Good fucking shit Dan you're great but do google yourself or something to find this stuff?

Wow! I think you should take this recognition as a compliment.

Um ... how about the rocks? I choose the rocks, maybe some stones ... mostly rocks though.

"...a certain Dan Savage, who I hadn’t heard of but who is apparently "America’s leading relationships columnist'..."

Ha! Is the writer trying to be funny? This article was hilarious!

@1: I think a lot of it is sent in by SLOG tippers. Or maybe that Google news-auto-alert thing, whatever it's called.

The Pope is an expert on reproductive rights, so I would expect that he is also an expert on relationships.

(The second commenter there mentioned Santorum, which guarantees that the term is going international.)

Nice how they quoted you out of context, with no chance given for you to explain your views in the article. Funny how mad some Catholics get when anyone quotes homophobic and sexist passages from the bible "out of context."

Well, as a gay man, I'm torn -- you've both probably had sex with plenty of dudes and both seem to be in relationships with with fairly handsome dudes. But for not being a completely creepy former Nazi youth bastard, you win. This time.

I love how anything outside of sex in the marriage is "unfaithful" regardless of the circumstances. You just about never advocate cheating, which is what these guys are actually talking about :-P

Must be nice to live with black and white lines so thick they'll knock you out if you step out of line...

I recognize this is a rhetorical question but is there a reason that people who enjoy cunnilingus are left out of this "either-or" choice of sex and relationship advisers? Is it because they're having too much fun performing cunnilingus to bother?

None of the above What's my third choice?

@3: As a geo major, I'm offended.

"[R]elationship counsellor [sic] Andrew Marshall [...] says he has never met a heterosexual couple who have made licensed infidelity work[.]"

Well no shit. If a couple are making <x> work, why the fuck would they see a relationship counselor, regardless of what <x> is?

what @10 said.

Hmm ... well after seeing #11 .... I change my vote to chairs ... yep, chairs, with a little help from tables.

@12 took the words out of my mouth.

Reading the comments on the article I'd like to know when 'explicit' became a bad word. I'd much rather take advice from someone like Dan who actually gives a damn that what he's telling people is based on fact not fantasy and who shows compassion for people who need it. If I recall correctly, Ann Landers, called it 'comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable'. Most religions have that backwards.

@10: Read my lisp: Marcus Bachmann

I don't take sex and relationship advice from Dan, but I do listen to him.

I'm a reasonable guy; that is, I'm a guy who follows reason. I believe that relationships are complex and require constant judgment calls. So I like to get perspective from other people: Dan, Sloggers, my friends, etc.

But as I said, I'm a reasonable guy. I'm never going to follow someone's advice just because he or she said it; I want to know the reasons leading to their conclusion. Dan, Sloggers, friends, etc. generally list the reasons that lead to the ultimate advice. If I find the reasoning specious, I'll disregard the advice; if not, I may incorporate it in my own decisions.

The pope and other religious figures have none of that. They just say "Do X" because it's in the Bible, or because Jebus said so, or because otherwise I'll go to hell. None of that sways me: I need reasons. And the pope does not provide any.

Advice is useless if I already know what the advice will be. "Never, ever cheat on your wife. Ever." "Never, ever have sex outside of marriage. Ever." "Never, ever get divorced. Ever." That's fine for children and morons who can't handle analysis, but I'm a grown fucking man, and I need advice that operates on my cognitive level.

They forgot the other major difference between Dan and the church, Dan is on record as being strongly AGAINST child rape, the pope, not so much. I usually like to err on the side of not raping children, so I don't think I will be turning to the pope any time soon.

From the site Dan linked, this passionate appeal to keep even the fifty feet AROUND the altar a guys-only club:

http://bit.ly/px4lUE

Why, you might ask? Mainly because the girls are apparently scaring boys away from the priesthood. RTWT for maximum outrage/hilarity.

I wonder what the pope would have to say to Pat Robertson. At least Dan isn't encouraging people to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's.

I don't know, Dan. You taught me what GGG meant, but the Pope gave me a demonstration.

The Pope! The Pope! He's the best when it comes to--- uh, wait... what was the question again? "Relationship advice"? Hm, ok. Well... uh, fuck! The Pope has had lots of relationships! He must know a lot. Like ALOT alot! So I vote for THE POPE. yeah.

@20 the picture of Ratzi and the girl in that picture will haunt my nightmares.

The Pope thinks priests aren't having sex with each other and little kids, so what does he know?!?.

Sure, and I'd like to learn to drive from someone who's never owned a car.

Yikes, that came across in my grandparents' Galway dialect, for some reason.

Wow, Dan. Hard question. You give advice that's reality based. That's good. The Pope fellow gives advice that's based on his observations of life from a vast distance over the past, what, eighty-some years. That's good. Ordinarily, I'd opt for the voice of age and wisdom, but I think the voice of age in this case is not so much also the voice of wisdom. Or of reality. So maybe it comes down to which of you is cuter. Okay, okay. You definitely win.

