Have boyfriend. Several months. Love sex. First time we sixty-nine, I notice he has a little turtlehead sticking out. You get me? Second time, he has bits of toilet paper stuck in that area. CAN I ADDRESS THIS? And how do I do it without giving him a permanently flaccid penis? I love this man to pieces and know this is a humiliating topic. Please help!
Mired In The Mud
Got you. Wish didn’t. But did.
If you don’t have the nerve to speak up when someone is grinding shitbuds and dingleberries in the vicinity of your nostrils, MITM, I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that’s gonna help. But for what it’s worth…
YES, YOU ADDRESS IT! IMMEDIATELY!
When someone pushes your face into a dirty asscrack—or allows you to place your face in the general vicinity of a dirty asscrack—you say something along the lines of “What the fuck, dude, go take a dump and jump in the shower! Christ!” His ego, to say nothing of his future erections, should be your least concern at a moment like that. So you say it without hesitation, without concern for his feelings, and you say it as you leap out of bed and reach for your shirt, pants, car keys, and phone. You don’t just lie there pretending that his buttrasta isn’t dangling over your nose. Even if he’s never able to get another erection with you, MITM, he’ll know to spot-check for cleanliness—are there no washcloths in Gilead?—before he crawls on top of anyone else.
I’m a 23-year-old gay guy. I’ve been talking to a nice guy who will possibly become my first boyfriend. The little quibble I’m having is… I’m a virgin. It’s not that big a deal to me—it just hasn’t happened yet—but I was wondering if I should mention it to this guy. He made an aside about virginity (unprompted by me) during one of our chats: “No, I’m not a virgin, that’s nothing that you should worry about with me.” That was probably my opportunity to tell him, but I didn’t. Should I have told him? What if I tell him during sex? Could that make it hot?
Thank you for what you do. I found the courage to come out because of you.
Ready And Willing
If you found the courage to come out to family and friends about being gay—which you found inside yourself, RAW, but thanks for the nice compliment—you can come out to this boy about being a virgin.
Don’t tell him during sex, RAW, and don’t tell him in a way that makes this relevant information about your sexual history—you don’t have one—seem like a character flaw, a cancer diagnosis, or a request for an open marriage six years after you began an adulterous affair with a congressional staffer. You’re just a 23-year-old virgin, RAW, there’s nothing wrong with you; it’s not like you’re one of Elizabeth Santorum’s idiotic gay friends or a cast member of The A-List: Dallas. The next time you see this boy, initiate a casual, low-stakes, getting-to-know-you make-out session at a time when you can’t transition to full-on, no-holes-barred gay sex. Relax, kiss the boy, be chill. Then pause and inform him that you’re not very sexually experienced—in fact, you’ve never been with anyone. Reassure him that you’re not a duckling—you’re not going to imprint on the first dick you see—but that you wanted him to know.
How are you supposed to react to the discovery—entirely accidental—that your youngest brother has a “femdom” relationship with his wife? I stumbled over my brother’s “anonymous” sex blog. It goes into detail about the “domestic discipline” she subjects him to: humiliation, spanking, “ruined orgasms” (whatever that is!), cuckolding. There are no names, but there are pictures. Their faces are blurred out, but I recognize their living room, their bedroom, the necklace my sister-in-law wears, my brother’s chin and hair. If I recognized them, other family members might. What do I say?
Biggest Big Bro
Besides “Hey, bro, I’m kinky, too!”? (You “stumbled over” your brother’s kinky sex blog? How’d that happen? Did he leave it sitting in your driveway?) If you can’t bring yourself to say that, BBB, you say nothing and trust that more-distant, less-kinky family members are unlikely to “stumble over” your brother’s anonymous femdom blog anytime soon. And even if they do, they’re probably not familiar enough with your brother and sister-in-law’s home, jewelry, chins, etc., to recognize him.
Congrats, Dan. It looks like you’ve got your first high-profile “monogamish” public figure: Newt Gingrich. You must be so proud.
