I look forward to seeing what Raku's victimhood diagram says about this one, and if the resulting oppresion equation means this individual is allowed to speak to to others about being bisexual.

Actually, that book features the pic "how many trees are being turned into spooge-mopping kleenex" discussion between yourself and numerous letter writers. It should remain forever in print just for that.

@2, shit, now I have to buy the thing (having bought several other of Dan's books!).

@1 The LW is female, so she's oppressed. She is probably white (Synod Lutheran), so she's not as oppressed as if she was a woman of color. But under no circumstances should the LW have to endure the suggestion that she tell anyone that she's bi, even though that might actually help with the problem of bi-invisibility, because no one can ever, in any way, contribute to their own oppression. Also, men oppress; white men oppress absolutely.

@1, it's funny to hear someone shouting "JUST LISTEN" at someone whose very job is receiving, reading, and responding to letters about sexuality, and thus has probably listened to more actual (not theoretical) bisexuals than anyone else in the history of mankind.

@2, that would have to be updated today to remind people to put tissues containing bodily fluids in the trash, not the yard waste bin. Napkins = food waste; spoogy (and snotty) tissues = garbage.

Of course all schooled kids have accurate sex information. They only read Dan Savage for giggles. All the sexual misconceptions you read in those letters come from the 2% of kids who are homeschooled.

Gaydolph Hitler

Or perhaps Homoammar Gadhafi.

Osama bin Homo

@8: Thank you for the helpless fit of giggles.

Your book opened my eyes to another world and was followed up by a flurry of internet searches. I thought I didn't like guys because they made me feel the same as girls did—I soon came to realize that I was bisexual and a lot more made sense!

Let me get this straight: Dan Savage would have us believe that bisexuals are so dumb they have to read a whole sex advice book before it crosses their minds to Google "WHY I LIKE CHICKS AND DUDES BOTH? AND AM I ONE?"

Anyone who thinks this letter isn't fake is biphobic.

@9 Shouldn't that have to be "Homosama bin Laden?"

(*・_・)ノ⌒*`*`*

O-samesexmarriage bin Laden.

It's not that bad, Dan, and even if every page had a typo, it is better than nothing as the LW stated.

I love the book, personally. I have given over 10 copies away to teenagers when they go off to college (all females). I throw a box of condoms and your book in with a bunch of other dorm room necessities. The giftees mostly do not mention the specific contents to me! but a few have told me years later it helped a lot. I like to think your book circulated through many a residence hall. I definitely think a new book "More Savage Love"? is needed. How about another book of columns with some follow-up?

How many type Os err to many? Won.

If the book is still in print, can't the typos be edited? Of course, if the typos are in the letters themselves, then perhaps they can't(?), though I've always wondered about subsequent prints of novels that still/also contain typos. I recently came across a copy of Vonnegut's Player Piano that had at least one glaring typo. It wasn't a first run or anything either.

Also, you have hair that has color. Not-gray. Should treasure that.

Sodomy Hussein?

My copy, a discarded copy from the Fremont branch of the SPL, still sits on a shelf here.

I no longer agree with some of my responses

One of the sexiest traits of a person is the capacity to have evolving thoughts and beliefs. I think it is kind of fantastic to have a record of where your thoughts were, where they are now, and the memories of the events in between that shaped them. If your beliefs and perspectives don't evolve, you stagnate. Or a become member of the Tea Party/far right.

I remember, MANY moons ago, a column you wrote about why the gay community should NOT fight for same sex marriage. That it was a co-opting of the traditional hetero community, that the gay community should not strive to be straight, and that the gay community had dynamic social architecture that should be tolerated, protected, and celebrated.

(I am paraphrasing - it was like 12+ years ago)

Anyway, this straight, liberal, white girl took issue with your column then, finding it short-sighted and (forgive me) impotent. And yet, 12+ years later, I still think about it and finally understand the point you were making. I have always been an ardent supporter of same sex marriage, but I think I understand it differently now than I did then, and partly because of your column way back then.

Gah. Anyway, I just believe that evidence of evolution of thought and belief should be celebrated, not shamed.

@18: I believe anyone can get that not-gray-colored hair at most drugstores these days. But maybe such things don't exist in Chicago--ask Dan to bring you a box of Nice'n'Easy next time he visits. I think that for most men, it's more about the having hair at all, than having not-gray-colored hair.

