I’m a happily married woman. I have a great sex life with my husband of many years. He’s helped me discover things I didn’t know about myself sexually. The problem: Three years ago, my first love contacted me after 23 years. He was married at the time, although he didn’t want to be, and told me that he never stopped loving me. We have been having sexy e-chats ever since. My loving, GGG husband says that I can help my old flame out if I wish. What would you do in this situation?

Chick With 2 Dicks

What would I do? Besides thank my lucky stars, kiss my loving, GGG husband, and fuck the shit out of the other guy?

A few things, CW2D.

I would think hard—brainhard, not junkhard—about the potential powderkegginess of the situation. Not the powderkegginess of the having-sex-with-someone-other-than-my-husband-with-my-husband’s-consent situation, but the possible-shitstorm-that-could-ensue-after-fucking-this-particular-someone-who-isn’t-my-husband situation.

This Particular Someone says he’s still in love with you, CW2D. That’s nice. Are you still in love with TPS? If not, what happens if fucking TPS reignites dormant feelings for TPS that, oh, three years (!) of texting and sexting haven’t? Even if you don’t feel any more strongly for TPS after fucking him, CW2D, what if TPS decides that you really are the one-and-only love of his life and that he absolutely, positively has to have you all to himself?

TPS isn’t some rando, as the kids say. You two share a history, CW2D, and TPS could present—or become—a threat to the stability of your happy, GGG marriage. So could a complete stranger you met on the street or online, of course, but the emotional stakes and potential for complications are much, much higher with TPS than they would be with some other dude.

So before you do TPS, CW2D, you need to think brainhard about these issues and discuss them at length with your husband. And if you decide to go ahead with it after hashing this shit out with your husband, CW2D, be clear with TPS about what it is you want. If all you’re interested in is a friendship, some affection, and a little non-cyber sex for old time’s sake—if leaving your husband, or being poly, is out of the question—TPS needs to know that before you “help him out.”

(A note to everyone already composing angry e-mails about the qualified “go for it” I gave to CW2D: Yes, yes: Every couple you know who’s ever had a three-way or okayed a fling wound up divorced. And that may be true—of the couples whose three-ways and flings you know about. You know lots of couples who’ve had three-ways and flings who aren’t divorced, but you don’t know you know them. Most married couples want to be perceived as monogamous even—especially!—when they’re not. So your friends who aren’t divorcing as the result of a disastrous fling, affair, swinging experience, three-way, etc., aren’t going to tell you about all the successful flings, affairs, etc., they’ve enjoyed.)

I am 22, standing in a bookstore on Castro Street—this is many years ago, just after I dropped out of Bible college and hitchhiked to San Francisco—looking at a gay BDSM magazine for the first time in my life, trying to hide my erection, reading a story about a Master who makes his naked slave carry to his Master’s friends a six-pack of beer that’s hanging from a rope that’s tied to his nuts. To my horror, I shoot a load in my pants without touching myself.

My problem: A bit older now, I’m still very much that boy in the bookstore. The things that turn me on are what my own mind—still brainwashed by Southern Baptists—deems “bad.” I tell myself it’s okay to embrace my “kinks.” I tell myself to stop analyzing why I’m turned on by forced-exhibitionistic-sex-slave fantasies and just accept them. The problem is that I perceive my fantasies as reactionary: They exist by definition in reaction to my upbringing. What is my hard-on but a big “fuck you” to the preachers, prudes, and family members who made me miserable?

What would turn me on if I could get free of the whole fucked-up system? Am I asking questions that shouldn’t be asked? Should I just enjoy the fact that I’m turned on by humiliation and seek safe and sane situations to act out my fantasies?

Having A Rough Day

There are people who do not share your craycrayfundy/biblestudy life experiences, HARD, who are nevertheless turned on by the exact same things you are. Human beings are primates, our cultures and societies involve all sorts of overt and covert power dynamics, and almost all humans wind up eroticizing those power dynamics to greater or lesser extents. Some of us eroticize them in subtle ways (pleasure taken in “servicing” a partner, a desire to be held down, a mild foot fetish), others more baroquely (elaborate D/s scenarios complete with props, costumes, and clearly defined roles), but power, as a gross old man once observed, is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Even if we could determine that your kinks were shaped by your upbringing, HARD, the shit that turns you on is still going to turn you on. And if your kinks are a “fuck you” to the preachers, prudes, and family members who made you miserable—that’s a “fuck you” they earned. Let them have it. (I mean it: Take pictures. Mail ’em to that preacher.)

