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Thank You
August 27, 2009
Tools
There was a letter in your column recently that must have been painful for you to receive. I refer to the letter signed God Hates You. I'm sure you're no stranger to hate mail, being an openly gay sex-advice columnist, but I hope you get fan mail too. But just in case: I wanted you to know that your column means a lot to me, and I love your bluntness, openness, and honesty. It is comforting to see a pragmatic, funny, and, for the most part, compassionate voice in print nowadays, especially when it comes to something that so many are as willfully ignorant about as sex.
You Do Good Work
A lot of people wrote in after reading GHY's letter. Most wanted to reassure me that God does not, in fact, hate me. And most, like YDGW here, assumed that GHY's letter must have hurt my feelings. I want to thank everyone for their kind words—and I mean that sincerely—but someone telling me that God hates me is about as hurtful as someone telling that the Blue Fairy thinks I look fat in these jeans. ("Really? She does? Thanks, I really needed to hear that—now I'm gonna go sit on the other side of the subway car and silently ask the Blue Fairy for fashion guidance, okay?")
As for fan mail, YDGW, I get my fair share. But I don't typically run fan letters because I've found better ways to pleasure myself. I am, however, going to make an exception this week and run a few letters from satisfied Savage Love customers. Not because I like having sunshine blown up my ass—I prefer to have other things blown up my ass, thanks—but because we know GHY is out there reading, and I'm thinking letters from people who've found my advice useful will annoy him way more than letters from people who wanted to let me know that God loves me. So this one's for you, GHY...
I am a 21-year-old straight girl, and I wanted to thank you. Reading your column and listening to your podcast over the years has made my sex and love life so much better than it ever could have been without your fantastic advice. It gave me the courage to tell my partner about my interest in BDSM and to be really GGG when he shared his fantasies with me. I've recommended your column and podcast to friends having relationship and sex troubles, and they all come back to tell me how much your advice helped them. I wanted to thank you on behalf of shy girls everywhere who secretly want to be tied up and spanked.
Eternally Grateful
I owe you a thank-you. Since I began reading your column over a year ago, I have realized my sexual desires are not perverse (and if they are, certainly nothing to be ashamed of) and began talking with my girlfriend about experimenting with them. As such, the two of us have moved on from anal-sex toys and are now about to embark on full-on pegging. She's as excited about it as I am, and we wouldn't have gotten to such a level of sexual satisfaction if not for the work you do. I'll be thinking of you while my girlfriend bangs my hot ass!
A Devoted Reader
Thanks for your advice about the "death grip" and the damage males can do when they grip themselves too tightly while masturbating. I had that problem: At age 48, a lifetime of death grip left me incapable of coming during regular intercourse. I have never had an orgasm with a partner from intercourse or oral or anal sex (my orientation is hetero). I carefully followed your advice and lightened my touch and started using my left hand (I'm right-handed) to provide the lighter stimulation that you advised. Any time I was tempted to revert to the death grip, I squeezed my thumb and index finger together, forming a ring without contracting it. This managed to fool my death-grip conditioning without increasing the pressure on my penis. It took a while, but now I'm able to come from lighter stimulation! Thank you!
Beautiful Orgasms Beat Odds
I started reading your column toward the end of my sophomore year of high school, which was about a year after I started hooking up with girls. I was immediately drawn to it because your "moral code" is based on common sense. That, and it was about sex and I was a sophomore.
I tend to be insecure, and I tend to tell the wrong joke at the wrong time. The one area in my life where I'm not insecure, however, is in the bedroom, and it's almost entirely thanks to your column. I'll kick myself repeatedly for saying the wrong thing to a girl, but if I don't perform to the best of my abilities one night, I can let it go. I've learned what my boundaries are and how to push them. I knew that not being 100 percent straight doesn't make you bi or gay, so there was no identity crisis when I questioned my sexuality. Most importantly, I know how to ask and I know how to give.
Thanks, Dan. If politicians want to get serious about reducing the amount of abortions, teenage pregnancies, and divorces in this country, they should hire you to draw up a national sex-ed curriculum.