@18, 22: Ugh. The computer ate part of my response which was that I just saw Dan two weeks ago when he came to San Francisco for the Best of HUMP! and I still saw more brown than gray in his hairs. Yours, though, might be another matter.

@19: Win.

Mr Savage - Oh, stop bragging.

You could probably put out a revised version. It would be interesting to see where there has been change and where the status quo still holds. (Now I'll think of Dame Maggie Smith writing out p-e-t-r-i-f-i-c-a-t-i-o-n and Celia Johnson entering the classroom shortly after and giving the word a suspicious glance all afternoon.)

Maybe you could do a re-release updated for the modern human that is fully edited to perfection and commentary about how you would answer a given letter today as opposed to 15 years ago. Good chance to sell some more books, I'd read the hell out of it.

Those early columns, even full of typos and opinions you have changed, taught me what sex in the real world is all about.

I learned about sex in 8th or 9th grade from a medical book my dad said he found in the trash of a medical office that was closing. I grew up Catholic, and my parents were just too embarrassed to talk about sex with me beyond "woman stuff" (they were also older - my dad was 45 and my mom was 36 when I was born - and of a generation that didn't talk about it). As a result, I knew all about the Kinsey Report and Masters and Johnson and all the clinical stuff in the world about sex (or at least as much as I could absorb from one volume of a medical encyclopedia), but I didn't know how sex actually worked, I didn't know any slang terms, and I had no idea that there was anything in existence beyond a man putting his penis in a woman's vagina. I got all the way through high school like that, believe it or not (yeah, I was a geeky, sheltered kid).

I worked in my hometown during the summer my freshman year of college, and I took the bus to and from work. I always picked up a copy of the alternative weekly to read on the bus. That's when I discovered Savage Love and that there was a whole lot more to sex than I ever imagined.

The first column I ever read had a question from a medical fetishist who wanted to know if it would be safe for his girlfriend to catheterize him and leave him tied to the bed all weekend. It would be a huge understatement to say that the idea that anyone ever thought about that came as a tremendous shock to this good little Catholic girl.

@8: Moammar Gay-dhafi

Christ, Dan, shut up.

Dan, you're reconsidering the validity of some of your work 16 years ago? Give yourself a break! You were only 13 years old!

So Dan, maybe it's time for a new addition - why not issue a revised, corrected, and augmented version of the book? It's still worth reading and I gave away a number of copies years ago.

@22 My hair is almost all nice and brown still. Not gray like Dan.

To be more topical, Vladimir Poof-duh anyone?

I appreciate the desire to not have people you consider yourself allied to think badly of you, Dan, but every single one of your "but look this bi/trans/other person from a demographic who've found things I said about them hurtful in the past *likes* me, so how *bad* can I *possibly* be?" posts makes me cringe.

You've said a lot of good stuff, and you've helped a lot of people. But you've also said some honest-to-God offensive stuff. That hasn't bothered some people, and it's put other people off your work entirely. The existence of the first set of those people does not make the opinions of the second set any less valid, so the hyperbolic "everybody hates me but actually I'm great" posts come off as pretty immature.

Okay, I know you just spat one out last year, and sorry to go fangirly on your ass, but yes, please do another book.

Possible topics:

1) That book that you said at the time that you had intended to write, the family history thing about your grandparents' two-flat in Chicago, which veered off into The Commitment (still my fave of your books.)

2) Another road book a la Skipping Towards Gomorrah, which was a blast from start to finish.

3) A parenting book, with particular focus on managing and surviving the teenage years.

4) A work of erotic fiction.

Hey, Dan--you're looking really young lately. In fact, you look great!

Oh wait, that book cover's from 15 years ago.

N/M

@34: Yeah, that's where I'm at, too. It's great that you've helped people who fall into categories of people that you haven't always treated well. It's fantastic that you've managed to learn better, and mend fences.

But this "Oh, if I'm such a trans-hater/fat-hater/bi-hater, then why do these people think I'm awesome? Huh? Huh? Huh?" stuff gets old fast.

Biphobic? Some of my best friends are bi!

