In this week’s Savage Love—online only in Seattle—Jeffy Lube asks if “saddlebacking” is the name of a sex act and, if it isn’t, perhaps my readers could come up with a definition in honor of Rick Warren. I challenged my readers to come up with a definition. “Saddlebacking” sounds vaguely dirty already, of course, thanks to the term “barebacking,” which means unprotected anal intercourse, which has prompted a lot of readers to offer up this possible definition:
If “barebacking” is unprotected sex, “saddlebacking” is sex with a condom. Plus what pisses off Evangelicals [and Catholics] more than birth control and preventing HIV?
Stuck In Boston
“But isn’t it better for all that plain old sex, under the current scheme, is presumed to be protected?” I wrote back to SIB. “There’s sex, and then there’s bareback sex.” SIB wrote back…
It would be good… if that presumption under the current scheme was accurate. But as we’ve all seen, barebacking has gone from being a deviation from what was seen as a restrictive norm of condom use, to a frighteningly normal behavior. At the last International AIDS Conference I saw an abstract that showed LESS THAN A QUARTER of men who have sex with men surveyed in San Francisco used condoms.
Which brings us back to “Saddlebacking.” I think one of the problems that gay men (like myself) face in a sexual world where condoms are increasingly seen as optional, is the implicit assuption that sex without a condom is somehow more fun and more exciting. I understand intellectually that part of this excitement comes from the danger associated with unprotected sex, though personally it’s hard for me to get excited when thoughts of KS and lipodystrophy start running through my imagination (and as a neurotic Jew who works in public health they inevitably do). But beyond the danger element of barebacking, the other terms used to describe sex without a condom—”uninhibited,” “raw,” “wild” [as opposed to mild]—reinforce this idea of protected sex as humdrum. “Barebacking” is perhaps the most elegant way to express these sentiments; it connotes an imagine of some rugged man bracing himself on top of a bucking bronco against a vast South Western vista. There’s even a playfullness in the use of employing a cowboy term sexually.
I’m not trying to suggest that by coining “saddlebacking” to mean an act of protected sex, concientious condom users will somehow have conferred upon a new aura of intense, visceral, sexual abandon on their use of condoms. However I think it would provide a counter-weight to the language and assumptions built around “barebacking.” It would give us some slang-parity if you will. And while saddles take away some of the thrill of riding bareback they do come equipt with stirrups, straps, and ropes.
Love your column and podcast,
Stuck In Boston
SIB makes a good case for at least including this possible definition among possibilities in my column a week from Thursday. Want to propose an alternate alternate definition for “saddelbacking”? Email it to me at saddleback@savagelove.net by tomorrow at five.
Wait, if “bareback” is condomless anal sex, what do you call penile-vaginal intercourse without a condom? I always thought “bareback” was orientation/orifice agnostic.
Saddlebacking: talking out of both sides of your mouth while being rimmed.
“…And while saddles take away some of the thrill of riding bareback they do come equipped with stirrups, straps, and ropes.”
So “saddlebacking” is safe kinky sex?
Hmm, I had originally thought of “saddlebacking” as riding a sex partner around the room like a polo pony during an orgy. I mean used in a sentence you could say: “During the last chukker, I remounted a Theta Chi and put the losers lead by scoring a field goal while I was rolling the Trojan.”
So “saddlebacking” is stirrups, bridles, straps, ropes with condoms. Okay, I’ll vote for Stuck In Boston.
My only problem with this definition is that it’s a really positive activity, and should Warren be associated with something positive?
Wow. I am so out of touch.
Saddlebacking is ANAL sex with a condom. Fundies will still hate it because it’s in the no-no, and the definition still fits.
Anthony H or Amy Kate Horn, emeritus: Please explain how this week’s Savage Love is “online only in Seattle.” I couldn’t get passed that first sentence. Am I having a senior moment or is there something about the internet I don’t know? Putting a sub domain of /seattle after your website does not mean your web browser knows to block a page if you live in outside of Seattle. Or does it?!
@7 The column is in print in other cities, but online-only in Seattle because the Stranger didn’t publish a print edition this week.
(will copy edit for snacks)
In Seattle, I believe, it is online-only due to there being no new Stranger this week. In, say, Denver, you can find the column in print, but in Seattle you can only find it online.
of course. i forgot about dan’s syndication. thank you everyone.
josh: is “online only” a split infinitive? because “only” can be read two ways, and the meaning changes between “in Seattle you will only find this online” and this is only online in Seattle and no where else.”
oops, forgot a set of quotation marks. should be:
“this is only online in Seattle and no where else.” I wasn’t kidding about going back to school.
“the implicit assuption that sex without a condom is somehow more fun and more exciting.”
That assumption is implicit because it is true.
Isn’t Rick Warren always going on about how he loves the gays because he looks after people who are dying from AIDS? Naming a safe-sex activity after him will only stroke his ego.
yep. buttsecks with a condom = saddlebacking.
“Online-only” should have a hyphen, as it is two adjectives used together to describe a noun.
It is not a split infinitive (where a word comes between a “to” and its verb: “to boldly go where no one has gone before”) and there are arguments in academic circles as to whether split infinitives matter at all. I mean, seriously, do we really want to hear, “to go boldly where no one has gone before?”
It’s a bit like the ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition issue.
Saddlebacking: anal sex with condoms? Works for me.
“LESS THAN A QUARTER of men who have sex with men surveyed in San Francisco used condoms”
As a heterosexual I feel so guilty that we haven’t devoted the resources to curing AIDS.
Must Do More!!!
I think that “saddlebacking” as a term for protected, safe sex, of any kind is anti-warren because dogmatically, the only sex allowed in the saddleback world is that of procreative sex within the confines of heterosexual marriage. So, if a condom is used, particularly in an act of premarital, extramarital, or post-marital, or can’t marital sex, it is thumbing your nose at warren, et al.
@1
I’ve heard barebacking refer to both anal and vaginal sex without a condom. So saddlebacking should be vaginal OR anal sex with a condom.
Plus women are more derelict in condom use than gay men and could use a fun word for safe sex as badly as the gays.
After all, wouldn’t you rather tell a partner who wants to have sex without a condom (gay/straight/anal/vaginal) “No way I’m a saddleback guy/girl/MTF/FTM/ETC” than “I only play safe” or the clinical “I only use condoms”?
@1
Yeah, I’ve heard/used the term in reference to vaginal unprotected sex as well.
While I’d like to see “saddlebacking” refer to something negative a la Santorum, it does seem like an obviously great term for protected sex, which does need a term. So.
I would think that saddleback is when you lose your condom in your partner’s ass. I want my saddle back.
Sometimes, the obvious answer is the way to go. While some of these definitions are quite funny, they just don’t have the staying power we’re looking for.
Saddlebacking is the opposite of barebacking. It’s still funny, when a guy’s got a megachurch named after condom sex (or vice-versa). Even a mildly naughty definition will eventually force him to change the name of his church. But only if it sticks!
The Saddleback church is some evangelistic church somewhere. Their young female members preserve their (vaginal) virginity for their wedding night by engaging in Gomorrahian acts with their boyfriends. Hence: saddlebacking
“If “barebacking” is unprotected sex, “saddlebacking” is sex with a condom”
I myself do like the “barebacking” term much more and also the “barebacking” as an act too!
Even the newest and thinnest condoms can’t compare with the “barebacking” sex
BUT! Of course, there are certain rules – it’s possible only with the “approved” partner =)