Grateful Straight Boy
Thank you for saying some kind words about "conveniently located and economically priced sex workers" in your column. I agree that they deserve more gratitude and respect. In my case, I am a successful, decent-looking professional and a widower with three kids. I don't have any trouble getting dates. However, in my experience, dates either turn into relationships that I don't have time for or long conversations that I don't have time for about how I don't have time for a relationship. So once every couple months or so, I see a professional. I don't have to feel bad that I may not see her again, and I don't get accused of misleading anyone. I would like to tell your readers that they shouldn't feel bad if they are seeing pros. They should enjoy it for what it is, which is a great time with a pretty girl and well worth the money.
Prefers Sex Workers
I had been reading your column for years, and each time you told someone to DTMFA—dump the motherfucker already!—I wondered why the people sending those sad letters needed your advice at all. Couldn't they see that they were miserable? Then one day I had an epiphany and realized, while reading your column, that I could have authored one of those DTMFA letters.
It's now three years since I dumped the motherfucker. I got a transfer within my company and started over in a new city. It was overwhelming. But this weekend, I was lying in bed with my new boyfriend and I was thinking about my life. It is so NICE to have someone who isn't horrified that I like porn, someone who listens to my fantasies and likes to try new things. Someone who appreciates my cooking, doesn't pout when I beat him at video games, and tells me I'm beautiful.
I want to thank you. I was in denial, and your column was my wake-up call. I'm happier now than I ever thought possible.
Content Lady In Toronto
You're welcome, one and all. Next week, back
to the screaming, yelling, recriminations, freaks, fetishes, and
fuckwits. ![]()
5
If Dan is going to "hell", I'll ride in the handbasket! Anyone else?
This must be done!
But that's not all, the stories this week were really heart warming kinky stuff. Not only are they hot, but they also make me feel happier and better adjusted about my kinks. It's really refreshing to hear such positive, grateful stories from people I can relate to.
Thanks for all the years of happy reading, Dan!
But that's not all, the stories this week were really heart warming kinky stuff. Not only are they hot, but they also make me feel happier and better adjusted about my kinks. It's really refreshing to hear such positive, grateful stories from people I can relate to.
Thanks for all the years of happy reading, Dan!
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~Happily Single and Openly Bisexual in Hampden, MD
But you can call me Sophie.
http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Love-Straig…
They make great gifts too!
Bisous from France – we love you!
So to everyone who wants to know: this gay sexcolumnist saves straight marriages! Woot!
22
You do so much good work. I personally could have written a couple of your thank you letters, because my own thoughts and sentiments are so simliar. Reading your column has been informative, entertaining, touching, amusing, and enlightening all that the same time.
God bless you, Dan!
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Hey, Toast, nice avatar. Interesting compostion, too.
Of course, I do have a nephew, and his parents are like UPTIGHT. I've got a horrible feeling he's going to be gay and trapped in the closet for fear of his parents.
Today our son is one of Dan's very vocal supporters, and introduced us to Dan's column as well. I think he would voice equally strong support for a sex ed book by Dan Savage. We do! Go Dan, go!
You can see the funny video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez21BTosM…
When I graduated college, I discovered your column in the back of Pittsburgh's City Paper. To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the century. I think the first column I read of yours had something to do with medical scenes in BDSM. Anyway, it intrigued me - the fact that you wrote so frankly, I mean, not the medical scene - and I kept reading.
I can honestly say I got most of my sexual education - real world sex, not book learning - from you. I would love it if you wrote a book for parents and children, and I'd recommend it to the parents of the kids I work with in a heartbeat.
Still loving your work after all these years,
Sister Emily Force
46
Why don't you have a tv show where people call in and ask questions and for advice?
Someone should give you one already.
I don't even have cable, but id watch that.
Keep plugging away against the darkness.
Thanks for encouraging people to use the word faggot.
Thanks for encouraging them to abandon their pets if they find them inconvenient.
Thanks for encouraging gay people to blame blacks for Prop 8, and thanks for encouraging black people to believe that all gay white men are racist.
Thanks for your endorsement of the Iraq War, too.
52
Fair points, mostly. I love Dan, but sometimes I've thought he was an asshole.
When did Dan encourage people to abandon pets? The only mention of the subject that I recall is a podcast where Dan said that gays shouldn't abandon their adoring supportive adolescent fag hags after they come out of the closet, because it's like abandoning an unwanted dog out in the country. (He apologized for comparing girls to dogs, and actually the plea came across as heartfelt, not crass.)
