I met my girlfriend about
three months ago on a social-networking website. The pictures made her
look attractive and in shape. We texted each other nonstop for the
first three months. This past weekend we met, and she didn’t look
anything like her pictures. However, we did still have sex twice. I’m
about to start my freshman year in college, and I do not want to be
tied down going into school. Breaking up with her will break her heart
into pieces. I have no clue what I should do.

Epic State Of Confusion

You didn’t meet your girlfriend three
months ago, ESOC, you met this girl last weekend. And if she
expects a lifetime commitment after posting misleading photos and
exchanging text messages and a single weekend of sex, she isn’t just
asking to have her heart broken, her heart needs breaking. So
you’ll have to break it for her, ESOC, unless you’re prepared to be
with this woman for the next six or seven decades.

She’ll conclude that the breakup has
something to do with her looks, of course, and that fact will make your
rejection hurt all the worse. Good. She set herself up for rejection
when she posted misleading photographs on that social-networking
website and forged an emotional connection with you under what amounts
to false pretenses. Your rejection may convince her to post
more-representative photos—honest photos—in the future.

Anyone looking for sex partners online is
free, of course, to post misleading photos of mysterious provenance.
But those who do this have no one to blame for their hurt feelings but
themselves. If I may paraphrase the caption under a famous New
Yorker cartoon: On the internet, no one knows—or has to
know—that you’re a dog. But when chatting becomes cyberdating,
when romance may be in the offing, and a face-to-face meeting becomes
inevitable, an exchange of better photos—or at least
more-representative photos—is simple common sense and common
courtesy.

And here’s where you went wrong, ESOC: You
fucked this girl. She naturally interpreted your willingness to fuck
her as a sign that you didn’t care about the discrepancy between her
photos and her actual appearance. It’s going to make the rejection she
has coming more devastating than it needed to be.

I’m a gay male in my late 20s
and a survivor of testicular cancer. I count myself lucky, but I’m
still down a testicle. I’m also coming out of a five-year relationship.
I’m now concerned about how much a set of balls counts in the gay
community. I am not getting one of those ridiculous ball implants. I
just want to make sure I don’t freak out any of my future partners.
However, discussing cancer during a first date or in dance clubs seems
to be sort of a turnoff. Tips?

Half The Man I Used To Be

Since having one ball isn’t going to place
your sex partners at any risk of anything or hamper your sexual
performance in any way, I don’t think you’re obligated to disclose
until you get home from the movie or the club and you’re rolling around
on the couch and making out. When hands start reaching for zippers, say
something like this: “Just so you know, I’ve only got one ball. Long
story, and I’ll tell you all about it later. And I only have one dick,
too—but you only have one throat, so we’ll find a way to make
this work.”

There may be a handful of gay guys out there
who won’t want to date a guy with one ball, and they’ll make their
excuses and refrain from seeing you again. But so long as you’re not an
insecure, tormented bag of slop always bemoaning his half-empty sack,
it shouldn’t interfere with your love life.

A wonderful guy I’ve known
since grade school zoomed in and became my lover after a devastating
divorce. He’s a tiger in bed, sweet and respectful, and an overall
terrific guy. The problem? I’ve always been considered a “knockout,”
while my lover is “different” looking. I love him even more for it. But
what do I say to assholes who ask questions like “What are you doing
with him?” It’s usually one of his “friends”—and they’ll say it
right in front of him.

My Boyfriend’s Not A Loser

“What am I doing with him? I’m doing all I
can to keep his nuts drained—basically, I’m doing for him what
your right hand does for you.”

I have been with my girlfriend
for nearly four years now. We are both 23. We are in love, but I want
to have sex with other people—with girls and with guys. I was a
virgin when I met her, but she had been with a few other guys. I have
brought up threesomes, and she seems fine with the idea and talking
about it turns her on. But she also says she doesn’t want me to have
sex with any other girls, only her, but a guy would be fine.

What Should I Do?

Find a guy you wanna fuck, WSID, check in
with the girlfriend, have a conversation about health and safety and
primacy (she’ll always come first), and ask if she wants to have an MFM
threesome. Then go fuck the guy. If you fuck the guy alone, check in
with the girlfriend before and after. If you fuck him together—if
you have that threesome—check in with the girlfriend before,
during, and after.