@24, it's only natural. The only thing missing is the zombified flesh falling away from the bones.

The saddest of many sad things is the writer's [probably correct] conviction that feminism is so pathetically enervated that he can make his pathetic case in a public forum.

He comments on a mass where all the readers and servers happened to be women: "[M]y wife (not I) [yeah, tar HER with the overt misogyny, asshole] compared it to a farmyard, with the priest as the cock strutting about in the middle of a flock of hens."

(Yeah, the cock strutting about in the middle of a flock of other cocks of various sizes and levels of physical maturation looks so much better.)

Let's compare-

Deviant pervert enthusiastically preaching promiscuity, infedility, sexually indiscriminate and unhealthy behavior and the destruction of marriage and family on the one hand.

Head of the Catholic Church with 2 millenia of teaching and understanding moral behavior by some of the best minds in human history backing him on the other.

Yeah. I'm a protestant and this is still easy.

I'm blinded by the bizarre babushka of bullshit that spews from the mealy mouth of Pope Rat.

'[The Pope] reminded them that love is based on “gratitude, sacrifice, forgiveness and mutual respect”.'

This would be great advice if it didn't come with the unspoken caveat: unless the couple is facing issues related to sex (e.g. fidelity or compatibility); then there should be only resentment, denial, blaming and name calling.

When people try to claim that nothing short of absolute monogamy can work, it makes me wonder how they classify couples that have successfully overcome past infidelities. Obviously, monogamy was not 100% successful for those couples and yet it didn't permanently destroy their relationship. In itself, that is proof that sexual fidelity is not the beginning and end of a healthy, happy, successful relationship. People need to determine how important sexual fidelity really is to their relationship--and the only opinions that matter are the opinions of the adults involved in that relationship.

At their heart, successful relationships are about honesty, communication, and empathy. Almost all relationship advice distills down to this simple wisdom. If you can commit to each other to try and make those aspects work, doesn't matter what body parts you put (or don't put) where. I don't understand why people seem to have such a hard time understanding that when sex is involved.

@34 If you're Protestant then you believe that the Pope is a man, not a divine representative of God on Earth, not 2 millenia of teaching, but a flawed and fallible human being--just like you and I and, dare I say, Dan Savage.

Thankfully, the printing press and the internet have given us all access to the same 2 millenia of teachings that The Pope has access to (I'm sure you're familiar with The New Testament). Although, I'm not sure how much time the Pope spends keeping up on current research so he may have a harder time keeping up with current research into neurology, psychology, and biology, all relevant fields with an insight into human relationships.

Cheers!

Whatever, Dan, you already know you've saved loads of marriages. Keep up the good work.

YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dunno, I was taught to cook by a man with no sense of taste and smell, and that turned out well.

I wouldn't take this Pope's advice on how to get red shoe polish stains off the hem of your pretty white dress.

Haha. The best part was when he said "My second thought was, “You can’t separate ‘sex’ from ‘fidelity’ in this casual fashion.”"

Actually, I can. And I do. On a regular basis (less regular now that my wife and I have children, and by extension, no free time, but it happens).

But hey, I think I'll take the advice of a person who's never actually done the thing he's advising about!

The irony, I'd make a great nun .... except that shooting the pope would just be too tempting.

@Mehlman

No. I think it lends credence to arguments against celibate priests or for absolute church intolerance for abuses of that role. Or both.

Because some attorneys bend the law, we don't suggest the abolition of the legal profession, or question the notions on which the common law system is founded.

Why should the fact that some abuse their authority as church-men mean all sexual morality is a poor idea?

Even more than that, because some priests are perverted child molestors it doesn't follow that absolute sexual license of the kind Savage advocates is a better bet. Most of us live between celibacy and the hedonistic deviant sexual indiscriminacy Dan Savage wants us all to embrace. Most of us marry, love our spouses and stay faithful to them, raise kids to do the same, and are perfectly happy with that arrangement.

For us Dan Savage is a worse advisor than a celibate priest. At least a priest sees marriage as a holy sacrament, something special and worthwhile on its own account. At least for them marriage is a good thing, not something to be despised and destroyed.

Whose advice would I take in building my house- that of an architect or that of an arsonist? That would be a better way of phrasing the question of this blog posting.

@45 While I do not like anyone expecting everyone to be sexual, I do not think that was what Dan has ever said. I may be wrong on that as I don't read his advice column at all, but I doubt it. People are asking for advice from him, and since humans in general have this misgiving that relationships should have sexual activity, it just seems people asking for relationship advice will likely include their sexual activities in the questions. However, he does have a very good point on humans not being meant to be monogamous, at least those who do enjoy sexual activity, but most of all, the pope is an evil POS anyway. Not to mention, this "marriage is holy" is utter and complete bullshit. It's a contract, was created as a contract, and always has been a contract. The ceremonies were added by religions. If you want to go back to truly traditional marriage, the husband and wife always had someone else they had sex with. I'm sure a LOT of Dan's fans would love that idea.