I was also relieved when Dan blasted the assumption that if you're a gay men you automatically engage in anal sex. Not all of us do. And I also like that he insists on spelling the word COME as COME, not CUM. I completely agree. If you had an orgasm yesterday, you came, not cyoomed!
People do need to keep in mind, though, that despite his wisdom, humor and pragmatism, he's human and not always right; you don't necessarily need to agree with him (I'm still baffled over his assertion that SIXTEEN months is too soon to decide if you want to move in together or not)
And finally: who the hell is the Blue Fairy??
Check the last five minutes of Podcast 135. Dan advices his audience (largely composed of teenagers) that having compassion for animals is stupid and that people who consider their well-being when navigating their sex lives are ridiculous.
:P
I think it is contemptable for an adult to preach to kids that that the pain of animals is of no significance. That you believe is acceptable to call people who disagree "fuckwits, fucktards, and fuckheads" pretty much makes the case that Dan successfully encourages the people who admire him to imitate his bad behavior.
I'm also close to a 14-year Savage Love reader. Nearly a decade and a half of reading about how to be GGG, how to observe the campsite rule, and other ways to be awesome and respectful with sexual partners.
Maybe a 5-minute tirade on one of Dan's podcasts shows that we don't see eye to eye on everything. It doesn't diminish my deep appreciation for everything Dan has done for sexual health. The core values Dan has taught about sexuality are excellent and yes, should be shared as a sex-ed text we could buy for ourselves or share with teens.
Thanks, Dan!
Dan---thank you sincerely for an continually excellent column. Don't let the fuckwits dumping hate mail get you down (I'm sure you don't anyway). I third the notion about your writing a sex-ed curriculum book!!!
He should tell kids that they can have oral sex, anal sex and GAY SEX—there are lots of "foolproof" ways for teenagers to be sexual, to be fully intimate, without risking an unplanned pregnancy. It's possible for a teenager to have fulfilling and low-risk sex, and the intimacy and closeness and connection that comes along with it, without risking the "24-hour job and... huge responsibility" that having a baby entails.
Then kids can join homosexual men in accounting for more than half of all new AIDS cases in America.
Because kids too stupid to have vaginal sex without getting pregnant should have no problem managing anal sex without getting STDs.
And the oral sex, anal sex, and GAY SEX has worked out real well for homosexual men.
Dan is a clever guy.
Trying to spread his brand to school kids is a smart move.
Recruiting them to try GAY SEX is especially clever.
Because his old customer base, homosexual men, will have all killed each other with AIDS before too long.
Really. Even after Prop 8. I figured that was about hate. Now I think maybe it's about hate and stupidity.
we know you have no idea.
that's why the Right reams you a new one in state after state.
call it stupidity if it makes you feel superior.
meanwhile don't order those wedding invitations just yet- bend over and spread'em for a dose of R71 'stupidity'.
I was first introduced to your column when I accidentally sat in on a masters-level sociology course (Paul Leighton @ Emich.edu) because I had shown up for class on the wrong night. I don't remember what it was about, (Santorum?) but I remember enjoying and appreciating the advice about 2500% more than Dear Abbey or Ann Landers. Finally, a sex advice columnist who actually seemed to GET LAID ON A REGULAR BASIS!!!! and your embrace of having FUN with sex, including multiple simultaneous partners where applicable, made me feel like I wasn't a freak for wanting it.
I feel like you contributed to my general GGG nature when I entered into my first LTR at the age of 29, and I consciously observed the campsite rule as she was 23. When it was no longer feeling good, and didn't seem to have additional LTR potential, we amicably broke up - and are still friends. (a personal first).
Thank you, Dan Savage. You make it feel ok for me to unleash my inner beast, when in the privacy of a bedroom.
I had not really thought much of it, but most of Dan's guy advice has been right, he has a penis after all.
I'm 16, and personally horrified by the schools educational system when it comes to sex-ed classes. When I was a lot younger I discovered the internet, and as a result am a lot more open to things of a sexual nature. But everything was so NEW to me, simply because my school neglected to tell me anything other than "Don't do it!".
