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.

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

mail@savagelove.net

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181 replies on “Savage Love”

  1. @ YOU ;-)~ : Don’t think I will stop and be deterred for your ongoing, crafty campaign to sidestep my passionate and perhaps sometimes mortally-embarrassing public displays of romantic and carnal overture to your delicious soul of a person… I must have you: now! How can I sample your tantalizing goodness further? ;-D Playing hard to get, yeah? That ol’ standby lol.. Maybe you’re a gentleman. So am I. It doesn’t mean I still don’t wanna do it with you like mad right here like performance art….or something ;-D lol. Rock On & Stay Cool. So, as I was saying…..

    *WHO WANTS TO GET IT ON WITH ME RIGHT NOW?*

    Ignore me all ya want: I’m still gonna keep at it ;-D!

    +~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+.

  2. This is pretty crazy stuff you guys talk about. The one with MITM made me laugh and Dan’s approach to the situation was good.

  3. @Crinoline, who wrote:

    I started noticing how often I assumed people didn’t know about a problem when the chances were good they didn’t know the solution. It applies everywhere, but I especially think of parents and teachers trying to help students in school. I remember being told over and over what awful things would happen if I didn’t study more, raise my grades and learn the material. It was all about motivation, little about actual teaching.

    Indeed, that’s also been my experience. One thing I will be forever thankful for is that my parents didn’t care about my school results. If I had had to listen to the kind of tedious explanation about how ‘I’d end up mowing lawns or washing dishes for money’ if I didn’t get good grades, I probably would never have liked studying. (A cousin of mine, naturally quite intelligent and eager to learn, became disgusted with learning just because his mother kept trying to ‘motivate’ him with such negative images and to control all his study time. A pity — this treatment dulled his natural curiosity and guaranteed that he would be just a slightly-above-average student.)

  4. Anybody who has participated in the dominant position of doggy-style enough times can attest to that even the most hygiene-conscious partner can accidentally have a shred of TP near their ballon-knot.

    But poo? No. No. No!

  7. Unless the boyfriend is stinky and dirty every single time, LW1 could try a positive reinforcement approach rather than negative… Right after a shower, or on an occasion when she notices that things are seeming particularly good down there, she could comment, “wow, I love it so much when you’ve made such a wonderful effort to be clean and fresh for me! It really turns me on and makes sex so much nicer.” Of course, she’d want to reinforce with especial enthusiasm. She could even add a comparison – “I’ve dated guys who never made that effort, and it’s so much nicer to be with someone who does.” Trying to maintain an image as the awesome hot guy who is super clean might be more effective and less embarrassing than trying to figure out how to quit being a dirty slob.

    As a girl, an early boyfriend did this with me – commented “you’re one of the cleanest, tastiest girls i’ve ever gone down on!” I’ll never know if he said that because I had tasted worse at other times, or if it was just an offhand compliment. Before that, I think I was fairly clean, but not particularly meticulous. After, I always wanted to make sure that I was the cleanest and most pleasant.

  10. Pigeon Park: Can you unregister so I can automatically unsee your posts, at least until the spasm of logorrhea passes? Is there a pill you can take?

    Prairie-dogging is beyond the pale. That calls for a call to his case-worker. Really. How can you not know you’re in mid-shit?

    FWIW, this is a problem with women, too. I guess if you don’t expect any attention back there, you don’t spot-check for daggy bits.

  12. @113: There’s a greasemonkey script for SLOG somewhere. I have it but can’t remember where I got it. It’s pretty handy in cases like this…

  14. @117: What version of Firefox are you running? I’ve got 7.0.1, and after installing I get bupkis. It says it’s active, but no list and no pigeon-erasing button.

  19. dan,your answer makes sense.Lots of people don’t clean there butts.Mostly men.Women are normally cleaner because they wipe themselves after using the bathroom.I have been with someone who had tissue in their ass.So I politely told them to wash before sex and I led by example.I taught my sons that when using a public bathroom (when possible)wet some paper towels with with soap and use them after wiping your ass.Also never go to bed without cleaning your ass.If everyone used a “White” wash cloth at the end of the day and after showering ,they would be surprised at how much “Brown” surfaces.

  20. 98- ankylosaur–Dan’s changing attitudes toward compassion don’t concern me as much as his attitudes towards using his column for entertainment. Everyone who gives advice in a public forum has one responsibility to the questioner and one to the audience. In a world where ratings matter, it’s understandable that the Dr. Phils and Dan Savages of this world will go towards the sensational or the low level that will gain them the larger audience base. Since I wouldn’t read this column if I didn’t find it entertaining, I get that. (I can’t say the same for Dr. Phil. It’s so dumbed down that I’ve gotten bored before watching a show straight through at the gym or car garage waiting room.) On the other hand, I become somewhere between annoyed and outraged when I think Dan is taking advantage of a letter writer in order to amuse his other readers.