And remember: There are people out there having vanilla, hetero, missionary intercourse in unhealthy, abusive relationships, HARD. You can explore your sexuality in healthy or unhealthy ways, but you can’t escape who you are and what turns you on. So stop beating yourself up, HARD, and go find a nice, kinky guy who takes that responsibility off your hands. (Here’s some great advice for gay guys just beginning to explore BDSM: tinyurl.com/bensten.)

Reading your column made me a supporter of the LGBT community. The LGBT community deserves equal rights, just like any other group of citizens. Period. However, I must protest Kate Bornstein’s comments in a recent column. She said that sex-positive heterosexuals who support the LBGT community are not “straight” men, but “queer heterosexual” men. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get people who are not gay to support LGBT equality because they’re afraid that someone will call their straightness into question. Don’t make it harder.

Liberal And Straight

Being a big ol’ queer myself, LAS, I viewed Kate’s suggestion as a compliment. But your point is well taken, everyone gets to choose his or her own label, and you’re straight in my book.

DID YOU MAKE AN “IT GETS BETTER” VIDEO? If you identify as LGBT, you’re 18 years of age or older, and you made or appeared in an “It Gets Better” video, science—science!—wants to hear from you about your perspectives and experiences. If you have 15–20 minutes to spare, please take this survey: http://z.umn.edu/itgetsbetter.

ARE YOU MARRIED? Have you had successful flings, affairs, swinging experiences, and three-ways that your friends and family members will never know about? Send me an e-mail, share your story, and I’ll publish it.

mail@savagelove.net

@fakedansavage on Twitter

190 replies on “Savage Love”

  3. Ms Erica – I wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with that approach, although I would maintain that *some* people *can* be *too* open-minded for their own good.

    I acknowledge that, in this sort of area, personally I have had excessively high stakes thrust upon me to be able just to go with the flow. Having defeated reparative therapy into which I was thrust against my will, I hope I can be allowed to declare that path permanently off limits without being prejudiced, evil or stupid.

    Before my retirement from the battlefields d’amour, I used to worry about it out of an expectation that, given my romantic preferences, it just seemed highly likely I’d come across a potential “right woman” at some point, or at least more likely than for most. Probably what kept that from happening was that I never went about sproinging at strangers. Even in my sproingiest days, my attractions were always far more highly emotional than normal.

    I can acknowledge the possibility of turning out with somewhat different capacities had my history been less pushy. The image you suggested in the trans discussion about somebody being blindfolded is the sort of thing about which I never fantasized, but found an interesting hypothetical, especially as it would have suited my particular activities of preference (which I shall spare everyone) peculiarly well. To this day, it seems impossible to say for certain whether, had opportunity knocked, it would have proven irresistible to discover whether or not such a situation could have had a successful outcome. And now nobody will ever know…

  6. I’m looking again at where Cw2D’s sext partner says that he never stopped loving her. I’ve heard that story more and more often now that facebook &al make it possible for the long lost to reconnect. I wonder that so many of us individually don’t know how common that is collectively. I’ve never forgotten my first love. It’s been 35 years, and there’s probably something every day that makes me think of him. But some time, oh, about 25 years ago, I realized that that wasn’t a compliment, and he probably didn’t want to hear it. Is there anyone who isn’t still a little hung up on their first love? I’m not talking about first sexual experience. I’m talking about the first hard-hit, pit-of-the-stomach, butterflies, crushing, in-love, love. (For me, first love and first sex were the same.) Some time around 15 years ago, I realized that I felt sorry for anyone who never had that experience even if it means walking around with the memories. Some time only recently, I read in an advice column how the idea of declaring your love to the long-lost first may come from an optimism of wanting to rewrite the past, of thinking that everything will be alright if we could only go back and get a 2nd chance.

  7. @18, 98: Completely irrelevant point, but NASCAR? Newman was a NASCAR driver? In his dotage, he was part owner of a Winston Cup car, but he was known for Can-Am and sports car racing – 24 Hours of Le Mans and the like. He won at Daytona, but it was the 24 hours of Daytona, not the Daytona 500. OK. I’m done. I’ll go away now.