@45

Your analogies are really, really bad. But since you probably have the equivalent of a 3rd grade education and are probably proud of that fact, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Your lawyer analogy, yes some are bad, but guess what, the entire system isn't devoted to protecting bad lawyers and making sure that bad lawyers don't get punished, if it was then we would have to get rid of the whole system. Guess what, the Catholic church has done everything in it's power to condone the raping of children and protect those who rape kids, all the way up to good ol' Benedict himself who while a Bishop in Munich...drumroll please.........helped protect a priest who was raping kids.

Your basic argument seems to be, "as long as you don't actually say anything bad, you can be given free license to rape children". Not a great motto in my book.

Also, your architect/arsonist analogy is incredibly funny in that a 10 year old could find the flaws is in it without even trying. A more apt analogy would be asking two people to design a house, one that openly admits that he doesn't have all the details but does have an eye for the big picture and gets you started(Dan Savage), vs. one that pretends, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that he is quite an adept architect, and then designs a house that barely stands up and then uses substandard materials intentionally and does everything he can to conceal his crimes(the child rapists, I mean Catholic church)

So I have a question for you, if Jesus is real, why did he let children get raped by those ostensibly representing him? Seems to me that an all-loving, all-powerful God would, oh I don't know, NOT let children get raped in his name. Maybe thats just me and my bat-shit fact based reality talking.

@47

You seem to have a confusion that tossing insults around will pass for logical argument. It doesn't. Well, it doesn't among rational people.

If this irrational hostility to Catholicism springs from personal experience of abuse at the hands of that church you have my sympathies and wishes that you find a way past it. But I doubt it. It sounds like garden variety liberal petulance about Christianity to my ear.

You wrote- "Your basic argument seems to be, "as long as you don't actually say anything bad, you can be given free license to rape children"."

Try reading what I wrote, that celibacy seems a poor idea for priests, and that no tolerance should be shown priests who do abuse.

For the rest, for the lies about Catholicism, what I wrote, what Dan Savage stands for and advises the idiots seeking his advice- good luck with that disconnect with reality. Soon or late you'll have to remedy it. For your sake I hope it's sooner.

As for the very very old 'If God is good, why do bad things happen' it's been answered exhaustively by smarter better educated men than me. If you truly want an answer to that question you'll find it. If not, I won't waste my time in pointless debate over it.

This does not sound like the John Preston I knew and loved. That John Preston wrote "Hustling: A Gentleman's Guide to the Fine Art of Homosexual Prostitution".

The John Preston quoted in the article doesn't sound nearly as interesting.

@46

Okay. You hate marriage and don't want to be married. Bully for you.

But the majority of Americans say that they like being married and monogamous. The majority celebrate when a friend or family member marry as one of the most important life events anyone will have.

Despite divorce, despite having marriage cheapened and redefined by the gay marriage debate or by Newt Gingrich or Limbaugh style approaches to it, despite the occasional irritation with ones spouse or dry spells when it seems love has died, most of us see marriage as a key element in a happy life.

I wouldn't for a moment say you don't have a right to your views, but don't make the mistake of thinking them widely shared.

I wouldn't for a moment say you don't have a right to your views, but don't make the mistake of thinking them widely shared.

We can safely same about you & your 1955 view of the universe.

About this seattleblue person: Don't know if troll.

I particularly liked this:

Not surprisingly, Dan Savage wasn’t thinking about children.

Yeah, because it's not as if Dan wrote a whole book about having a kid and how it affected his relationship, or anything like that...

@54 You really can't figure it out? He keeps popping up making nonsense arguments to support disgusting positions. Sounds like a troll to me

Relationships?? Who are you kidding? I wouldn't take the Pope's advice on religion!

But, I'm a Quaker. And we believe that all people are created equal and should be treated that way. The Catholic "hierarchy" is proof that they don't. The higher up the clerical foodchain, the Church believes (and acts like) the person contains more divinity and hence more deserving of rights than those below.

Even at their lowest rung, this is true. Priests are better than non-priests, so are evidently more important to save and protect than victims of priests. Etc., etc. and the Pope himself is God's own emissary on Earth or something.

I can't think of anything more offensive, or less supported in the New or Old Testaments. Hey, Ratzi, that cap on your head is supposed to show your humility before God. You're doing it wrong.

Read the article in @20. Oh good dear lord, are little boys THAT delicate that a few girls can scare them off?

Really?

Nothing else going on?

Nah.