Savage Can’t Understand Monogamy
For anyone who spent last week under a rock: Newt Gingrich, brave defender of traditional marriage, was still married to his second wife—and still fucking the consecrated host out of his “devout Catholic” mistress—when he asked his second wife to agree to an open marriage. Newt had been fucking Callista, his devoutly Catholic mistress, for six years when he made the big ask. Newt’s second wife wouldn’t agree to an open marriage, according to Newt’s second wife, which is how she became Newt’s second ex-wife and Newt’s mistress—the devoutly Catholic Callista—became Newt’s third wife.
That’s not monogamish, SCUM. That’s CPOSish. And lumping honest nonmonogamists—people who don’t lie or cheat—in with the likes of the Gingriches and Schwarzeneggers of the world, which whiny and insecure monogamists (who are not to be confused with reasonable and secure monogamists) are always doing, is simply unfair. Newt, like Arnold before him, didn’t succeed at nonmonogamy, he failed at monogamy.
Zooming out for a moment: The Gingrich campaign has presented the holesome story of Newt and Callista’s courtship as a redemption narrative: Newt is a better man today thanks to Callista, he’s better suited to be president thanks to Callista, and he’s better prepared to defend traditional marriage thanks to Callista. She’s been described as a “devout Catholic” in every profile written about her—so devout that her love brought Newt to the one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, and ever-more-rabidly anti-gay church. So it seems to me that it’s fair to ask if Callista knew in advance that Newt was proposing an open marriage to his then-wife and approved of the arrangement. (It might be more accurate to say that Newt informed his second wife that she was already in an open marriage and asked if she wanted to remain in it.) Did Callista know about Newt’s open marriage proposal? Did Newt bounce the idea off his devoutly Catholic mistress first? Maybe right after he finished bouncing himself off his devoutly Catholic mistress?
Would the devout Catholic still be Newt’s mistress today if the second Mrs. Gingrich had agreed to remain in the marriage that Newt had already opened?
This news alters the redemption narrative that the Gingrich camp set before the voters. So questioning Callista about the open marriage proposal—what did the mistress know and when did she know it?—seems like an entirely legit line of inquiry to me.
Callista Gingrich, like her vile husband, doesn’t believe that gays and lesbians should be equal under the law because, as a good Catholic, she believes that homosexuality is a sin and that homosexuals should remain celibate. Well, the Catholic Church considers adultery, divorce, and birth control sinful, too. Someone in the liberal media really ought to ask Callista to explain why her faith should place limits on my sexual expression but not her own.
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@ Erica P: slandering someone with completely false statements, or definitions in this case, isn’t free speech. What I did is exactly like what danny did to santorum, only in a far less public way. Turn about is fair play,isn’t it? And by the way, dan spews nasty ideas with his very life. If I disagree with someone, I discuss it with them, I don’t slander them with complete untruths in a very public forum. That’s for the weak of mind & spirit. I only did what I did to make a point,which has been proven. He didn’t simply talk back to santorum, he lied about him in a very public way, which I would think would be legally actionabe, but everyone is afraid of insulting the gays. Too much freaking PC in this failing country. If you can’t take an insult, which by the way wasn’t made directly to him, then grow up & be a man instead of having one.
@158 if I build a bridge or a town dump and name it after you, that’s not slander. Assuming I have the authority to name it, then it really has your name, and it’s not a lie.
Dan came up with a new definition, and named it in honor of Santorum. It’s in online dictionaries, because that’s really the new meaning of the word. No lie.
Dan doesn’t suggest seriously that Rick Santorum is actually “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” Dan knows Rick is human, and therefore not actually made of santorum. But santorum is made of santorum; that’s true by definition.
@158, even though EricaP beat me to it, this bears repeating: this is not slander, this is simply a redefinition. When a scientist’s name gets used as a new measuring unit — pascals, farads, ohms, newtons, etc. — nobody is suggesting that there is any natural relationship between the person whose name was used and the actual physical quantity it measures.
Creating the word santorum based on Mr Santorum’s name is therefore not slander, but a redefinition. In Mr Santorum’s case, one that was motivated by his anti-gay record, which is stellar.
From what I can see, if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you don’t discuss it with him — you’re certainly not doing it here. You’re spewing accusations and outrage; you’re not discussing reasons or offering arguments. You’re yourself doing what you accuse Dan of doing, and you’re using terms and vehemence you would probably object to if they had been used against you, or against Mr Santorum.