  8. @EricaP
    As someone who has always enjoyed your input, let me throw a little advice your way in the hopes that you find it useful. Full disclosure, I do not have kids of my own, but I have been in a long term relationship that involved a kid from a previous marriage and I’ve spent 10 years in higher education mentoring young adults making the transition from teen to full blown grown up. There is no “one size fits all” approach to every child on earth, but there are things that are truths assuming your children fall within the bell curve of “normal” behavior. First of all, as an adult/parent/mentor you should never dismiss the feelings of your children. Looking at their behavior from the vantage point of age, experience, and hopefully a little bit of wisdom, it is often too easy to dismiss a teenager’s discovering love as just a crush, or their anger at a friend for some perceived sleight on Facebook as the ramblings of a hormone addled, juvenile mind. But make no mistake, as inconsequential as these incidents may be in the big picture trajectory of life, these feelings are very much real and the intensity with which they are experienced should never be discounted. What kids need to know is that their parents are in their corner. They need to know that you will listen to their concerns. That does not mean, however, that you have to agree with them on every point.
    This brings me to the second truth in child rearing. Kids need boundaries that are consistently and fairly enforced. As the parent it is up to you decide where the boundaries are, and they must be laid out in no uncertain terms. I’ve heard my friends from broken families lament that they didn’t have a dad to kick them in the ass when they needed it. I’ll leave it to the social workers out there to comment on rehabilitating criminals, but from the conversations I’ve had and the comments I’ve heard from people that land in jail, a common theme is that they lacked a strong disciplinarian in their lives. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as libertarian as they come. From my experience the thing that consistently works with the youngsters in my life is that it is essential to keep the rules to the absolute minimum, but strict enforcement of the rules makes them very real. Arbitrary enforcement of the rules tempts kids to go spelunking for boundaries. Consistent enforcement removes temptation.
    The third truth is that is absolutely essential that kids learn to laugh at themselves and the world in general. I always love a laugh at my own expense and in this regard I always encourage the youngsters in my life to swing for the fences. It’s good to take chances and failure is always an option. As the late great Will Rodgers said, “Good judgment comes from experience, and most of that comes from bad judgment.”
    Regardless of your stance on drugs it is incredibly important that your kids understand the repercussions of their actions. I think our nation’s drug laws are appalling, but that does not change the fact that they exist. As things stand, drug and alcohol related convictions at any age have vast and long lasting repercussions. All kinds of opportunities, from student loans to numerous forms of employment to name a few, are taken off the table with a drug conviction on your record. And in this day and age of digital record keeping, convictions will follow you into every aspect of your life for the rest of your life. As cool as our nation can be, there are still armies of people out there all too eager to brand a scarlet letter on your forehead.
    Lastly, give your kids the benefit of the doubt. One thing about human nature in general, and kids in particular, is that people have an amazing ability to surprise the hell out me. Given the chance to kick ass, kids almost always do. I have no doubt you’ll butt heads with your kids, but if you conduct your home life in the same level headed manner as your thoughtful advice and observations, I see no reason for you to worry.

    Cheers!

  9. @107: Okay. Thank you for the clarification. My goof. I just knew that Paul Newman was into racing, and that he once owned a late 1960s VW convertible that he had rebuilt with a Ford engine for racing–and even drove it to at least one Oscar ceremony in L.A. with his lovely wife, Joanne Woodward.

  10. @108(bugdog), that was a very wise post, full of ideas that I hope to be able to live up to. (I suppose what parents are often most afraid of is that something we do, some poor decision we make, may end up having big repercussions for our children. Sometimes it’s hard to be a parent and relax…)

    @106(Crinoline), I know exactly what you’re talking about. My first love (which was also my first sex) left memories and, yes, scars that haven’t really disappeared. I won’t say I think of her every day, but hardly a week goes by without me reliving some memory or little incident from ‘those times.’ I haven’t seen her for over 20 years, and I wonder how I’d react if I ever did. I sometimes did think of approaching her, but always decided not to, for similar reasons to what you mention: the ‘need for closure’ sounds more like an illusion, and not a very sharp one at that (what exactly would I like to hear from her? what exactly would make me feel better about the whole thing?)