Then once you’ve shown the girlfriend that
you’re capable of sleeping with other people without being
irresponsible, unsafe, or insensitive, WSID, she
might—might—give you the okay to fuck another girl
sometime. The odds are even better if she fucks another guy with or in
front of you and realizes that, just as she had sex with another man
without feeling any less attracted or attached to you, you could have
sex with another woman without feeling any less attracted or attached
to her.

So a friend of mine and I have
been having a debate. She’s a lesbian, and she’s certain that there is
no possible way that she could ever contract a sexually transmitted
infection. Her logic is that fingerfucking and eating pussy are safe in
every way. But I remember taking a class on human sexuality where our
professor showed us pictures of people who contracted STIs in odd ways.
We saw a picture of a guy who had a yeast infection on his tongue from
eating a girl out (it kind of looked like cottage cheese was growing on
his tongue), and I won’t describe the picture of the guy who had
gonorrhea in his eye.

Is it possible for a lesbian to get an STI?
Or were those photos faked just to scare us?

Verification Desired

Yes, lesbians can contract STIs—from
each other, from the men some lesbian-identified women insist on
fucking, from lesbians who’ve slept with men. Skin-to-skin
contact—grinding pussies, fingerfucking—can transmit HPV,
for instance, and herpes and razor burn. Eating pussy is also a pretty
effective transmission route for herpes and HPV and gonorrhea and
syphilis and chlamydia and on and on. And if brain cancer were a
sexually transmitted infection, VD, your seriously fucked-in-the-head
friend would definitely be at risk.

mail@savagelove.net

144 replies on “Savage Love”

  3. The problems with the Savage Love Letters of the Day, in Slog, is that they keep you, Dan, from saving it all up for one good batch of weekly advicing in yer column. Which you do a swell-n-snarky job of here. Bravo, sir.

    Indeed: online dating: caveat emptor.

  4. Re: Half the man.

    I, too, have survived testicular cancer with one ball remaining. I think it took me a month before I could comfortably touch my own sac without recoiling. Now, it’s nothing unusual.

    Wife 1 is still with me. Wife 2 was impregnated after the surgery. The girlfriend on the side (who I didn’t start banging until after the surgery) hasn’t complained.

    Sure, I’m not gay or bi or otherwise interested in having sex with men, but I don’t see the situation as being any different in this regard.

    I would seriously consider the prosthetic nut if it had been offered to me when we scheduled my surgery. I was a little shocked when it was finally decided to yank it out so I didn’t ask about one (besides, the only prosthetic I knew about was marketed for use in animals). The nice thing about having both nads in the package is that they help keep each other in their proper place. With only one, it tends to move slightly off axis a little more often than I’d like. It’s not painful, but feels a little weird.

  5. Oh man I must have visited this page 20 times today hoping to see an update. (It was that kind of day.)

    I like how this week is bookended with stories of idiocy.

  10. OK, I’m a girl and not a gay man. So maybe the rules are different. But what’s up with the 1-ball insecurity? I once dated a guy with 1 ball & really couldn’t have cared less whether he had 1 or 2. I can understand why a man with 1 ball might feel insecure, but why would anyone sleeping with him care?

  11. The nut sack is not the sole reason I bought my ticket to the show. Who cares? Besides, my breasts are two different sizes.

  12. I am gay. I was with my first lover for 15 years. He only had one ball. You know, the issue never came up. We never mentioned it. It wasn’t an issue at all. It certainly didn’t matter during sex. To this day I assume he had an undecended testicle, but I was unconcerned.

  13. Regarding half the man – no worries, man. I’m a gay guy, and my last boyfriend was also a one-baller. He was upfront about it before we slept with each other, and it didn’t bother me – nor did it make any difference in bed. Any guy who is going to wale on you for being a cancer survivor deserves a swift kick in the nuts.

