I am writing to thank you. I remember reading your definition of “santorum”—”the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex”—when it first appeared. I remember thinking it was a cute way to make fun of a dickhead politician. I never thought it would go this far. But after Iowa, Rick Santorum is in the spotlight again. And so is that frothy mixture. And that’s fucking awesome.

Jeff In Wisconsin

Don’t thank me, JIW. Thank Rick Santorum for making his bigotry crystal clear in a 2003 interview with the Associated Press. Santorum equated consensual gay sex with child rape and dog fucking, he stated that birth control should be illegal, he argued that states should be able to arrest, prosecute, and imprison people—gay and straight—for private, consensual sex acts.

Thank the Savage Love reader who, after reading that interview, urged me to invite my readers to submit new definitions for Santorum’s last name. And thank the Savage Love readers who—in their wisdom—selected “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” from a crowded field of equally repulsive candidates.

I did my part: I counted the ballots, I created a website (www.spreadingsantorum.com) that eight years later remains the number one return when you google “Santorum.” But, again, if it weren’t for my creative, kinky, and hilarious readers, JIW, an otherwise distressing news cycle—a ranting, raving, washed-up religious bigot tied for first place in the Iowa caucuses?!?—would not have been leavened by such unintentionally hilarious headlines as “Santorum Surges from Behind,” “Santorum Runs Hard,” and “Romney Squeezes Out Santorum.”

Dan Savage is one sick, pathetic excuse for a human being. Truly a sad piece of sh*t. Especially trying to “insert himself”—pun intended—into the GOP presidential race.

Savage Isn’t Completely Kind

We redefined “santorum” back in 2003, SICK, long before Santorum was running for president. So it would be more accurate to say that the GOP presidential race has inserted itself into me, not the other way around. And, gosh, I hope there isn’t any santorum on the GOP presidential race when it pulls out of me—that would be so embarrassing!

Also embarrassing: Elise Foley’s gushing profile of Elizabeth Santorum, Rick’s adult daughter, that appeared on the Huffington Post before the Iowa caucuses.

“It is tough [being] a young surrogate for a candidate/father clinging to an older worldview,” Foley writes. “Her father’s stance on same-sex marriage and gay rights, in particular, has caused some friction from non-supporters. ‘It’s a policy thing,’ [Elizabeth Santorum] said of gay marriage… Opposed to same-sex marriage herself, Elizabeth said she has gay friends who support her father’s candidacy based on his economic and family platforms.”

Yeah, it’s tough out there for a ‘phobe—and it’s getting tougher all the time. Rick Santorum was nearly booed off a stage in New Hampshire last week after he insisted that legalizing gay marriage would lead to the legalization of polygamous marriage. (The same argument was made against legalizing interracial marriage—and here we are, 44 years after the Supreme Court declared laws against interracial marriage to be unconstitutional, and Tiger Woods can marry only one busted Olive Garden hostess at a time.)

You know what else is tough? Gay widowers losing their homes after the deaths of their spouses because they don’t qualify for the same Social Security benefits as all other married couples. Also tough: seeing your wife deported because the federal government doesn’t recognize your marriage.

But, hey, Elizabeth Santorum isn’t a bigot—she can’t be! She has gay friends! And her gay friends support her dad!

Who are these gay people who support Rick Santorum despite his having equated consensual gay sex to child rape and dog fucking? Who are these gay people who support Rick Santorum despite his opposition to gay marriage and any other legal framework—civil unions, domestic partnerships—that might provide legal protections for same-sex couples? Who are these gay people who support Rick Santorum despite his promises to write anti-gay bigotry into the US Constitution, forcibly divorce all legally married same-sex couples in the United States, reinstate DADT, and ban adoptions by same-sex couples?

Who are these faggots?

To Ms. Foley and all the other political reporters out there: When someone like Elizabeth Santorum tells you that she has gay friends and her gay friends support her dad based on his “family platforms”—gay people shouldn’t be allowed to have families—your subject is making an astonishing claim. Your immediate response should be a demand for the names and phone numbers of these gay friends. Offer to quote these gay friends anonymously, to protect their privacy/stupidity, but tell the homophobe that you will need to verify the existence of her gay friends because you’re a journalist, not a stenographer. You’ll either catch the homophobe in a very revealing lie—what does it tell us about this moment in the struggle for LBGT equality that even bigots like Rick and Elizabeth Santorum perceive a political risk in being perceived as homophobic?—or land a fascinating interview with a crazy-ass faggot.

