I can't get past my anger. I'd like to keep her as a friend, but can I trust her?] Trust her to what (or not to what)?

[She reached out to me recently, but I told her to just leave me alone.

Secret Telling Unnerves Nice Guy] Interesting that the term Nice Guy comes up in the signature, so that we don't know whether it carries the usual meaning of capitalization. I'm reminded of Madame Morrible's quell in Wicked, which ended in the line, "Animals should be seen and not heard." The poetry masked whether the line referred to animals or Animals.

Eud - i agree that outing someone against their wishes is a very shitty thing to do. But, you can't rightly say that being trans does NOT give someone a free pass to do shitty things while at the same time implying that having been outed means that STUNG can behave however the hell he pleases and is justified.

I don't think either party has a trump card here. They both suck. They both behaved badly. They should probably stay out of each other's lives going forward.

As to the other letter... i dated someone once who loved to start talking in baby talk during sex. I did not find it kinky...i found it super disturbing. So to ADULT - if you can't deal with the diaper stuff.... then put and end to your participation in it or move on. Kink is a stretch for me here... i know i routinely get schooled by other posters who seem intent on accepting just about anything as a kink or fetish.... but i just cant get my head around re-enacting scenes from our borderline sentient years as being healthy on any level.... i am willing to accept this as my own limitation. lol

@60: "But, you can't rightly say that being trans does NOT give someone a free pass to do shitty things while at the same time implying that having been outed means that STUNG can behave however the hell he pleases and is justified."

Correct! Which is why I have at no point done the second one. Ever.

Can you quote the part where you think I said that?

by focusing only on the outing part of the equation... its implied.... but... you are right, you did not say it. Apologies

Re: STUNG & Connie. I keep wondering how this situation differs from the many times I've read Dan saying how inappropriate a gay man outing his closeted lover is.

I'm always amazed when I'm told that having sex with a MTF can't be 1% gay or gay feeling to someone. Ok, the individual identifies as female, but that person might have never taken hormones and may present male in public. Or that person may bend over her boyfriend, fuck him in the ass, pound his mouth and make him swallow come, and it's all 100% straight because that ejaculating hard dick is on a woman. Really? Why can't we admit that genders come in a spectrum, a wonderful, equally valid spectrum, and the determinants aren't 100% mental? OF COURSE a great many people, I would say the large majority, would find a man getting pounded by a dick on a genetic male at least a little bit gay, and what's wrong with that? Let's be 100% accepting of people who don't fit into perfect gender boxes without flipping to a 100% M-F binary in the next breath when we talk about the implications.

Tim, hi. I type on my phone all the time.
Don't have a computer.
MR Facebook Boy fucked another woman. Connie, being a resourceful and slightly retaliatory person outed him.
Most of all, she was a hurt person.
Sorry. This guy's choice of words and tone ( yes tone), indictes to me a very unpleasant and dishonourable attitude.
He got what might wake him up to himself.

@64... STUNG was outed to someone of zero consequence.

@64: It doesn't, except that in this case the victim doesn't have a membership card in the Acknowledged Victim Club, and apparently you only have to treat people decently if they're in the club.

67: As you very well know, trying to ruin someone's life and failing doesn't make you not a scumbag.

I'm with Eudaemonic.

Saying that Connie acted immaturely is being entirely to gracious and lenient. STUNG does have issues he needs to deal with, but outing is only appropriate for hypocritical politicians. STUNG's response to Connie's subsequent reaching out to him should be they cannot be friends because he now knows what she is capable of, and that he can't trust her.

Even though something worked for them for four years, that's gone now.

@63: Stepping up the passive-aggressive game a little? "It's implied" isn't a very good way to say "I made it up, and got caught lying."

Off topic, but I wonder if Eudaemonic has read this piece at Salon today. Interesting and well-written and would seem to be something you'd like:
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/15/leave_ma…

A lame response Eud. If the reply to everything is "you don't out another person. ever." Its the "ever" part that led me to connect those dots. I also USED the word "implying" in my original post. I hate passive aggressive behavior and avoid it at all costs.