  14. your breasts may be different sizes, but one hasn’t been chopped off. so not the same thing. unless you think that because women don’t usually ogle a man’s balls they are not important or a man won’t feel a profound sense of loss. i guarantee if the letter were from a woman who had cancer and now is missing a prt of herself the responses from women would be very very different than the “so what” responses so far

  15. Dan, your answer about lesbian VD may be technically correct, but one suspects that if you look at the big, furry picture, lesbians are probably at much, much less risk of VD overall compared to people who practice insertive sex (inserting their own genitals, that is – not dildos).

  16. ESOC texted that girl for 3 long months and then agreed to meet her, all the time knowing he didn’t want to be tied down going in to school. So who’s the bigger liar? Her with her outdated photos? Or him with his plan to meet her, have sex with her, then dump her before school starts? A plan so clearly defined that he carried it out anyway, despite the misleading photos!

    I say the photos are a red herring. He’s using them as an excuse to dump her, whether they were actually misleading or not. The truth is he’s an asshat — he not only used a woman for sex, he actually wrote into a sex columnist about her in order to make himself feel like the bomb about it. Here’s hoping he becomes the victim of some kind of frosh-hop hazing incident.

  17. Blass – No one is saying HTMIUTB should or shouldn’t care, just that his lovers probably won’t. And both women AND gay men have responded this way, so I think it’s safe to assume that it works both ways.

    Jane – You read that very differently than I did… ESOC doesn’t “want to be tied down” by what turned out to be an ugly girl. I’d bet he was totally willing back when he thought she was hot. But since she turned out not to be what he expected, he wants an out, and “I’m starting college, I need freedom” makes for a pretty good one.

  18. Jane, et al.,
    If you don’t want to be with someone – because they’re fat, skinny, stupid, smart, or pink or green or whatever – then don’t be with them!
    You don’t need an excuse! It’s your own life.
    The idea that someone had an obligation to STAY with a person they texted for a few weeks and then had sex with – it’s repulsive!
    (Same if they even got married, when you come to that…)
    Being tied down to anyone when in college is idiotic, by the way.
    Cheers.

  19. Half The Man I Used To Be: why is a prosthetic so ridiculous? When I was 17 I met an older guy (30 ish) who only had one ball; it was a casual pickup and I did find the discovery rather creepy. I am sure that in a serious relationship it wouldn’t matter but many gay man go on initial impressions – and a missing nut, fairly or not, could signal “faulty” goods. The prosthetic op is quick, simple and very safe meaning you can have the confidence of not needing to feel any different. So why are you so determined to put yourself in this situation?

  20. Yeah I’m curious about those pictures that “didn’t look anything like her.” He doesn’t say they were of another girl; he doesn’t say that they were old; he doesn’t say she’d put on weight. He just says she wasn’t as hot or fit as he thought she’d be. I think he is too young and dumb to realize that people pick flattering pictures of themselves and that if she was super hot she wouldn’t be some dork’s cybergirlfriend for three months.

  21. i know frist hand about the cottage cheese in the throat, i had it from an old girlfriend that i was eating out, so it possible to catch STDs from eating pussy

  22. I know firsthand about cottage cheese in the throat, I had got it from a girlfriend years ago that I was eating out, so it is possible to get a STD from eating pussy.

  23. my impression is that you (Dan) are so light and skippy and smiles and giggles when answering the straight or gay male questions… you seem to get grumpy with the lesbians… maybe it is in my seriously fucked up head though?

  24. @23, I think Dan would lay into ANYONE, regardless of orientation, if they were stupid enough to think they were magically STI proof.

  26. The hottest porn movie I’ve ever seen starred a guy with one testicle. My husband and I fondly refer to it as, “The one starring Cyclops.”

  27. All the links people are posting in the comments section are truncated so there’s no way for me to get to those pages. I want to see those sites. Help!