A sex-ed book from Dan would be fantastic, and not only from the straight point of view, but for gay people too. Schools seem to completely forget that gay people even exist, as such, they don't even get the limited sex-ed I got.
We need a book that young teens can get their hands on pretty easily. A comprehensive guide that says: It's okay to be gay, straight, or bisexual, so long as you're having fun and being careful.
I wish someone had told me that years ago.
And what's with capitalizing gay sex? Are you trying to make it scarier by shouting?
In all my years of reading Dan's columns, I've never seen him "recruit" anyone to gay sex. You know, if it doesn't appeal, people don't do it. He's certainly okay with gay kids having gay sex, buy, ya know, they want to do it. And if you'll go back a few weeks and read, you'll find the column in which he specifically advises the parent of a 14 year old gay son to tell him he *doesn't* need to have anal sex at this age to be "really gay." I think that puts the lie to your assertions.
The capitalized "GAY SEX" is a direct quotation from Dan's post- I found it odd as well:
"Right off the top of my head, Bristol: mutual masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, outercourse, sex toys your partner can insert into you, sex toys you can insert your partner into, erotic role-play that doesn't culminate in vaginal intercourse, GAY SEX—there are lots of "foolproof" ways for teenagers (and adults) to be sexual, to be fully intimate, without risking an unplanned pregnancy."
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
Teenagers are at an awkward and confused time of their life. Plus they are often looking for a way to assert their independence from, if not outright rebel against, their parents and their parents' moral values.
The popular culture relentlessly bombards kids with the message that homosexuality is totally cool, with-it and hip. No downside is ever presented.
Many schools are full of helpful adults eager to facilitate kids' expression of and experimentation with homosexuality.
And Dan is not the only Pied Piper selling it as 100% foolproof and safe.
What better way to get a little positive attention from your peers, join a hip and cool subgroup AND stick it in your parents eyes than to "out" yourself?
Unfortunately declaring yourself Gay is a little more consequential than dying your hair pink or wearing lots of black eyeliner.
Especially for males, that is a difficult position to retract later.
And Dan is joined by many others in declaring that homosexuality is innately what you ARE. So once you have checked in, even if it was just an immature play for attention; like the Hotel California; you can never check out.
No matter what their feeling may be later, once a kid has outed themself and experimented with homosexual behavior they will be trapped and find it impossible to step back.
So when Dan offers 100% free GAY SEX as an alternative to risky nasty heterosexual intercourse he is recruiting, tempting kids to place one foot in the flypaper, knowing they will never be able to pull it back out.
A more healthy and realistic course is to recognize that people do experiment with various behaviors and that they are just that- behaviors that someone may choose to or not to engage in.
That would allow teenagers to grow and develop their feelings as they mature and not trap them in a rash whim they acted out at age 13.
That sense of entrapment leads to hopelessness and suicide among children lured into outing themselves when they are too young.
Teenagers are at an awkward and confused time of their life. Plus they are often looking for a way to assert their independence from, if not outright rebel against, their parents and their parents' moral values.
The popular culture relentlessly bombards kids with the message that homosexuality is totally cool, with-it and hip. No downside is ever presented.
Many schools are full of helpful adults eager to facilitate kids' expression of and experimentation with homosexuality.
And Dan is not the only Pied Piper selling it as 100% foolproof and safe.
What better way to get a little positive attention from your peers, join a hip and cool subgroup AND stick it in your parents eyes than to "out" yourself?
Unfortunately declaring yourself Gay is a little more consequential than dying your hair pink or wearing lots of black eyeliner.
Especially for males, that is a difficult position to retract later.
And Dan is joined by many others in declaring that homosexuality is innately what you ARE. So once you have checked in, even if it was just an immature play for attention; like the Hotel California; you can never check out.
No matter what their feeling may be later, once a kid has outed themself and experimented with homosexual behavior they will be trapped and find it impossible to step back.
So when Dan offers 100% free GAY SEX as an alternative to risky nasty heterosexual intercourse he is recruiting, tempting kids to place one foot in the flypaper, knowing they will never be able to pull it back out.
A more healthy and realistic course is to recognize that people do experiment with various behaviors and that they are just that- behaviors that someone may choose to or not to engage in.