And since I remember that last time I posted a little snark in one of the 37 threads like this I got a heartwarming "fuuuuuuuuuuuck you" from Dan, I'll say something more direct and sincere. Well, I would if @34 and @38 hadn't gotten there first and so eloquently. Okay, I'll try anyway. Yes, Dan, you've done a lot of good. "It Gets Better" is obviously great, and kids in the heartland being able to read your column is a good thing. But I really don't understand your blindness on this issue. This whole recent spate of posts was started when you linked an article and wrote a headline something like "Closeted Bi Complains About Bi Invisibility" and then proceeded to act offended when a few people thought you were being unreasonable to post the story with such snark yourself, and further to accuse the writer of being closeted when she was writing for publication and signing her name. You seemed, in her case, to be saying that if she hadn't been out since puberty, fuck her. I've been reading your column on and off since The Stranger started and I used to cringe at your incessant "bi's don't exist" stuff, which you wrote for YEARS, and which continued well into your radio show years. I understand that you've evolved a bit, but then again, here you are incessantly posting these "woe is me" posts about how maligned you are by bisexuals, or how if someone bi like the above letter writer supported you, then anyone who has an issue with what you've said at times should be ignored, is unreasonable, is against you, etc. It just feels, as someone else said, immature, and also frankly kind of petty. And it feels like something someone would do if, say, they still held these biases against bisexuals...like your issues with the topic can't help but bubble up to the surface. I hope you can read this (and the posts from those much more articulate than me) and understand that to take issue with some of your words on bisexuality is not to think you're "Gaydolph Hitler." It would be nice if you could manage to actually engage some of these comments instead of being so dismissive.

dan is not the 'woe is me' type. and this is HIS blog, and he does not give a shit what you post. don't like it? start yer own blog. whingers to the right.

Slog is Dan's personal blog? And did you mean "whiners"? Didn't realize I was whining. Just trying to, y'know, share an opinion in the comments, like bloggers generally want people to do. Sorry to hear that Dan doesn't give a shit about what I, specifically, post. Thanks for speaking for him. I guess I better shut up and go away now. But before I do, can I ask what the point of YOUR post was? No back and forth allowed here in your opinion? Just chime in and praise whoever writes whatever Slog post we're discussing? Sounds pretty boring.

And, Scary, you seem to be saying "no conversation." I'm trying to participate in a conversation, so I think I'll ignore your request, thanks anyway.

I know I'm going to get torn a new one for trying to, well, say just about anything, since this is the internet, but oh well. Anyway, I feel like there's an attitude, and part of what I remember Dan going on about over the years, that bisexuals take the chickenshit route and "hide in heterosexuality." But I think there's merit to what some people have said in these threads about coming out as bisexual not being the same thing as coming out as gay, or publicly identifying as gay or straight. This seems incredibly obvious, but I don't know if it is, so: if you are gay and you don't come out, you are by definition living a lie...you can't tell people about who you are dating or who you love. If you are bi and in a relationship people assume you to be either gay or straight...to be monosexual. Good or bad. Democrat or Republican. Top or bottom. We're just a binary world for the most part, so let's not pretend that's not so. It just is what it is. A bi man who is in a long-term relationship with a man doesn't have the same incentive to run around telling people he's also attracted to women that a gay man would have for people to know he's gay. He's not hiding who he loves if he neglects to tell people that. People who meet him and his partner don't automatically know he's bisexual. If he was with a man they would assume he dated men and that he was gay and would probably be right about the former and quite often right about the latter. If he was with a woman, the same for the straight side. But for bisexuals it's just not the same. Just living your life openly if you're a monogamous bisexual person isn't an act of being out.

It doesn't mean that bisexuals shouldn't come out. But it's not the same as sharing your orientation is for monosexuals. It's just not. To pretend that it's simply a matter of wimping out or "hiding in heterosexuality" (or monosexuality, more accurately) ignores the complicated reality of the situation. If a bisexual is always open about who they are dating, isn't that living as out of a life as out homosexual or heterosexual people do? It seems that bisexuals are being asked to be *more* out than monosexuals in a way.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Some probably way too obvious everybody-already-knows-this thoughts. Except that it seems like not everybody does. Anyway, I apologize if they came out imperfectly.

TO: Mr. Daniel Savage, Esq.
FROM: Ms. Paige Listerud, aka Max the Communist

Dear Sir,

Having caught my brief attention
There is something I must mention.
Are you dipping, dabbling, lapping,
In fine pussy while you’re babbling
‘Bout its wetness getting wetter,
Schooling it to ejac better?
Sir, if sir you wish I call you,
Bisexual teasing might Uhaul you
To the ancient Pan’s dark lair
Or . . . might I go and find you there?
Acting out, bi-furious fop, spanking
Bis until they stop—what? Hiding?
Are you pranking?