So, rather than me guessing.... what do you think of Stung's behavior?

i shouldnt have put that in quotes... it was a paraphrase...

hmmm. my last post (a correction of 72) is m.i.a. Eud- before you pick it apart because i should not have used quotes... i was paraphrasing what i understood to be your point....

Are there ever circumstances where it is okay to out someone?

and what do you think of Stung's behavior?

Yo cobra man I still think it's STUNG outing this lady on savage love, not her outing him as a guy who would fuck trans people.

Did you stop to consider that?

Cause it seems kinda obvious to me that you're heavily biased in favor of STUNG; who's been outed as what exactly? A trans fucker? Oh the **shame**.

@71: That is interesting, though I did a double-take at the author's name and then had to double-check the date to make sure it wasn't the 1st; he seems to have had something of a change of heart on the topic. It's odd that he acknowledges that his hated MRAs and "feminists he respects" have identical views on rape, and that this apparently doesn't change anything for him.

"The fact that Madonna thinks the way to prove that women her age can be hot and desirable is to grab a younger guy and kiss him without his permission and have him be cool with it? And that lots of people, including feminists I respect, totally buy that line of reasoning? That’s the problem."

It's nice to see someone finally saying something about the license-to-rape problem, and that respecting consent is an obligation from which women aren't exempt. It'd be nicer if publicly issuing a license to rape made someone stop being a respected feminist, but I guess progress is progress.

But it's still nice to see "This is a universal rule. It’s a basic rule of what human beings don’t do to other human beings."

@72: You don't have to guess; I've mentioned it several times, already, and in this very thread, as you know. I notice that you seem to be ignoring my very first comment in the thread, which was #23. If that question was asked in anything remotely resembling good faith, reading comment 23 would satisfy it, given the level of detail with which you seem to be admitting to reading my comments.

Passive aggressive behavior is clearly not something you avoid at all costs. If that was sarcasm, then sorry, I missed it.

Just started reading "Girl in a Band",
By Kim Gordon. This woman is writing her grief, at loosing her man, after nearly 30 yrs together.
And weaves that thru her memories.
Intense Book. But Yeah, Kim.

No bonus points for rowing@dawn, noted Slog comments moron, for not knowing what "outed" means.

I think Connie just has to pick herself up, dust her self off
- point that middle finger squarely in My Facebook Boy's direction-
And go out there. To a world where she will be appreciated and loved.
Fuck Him.

Eud- my post 60 was a response to your post 23. You have sided with STUNG (true...you chided him a little bit)...but you have determined that what Connie did is far worse than anything he did. But then you refute the obvious implication....and go so far as to think you caught me in a lie. Lame.
We don't need to agree....we don't even need to agree if we are talking about the same damn thing...since i dont think we really are... doesn't really matter... it doesn't help the thread...it doesnt mean anything to me. I fail to see any passive aggressive behavior in addressing you directly and asking you to clarify yourself. If you call me that simply because you think i am being stubborn....then so be it.

@81: but you have determined that what Connie did is far worse than anything he did

Correct! I have indeed determined that. That's because it is really obviously true.

"But then you refute the obvious implication....and go so far as to think you caught me in a lie."

Can you explain what you think the obvious implication is? Without lying? You have not yet done so.

In repeatedly (and repeatedly, and repeatedly) asking a question that was answered, explicitly, hours ago, yes, you are being passive aggressive. Particularly when you do it while pretending that I'm implying something that you know I am not.

"(true...you chided him a little bit)"

Cool! Glad you finally acknowledge that this happened. Given that you said it didn't happen, but you admit that you know it did, do you understand that you are admitting that you lied? When you know something happened, and you pretend not to know it, and say it didn't happened, that's lying. If you don't like being caught lying, lie less.

Or get better at it. Either way.

STUNG treated Connie poorly. Then, Connie behaved like an absolute piece of shit.

Please, please tell me what you think the implication is. Since you know it's not obvious, you'll need to actually say it, rather than pretending it's obvious. Pretending not to know that I said STUNG treated Connie poorly is both passive aggressive and dishonest. Falsely claiming that I didn't say it is dishonest. Falsely claiming that there's an obvious implication--when you know there fucking well isn't--is dishonest. Do you just not know how to not be passive aggressive? Say what the fuck you mean. Actually stop being passive aggressive, rather than just saying you aren't.