    And that’s what I think happened with MITM. She asked an embarrassing question that was important to her. Dan gave an answer that wasn’t in her best interests. Dump him for something that, while disgusting– I agree with him there–, has a less drastic solution? It strikes me as irresponsible.

    Dan has been the woman’s advocate in the political arena, but he seems to fall short when advising them in personal relationship matters.

  21. @ 113, aureolaborealis:

    “Pigeon Park: Can you unregister so I can automatically unsee your posts, at least until the spasm of logorrhea passes? Is there a pill you can take?”

    No, I won’t, your dialogue is even less thought-provoking than my own and yes, I can take one of your mother’s little yellow pills.

    Why so bitchy? Keep scrolling if you don’t wanna read me! I barely give a shit about what you write! I only responded ‘cos you name-dropped me. Fuck you! I’m in love and you’re being a cunt, so I win, and you can fuck off 🙂 .

  23. Inexpensive aftermarket spray bidets can be added to most toilets by home do-it-yourselfers at very modest cost. I don’t want this to turn into an ad, but Google “Bio Bidet.” Depending on the proximity to a sink, you might even be able to have warm water. It is just as good as a shower, if not better, and much faster. Highly recommended if any kind of butt play, or even proximity, is being contemplated.

  25. @125(Crinoline), I’m a bit more idealistic about Dan. I don’t think he’s doing it only for the money, or ratings, or internet hits. I think he actually cares, and he’s also developing his own pop version of an ethical system for dealing with sex and relationship issues in general. Which is why I am interested in the changes in Dan’s attitudes through time: I see the maturing.

    I can see Dan’s column as entertaining, but I prefer it because it’s also thought-provoking.

    Which is why I don’t think he was playing this letter for entertainment value. Sure, he picked on the LW’s wording of the question — she was already in full OMG mode. But I think that, comparing his answer to other answers to similar situations in the past, it does reflect something about Dan’s system — he’s really very much into bodily hygiene, and will do a question every now and then to get the point across (like the occasional anti-pitbull post). And I do notice that he’s tuned down his boyish anger and displayed more mature compassion in many a topic, but not in this one. Maybe in the future, though.

  26. @125(Crinoline), just to summarize: which is why I wouldn’t call Dan’s answer “irresponsible”, because I don’t think he was just trying to be entertaining (if this had been a real-life consultation — say, if one of the tech-savy at-risk youth had asked him for advice on that — I imagine he’d have given the same kind of emotion-laden answer). I find it more “wrong,” actually (precisely because of the excessive emotion concerning a situation that is, after all, rather trivial), or “exaggerated” — it makes me think of highschoolers — or maybe anti-gay fundies — thinking about anal sex and going “eeeewww.”

  27. Re: RAW’s letter.

    What’s the deal with virginity anyway?

    I’ve assumed that it is for others what it was for me: An experience that loomed large more for its emotional impact than for the physical one (though that was nice too). I could understand someone not wanting to be responsible for trying to stem the tide of such powerful feeling. (I’d have been glad to reassure that I wasn’t going to imprint (great expression) as Dan says, but it wouldn’t have made any difference.

    For me, PIV sex really was a big deal that oral sex wasn’t. I considered myself a virgin until full penetration. But in this world of shifting definitions, does that matter? I should think it isn’t that big a deal for everyone.

    That brings me to RAW’s question. He’s a virgin. It just hasn’t happened yet. I’m not sure I would bring it up except in the most minor of passing conversation.

  29. “Did Newt bounce the idea off his devoutly Catholic mistress first? Maybe right after he finished bouncing himself off his devoutly Catholic mistress”

    Image.Burned.Brain.

  30. “Did Newt bounce the idea off his devoutly Catholic mistress first? Maybe right after he finished bouncing himself off his devoutly Catholic mistress”

    Image.Burned.Brain.Help.

  31. EWWW…images of “shitbuds”, “dingleberries”, and Newt Gincrich having sex suddenly and rudely branded into my brain! (OK, so it WAS with my consent, since I came here of my own free will.)

    Wow, MITM, if he can’t take it when you tell him he is SHITTING in your FACE as you give him oral pleasure (or that he might as well be, for all the good his last wipe/shower did), how is he going to take it when you tell him him his breath stinks or he has B.O. or he left the restroom with a trail of t.p. stuck to his shoe or his fly is open or he has a booger hanging out of his nose in public? Or even “hey, you’re too drunk to drive, honey.”