Ha-ha! I see your guise quite queerly.
Gaydolph Hitler, quitting early
Taking time to switch his clothes
Into Gaydolph’s red, red hose,
Reindeer riding bucks or does or
Hybrid critters in curious clothes.
Spreading wide your former stand—
Ruining John Aravosis’ brand.
Oh, Danny Boy, all is forgotten
Though my heart was broken often
BI I came out in ’86—
Scurrying crazily to pick up sticks
Of anything that could help me
Make it better. Much would whelp me.

Cuts unkind from gay and straight
This catholic novice faced the hate
And bore your terrible mistakes.
Marched BI in every Pride Parade
With insults hurled from every side.
Were they bolstered by your pride
That cut me deep and made me feral?
Fuck biphobics! Give ‘em both barrels!!
Shock any mono in the face that
Dares to make me feel disgrace.

Well, peace. If you are truly sorry,
Paige shall forgive and leave all worry.
Let new Dan rise and say the name
He has elected—Pan the Savage Resurrected?
And though I will not kiss your ring
Oestre hymns merrily shall I sing.

Sincerely,
Paige

Ms Listerud - So, finally, someone on your team claims Mr Savage. What took you so long?

M? g - Well, that's the dilemma in a nutshell. When some people plainly live out their whole orientation in a snapshot and others not only don't but can't, what's the fairest answer? Perhaps the most equally unfair is to go the route of negative assumptions and think of monogamously partnered people as ungay or unstraight, the difficulty in proving being unbi a sort of roundabout equalizer for the monoframing.

i have a feeling it's all going to have to end in capitulation or separatism - rather sad.

no, you big dummy, i meant whingers.

@52: Thanks for the clarification.

"Ms Listerud--So, finally, someone on your team claims Mr Savage. What took you so long?"

Speaking for myself, vennominon, I am a most intermittent reader of Mr. Savage's work. And I'm an old school bisexual, out since 1986 to all friends and immediate family and out in every workplace (except a couple more extreme places--from which I hastily moved on!). So, I recall the days when Dan said vagina was so unappealing because it reminded him of a split open can of ham. And he also snarked that his column could encourage lots of fellatio among everyone, but never cunnilingus. Plus, then as now, he says a lot of unpleasant, biphobic things. Not to be rehearsed here. Like I said, I'm not a consistent reader of his work and I am uncertain whether he'd take my suggestions as to this or that statement being biphobic.

But nevermind. Above all, we must not jump the gun here. I have submitted a little bisexual tease for Mr. Savage's delectation. He has not actually said, "I used to detest the vaj. Now, I not only dip my dick, I dive face first into one." Yes, it's usually sweeping statements like that catch my attention. I was amused by Gaydolph though, that milkshake brought me to the yard.

Finally, as far as "claiming" goes, I'm not sure he would want to belong to any bisexual/pansexual community. I can't claim someone who doesn't want to belong in the first place. I will say this, though--had a little conversation with Faith Cheltenham, president of BiNet USA, who was interested in having this poem posted at HuffPo. She told me Mr. Savage might be interested in joining because he might be experiencing some shut-out from the more conservative proponents of the gay marriage crowd. I hardly know. It's all wild speculation to me.

@Totally Gay for Bad Man Name Queering--I am appalled to say that I just saw your little comment today. Tell me, have you seen the picture of the first official bisexual meeting that took place at the White House this past year (late fall)? Please say yes. It is on my FB page--posted there months ago. Will have to refresh for all our delectation.

@17, reprints are often more poorly edited than first editions. At least for a while, lots of books were reprinted from scanning the original, and using OCR software, with all the mistakes that inserts. If you look at typos in printed works, they almost always make sense as an OCR error rather than an "author didn't know how to spell" error.

Interesting. Dan isn't the only one who has advanced over the years. Dobson has, too.

A friend gave me some Dobson tapes designed to help with the mother-daughter puberty talk. I used parts of them. He included a half hour "for the parent only" justifying why he thought masturbation was okay for teenagers, and why he advised you to tell your kid that, and his tapes supported that view. (although only in a discrete segment that the parent could skip.)

What he said about homosexuality was horrible -- "your kid isn't, just don't bring it up". But I thought what he said about masturbation wasn't too bad.