    I’m not sure it was better having it than not having it. But I do think that this first love shaped many things in me, some of which I actually like. Hm… on second thoughts, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m glad it happened, despite the suffering. Buttlerflies are pretty, even if they flow from your stomach up to your nose and make you sneeze… and cry.

  11. @44 wrote: “HARD, there is no ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ when wondering about kinks. They just are. I was raised pretty permissively but I am very kinky. Don’t feel shame about your sexual desires…”

    Many people seem to be telling HARD to simply ‘turn off’ the shame or even to ‘eroticize’ it. But seriously: how does a person DO that? How does something that makes you feel ashamed turn into something that doesn’t? Is it just practice? e.g., just keep doing that ‘shameful’ thing over and over and, eventually, you’ll get over the shame (like aversion therapy or something)?

    My husband and I get up to some weird sh*t (maybe not for some of you, but for ME) and while it turns me on in the midst of it, afterwards I also feel rather embarrassed (ashamed?) about it, not only that we do it at all but ALSO that I like it! I imagine our friends/family thinking, “holy sh*T, that’s weird/gross/etc!!”

    So how does one actually “get over” stuff like this?

  13. @108 bugdog,

    AHHHHHH, WHAT IS IT WITH TEENAGERS THAT THEY ALWAYS HAVE TO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES!!!!!

    It is amazing that given all the possibilities and freedom presented to my teenagers, they end up pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior (nothing outrageous, just something like no yelling at the dinner table) and I get stuck into ratcheting up the penalties (I have to give time outs, to a 15 year old??!). I encourage freedom of expression; I want to hear their opinions. BUT, I want to have them civilly, and without hurting my ears.

    Peace.

  14. 108-Let me add to bugdog’s excellent essay. Remember that your children are on their own journey, not yours. You want to be on hand if they need your advice/help/input, but your help shouldn’t be so available that you have to invade their privacy to give it. Naturally if you see a kid on the path to self-destruction, you have to step in, but if your kid is merely having a rough time in one aspect of their life and for a short while, give them room to work it out for themselves. Your children are not problems to be fixed.

  15. Thanks, bugdog and others for expanding on this discussion. I’ll add a couple of resources that came to mind when reading @113’s frustration.

    The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child – if you have a lot of problems with your teenager, this provides an effective system for changing the family dynamic in a positive way. But short of the implementing the full “points” system, my take-away was to provide far more clarity as far as my expectations, and far more praise for anything and everything they do right. The book reminds you to be always looking for things to praise, instead of looking for things to criticize about your kid.

    Michael Riera, Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers, this takes a softer approach, but similarly emphasizes clarity and gentleness in communicating with teenagers.

  16. 110- On contacting the first love or the one that got away– I have to remind myself that the man I continue to think about is a 19 year old boy. The reality is a 50 year old man. He’s a nice enough guy, and we do have some things in common, but mostly he’s on the gruff side and certainly not take-my-breath-away attractive. I’d like to say that I would have been better off with my memories/illusions, but the truth is I still have them. Meeting the reality did nothing to change my illusion filled past.

    This is what I’m drawing on when I say that Cw2D has nothing to gain from sleeping with her long-lost ex. Ex thinks he’ll gain insight and closure from consummating the sexting, but he’ll likely stay just as obsessed with the young woman he’s been dreaming about for 23 years.

    For a meditation on closure, look at last night’s Big Bang Theory. Leonard hears from the bully who tormented him and wants closure, wants an apology. He finds a man who’s an unhappy loser of an alcoholic who’s still a bully and who can still do some damage. No closure there.

    I still think that the information that would make me feel better about the whole thing would be getting to know who he was then. Not knowing why he broke up with me (he danced around some of what was wrong with me, then assured me it was him and not me and that he had a crisis in which he realized he was an awful person) left me thinking about my inadequacies– which were my insecurities– which I figured must have been my sexual performance because that was the only thing that was new from before when we were flirting.

  17. all i can say is that, during my (first) separation from my husband, i contacted 2 old flames on facebook and fucked them both, consecutively. the sex with them was hot when i was in my 20’s, however, the sex with them was a complete bust with them in my 40’s. go figure. i’m guessing this is pretty common phenom. as spoon@4 so rightly said, you can’t reheat a souffle.