    Don’t you want a lover who accepts such “criticisms” (I consider them loving PSA’s, myself…”private service announcements”…that I would be pissed as all HELL if MY loved one DIDN’T give ME if I were in a similar situation!) rather than getting all defensive and/or flacid when you point out the obvious-to everyone-but-him?

    Yes, he’ll be embarrassed, but how much MORE embarrassed will he be if you don’t tell him and he finds out later, from you or (worse) someone ELSE that it was something you never alerted him to?

    If his dick can’t get hard for you after you perform this most loving of acts upon him (the PSA), then he has bigger problems than bowel control and hygiene and you probably don’t want to go there.

  32. A while back (don’t ask me when) there was a letter similar to BBB’s about a craigslist ad and Dan suggested that the finder approach the kinkster and say “Hey, more power to you, but you should know that I could identify you so someone else might be able to too”. I think if BBB thinks his relationship with his little bro is solid he should do this. Just tell him that there are some identifying things in his photos and maybe he should drape a sheet over the couch, have a specific bedspread only for the photos, remove all jewelry first.

  33. OK, so now we know all about man ass and dirty little brown helmets wanting to join the fun. I had a girl in my distant past who loved to present their pretty little ass upward for my choice of insertion points. I’ll take vag like that anytime. Problem is that when a woman simply wipes her ass after defecation, the streaky left behinds can give a decidedly unsavory aroma when she’s opened for pleasure. It’s not just a guy thing, that dirty ass hole business. And the stank was enough for me to turn her over and do the missionary thing instead. For a good romp in a thickly, juiced up pussy, I will endure a lot, but draw the line at unpleasant odors that are easily dealt with beforehand.

    The simple solution is to wipe your ass after defecation, followed by a TP wash using soapy paper, then a rinse with wet TP and finally a dry wipe. And if you have to use a public toilet, you just need to prep the TP before going to the stall. The bidet idea sounds good, but without a cleansing agent, the shit still is there, it’s just wet and smeared. But if used in conjunction with a good soap wash/rinse, the bidet solves the problem of those little snowballs that TP can leave behind.

    And you’re not safe from it by deciding to simply forget about it and jack off instead. I remember that old 70s bondage porn that sometimes showed fine babes in strict bondage, but they’d be exhibiting snowy white TP buds scattered on otherwise fine ass cracks. Now those photographer’s oversights are still out there haunting the stacks of vintage porn collectors’ HOM magazines.

    When will we ever learn…?

  34. I often wonder why this rag tends to put the GOP in a bad sexual light and the Dem party as somehow holy and devoid of sexual corruption. Now don’t get me wrong, Newt is a sexual pig and I still cannot fathom why otherwise good looking chicks would go for a fat old slob like him. Maybe Kissinger was right afterall. BTW, although I haven’t seen the video yet, there’s an actress playing Callista (love that name BTW) on Youtube who attempts to explain what women see in the bloated Newt. Heard the audio on Seattle FM radio and it was a hoot. “He puts on his size 57 pants one leg at at time, like any other man,” she says.

    I was as repulsed by Bill Clinton’s sexcapades in the oval office. What a fucking distasteful thing to do, getting blown in the same place where greater men than him labored for their country. Hell, he’d probably be the guy having a blow job spew all over his girl’s Sunday dress in the choir loft during the sermon. Hillary’s looking the other way because she has no self-respect and his power will propel her onto the world stage. And you have Anthony Weiner with his unsavory internet pix sent to a college girl in Bellingham, WA as well as Barney Frank running sex-for-pay out of his apartment. Left, right or indifferent, sexual politics sucks and not in the good way.

    Jackasses and elephants, they’re all animals to me. Bunch of corrupt pigs across the board. I’m finished with picking a team and rooting for the big win. It’s just a shell game and whatever your orientation, you lose.

  36. @139, I think the main point is that Republicans (and conservatives in general) make sexual politics part of their platform, since they are usually for laws that limit sexual behavior and condemn some of its forms. In order to do that, they claim to be defenders of a traditional way of life — so, when it turns out a Republican who makes such claims was actually not practising what he preaches, this is relevant information. He markets himself as one who is against those who do such things, in order to appeal to those voters who are against such things — and then he’s caught doing them? That is relevant information, since it confirms that he is lying when he says he defends traditional values. Or at least that he has two standards: traditional values for the others, whatever I want for me.