My reasoning & argument is that you’re all full of shit & “You’re yourself doing what you accuse Dan of doing” was exactly my point. Just imagine, honestly, if you’re able, how any of you would feel if you googled yourselves & saw such a disgusting “definition”, & your family & friends had to see or hear it. Your type probably deals with something of this nature regularly, so you wouldn’t care. Calling this a “redefinition” of his name is probably the lamest argument I’ve ever heard. It’s attempted revenge, pure & simple. Any other excuse is pure bullshit. Catch a clue instead of a load.
Look, Rick Santorum decided to build a political career on scapegoating gay Americans. He saw sliming and crapping on a community as a way to make a name for himself. So, Dan Savage has made sure that name will indeed be associated with something slimy and crappy.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but it damn sure makes it even.
@97 Xweatie,
In our (subdivision) of the Protestant branch of Christianity, we:
A). Recognize the concept of divorce. As long as the partners won’t be committing bigamy, though they may have to do a church mandated pre-marriage counseling course, there are no restrictions to “of age” marriage by the church.
B). Inferred in the above is recognition of marriages done outside of the church, because they have to be legally terminated after having been initiated somewhere. Vis a vis the RCC’s denial of validity of non-RCC marriages, we just roll our eyes and sigh.
Because we end up getting a fair number of former RCC followers, we simply accept their (the RCC) indifference towards us, and carry on. In fact, in the UCC, same sex in-church marriages are performed (by congregation in states where legal). To our great benefit, because the RCC doesn’t accept women as ministers, we get former RCC women that have the calling to serve. To put it all together, you could have a same sex marriage performed by a pregnant minister as long as those being married are legally permitted. That is, however, most assuredly not the case for most mainstream Protestant divisions. The stringency of orthodoxy can be mostly dependent upon the individual minister and congregation. When I went “church shopping” for our wedding, I encountered the “orthodoxy pledge” mindset, but that was a rare experience. Even amongst “fire and brimstone” Lutherans, I never encountered that kind of thing (growing up). And as far as the “woman must obey man as man obeys God” thing, well, everyone has somebody that is a little different in their family tree.
Peace.
@152 Sea Otter,
What about baby shampoo (for those delicate membranes)?
Personally I never get any irritation from using soap or shampoo when I wash down there. Now cheap toilet paper, or last night’s spicy peppers…
@161, that is not your point: that is your mistake (i.e., you’re being hypocritical by criticizing in others what you do yourself). How I would feel if I had had such a redefinition? Well, you’re doing it to me right now, so there’s no need for me to imagine it. It’s simple: you’re wrong. You have the right to do it, of course — your opinion, no matter how vile (as O’Reilly would say), is free.
Yeah, that’s basically it. I feel that you’re wrong in slandering me (us?). But feel free to go on being wrong. As far as I know, it’s a lot easier to deal with than cancer.
And at least now, if you want to understand why Dan did it… all you have to do is look at the mirror. You’re doing the same — that means you know why. And if you think you’re right in doing it to me (us), well… then maybe he’s right in doing it to Mr Santorum. Who knows? Weirder things have happened already.
@51: Apropos of absolutely nothing, James Garner is still alive. James Arness is the one that just died. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001258/ Agree with the sentiment, though. Nuck Fewt, indeed.
@16: I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me?
A bit off topic, but I thought Sir Savage and Co. would enjoy today’s unfortunate Santorum headline from the St. Louis Dispatch:
Santorum touts jobs plan in front of overflow crowd in St. Charles County
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-…
eeeeeew…
sorry to comment on something off subject but when i try to send an e-mail it comes back error… On the Jerry Sandusky molestation situation: Since all the experts say that molestation victims in turn molest, it begs the question who molested Jerry Sandusky in the showers when he was ten years old? And could it have been his mentor Joe Paterno and when Joe foresaw the shitstorm that was comming down the pike it literally scared him to death?
