Comments

1
Congratulations on the book launch, Dan. I am going to Amazon now to order it for my Kindle. Yippee!
2
Congrats! And break a leg!
3
Please tell me they are taping Dan's conversation with Andrew Sullivan.

PS the NY Times has a SCENT critic?
4
Can you find out why Andrew Sullivan seems to have recently LOST HIS FRICKING MIND?

Congrats on the book coming out.
5
I can't wait!!! I actually just went outside to see if my copy has arrived from Amazon yet, even though it's not likely to be here at 7:30 am.
6
Oh yes.

Our Danny is Happy with his Speedo "husband".

but, alas....*sniff!*.....not "happy" enough to be faithful.

"Love" just ain't what it used to be.

and,
it seems,
an (American) wedding band doesn't help, either.

Perhaps you can get your money back, Danny.
7
Sounds delightful!

Does the book explain why homosexual men are so bad at sex?

Does it explain how they could possibly turn something so wonderful into such a disease ridden epidemiological disaster?

Does it explain how homosexual men manage to get and give so much STD when they have sex?

The CDC says abstinence and monogamy are the best ways to avoid STDs.

Danny knows better. Right?

Does Danny "have a ball" with the fact that 24% of sexually active homosexual men get and give HIV? And 57% Gonorrhea ?

Perhaps Danny can rip gleefully through the new antibiotic resistant Gonorrhea that homosexual men are spreading.
8
Congrats on the launch and excellent review!
9
Mind you, this huge increase in homosexual STD doesn't occur in a vacuum.

No Siree.....

It happens in the face of 30 years of INTENSIVE public health education and outreach to homosexuals.

It happens at the same time that HIV in EVERY other demographic (street whores, clueless xtian abstinence teens, drug addicts, EVERYONE) has decreased their HIV rate.

It is pretty impressive thgat ion the face of so much effort and progress homosexual men have managed to continue to grow their HIV and other STD infection rate, and even breed new resistant strains.

Pretty. Fucking. Impressive.

Is there a chapter in the book about that?
10
@4 (Marrena): Andrew Sullivan doesn't like having his hypocritical, tribal lizard brain laid bare to the world by Glenn Greenwald.
11
“When people are happy with their spouses, when their needs are being met,” he writes, “they’re less likely to cheat"

What is Terry lacking as a "husband" that drives you to adultery, Danny?
12
Congrats Dan!
13
Congratulations.
14
The troll's in rare form today. Congrats on the book.
15
Just bought the audio book!
16
Sullivan always goes berserk when his very casual approach to thinking about things leads him into intellectual dead ends that become increasingly untenable. The pressure builds, he goes bananas. It's happened before and it will happen again. This time it's "scientific racism", which is becoming more and more ridiculous, to Andrew's obvious discomfort.

Congratulations, Dan, I can't wait to read this, like all the others. You're the best. We all love you to pieces.
17
I normally don't engage trolls, but @7, in asking "Does the book explain why homosexual men are so bad at sex?" does rather beg the question, how exactly would you know that?. Do you keep trying and trying and trying and feel confident in generalizing from the specific?
18
Great review, looking forward to reading the book. Enjoy your book tour!
19
17

According to the CDC over 20% of sexually active homosexual males got HIV from it.
Being unable to have sex without getting a fatal disease in the process qualifies as "bad at it" in our book.

What is your standard?

How lethal does an activity have to be before you question the competence of the folks mangling it?
20
I find it interesting the transformation Dan and Terry have undergone, at least since I've been reading and listening to the podcast, where Dan's hesitant to talk about his own sex life and relationship with Terry under a promise to not discuss it, to now; a quite a bit more open reference, but not entirely candid description of their relationship. It's very much a description of a married couple and not, say, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thorton crazy with TMI nonsense.

Thank you for all your work, guys!
21
will try to get it stocked asap in the little independent bookstore where i am the events coordinator! wanna come do a reading dan? ;-)
22
@21: Where is your store? And thanks!
23
I love the introduction, Dan.
24
Also a great review in May 27 Washington Post. And the one review up at Amazon is five stars.
25
Hey, troll, you know what they say - Life is a sexually transmitted infection, with 100% mortality.
26
Oops -- should have said that in addition to the great review in the Washington Post, the NY Times in its Arts section is printing an AP interview with Dan about the book which is also very positive. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/…

Head for Amazon and get the book off to a great start!
27
I've been waiting for just the right moment to reactivate my audible subscription. This is certainly it. Congratulations, Dan!
28
Congrats on the book, and the marriage of what, almost 20 years now? Sounds like someone here is a little bit jealous!
29
I preordered my copy on Amazon a few months ago when Dan first announced it, and it was just delivered. Yay! Now to find the time to read it....
30
Congrats on the book, Dan!

Less importantly: little troll, you've been on about STIs for a while now so I think you might find it helpful if someone addresses your concerns. I have a bit of time to kill so I don't mind doing the honors.