    Now, Democrats (or liberals) in general tend to regard one’s private life as not important for politics. What Wiener did, for instance, may seem disgusting to you, but he never marketed himself to his voter as someone who would fight against this kind of behavior; so, whatever you think about it, it is not inconsistent, self-contradictory, or hypocritical. The same, mutatis mutandis, with the other examples you mention.

    I’ll be all in favor of disregarding the sexual politics of Republicans when they stop making the sexual also political.

  37. What if the turtle headed BF is into being a dirty ass mofo? By not calling him on it, you might be encouraging him. He better stop it now, or GTFO.

  38. Dan Savage: an inhuman creature subsisting on a diet of pure pud & santorum. It can be quite the cranky little pooswa if crossed, so steer clear if you should see it. You have been warned.

  39. @144:

    Another conservative commentator who comes on here to say how repulsive Dan Savage is and how everyone should steer clear. Then comes on again to say how repulsive Dan Savage is. Then a few hours later…

  40. Not sure who you’re talking about there James. I posted one time, spoke my mind & that’s it. You must be delusional. You’ve got this lawyer suing two women for “slandering” him on the web, stating it’s going to cost him work, & that’s okay, but just cause ol Danny boy doesn’t like what Santorum said, he has to do what he did to him, but they tell him nothing can be done about it. # one, how is that fair?# 2, doesn’t your hero believe in free speech or must he smear people whose opinion differs from his, even when they’re mostly correct? He like all the rest of his ilk will answer for all this crap when the time comes; I just wish I could be there to see them squirm, stammer & beg. He won’t be able to google bomb God.

  41. @146

    Post #1: January 28, 2012 at 5:56 PM

    “Not sure who you’re talking about there James. I posted one time, spoke my mind & that’s it. You must be delusional.”

    Post #2: January 29, 2012 at 1:48 AM

    Fail.

  42. @141, hey! You know some Latin, wow, I am really impressed. How about this-the left just skewered posse comatatus and our personal freedoms to speak our minds freely without some government hack listening and making book on us for later action. Perhaps a FEMA camp or worse, torture in some foreign military prison, signed into law by Obama and actually pushed by his administration in the first place. Gee, I thought the left was all for personal freedom.

    You missed my point by a mile anyway, I say BOTH PARTIES are the scum of the earth. So go sit in front of your TV and watch the debates or whatever and enjoy your popcorn.

  44. @146 “doesn’t your hero believe in free speech”

    Free speech means the government doesn’t prevent speech.

    Fellow citizens are supposed to talk back to each other.

    When someone (Santorum) uses their free speech to spew nasty ideas, those of us who disagree are supposed to use our free speech to argue against the nasty ideas. That’s how the system works. (The Nazis get to march in Skokie, and the rest of us get to write editorials about how we hate their ideas and still defend their right to march.)

    Redefining Santorum is a legitimate use of Dan’s right to speak freely against nasty ideas and make poop jokes.

  45. @46 and @114

    You should never use soap on mucous membranes such as the anus and vagina.

    BlackRose is quite right. I should have said “ass hygiene” instead of “anal hygiene.” However, I’m a firm believer in daily soap for the surrounding area, if not the delicate butt cherry itself.

  46. Erica, while pissed is actually right in acerting that both political parties work in tandem to fuck us. It’s like wrestling, they hate eachother for us, have a beer together backstage after the show and the same person cuts both of their cheques.

  47. @153 Yes, both parties work together to fuck us. But one party will appoint supreme court justices who will ban anal sex, contraception, and abortion before moving on to banning Islam. And the other side won’t.

  48. @149(ironvic), I speak fluent Latin. Si vis, possumus hanc disquisitionem latine discutere… Sed non credo, ut mecum latine loquari possis. What a pity.

    I haven’t missed your point, which is just the old cliché “they’re all pigs, what’s the difference.” I’ve told you what the difference is: some of these pigs base part of their political success in claiming they want to fight the pigs, and yet they are themselves pigs, whereas others don’t claim they want to fight pigs. You decided this difference isn’t important, but hey, that’s you, not me.

    I don’t like popcorn, but you’re free to imagine me eating it if this satisfies some of your urges. Have a good day.

  49. @154, indeed. Since politics is the art of the possible, I’ve been often left wondering why people will play the division game without realizing what the consequence is for their own goals. Insisting on ideological purity or on rapid change usually gets you quickly out of the game; and yet people will go on insisting that, unless I can vote for a party that is a True Representative of the One True Truth With All The Right Ideas and contains only the crème de la crème of honest sincere politicians.

  50. @ mydriasis: you too must be delusional. Everything I said in my response to James was true. How is that a fail? I must admit adding some things in my response, but my first post was exactly as I stated: one post, one comment,that’s it. Learn to read & reason.

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