  18. @117 ellarosa,

    Your comment points out a primary reason I wouldn’t consider anything beyond friendship with an old flame: I am not the same person I was way back when, and neither are they. Fantasy is a wonderful thing in small doses, but what you experience comes from reality.

    Peace.

  19. @284 (SL “Busted”) & @97 SL this week): Thanks, Erica! Once I pay my monthly bill, I’m on it!

    My report to you and Dan regarding your link on vaginal / clitoral squirting exercises: It’s amazing what a little opening up and letting go can do!! I’m NOT asexual after all, but have been desensitized, sexually. This was due to bad, abusive sex with previous unloving partners. But that was over ten years ago. A post by wendykh put my situation into proper perspective: after living in denial for so long, I actually became turned off to sex. I just wasn’t attracted to anybody for a long time, and entered a dry spell. But that was then, and this is now.

    I’m still uncomfortable with dating. Over the last decade, I have also grown quite happily accustomed to being single. So, for the time being I’m exploring what I like, masturbation-wise. It isn’t that I don’t feel attractive; I just don’t know anybody I want to have deep, meaningful sex with (fantasies don’t count here).

    Thank you, and bless you, Erica, Dan, and wendykh!!!

  21. NPR’s Story Corps had a bit this morning about a couple who broke up after high school, then 22 years later, he found her up on FB. They decide to meet, and, after verifying that physical beauty hasn’t vanished, realize that they still love each every bit as much as they did when they were 17. And they’ve been inseparable ever since.
    My cynicism gland was throbbing.

  23. mydriasis @120, I appreciated his assessment that attachment isn’t just a phase for young kids — it’s healthy for young adults to have an ongoing emotional closeness with their parents, even as they go through adolescence. But I found the books I mentioned @115 to have more practical tips for how to maintain a close relationship.

    Gabor Maté says: “To help the child separate we must assume the responsibility for keeping the child close. We help a child let go by providing more contact and connection than he himself is seeking.” That’s inspiring, but the Riera book gives more concrete examples: instead of asking “how did you do on the history test,” ask more learning-oriented questions like “what did you think about the topic” and “did the assignments help you understand it better, or did you feel they could have been better designed?”

    In a broad sense, Maté is advocating a wholesale reevaluation of our culture. I found it an interesting read. But on a day-to-day level, I also like practical advice on how to reframe our parent-child communication to be warmer and less antagonistic.

  24. I appreciate HARD’s questioning his kinks. I’ve often wondered the same thing about mine. Would I be into my particular kinks if they weren’t taboo subjects to begin with? Probably not, but I certainly don’t want to change them and I’ve never actually felt much shame. In fact, I sometimes wonder why I don’t feel the shame that seems so common with being bisexual and into kinky shit. I didn’t have overly strict parents, they supported my decision to have sex when I chose, and educated me appropriately. And my parents and I are atheist. Because of my upbringing, I believe that it’s just who you are.

    Maybe the specific things that turn HARD on are a product of his upbringing, but I think the core reasons those things turn him on, taboo, power and control, etc are just who he is.

  25. In the past year I have been wondering about the dynamics of BDSM and self-worth. Partly because I had been in not so great relationships while using these tools because it turned me on. I also noticed my other friends who are into this also were having troubles with self-worth. So I wondered about the relationship between self-worth and BDSM.

    I could never believe that BDSM was for people who have ego or low-self esteem issues.

    And I think your response here to HARD helped to understand a bit better. Thanks for your insight!

  27. @106: I’ll be honest: no. If there’s one thing I’m definitely not doing, it’s carrying around a torch for my first love.

    I’m betting it’s a fairly common phenomenon to still think about your first love, but it certainly doesn’t happen to everyone. I think the guy I fell in love with first is perfectly nice, but I was a pretty different person when we were dating than I am now. Also, he broke up with me for relationship-related reasons. Often, a person’s first relationship breaks up because one of them moves, which doesn’t really provide the right kind of closure.

  29. @Hunter78: you’re sounding awfully mystical there, but I’m not sure I understand you. Are baby-boomers getting childlike as they age, or something?

  31. @85 @88 – nope, I don’t think it’s good to stay married to her which is why I’m in the middle of a divorce. Tired of all the shit.

  32. @132: Right now, it’s mostly Brad Pitt-like fantasies (“J.D.” from Thelma & Louise: “yep, yep…..that’s him goin’…..I LOOOOOVE watchin’ him go….”).