I’ve been a loyal reader for half my life. Today, a friend and I got into a debate about you. My friend says your campaign to redefine “santorum” flies in the face of your anti-bullying “It Gets Better” campaign. Would you please address this issue?

Google Problems

First, GP, the campaign is over: Santorum has been redefined.

Second, taking the piss out of a middle-aged bigot who has repeatedly and viciously attacked a tiny minority for personal and political gain—a man surrounded by people who support him personally, politically, and financially—is not the moral equivalent of beating the shit out of a vulnerable and isolated 13-year-old queer kid in rural Texas who is a member of the tiny minority that this powerful bigot has repeatedly and viciously attacked.

Third, circling back to Elizabeth Santorum’s blowjob on HuffPo: “[Elizabeth] is aware of her father’s so-called ‘Google problem,’ part of a campaign by columnist Dan Savage… ‘That just makes me sad. It’s disappointing that people can be that mean,’ she said.”

I’m sorry for giving you a sad, Elizabeth. You know what gave me a sad? Reading about Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond. The women, together 18 years, were vacationing in Florida in 2007 with three of their four children when Pond suffered an aneurysm. Langbehn and the children were barred from Pond’s room when they arrived at the hospital. A social worker informed Langbehn—who was distraught—that she wouldn’t be able to see her wife because they were in an “anti-gay city and state.”

Lisa Pond was not a “policy thing,” Elizabeth. She was a human being. And her wife and children were prevented from saying good-bye to her because people who agree with you and your father—people who doubtless felt empowered to act on their bigotry thanks to high-profile bigots like you and your father—persecuted them as Pond lay dying.

By being so mean as to oppose legal protections for gay and lesbian families, Elizabeth, you and your father are trying to make sure that other families headed by same-sex couples will suffer as Langbehn, Pond, and their children were made to suffer.

It is disappointing how mean some people can be, Elizabeth, it really is.

Time to follow through on your threat to redefine “rick,” Dan.

Matt Via Twitter

Already done: To “rick” is to remove something with your tongue—the “r” from “remove,” the “ick” from “lick”—which makes “rick santorum” the most disgusting two-word sentence in the English language after “vote Republican.”

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.

mail@savagelove.net

@fakedansavage on Twitter

305 replies on “Savage Love”

  1. @24
    I’m pretty sure Ricky Licky doesn’t know what he wants. My nickel’s worth of pop psy? He’s been told and expected all his life to conform to a social structure that has both confined him and insulated him from some very real truths. He has always been in a comfortable place where he was able to act within a defined set of rules and was rewarded for his behaviors. He hits the bar and gets the food pellet. At his level of politics, all he has to do is step into the media created mold of what a ‘politician’ is supposed to be and see if that is what the public wants.
    Does he do this duplicitously? I doubt it. He may actually think he has some quality or characteristic that is unique. Mostly he and every other politician look like a slightly more well read news anchor. Is he an ass, yes. If you took him on an outward bound and fed him some chiba???? well who knows?

  2. Re: Polygamy. A system in which men may have more than one wife while women must stay faithful to only one husband.

    Do the math: Start with 3 men. Each has 3 wives. Each woman has 4 children. 9 x 4 = 36. Call the 36 children the F1 generation. Say there are 18 boys and 18 girls. They don’t all reach marriageable age at the same time. Say they’re spread out over 12 years. The first 12 reach their early 20s are ready to marry. The boys have been schooled in the idea that they can expect to marry at least one girl. Out of the 6 girls, 3 go to the older men. 3 go to the boys of the F1 generation. That leaves 3 boys with no wives, but they can wait a few years for the girls a little younger to grow up.

    Those girls do grow up, but now there are also boys the same age who would also like wives. Younger girls down the line grow up. These are promised first to the boys only a little older, then to the ones their own age. Some also become the 2nd wives to the older in the F1 generation. In no time, you get boys without wives.

    How to solve the problem? At first, it’s easy. The boys, now young men, wait until they’re in their early 30s to marry young women in their early 20s. The society is not disgusted by that. The age difference is not too great. The F1 generation starts producing the F2 generation. More girls are growing up.

    But in a short time, you start running out of girls. There aren’t enough to go around. The powerful older men take more than one. In order to keep their power, they have to promise the girls, the scarce resource, to the young men who keep them in power. The first necessary result of the system is the marriage of younger and younger girls. The second necessary result is some way of getting rid of the excess boys, preferably getting rid of them when they’re too young to do much about it, maybe when they’re only in their mid-teens. The most obvious way to do this is to implement stricter and stricter rules to separate who “merits” wives, that is, who gets two, who gets one, and who gets cast out as unworthy.