@170 — Full article here:
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7…
Relevant excerpt:
“Sandusky was an only child, raised in one of the most respected families in the town of Washington, a picturesque community of about 13,000 that is within a half-hour’s drive of Pittsburgh. Art and Evie Sandusky taught their son to work hard. They often worked two jobs apiece, and they lived in a tiny apartment above the Brownson House, a recreation center that kept kids off the streets and engaged in sports. Art was Brownson House’s director, an athletic man who stood about 5-foot-10 and always took time to listen to any problem; Evie worked the concession stands, coached the cheerleaders and put together plays for the children.
That old brick building is sort of a frozen snapshot of Sandusky’s childhood. The tiny gym with the wooden floor is still there, and so are many of the fixtures, including a couple of outdated candy machines that crank out selections for 50 cents. In the entryway is a large framed picture of Sandusky’s smiling parents. Outside, there’s an old field where the children play football and lacrosse and whatever else they want. It’s called Art Sandusky Field.
“Art and Evie were great people,” said Dan Petrola, who replaced Art as the Brownson House director after Art retired in the mid-1980s. “I mean, he was my mentor. He taught me a lot about running activities and dealing with people. He was genuine. A very caring person. And he was very good at what he did.”
Petrola, like most people these days, hesitates to say much about Jerry. He’ll say that he used to drop by when he was near the area for recruiting visits and that his parents “thought the world of Jerry.” He says, at least twice, that Jerry didn’t work with children at the Brownson House.”
I don’t think Jerry Sandusky knew Joe Paterno till his college years. There’s a lot of stuff named “Sandusky” in “Little Worshington.” But I hear the town in Ohio is petitioning to change its name to “Cedar Point!”
@161: Normal, I’m with Hunter78 here.
Rick Santorum is NOT a “gift”, but a whiny sack of runny bullshit.
And unfortunately, like a toilet with bad plumbing, he’s still running.
@169: Thanks for sharing!
@ankylosaur: Oh, so it’s slander when I do it, but it’s “redefinition of his name” when danny boy does it. I knew the double standard. I just needed it verified by you guys. And by the way, attacking someone just because you disagree with their opinion is childish & wrong no matter how you look at it. Just like kids in the schoolyard; someone calls you a name, & you have to come back at them one better. Pointless, silly & infantile. I would expect no less from your kind. I did what I did simply to make a point. Point made by your own statements. Not just yours, but others as well. And by the way, what santorum said about bestiality & incest was wrong, but his basic feelings about same sex physical relationships are spot on. Not just biblically, but in so many other ways. You guys are sick & you will find out just how sick on judgement day. I know most of you are atheists, or you wouldn’t be doing what you are, but believe me, it will come & it won’t be pretty. Think of me while you stand before your creator to explain your transgressions.
@Erica P: “Assuming I have the authority to name it, then it really has your name, and it’s not a lie.” That’s just it, he didn’t have the authority to rename or redefine his name. He is simply childishly retaliating against someone he disagrees with. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the gay kitchen. On a lighter note: How do you get 4 queens to share a barstool? Turn it upside down.
I always likes the funny and sexy blog, I am very enjoy this.
@173,174,
Grow up.
@ You;-)+~+: I love you!
Latin experts, help me with the logical fallacy presented in 170. It’s the one that goes:
Since those who were abused grow up to become abusers, if one is an abuser, he must have been abused.
It’s a twist on the usual that goes:
Everyone who is an abuser went to elementary school, therefore if you go to elementary school, you’ll grow up to be an abuser.
What’s the short Latin phrase for it?
(I’m assuming that the “all experts say” part is already called into question.)
I just listened to this week’s Savage Love podcast with Ira Glass. Thank you for having him on and combining my two favorite voices in one episode!
@174, one needs authority to name a bridge. One only needs chutzpah and imagination to come up with a new definition.
@178 maybe secundum quid?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_%2…
@173, the double standard is yours, since you’re the one doing the attacking and slandering here, while at the same time claiming people shouldn’t attack and slander others.
It’s not surprising, though, that you claim others have double standards while wielding a double standard yourself. That’s what double standards are for — to have the fel eling one is righteous, while allowing oneself the leeway not to be fair, isn’t it?
As for gays going to hell… I always wondered: isn’t eternal punishment enough? You guys still have to come here and make jokes (the kind of jokes Jesus would love to spread throughout the world, right?), and dispense accusations, throw mud… in other words, you guys still have to do everything to hurt people who you believe are already condemned to eternal damnation. So you think eternal damnation is not enough? Is your faith so weak that you really think you need to do this, instead of letting your god do the work?