@54/56 He is a kind of troll but not the kind that does it for giggles. He does it because he was damaged in some way and needs to misplace the blame with people he can't actually see, and he has admitted to as much in the past. If anything feel pity for him, he continues to apologize for actual perpetrators such as the pope (who has in the past blatantly helped rapists, notice how he can't comment on that) because he has been doing it his whole life =)

@49: "As for the very very old 'If God is good, why do bad things happen' it's been answered exhaustively by smarter better educated men than me. If you truly want an answer to that question you'll find it. If not, I won't waste my time in pointless debate over it."

That's funny. You waste plenty of your time in pointless debate on SLOG over issues that have been answered exhaustively by smarter and better-educated men and women than you.

@34:

And yet you don't seem to follow the Pope around like a schoolgirl with a crush.

PS Actually, come to think of it, your relationship with Dan Savage is more like a boy who's always flicking a girl's bra or stealing her pencil case in the hope that she'll chase him.

@34. Some of the best minds in history? These are the people who came up with limbo. The people who think that a god impregnated a virgin. The people who think that they can do and be whatever they want all week, and that they will still be "saved" provided they act apologetic about it after the fact. These people think the highest level of human morality is an endless--if not fanatical--preoccupation with whether or not they're personally going to hell, rather than compassion and care for other people and the planet on which we live. These people's attitudes about sex foment repression and psychosis and pedophilia and self-hatred and misogyny and and and...

I had a catholic roommate in college who would brag endlessly about all the orgasms she had when her boyfriend gave her head. With equal relish, she would go on and on about how I was going to hell because my boyfriend and I had vaginal intercourse.

"Best minds in history?" Yeah fucking right.

Seattleblues, you say, "You seem to have a confusion that tossing insults around will pass for logical argument. It doesn't."

That's very good advice. I wish you actually believed it, but given your history you don't. Your arguments are rarely logical and almost never based on facts, which is why, when asked to provide facts, you either respond with sarcasm or run away.

If you're going to debate try doing so without doing the very same things you criticize others for supposedly doing.

Since I am monogamous and believe in monogamy and hope that my husband is not currently cheating and will never cheat on me, I have to side with the Pope on this issue.

Can't get with the sex-on-the-side-while-in-a-committed-relationship way of thinking. Wouldn't work for me.

Insisting that sexual fidelity is an important part of overall fidelity means that they think that sex is important. That is a good thing. I could believe that there are a few couples out there for whom sexual nonmonogamy would work well enough, but hardly enough to merit throwing monogamy away. In this case, the Pope is right.

If you ask me, the focus on monogamy is yet another reason why gays need to be allowed legal marriage, word and all.

Dan - here's the point you should be making:

"Cheating" is, by definition, breaking the rules that you've agreed to follow, whether it's a board game or a marriage.

If your spouse agrees that it's okay for you to have sex with other people from time to time under the right conditions, then you are not breaking the rules when you do this. Therefore, you are not cheating.

What destroys relationships is cheating. Dishonesty. Betrayal. Not the sex itself.

Well, you might not have to worry about whatever the pope has to say anymore by the end of next week.

Because the good people of Berlin would literary tear him a new one if they only as much as sense a sign of mistreatment or disrespect for their beloved openly gay mayor who has to host that homophobic piece of .. next thursday when "His Holyness" starts off a not really welcome 4-day-trip to Germany.

How the Catholic church dares to claim any hint of moral authority, with their own house in such disarray is beyond me. It's the very definition of brazen. Wasn't there something in that book of theirs about removing the beam from your own eye before worrying about the mote in your neighbors'?

Or how about not bearing false witness against your neighbor? I think that's what we would have to name the way they gleefully misstate Dan's very nuanced and compassionate (and deeply conservative!) thoughts in order to hold them up to ridicule and demonstrate their own moral superiority.

I'm really at a loss to see how this organization continues to have such license to damage people's lives, and get so rich in the process.

Did Seattleblues multiply?

@67 - emphatic agreement.

@72, I agree with you that most hetero couples in the US are not ready for open non-monogamy, but cultures change. Used to be that women were expected to stay home with the children. Used to be that a woman who spoke openly about her premarital sex life would never be able to get married.

Hetero marriages have often included secret non-monogamy, and sometimes the spouse knew about the betrayal and stayed anyway. I do think we can change the culture in my lifetime so that people don't rashly throw out a good marriage because of some minor infidelity.

I would not take LOL sex or relationship advice from either the Pope or Dan Savage.

Savage is biphobic, transphobic, racist in that he does not like African Americans in certain states, 1,000% vanilla, and not an expert on human sexuality, how to have sex, or relationships.

If I want someone who actually knows what they're talking about when it comes to bisexuality, Trans/gender issues, advice about monogamous or even open relationships, and sex that's 100% consensual yet non-vanilla I'll go somewhere else instead of asking the "advice" of the bitter and conceited asshole drama queen Dan Savage.