    The rules are generally who shows greatest loyalty to the powerful older men, but they could be any strict rule as far as adherence to the religious and social system.

    This sounds like the polygamist colonies we read about in the news, right? Child marriage for the girls. Boys dropped at bus stations when they’re 14 for some ridiculous infraction.

    My point is that this isn’t some arbitrary way polygamy has been practiced so far. This is the way it has to be practiced.

    Ah, but what about if you don’t start with an isolated colony of 3 men and 9 wives. What if it’s larger? Go ahead and change the numbers to make them 3,000 men with 9,000 wives, or 30,000 men with 90,000 wives. You’re still going to get younger and younger girls promised in marriage, a necessity to unload extra boys, and more and more arbitrary and conservative rules. Except now, you don’t have a larger society to unload the boys on. You have no bus station.

    This is starting to sound like some Moslem countries, no? The boys go to war or become suicide bombers. They don’t have a lot to live for at home.

    But wait, you say. Some of the suicide bombers are married and have children. They have money and power. True, but that doesn’t change the basic dynamic of the society, the basic values of the culture. Polygamist cultures tend to volatile while monogamist ones tend towards stability.

  3. I logged in to comment on the problems with polygamy but @103 beat me to it (much more artfully than I would have explained). Partnered marriage is an egalitarian concept that allows all men (in theory) sexual access. I would only add my sincere belief that men without access to sexual release are prone to violence, isolation, despair, etc. Interesting to see what will happen to China, what with all those missing girls.

  4. @103/104 I don’t understand why that argument seems persuasive to you, given the conversation so far @66, 83, 85, 88…

    We’re saying it might be possible to set up marriages to include more than two people, where those people’s gender is not determined. But we’d probably have to take down civil marriage to get there.

    Why are you emphasizing polygyny? Just because that’s how polygamy has often been done in the past?

  6. @105 polyandry existed as well,

    As I wrote previously, one of my ancestors was fathered by one or the other of 2 brothers sharing a common law wife. Which? Makes no difference since the bloodline was maintained.

    By frothyman’s reckoning does that invalidate a civil solution (ie common law) in the inheritance, and the potential sanctity of their child? To my knowledge the local church didn’t intervene, so maybe the batshit has gotten deeper over the years.

    Peace.

  9. Omg-move to Canada and live in peace – marry gay , then straight and have ceparation of church and state . Also banking regulation = better economy for all!

  10. Regarding overcoming difficulties in the administration of plural marriages, the first model that comes to mind is the corporation.

    The government allows any number of individuals to affiliate and pool their resources for the purpose of doing business. Why they think they have a legitimate role to prevent such affiliations when the motivating force is love — in addition to money, not instead of it; let’s be perfectly clear on that point — is a mystery to me.

  11. In case you were wondering, several people have told me about the Santorum definition, not realizing where it came from. It now just seems like a happy coincidence that his name and that word are the same. You can just walk away whistlin’.

    Though I don’t think you should. You def. need to claim credit for this one.

  12. @38, because homosexuality is a challenge to authoritarians who are obsessed with strict gender roles. Without strict gender roles, it is harder to justify men being in charge of women. Authoritarians hate that because they are obsessed with putting people into dominance hierarchies, much like the behavior of wolves. This also explains why anti-gay people are also usually sexist.

  14. “Why are you emphasizing polygyny? Just because that’s how polygamy has often been done in the past?”

    Um, because humans have not changed in a few hundred thousand years, and will not for a few more hundred thousand…so, you can expect future behavior to look like past behavior?

    Shocking concept, I know.

  15. I propose changing the definition: how about we define the bloody and painful shit that occurs when you have hemorrhoids as Santorum. I think frothy, anal discharge doesn’t quite fit this creature anymore.

  18. @102, she is not irrational about that; her ‘hatred’ feels more like traditional rivalry between supporters of different football teams than like ethnic hatred.

  19. Mr. Ven (@96), let’s say the multiple simultaneous marriage problem is a question of thought about dedication of resources. Certainly making sure people are satisfied is part of the deal, but not all (as per EricaP’s comments).

    Oh, I have no hopes about things being easy, not even in the Netherlands, where a right-wing backlash is ongoing. Probably lots of bad things will happen before a good one does.

    Which is why I’m talking hypotheticals. I don’t think I (or maybe even my daughter) will be alive when the more radical questions I mentioned are actually debated fairly. That I live at a time when same-sex marriage is already getting a fair hearing, at least from some quarters, is already a privilege. I am often bitter too; that is why I prefer to think about hypotheticals: they allow me to explore possible intrinsic problems of a proposal (like what EricaP said with respect to polygamy) without having to consider how difficult it would be to get a fair debate going in the real world out there.