Oh wait — there is an explanation. I think you guys actually get off on doing this. It’s a frequent kind of sadism found among religious people: the pleasure of casting stones on others, even others who are already condemned to eternal damnation. The pleasure of being a bully. Again, what you accuse Mr Savage of, eh? The two of you have much more in common than you think…
So you have a fetish for going nyah-nyah-nyah in front of those you think are going to hell, right? But wait — fetishists all go to hell… Which means…
@Crinoline, I think that would be the informal fallacy called Falacy of Accident:
X = one who went to elementary school
Y = one who is an abuser
(a) All Y’s are X’s
(b) A is also X
(c) Therefore, A is also Y
(the same structure remains if X = one who was previously abused)
The fallacy being, of course, there the fact that all Y’s are X’s cannot directly reversed: it does not imply that all X’s are Y’s, only that the set of Y’s is contained within the set of X’s.
The Latin name for this falacy is “A dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid”, or
Dicto Simpliciter” for short.
@ 183: I think the propensity to become an abuser after being abused yourself largely comes down to how strong one’s character is to resist passing on abusive behaviors to others..
Some people have endured the most unspeakably-horrible abuse, and fought their ways back to heal themselves while not passing the buck of abuse onto someone else, as it was done to them once..
Abuse of any kind: sexual, physical, emotional, mental… Some never recover from the damage, some spend their whole lives trying to recover..
Who knows WTF happened to Jerry Sandusky where he became such a child sex-predator? Whether he was abused himself or not, he obviously is so fucked in the head that he kept doing that to innocent kids..
Some people can overcome enough, others cannot.
It takes all kinds…
Thanks. I keep thinking (hoping?) that half the blog comments would disappear if kids learned logic and logical fallacy in the public schools. But then I have trouble remembering the details myself. I can generally spot a ridiculous argument and sum up with “do the math.”
If every abuser has several victims, and if all victims grow up to become abusers, then the growth of abuse is exponential, and abuse quickly becomes normal.
185– You’re right, and then we’ve got the next question: Where does strength of character come from, and then we’re off and running on the whole of the human condition. Of course we’re all influenced by our experiences. Of course we all bring something different to our experiences which changes outcome. This is so ordinary as to be trite. I’m a little curious about the forces that formed Sandusky, but in the long run, he’s responsible for his actions.
@183, Crinoline’s example fits the definition of the fallacy of accident, and also that of affirming the consequent, depending on whether you see it as a logical claim about propositions (involving specific variables), or as statistical claims about the corresponding domain sets:
Non-sequitur:
P = one is an abuser
Q = one goes to elementary school
If P then Q
Q
Therefore P
Dicto simpliciter:
X = one who went to elementary school
Y = one who is an abuser
(a) All Y’s are X’s
(b) A is also X
(c) Therefore, A is also Y
These are related fallacies. (Can you by the way think of an example of a dicto simpliciter that couldn’t be remodelled as a non-sequitur, or vice-versa? I’ve tried for some fifteen minutes and couldn’t come up with one.)
(Unless, of course, the difference between a dicto simpliciter and a non-sequitur is seen as one of frequency: Y’s often are X’s, but not always. A definite always would make these fallacies equivalent. Yes, indeed, the difference is then in the temporal quantifier.)
Oh, and as for my “do the math,” you wouldn’t get an exponential increase in the number of abusers if each abuser was abusing the same several victims. But now, while I’m trying for silly, I’m making myself uncomfortable. I need a better example for making this absurd.
It never ceases to amaze me how people who are guilty of a double standard seem to cry double standard. I simply posted what I did to make a point: that anyone can verbally or physically attack anyone they disagree with. First you say what dan did was “redefining” the name. Then it’s slander. Well, which is it? I know what the truth is & that’s all that matters to me, but you guys can’t seem to keep your story straight. Just can’t seem to disagree with someone without lashing out at them. Reeks of insecurity I’d say. I got exactly the response I thought I would. Thank you for being so predictable. Point made. That is all.
@190 lol