    Ohhh, crap! I just said those don’t count, didn’t I?

  34. Rarely do I agree with you, Hunter78, but on the “Lucy-on-the-podcast” you’re spot on. I have nothing against her, and her giggle is charming, but it changes the nature of the show. She isn’t Dan’s equal–she’s not an expert in anything he’s consulting, like a Dr. Barak, or the wonderful woman from Planned Parenthood, or Mistress Matisse, or Alice Dreger, and she’s not a peer or colleague, like Mary Martone. She’s an underling, a hired assistant–an Ed Macmahon to Dan’s Johnny Carson, laughing, albeit more fetchingly, at his jokes without adding anything of substance.
    She’s too inoffensive to have complained about, but the show has lost some bite with her.

    FWIW, I want to be Dan’s co-host. He’s a married gay man; I’m a single straight woman. We’re roughly the same age. I just don’t know why he hasn’t picked up the phone and asked me to join him!

  35. 111-Manzana– How does one turn off shame or eroticize it? I wish I knew, and when I figure it out, I’m going to make a million dollars selling the secret. In the mean time, it might help to know that this is no different from any of the other psychological near-impossibilities in the get-over-it category up there with “how do forgive my mother” and “how do I let go of my fear.”

    The only thing that helps, I’ve found, is the long haul of cognitive override. You start feeling the consuming shame. You draw a deep breath. You talk to yourself. You remind yourself that fantasizing about being tied up and forced to do perform painful acts in the name of a sexual turn-on is fine, even common. You remind yourself that no one can see your thoughts and that you don’t need to share them– unless you want to. Maybe you talk to others who have the same fantasies and have gotten past the shame. Maybe porn helps such that you can see how many others are turned on by the same thing.

    Having someone explain that you have nothing to be ashamed of once generally doesn’t do it, but you return to the book or the therapist or the porn over and over until the message starts to get through to that deep part of yourself where it matters. Then you repeat for a lifetime.

  36. @111, @138,

    To overcome shame you can start by looking within yourself at all the things that you perceive to be good and right, and continue by questioning why the negatives should be judged as such. It helps to include “covers” of “none of their business” as well. Consider the whole, not just the negatives.

    For the interpersonal problems, do your best to right your wrongs. Sometimes that may be the best you’ll get.

    Peace.

  37. @138(Crinoline), I’ve found that actually being able to live some of the shame in an environment where this shame isn’t dangerous, or even funny, also helps. If you’re ashamed of BDSM desires, and you are with someone who can make you laugh at them, at yourself, and at those who would shame you for your desires, somehow it takes the sting away. (I’m thinking of a Brazilian girl who learned not to be so ashamed/afraid of swearwords because of an American boyfriend who kept repeating them for her in unexpected moments; and, indeed, to a Brazilian, hearing a Portuguese swearword pronounced with a thick American accent is a hilarious experience. She laughed so freely at the words she used to be afraid/ashamed of that the shame and fear were slowly washed away, as it were.)

  38. I love Lucy. It’s just so great to get such a bright, fresh, young perspective — and from a WOMAN!! She’s a great addition. But Dan, please stop announcing on the air that there are people that don’t like her. I’m sure it upsets Lucy to hear that.

  39. I love Lucy. It’s just so great to get such a bright, fresh, young perspective — and from a WOMAN!! She’s a great addition. But Dan, please stop announcing on the air that there are people that don’t like her. I’m sure it upsets Lucy to hear that.

  40. Ms Cute – I hope you’ll forgive me, but right away you’re manifesting part of the problem (I presume unintentionally). Wanting to be Mr Savage’s co-host (however admirably someone with Sparkian insight would perform in the position) even in jest plays into the implication that Mr Savage NEEDS a co-host, or that it would materially improve the program without any negative side effects. I maintain that, particularly at this critical political moment, any such move would be a drastic step in the wrong direction (as Sandra Bezic once characterized Viacheslav Zagorodniuk’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice program). I’m sure you’d make an excellent GUEST host, but this is not the time when we can afford to let a Great Gay Success dilute itself.

    [N.B.: I am on friendly terms with someone who runs a reasonably popular M/M site. After trying all the purist measures he could think of, he has just added F/M and M/F sections in order to keep afloat. It’s probably the beginning of the end; the odds greatly favour that before long the M/M will get pushed completely out. I’m sure this is intensifying my post, but I think I’d still be on the same page anyway.]