  29. Today’s main theme is honesty both in this week’s column and Savage’s love letter. i can not but agree on Dan’s answer to ESOC.Both lied the girl by not putting a true representation of herself and ESOC by being dishonnest in his intention ( i am going to college and what i want only a fuck body and not a long term relationship ). A question though, why did you engage in that sexual relationship, obviously she lied to you and this should have been a deal breaker but no this did not deter you. Is something more that you are not telling us, that you were attracted to her despite her BBB profile and you are afraid of that attraction?
    AS for the bi-girl, I think that those kind of truths must be said at a fairly early stage of the relationship the first 3 days let us say, by withholding this information can be at best described as non transparent relationship syndrom, if not outward dishonesty. I think the future ex BF should confront her (her search for women was in the public).
    There is nothing more demeaning, sad and infuriating when at the end of an evening and when you prompt the question my place or yours to hear : 1- you are not my type, 2-You are too old (at 38) 3.. I do not fuck decaying meat (at 35) 4-… your place because I am married… and my question is honesty an over rated virtue nowadays?

  31. @Jane, while reading ESOC letter, I KNEW there would be a response letter from an angry chick just like yours.

    You think he’s an asshat because he fucked her even though he wasn’t attracted to her. And he “used her for sex”, wow that’s comically naive – have you ever been on a date, it happens all the time, i.e. beer goggles.

    The simple truth is misrepresenting yourself online by posting a photo taken at a complementary angle, or with shadows in the right places, or is out of date, is misleading and COMPLETELY unfair. Anyone that does use faux photos and then gets dumped when a face to face meeting occurs is just asking for it. The lesson here is – no matter how well you connected via emails and IM’g, even if they lead to declarations of love, if your photos don’t look like you in real life, your going to get DUMPED, period.

    BTW, I know I’ll get the wraith of fat chicks but they’re the biggest offenders of the online faux photos scam.

  32. I’m gay, and I’ve slept with two guys who’d had a bollock removed after suffering from testicular cancer. Personally, it couldn’t have bothered me less – if anything, the male body looks kind of more neatly symettrical with just the one ball hanging directly beneath the cock.

  33. I don’t understand why the first LW thinks this girl is his girlfriend; as Dan noted, they just met last weekend. Neither behaved admirably, and I think it’s best they don’t continue any kind of relationship.

  38. Hey, RocketMan, I dated online for 2 years, and MANY times the guys had posted pictures that were 10+ years old, so it’s not just the “fat chicks”, as you so eloquently put it.

    I learned not to trust pictures, so it was always refreshing when you met someone and could recognize them because their picture was current and representative.

    And the writer is an asshat for screwing her without telling her that he’s just looking for some fun before leaving for school. Odds are that she was hoping he was going to be around for some long-term screwing since he had spent 3 months texting her.

  39. ESOC may very well be an asshat, although I see nothing to indicate this in his letter. However, I do not find it so farfetched that a kid who is just about to move out of his mommy’s house and go to college may not want to be tied down to somebody who up until the previous weekend was a text message buddy.

  43. Great advice to Uni-ball as to how to break the news to partners!

    That being said, call me an asshole, but if I discovered my man had only one ball, it’d be a big turn-off. If the guy were amazing and we had a great connection however, I’d be able to see past the Uni-ball… unless of course Uni-ball also had a micro-penis. Here’s to hoping that this guy is hung like a horse!

  44. Re:HTMIUTB
    I don’t understand your reference to a prosthetic testicle as a “ridiculous ball implant.” My husband had one testicle removed 20 years ago, and a prosthesis was inserted at that time. I honestly can’t tell the real one from the fake, by sight or texture. It wouldn’t have bothered me in the least if he had chosen not to get the prosthesis, but it was his body and his choice. And HTMIUTB, it was your body and your choice, and you did what was right for you. But when you dismiss a prosthetic testicle as a “ridiculous ball implant,” you give people facing testicular surgery the impression that the artificial nut is odd-looking (it’s not)or obvious (it’s not).

  45. Oh for the love of Pete people, this is not “you’re an angry fat chick” “he was a shallow molester” black and white. Sounds like a classic case of being shy, insecure 18 year olds who tried to start a relationship, but had their expectations majorly let down (in looks, consideration etc.) How much do you build someone up over 3months, A LOT.

    Sure, disclosure and honesty is good with online dating, but profiles (social networks, dating sites etc.) are designed to feature the best/most attractive/smart things about us. Last time I checked “So, how do you really get along with your dad?” and “How bad are you at math, exactly?” and “What feature do you consider your weakest” aren’t questions on any online dating form. (I don’t think anyone has their “hung over, unwashed on a Saturday am” pic as their profile photo, come on!)