This bothers me: "The new girl posted about our dates on Facebook, Connie saw it and was upset, and then Connie outed me to the new girl."
So the "new girl" posts about her dates with STUNG and Connie sees the posts. How does this happen? I guess STUNG and Connie are friends on Facebook, and STUNG and ex-New Girl are also friends on Facebook, and not only does ex-New Girl post about their dates, she must tag STUNG by name so all his FB "friends" can see the posts, even if she and Connie aren't friends on Facebook. So Ex-New Girl feels the need to post about every date she goes on and name and tag people and then Connie sees the tag, sees who the poster is and Facebook stalks ex-New Girl. And then outs STUNG to the ex-New Girl probably over Facebook. This could be in a private message, or more publicly. by posting directly on to ex-NG's timeline. But is it possible to either private message or post to a timeline if you're not also "friends" the the person? Not on my account it isn't, but perhaps my privacy settings don't allow for this and it's possible. Who sees STUMP's Facebook? Well, if it appears he "firended" ex-New Girl virtually as soon as he met her, so it's safe to assume that he's "friends" with everyone he's ever met.
It all sounds like a bunch of serious DRAMA. Not to mention a reason for everyone to check their privacy settings.

you are aggressive aggressive. Its unnecessary.

The obvious implication ... TO ME.... is that it does not matter what STUNG did or did not do...because...as you have said over and over and over ... You. Don't. Out. Other. People. THAT, you have made perfectly clear. I don't see any ambiguous wording there... I don't see you saying "you dont out other people...unless". It logically follows that STUNG is excused on some level. The reality is that YOU have no idea what STUNG did to Connie. He wrote the letter. Its inherently biased. We have no clue what he did. We have no idea if her minor "outage" was worse than how he treated her.

and i say "minor outage" above because that isn't spelled out at all in the letter. Did Connie send a private message to the new girl? Did she blast it all over the internet? did she walk into his workplace? The letter makes it sound like only the "new girl" knows..and we have to assume she is a stranger ultimately... so to make the leap that this one tiny "outing" is social poison is sensationalist.

and im going on vacation now til monday... i'm gonna miss all the fun.... hahaha. Take care

So we have one person who tries to maintain a secret relationship for four years, a second person who messages people she barely knows with personal information, and a third person who posts about early-stage dating on Facebook with names or photos associated.

Who cares who's worse or better? None of these people are ready for a relationship.

Chairman, Avast:
I think @49 got it right. The question is whether a promise has been broken. The relationship is deeper than casual. Did they agree to be exclusive? No way to tell from LW1. If not, then Connie is completely at fault, and case closed. However, if so, then Nice Guy was cheating.
My understanding of the word "outed" is that it doesn't include publicizing infidelity. If Eudaemonic's definition DOES include infidelity, then he would be against "outing" a married man for sleeping around, which seems like a difficult position to defend. If not, and if Eudaemonic is OK with the cheated partner informing on the cheater, then we have a more interesting situation.

Why is "outing" worse than revealing cheating? I can think of several obvious reasons:
1) It is more shameful to be revealed as kinky than as unfaithful
2) There are more real world problems that could arise from being outed, as men being promiscuous is common.

One more thing: the relationship was not very secret: "... her friends tell me that she is despondent." So now we have multiple other people who knew they were sleeping together.

@84: "The obvious implication ... TO ME.... is that it does not matter what STUNG did or did not do."

Cool; you're stupid. I didn't realize there was anyone that stupid in the audience, since that implication is, to anyone with an IQ above room temperature, obviously not present.

"It logically follows that STUNG is excused on some level."

Please don't claim anything "logically follows" until you're able to actually use logic. It in no way logically follows, as is obvious to everyone who can think. If I punch you and you shoot me, the bullet does not magically travel back in time and unpunch you. Duh.

"The reality is that YOU have no idea what STUNG did to Connie. He wrote the letter. Its inherently biased. We have no clue what he did. We have no idea if her minor "outage" was worse than how he treated her."

Maybe he's secretly a serial killer! Maybe by "outing him" about his "kink," he meant she called the cops and told him about the bodies buried in his basement!