That would allow teenagers to grow and develop their feelings as they mature and not trap them in a rash whim they acted out at age 13.
That sense of entrapment leads to hopelessness and suicide among children lured into outing themselves when they are too young.
94
Are oral sex and anal sex "less risky" for spreading STDs?
Are oral sex and anal sex "100% foolproof" ways to avoid STDs?
97
I as a parent, I get to preview the curriculum and pull my children out if I choose to. We choose not to, and believe its better to educate them then to keep them ignorant.
The point is that Dan did:
"oral sex, anal sex, ... GAY SEX—there are lots of "foolproof" ways for teenagers (and adults) to be sexual"
Homosexual men engage in those "foolproof" behaviors and make up 53% of new AIDS cases in America.
When Dan describes those same risky behaviors to kids as "100% foolproof" it is a formula guaranteed to add America's teens to homosexual men as enormously disproportionate AIDS victims.
That's why I'm trying to get more people to be gay, even though they only give rechargeable LED flashlights to hetero recruiters (prejudice hurts!)
I was impressed by you depth of commentary and witty comebacks.
You definitely vibed with Keith.
I hope you become a regular on MSNBC news programming.
Your post sounded like you are speaking from experience.
Did YOU or someone you were close to have a little "rash whim" at age 13 and then feel later you/they were then trapped into being forever gay by this "outing experiment"?
Because that's how your post sounds, Richard. Sounds like your/their experiment became known to others who went on to make you/them feel like shit about it and suicidal.
Sounds like you (or some fictional other) can't get over or get past something that happened a long time ago. Now you need to blame this all on the "flypaper" lure of evil, cool gays?
Sadly, you can't even see that the guilt, the so-called "entrapment" of your "made up" scenario wouldn't even be the fault of any youthful experimenting, Richard T.
It would be the direct fault of the very ignorance Dan tries to dispel.
This is why Dan is important, Richard. He's not perfect - nobody is. But nobody else is stepping up to do what is so sorely needed. What YOU or that 13 year old so sorely needed.
Had you had the benefit of this education at 13, perhaps you wouldn't now equate honesty and truth with "flypaper".
Rebecca and Charles Rannells
111
That may be just the case. My other thought is that they focus on forms of penetrative sex because it's taught as part of the health curriculum, and the focus is prevention not healthy sexuality. To teach non-penetrative sex, there must be an acknowledgement that teens are minors who reside in biologically adult bodies. They would have to acknowledge their sexuality, sexual needs, and desires to express themselves sexually and be intimate. Living in a first world nation we live a lot longer, but often in third world countries the average life span is 30-40s. If you think about it from that perspective, teens all over the world are having midlife crises and maybe that is why the teen years are filled with such turmoil and so full of sexual energy.
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Thanks,
Don Bradt
116
Dan's column breaks ground in giving advice in areas that have not been addressed in newspaper columns. Even advice columns in adult publications is predictable and cliche. There are plenty of sex advice books available on the market, "Get to really know your partner well and have open, honest communication..." Bla bla bla...
A book on sex education would have to be as groundbreaking as the concept of the article to stand out from the mountains of published, but not useful sex manuals.
This is not an easy task to accomplish. Especially in a time when we are realizing that the old presumptions about sexual identification, gender identification, marriage and domestic partnerships, range of kinks and alternatives don't hold up in todays world. What we dont need is another new age manual about how sex is such a spiritual experience, complete with soft-edge pencil drawings of smiling couples in various positions, ew!
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You do good work.
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You can believe in a higher power and still have great sex, without judgment of others. Wish you'd figure that out, Dan.
yes, I'll ride in the handbasket with dan. We can hum the scary tune from Wizard of Oz and pretend we're Toto, being taken off to puritanical hell for our lusty thoughts. :)
Dan, I am a sex camel, and in a dry spell. I'm also a secret perv, I'm sure of it, and when I find the right person to tap my resource, I'm gonna be GGG all over his/her ass! (open about that!) I will say what I want, how I want it, ask them the same, and then go for 99.99% of it!! You are smart and sarcastic, which basically means that I adore you and want us to get busy!! lol...keep up the fantastic work!









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