    We’re talking about two kids who met on facebook or whatever here, put it in perspective. Sounds like this guy spent the weekend trying to adjust to her looking different because he had begun to have feelings for her and just ended up realizing he couldn’t. Hard lesson learned.

  46. Guy who got yeast from girlfriend snatch: get that looked at? Very rare apart from people with HIV or on steroids, and some with diabetes and other immune problems.

    First writer was a jerk for giving the impression he wanted something longterm by texting 3 months before meeting? Um, that’s a hell of a lot of effort for a hookup. Stupid to sleep with someone who’ll feel entangled and you don’t like though–but hey, they’re kids.

    Tied down in college is bad? I started a 6 year relationship at 18 with BF#1. Totally wonderful experience.

  47. Even if someone’s picture looks EXACTLY like them, meeting someone IN PERSON isn’t the same as meeting them online, by text, or even by phone. Yet that’s the illusion people have when they date on line–an illusion that’s really heightened by electronic communication.

    Speaking as someone in her 50s, I met someone on line once who looked EXACTLY like his picture (or maybe he hadn’t even posted a picture, I don’t remember). We emailed each other back & forth for close to an hour the night before our date (this is back in the dark ages, I know, pre-text), & he seemed witty, charming, and wonderful, someone who really “got” me. I met him in person (MY picture looked exactly like me, probably even less flattering than it needed to be because I photograph so badly), and he was hostile, insulting, creepy, and obsessed with talking about how awful his ex-wife had been. Had he “misrepresented” himself the night before? Or was I supposed to understand that whatever either of us said electronically, IT DIDN’T COUNT until we met, because, unless I planned never to spend time in the same room with him, what really matters is the face to face (or body to body).

    Of course people should post accurate pictures, and I thought Dan was especially smart about saying that when ESOC had sex with that poor girl, he was telling her that he was attracted to HER and that the pictures didn’t matter. But the 3 months of texting also created an emotional relationship that ultimately didn’t have any basis. Insecure adults want to “correspond” before meeting, as do shy teens, and I get the appeal–but it’s a dangerous road, because what you learn is COMPLETELY without foundation. (I suppose if someone emails you something really creepy, that might be a good indication that they are a creep, but even then, you might just have misunderstood their sense of humor…)

    I actually think that’s true of pictures, too–even if someone looks exactly like a picture, you might be attracted to the person and not the image; or vice versa.

  48. I had a really good boyfriend long ago who was born with only one testicle. It made no difference to me at all. But he was bothered by it and got a prosthetic — which he lived to regret. His body surrounded the faux ball with scar tissue; it was hard as a rock. He was very unhappy with it.

    I’ve since had sex with another sweet kind guy who had lost a ball to a cancer scare. I like balls, but unless it’s your specific fetish, who cares!

  49. People are so desperate to be liked that they fail to use the best feature of Internet dating: the high-volume filter.

    Why bother pretending to be something you’re not on the Internet? Unless you’re just in it for cybersex, eventually you’ll meet in person, when it will become abundantly clear that you aren’t who you claim to be. The other person will be rightly mistrustful, and you’ll end up having wasted the time it took to get them to meet you in the first place.

    You’re much better off being *exactly* who you really are online. You’ll get a lot more initial rejections, but those will be rejections prior to any real effort on your part. Put another way, if someone doesn’t like who or what you are, they’re going to reject you eventually. You’re best off getting that rejection before you’ve invested any time in that person.

    Which isn’t to say that you should send folks your hungover picture, or tell them about your last awful breakup. Just make sure that the person you present online is the same person they’re going to meet and hopefully fuck in the future.

    I implemented this strategy the last time I was single, and it worked out great. I got shot down a few dozen times or so, but those all occurred after maybe thirty minutes of back-and-forth emailing, before I really gave a damn. I also met my current girlfriend, who thinks I’m hot (I’m not) and made of pure awesome (I’m not). So our relationship is great: I can be exactly who I am and she fucks me anyway.

  50. Re: I Hate Screen Names — great advice, and very well put. I wish more people had the guts & the good sense to take your approach.

Comments are closed.