Given that you're making stuff up, why not make up something more exciting?

I mean, you haven't told us you aren't a serial killer, so that's the same as admitting that you are, right? The reality is that I have no clue what you did! We have no clue what you did. We have no idea if what you did today was serial murder! Derp.

Given that you're perfectly happy making stuff up to attack somebody who's been the target of extremely shitty behavior, in order to try to excuse the shitty behavior--you clearly are the kind of person who thinks being the target of something shitty justifies shittiness--we can conclude that you've done something worse, right? By your own "logic."

Am I the only one who is bothered by the statement "I love her" but "I'm not in love with her" in STUNG's letter. I hear this a lot and I understand what it means. You care about someone but don't want to date them seriously. Everytime I hear it or read it I cringe.

nocute actually wrote a response to Marcelina a few weeks back about logical fallacies resulting from oversimplified language. I'm not going to post it...but its comment 434 from two weeks ago. She sums it up more succinctly than i can...

when i return in a week or so... i'll go back to ignoring your posts. Even the ones that aren't filled with holes and anger. Simpler that way. I prefer conversation over diatribe.. and even attempting to reel you in is tedious.

i'm reminded of watching my friend argue with is 3 year old...until his wife pulled him aside and said "you're the adult"

Facebook nocute, the tentacle web for the bored.

Yes Chairman, weird how parents get caught in that.
Fighting with children, like they just go back in time, and they are this kids age.
Gotta watch that impulse, as a parent. You are not your children's peers, until they become adults.
Even then, one is always a parent.

@milkshake,
I agree, I think these people should stick to dating each other if only to keep themselves out of the dating pool.

@75: Do you see sufficiently identifying details in STUNG's letter, that people who know each of them but don't already know that the two of them were an item would be able to deduce the actual identities of the people in the letter? I don't.

If ID isn't possible, it can't qualify as outing anybody.

I agree with avast at 96 -- if writing in to Savage Love (without loads of idiosyncratic detail) were outing someone, the entire column would be an out-fest.

@20 LavaGirl: Thank you. Yeah, I know, huh? I'm amazed that Hunter didn't jump all over my comment @10. I never heard from you about "What We Do in the Shadows"---hope that didn't piss you off (or that you're just not into vampire movies?). I thought it was funny.
Connie, wherever you are, you deserve infinitely better than STUNG. I'm not sure I'd have used Facebook to vent, but I can certainly understand your anger. Here's hoping you're blessed with the love of your dreams who keeps you truly happy.

@88 and @49: I will concede up front that this is getting into extrapolation (aka "making shit up") territory, but the clues in the letter don't paint a very flattering picture of the way he was treating the relationship. Specifically:
"At some point, I figured out she was in love with me. In other words, although they have never discussed it, he knows where her heart is, and chooses letting that ride to his advantage without actually addressing it.
and
" I love her too, but I don't think I am "in love" with her. " More of the same. He knows she loves him, and she's good for him sexually, but the relationship is in limbo. Somewhere between three and four years of limbo, but conspicuously left undiscussed.

Just my opinion, but I think the Campsite Rule should not be only about age. It should be more generally that you don't use someone and then leave them a mess. You owe a particular duty of care to someone who is badly smitten over you, because they are particularly vulnerable to being used opportunistically in that way.

When one person thinks the relationship has gone exclusive, and the other person knows the first person thinks that but does nothing to clarify, that person is an asshole. Yes, the person who thinks it has gone exclusive but does not verify is a fool. But the person who knows the other person thinks that and simply lets them keep right on thinking it is knowingly using them.

I don't think LW deserves the N in his acronym.

Avast @99
We are definitely in speculation territory here. You have a plausable theory, but there are others. I think your extension to the CampSite Rule is really the Golden Rule.

A person is not a kink. The whole notion is an insult.
Doesn't matter what wondrous combination Connie is, she is a human being, and deserves to be treated as such.
Sorry LW, being so hard on you- but your attitudes are dispicable.
We women are used to it, though. Centuries of being seen as disposable objects.

@100: It's a kind of spoiler, but pretty much every rule is really just the Golden Rule.