  20. Once again, Dan “National Treasure” Savage has taken fools to school with style and humor.

    Knowing what we know about the term ‘Rick Santorum’, I can’t believe his parents were so cruel to name him after such a disgusting act.

    If my parents named me after the act of licking poo sludge, I might have turned into a hateful, nervous, sweaty bigot too.

  23. @111 (avast) I thought the same thing. A corporation (like a marriage) is a group (couple) of people coming together that will be represented under the law as a single entity. If you do it for money it’s called capitalism, if you do it for love (or for anything other than money) it’s called communism (and that’s putting aside any arguments of polyandry vs. polygyny). Remember, marriage for love is a mostly new concept, only from the last 200 years or so. There seems to be a deep seated mistrust in the western hemisphere of people who do anything and are not motivated by profit.

  24. Rick Santorum’s views as well as those of his fellow homophobic bigots will mostly be a thing of the past in probably just a generation. Remember in the 60’s when blacks weren’t really ‘people’? Just 40 years later we have a mixed race president. It’s simply a matter of time before these assholes fade away. Keep up the fight Mr. Savage.

  26. Rick Santorum truly rises above the other Repubs in hypocrisy, and in a field that includes Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, that’s saying something. Because he cloaks himself in sanctimony, the viciousness of Santorum’s bigotry is often overlooked. That can be enraging.

    Nevertheless, I feel this campaign is coarse and mean-spirited in a way that tarnishes Dan Savage’s usual compassionate and courageous commentary. I’m still a big fan, but regret it.

  27. As 104 said, “I would only add my sincere belief that men without access to sexual release are prone to violence, isolation, despair, etc.”

    What about women? I’m a woman, and bad things happen if I don’t get sex at least once a week from my boyfriend. So let’s just say, if some political frothy mixture wants to take away my rights to birth control and hot sex, there’s gonna be a lot of violent and depressing riots, with THIS chick leading the way.

  28. @126 It’s the number one hit that isn’t paid for by Santorum.

    RE: the Dan-as-a-bully argument– fighting back against a bully, is NOT another form of bullying.

    RE: the definition of “rick”… now we need a definition of “perry”.

  30. Sadly, it’s been a long time since I’ve read your column, Dan, and reading this one makes me wonder why. Well said, as always. Thank you.

  32. @ 125: Well said. I agree totally. It was barely 50 years ago that there was civil rights for all installed… That, and the advancement of technology, people not really giving a shit anymore who’s gay and who’s not, or who marries who…

    Santorum is something out of ‘The Andy Griffith Show’: a cast extra they never bothered to get on the series, yet he acts as if he was Ron Howard playing Opie, or Andy Griffith himself: some geeky hick from Pennsylvania who somehow believes that suppressing and redirecting his homoerotic energies into laughable runs for political office will redeem his own conflicted self-hatred…

    It’s ALL Silly, Santorum in any capacity: the schmegg on a toilet seat or the man himself (same difference 😉 lol) .

    VegMan, I concur: Santorum’s a fake, antiquated douche and his days are numbered. To the bathhouse, pronto, Santorum!

  33. I am a middle class straight, married mother of two (15,10.) This despite having had gay friends all my life. Heck, our neighborhood includes many gay families, and so far, my hetero marriage has maintained its “integrity,” though to listen to conservative politicians, you wouldn’t think that possible.

    Here’s my problem. In my circles, I don’t get to use the phrase ‘santorum’ too much. to say “My husband f*!#ed me in the a** so hard last week that there’s still santorum running down my leg” simply wouldn’t fly in my social circle.

    So I’ve started using the term santorum to include the stuff that I have the vet squeeze out of my dogs’ anal glands. I can work that into almost any convo (“I’ve got to go call the vet, because Luke is loaded with santorum. Or, “I’ve gotta run or I’m gonna be late for Gus’s appt to get the santorum squeezed out of his anal glands.” Or, “The dogs just got their anal glands expressed and the doctor is worried because their santorum is so runny…”

    You should add that to the google definition so that everyone can share in the fun!