    Recalling the recent red-state conservative LW who was impressed that a gay man had saved his marriage where Ms Gallagher and all her ilk had been of less than no help, how grateful would he have been had he been thanking a mixed doubles team? Ms Lucy might even have ended up being given the lion’s share of the credit.

    If such a mixed team really would be so highly desirable, then let some highly popular straight person of note bring in someone from the Alphabet Soup as co-host. They have 99% of the media; let them share theirs instead of horning in on ours.

    As for Ms Lucy herself, I thought it was interesting the first couple of times to hear her take on the role of Larry Angelo to Mr Savage’s Dr Westheimer. Afterwards, it seemed as if he was playing up in order to stick it to the haters. I should not mind at all quarterly appearances or updates, or temporary runs during road trips as basically just happened, but please, not a permanency.

    This is a slightly depressing note on which to close, but one wonders how many of the most enthusiastic pro-Lucy cheerleaders, if completely translated, would be largely, equally or perhaps even primarily pleased that her presence makes the podcast (at least in the perception of the enthusiast) considerably more straight (as opposed to more balanced).

  42. Ms Cute, I’m sure you wouldn’t try. There are probably quite a few listeners who would give it to you without even waiting to see if you tried or not.

    I suspect the situation could be made into a halfway decent twist on a Robert Rodi novel, but then I’m always thinking of plots.

  43. Mr. V, Dan doesn’t need a co-host, and I don’t think the program would be significantly improved by having one–I just think I would have fun!

    I find it interesting that one of your concerns is that the presence of a straight woman would be a “dilution” of a “great gay presence.” It occurred to me that I’ve never fully appreciated that aspect of Dan’s potential reach in the way I might if I were a gay man. You make a valid point, which I guess was confirmed in the Savage Love letter written by the red-state Christian who thanked Dan for saving his marriage.

    How would it be with you if I only guest-co-hosted once every two months or so?!

  44. @132: Hey—here’s an idea on how to possibly kick start the enjoyment of deep, meaningful sex with myself: is there a “Brad Pitt doll” currently on
    the market? Babes in Toyland, maybe?

  45. CW2D should be cautious in this matter. Being in open relationships for many years now and watching married men come-on to my wife I have to question her old flame’s intentions. My bet is he’s just trying to get some and telling her what she wants to hear so he can get in her pants. As long as she approaches it as such she won’t get hurt. If the feels there is more beyond that I’ll bet dollars to donuts she is going to get hurt as soon as he gets some from her.

  47. Ms Cute – That might be rather fun. If that ever came to pass, I might send you characters to see if you could find callers who reminded you of them. Or you could organize whole podcasts with calls that related to a particular book – Loitering with Intent might be a good choice.

  48. Lucius Scribbens@148 – I’d be interested if you would expand on this: “he’s just trying to get some and telling her what she wants to hear so he can get in her pants.”

    What is the “some” that married men want to get from your wife? Just one time intercourse? Or a regular thing? And how is it different from what she would like to have from them? I have been very intrigued to see the difference between how very charming men are before we have sex, versus their silence afterwards … so that three months later when they try to woo me again it does them no good. I gather they want “no strings attached” (at least with me), and getting to know each other would be a string. But they really shouldn’t complain that it’s hard to get laid, when they won’t put ten minutes a week into maintaining access to “almost-NSA” sex. Since they won’t do that, it feels like what they really want is the chase itself. Having said yes, apparently I can no longer scratch that “chase” itch for them, so then I have to wait until they are really desperate for intercourse itself — and let me tell you, that desperation is really appealing. Not. Okay, everyone, sorry for the Sunday afternoon rant.

  49. Addendum: it feels like with each new woman, guys believe that This Time, the sex will cure what ails them, will make them feel at peace with the universe, or at least stop hating themselves so much. When they find out that with this woman (as with other women), sex was just sex, they move on to someone else, hoping that (sex with) this new woman will be the cure for their existential troubles.

  50. 152-EricaP– I hear what you’re saying, but would you limit your comments to men? In my experience, (some) women also hold out for that knight in shining armor who is going to rescue them from themselves and dissolve all their crazy.

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