I deal with that question in this week's Savage Love. Socks are incidental, I said, nothing to attach any meaning to, certainly not evidence of rampant sock fetishism among porn producers and consumers. My readers are suggesting some other possible explanations...

Dan, love your column, but you screwed the pooch on that answer. (Don't tell Rick Santorum.) I recall reading about this years ago. The reason for socks in porn is purely practical: porn sets are dirty. Now of course you might ask, why don't the women wear socks? Answer: because they're all wearing heels. I suppose you may protest and say that calling them "incidental" was a correct answer. True, but off the mark from the real reason. As you're surely not watching much hetero porn, you're excused this time.

I was interested in SID's question as to why men wear socks in porn movies. My husband has always pointed that out to me—his theory is that it's a throw-back to the time when porn movies were in their infancy and illegal to make. He always thought the socks stayed on so they could get dressed and leave quickly if the cops busted the shoot.

Regarding socks in porn, I always thought this was to keep the performers warm and their blood circulating, thus more able to do their job. Porn shoots are often done in cold places. Your feet are the most important extremity to keep warm, and you'd be surprised how much warmer the human body can be with only its feet covered versus nothing at all.

And how would a guy "use" a strap-on? One theory—better than any of the ones I came up with—after the jump.

In your reply about the man on the airplane who was excited about using his new strap-on you missed the one explanation that came to my mind first. I had a GF once that was freaky (yay, me!) and liked being DP'd (double penetration). I wasn't really into the idea of threesomes so we experimented with vibrators/dildos to meet the need and before we broke up we had been shopping for some kind of harness that would let me use my junx and her toys at the same time while leaving all our hands free for all the other fun stuff.