  34. Thank you, EricaP for once again saying what I was thinking before I got to it!
    Polygamy (marriage to multiple individuals) and polygyny (marriage to multiple women) are not the same thing. Particularly the type of polygyny that is practiced by repressive patriarchal cults – er, religions. I find myself wondering if the reason “polygamy” (usually used to refer to polygyny) is often bought up in comparison to “traditional marriage” is that it is, in fact, regarded as acceptable in the Bible, and the folks making the Bible-based argument are trying to distance themselves from that? After all, when you look more closely at what their very own church has considered acceptable, it has varied quite a bit. Not the best foundation for an “it’s always been this way” argument.

  36. @ 134: Color me wrong anyone, but isn’t “santorum” an umbrella heading for the following?

    1.)Schmeggma
    2.)Any variant of diseased, deposited, usually-encrusted residue of foul bodily fluids and excrement (and lube) congealed on the surfaces of many unsuspecting people’s furnishings and appliances?

    3.)Any varying degree of human waste and scum anywhere in a public bathroom or otherwise really, really unsanitary conditions..

    4.) The last few droplets left in that plastic bag for ‘Summer’s Eve’ feminine hygiene products (no offense whatsoever to proper women. Too bad Rick Santorum can’t cop to being a proper woman himself!;)).

    Regards.

  37. Why do people demonize sexual identity instead of concerning themselves with child rapists, child trafficking, missing children, rape, poverty, racism, torture, indefinite detention (I’m sure there are others)… the real evils in our society, in the world. Going after privacy and personal choice amongst consenting adults is shallow, stupid and indefensible. He deserves all the ridicule we can muster — good for U Dan !

  39. @ 138: ‘Cos people who can’t get laid bag on those who can and do. Santorum epitomizes why people can be ass-backwards as an existence.

    Why do we worry about aiding other countries (or invading them) when we barely can feed and/or support our hungry and homeless?

    The same goes for all of the other issues that continue to trouble and sadden, like the ones you mentioned NanSee 🙂 :

    To quote you:

    “child rapists, child trafficking, missing children, rape, poverty, racism, torture, indefinite detention (I’m sure there are others)… the real evils in our society, in the world. Going after privacy and personal choice amongst consenting adults is shallow, stupid and indefensible. He deserves all the ridicule we can muster…”

    Exactly. Rick Santorum truly is too stupid to even wonder if he is that fucked-up, as well as an idiot.

    I give his sorry shambles of a campaign a month before the plug is pulled.

  40. @134(gayfriendlymomma), I loved your broadening of the meaning of santorum, and I hereby officially adopt it! (Since I’m not a native speaker of English, I’m not sure I have the constitutinal right to do so. What would the Founding Fathers say?…)

    Indeed, it did occur to me that, in its strict Savagean definition, “santorum” would tend to be a very low-frequency word. If it can be extended to at least a few other kinds of ass juice (including animal ass), this might increase the frequency — and thereby the general usefulness — of santorum.

  42. @ 134: I like your screen name! That’s awesome 🙂 . You have a good way with words, too. I like how the butt nuggetts ya squeezed out of your pooch’s tookas now can qualify as santorum! Well done. Where’s Rick Santorum so we can rub the sorry bastard’s nose in your pooch’s doody droppings? A shithead is as a shithead does! Wait! I’ll put on some vinyl gloves and squish the shit inside his own ears: Shit has never found a more fitting place than the vacant cavity of insanity that is the noggin of Rick Santorum. He’s just mad his high school picture is so fucking geeky! ;-D

  43. Every time I read about american politics I think about how lucky I am to live in Canada.
    For now at least, I just hope that good old steven harper doesn’t get carried away.

  45. To everyone mentioning the fact that Santorum stated “NOT man-on-dog”, just know that he said that AFTER saying “If we legalize gay marriage, who’s to say we won’t legalize man-on-dog?”. So, he compared the two and then contradicted himself to make it seem like he wasn’t a bigot.

  47. @50
    As of right now, Dan’s site is #1

    @82
    Because straight guys don’t like anal too? Since when?

    @104
    “Interesting to see what will happen to China, what with all those missing girls.”

    Will happen? It already has.

    Little girls from North Korea get sold in exchange for rice (one country has not enough food, one has not enough girls). Little girls in China get kidnapped on the way to school and sold to become wives. There’s such a shortage of women that sometimes men will have to chip in together to buy a wife to share.

    @128
    Bad things will happen? Oh really? You’re going to rape someone?
    No need to chomp at the bit for equality in everything honey.

  48. @129: How about “Perry-err”: One big “Oops!” that didn’t quite make it to the toilet.
    @142: It sure fits, doesn’t it?

  50. Dan Savage said he has been divorced overnight because the Harper government in Canada argues that non Canadian same sex couples getting married in Canada is not valid.

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