Anal intercourse is more likely to spread disease than vaginal intercourse. This is because the vagina is more effective at dealing with introduced bacteria and viruses than the anus. However, not all gay men have anal sex and certainly not all anal sex is had by gay men. Anal sex is a popular recreation among heterosexual couples as well.

Bearing that in mind, there's a very important reason you keep having to specify that you are talking about gay men rather than gay people in general when you cite statistics: the penis is substantially more adept at spreading STIs than the vagina or the anus. That's why women are (according to both the CDC and the WHO) more likely to become infected than men. What that means is that women who have sex with an infected man are more likely to become infected than men who have sex with an infected woman. Similarly, receptive male partners who have anal sex with a infected man are more likely to become infected than insertive male partners who have anal sex with an infected man.

So we have to bear that in mind as we do risk assessment regarding human sexuality. In fact, let's be honest with ourselves about what prioritizing sexual safety above sexual orientation means: no one should have sex with men.*

Lesbian sex for all!

Well, not for all. Men can't have lesbian sex. I guess that means guys are shit outta luck. Sucks to be a dude.

Hmm.

If I may, I would like to propose an alternative. Rather than saying that anyone with a penis is bad at sex and shouldn't have any, how about we all continue having sex with the people we lust after and love deeply? And to mitigate the risk, we can be smart about it: When we have sex, we can use protection. And we as individuals can choose to limit our sexual contact in accordance with our preferences and concerns.

Much more relevantly, we can remember that medical protocols that involve prescribing antibiotics every time someone has the sniffles are forcing bacteria (including STIs!) to evolve. If we are going to play the blame game, we need to look to doctors, not gay men. Antibiotic resistant syphilis and chlamydia are just around the corner. And gay men won't be to blame for those, either.

*Well, pegging would pass the CTSA (concern troll safety assessment). So it'd be okay for dudes to get pegged.
31
HIV is no longer a fatal disease. Pent-up hostility towards people who couldn't care less will kill a motherfucker though. Just sayin'.
32
Has anyone noticed that the troll gets particularly worked up whenever there's a picture of Dan, or when he refers to his sex life?

I think somebody's a little in love....
33
Reserved the book at the library last month
34
Congrats! I can't wait to read it. I'm curious why the perfume critic reviewed your book, though. Is the Post that hard up for journalists they've got fragrance reviewers on the book beat?
35
30

Actually men with penises are not inherently prone to spread STDs.

The CDC points out that practicing abstinence until in a long term relationship (AKA "Traditional Heterosexual Marriage") and then monogamy therein gives the best (and an excellent) chance of avoiding STDs.
Even men with penises.

Liberals, who pride themselves on worshiping Science!, seem to totally ignore the advice of public health care professionals on this matter.
In fact they pride themselves on cutely mocking and rejecting monogamy and abstinence.

And while there are way more heterosexuals doing anal sex than homosexuals, homosexuals seem to have cornered the market on HIV (and a growing list of other STDs)

Weird.

So the question remains.

Why are homosexual men so fucking bad at sex?

Are they too stupid to do sex safely?

Are they too selfish?

Is homosexuality an inherently filthy disease-ridden behavior?

Help us out here.....

36
@ 35 - I'll be happy to help.

There is nothing that precludes gay couples from practicing strict monogamy in their LTRs and their marriages. Just as there is nothing precluding heterosexual people who are in an LTR or are married from cheating. (57% of men and 54% of women admit to committing infidelity. 22% of men and 14% of women admit to committing infideliy while married.)

And no one is inherently prone to spreading any sort of infection. Prior to spreading it, you have to contract it. That is true regardless of one's gender or orientation.

Once an infection is acquired, though, it becomes a question of what most effectively spreads the disease. In the case of STIs, it's the act of ejaculating into another person.

Being ejaculated into is a potentially high risk behavior. And again, that's why women and men who have (receptive) sex with men contract STIs at a higher rate than straight men. Here's a little graph showing chlamydia infection rates from this CDC article* that illustrates my point.

So! Who are you accusing of being bad at sex? The people transmitting the infections or the people catching them? I need your answer in order to accurately answer your questions.

Although honestly, I guess it doesn't matter since either way it is safer to have sex if there are no penises involved. And since that means lesbians are the only ones who are (by your definition) good at sex, your argument against homosexuality is specious at best.

*There's actually one other point I'd like to make regarding the CDC: they recommend that men who have sex with other men get themselves screened once a year. They make the same recommendation for all women 25 years of age and younger. By contrast, they make no such recommendations for men who have sex with women. And the simple fact is that limited screening recommendations means limited epidemiological data. California provides their screening guidelines in a convenient table. Their guidelines are reflective of the CDC's recommendations, which are not so conveniently presented.
37
Don't order from Amazon... if you're not going to buy it from a local bookstore, order from Powells.com.
38
1. Congrats on the book!

2. Pleeaase post on SLOG next time you are scheduled to speak in NYC -- before tickets go on sale -- with where to get them. So that loyal SLOG readers can have a chance at getting tickets before they sell out.

3. So, so depressed to read in the dedication that Dan's own father still votes Republican. I've given up on the idea that the power of ideas alone can win over the old timers, but is there any hope for humanity if someone with a son as rational and successful as Dan FUCKIN' ROCKIN' Savage still ignores his very own son and keeps voting Republican circa 2013? Or keeps on watching Fox? (especially given Dan's non-wealthy family of origin and the obvious hoodwinking of the upper middle class, middle class and working class by Republicans for the benefit of the 0.1%)

39
Isn't Andrew Sullivan that laughably idiotic jesus-cultist?
40
36

you know, you're not getting paid by the word...

so you didn't answer; stupid or selfish? (or just disgustingly filthy...)

and we see you concede and pass over the fact that people who follow CDC recommendations of abstinence and monogamy, even people with penises, have minimum chance of spreading STDs- it isn't the penis, it's the behavior....

you seem to hold tenaciously to a common fallacy about lesbians and STDs; we will only quote the CDC: "lesbians should not be presumed to be at low or no risk for STDs based on sexual orientation. "
you do realize that lesbians have higher prevalences of several sexual diseases than heterosexual women, don't you? (and seem to be inordinately fond of Bacterial Vaginosis and crabs....)
41
The review felt off somehow, but at least it was positive.

I shall say, though, that, had Mr Savage fils a strong sense of the Too Delicious For Words, he'd have come out as bisexual for a year or two and then realigned to straight.

Dare I hope the pushing Reconciliation down our throats is just some misreading on the reviewer's part? I suppose I know better. Fortunately, for myself, Reconciliation (like Failure in another context) is Not An Option. But I'm in a generous enough mood to give Mr Savage himself, if that sort of thing is really to his tastes, an FTWL... instead of an LMB.

May the book sell a great many copies, and may a portion of the revenue go into something that does much good for the world, however it comes about.
42
Congratulations!! So looking forward to the read! You are amazing and we do love you. Take care of yourself on the road . Try to get enough sleep so you don't get sick and have to limp from town to town. We'll be watching you.
43
Just bought it. Can't wait to read it. Congrats. I know it'll be fantastic.
44
Awwww, you guys (Dan and Terry). The best of success for this latest endeavour ... and I hope we won't be hearing of a repetition of Terry limiting your online access because you're so tired from all the publicity demands.

Also a cute mention of D.J. coming out as straight. I'm sure more than one cindy bigot's head will explode because it just doesn't make any sense to them.

Still glad we've had years of reading and admiring your take on life and marriage already!
45
@ 40 - Blogs are a text based medium. If reading bothers you, maybe you should stick to podcasts? ;)

And you didn't answer "who is bad at sex, the people spreading the infections or the people catching them"?

I do concede the point that people who practice monogamy consistently and correctly are at lower risk of contracting an STI. In fact, I don't just concede it. I agree with it and I practice it. But "even people [who are gay men] have minimum chance of spreading STDs" if they are monogamous. Or if they use condoms consistently and correctly. It's not the sexual orientation that affects risk of contracting an STI, it's the behavior.

And it's a behavior that is born out of a lack of education and a generally negative view of sex and sexuality in our culture. Sex education in the United States is abysmal with regards to straight kids but it's pretty much nonexistent for gay kids. The result is some pretty serious deck stacking against safety.

With regards to lesbians specifically, being less equipped to spread infection should not be confused with being incapable of doing so. But here's the thing: you're (willfully?) confusing inherent attributes like sexual orientation and physical gender with behaviors like not using condoms consistently and correctly or at all. And in terms of inherent attributes, men have won the "ability to spread STIs" lottery. That was my point.

There's a great documentary you might be interested in called Let's Talk About Sex. It discusses, among other things, how education about and attitudes towards sex differ between the United States and the Netherlands. One of the most memorable moments was when they asked teenage girls what they would think of a boy (that they were about to have sex with) having a condom with him. The girls from the United States said that if he had a condom, it must mean that he didn't respect them. The girl from the Netherlands said that if a boy didn't have a condom there was no way she would sleep with him because that would mean that he had no respect for her. She then proceeded to get some condoms out of her purse and show them to the camera when asked if she carried condoms, too.

Is that an anecdote? Absolutely. But the overall numbers back it up. Rates of STIs, teen pregnancy, and abortion are all markedly lower in the Netherlands than they are in the United States. In the United States, we like to teach our children how to use a hammer (abstinence until marriage) and a saw (monogamy after). But it's irresponsible for us to not teach them how to use all of the tools available to them. 'Cause like it or not, gay or straight, they are going to need to know how to use a screwdriver (condom) when they inevitably want to screw something.
46
45

If only.

Liberals do not give our children that hammer and saw;
they belittle and mock and undermine the values of abstinence and monogamy.

How long are homosexuals going to use 'education' as an excuse?
No demographic has had more (government funded) outreach and education and research thrown at it, and yet disease rates continue to rise.
Your assertion that sexual "orientation" is innate is not supported by evidence. But it is also irrelevant. A person may claim to have jebus in their heart or homosexual desires. Externally there is no way to verify either and frankly no one cares.
All that matters is behavior.

Grow up. Take responsibility.

Please wait...

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