Savage Love

1. Just wanted to send my best to Penny and Jon. I don’t do facebook, but you have my support.

   And as a side and lesser important note: A new book! Whoo Hoo!

2. Oh yeah #3. It is JUST like Dan Savage to trivialize rape. That is so Dan.

3. Yeah, Donut, she’s pretty loony these days, but the feminism at Swarthmore (when I was there, and given the note from #3 who is a student there probably still is) was pretty dour and sex-negative. e.g.,”Sleeping with a man is subjugation to the enemy,” you know, the whole sorry prissy ball of wax. Paglia was a nice antidote to that. But perhaps should have been a wee bit more specific….

4. how rude just to come and go.

5. @1 – Dan Savage is too on Facebook, and has been for quite some time. He posts several times a week. Did you even try looking him up?

6. Oops. 53 was in reply to 50.

7. Post-orgasm regrets seem to be a common occurrence. As a guy who’s always had difficulties coming in front of others (attributed to nerves when I was young, medication side-effects nowadays) I developed the skill and acquired taste of riding the orgasms of my partners.

   And this is how I discovered the difference between naked (i.e. not wearing any clothes) and naked (i.e. bearing your intimate soul), from those folks that would, after a satisfying orgasm go holy shit, I’m totally naked in front of a stranger, and beat a hasty retreat. Plenty of folks are eager to get naked with someone new, but are reserved about (and seem to be taken by surprise when) they wind up getting naked with them as well.

8. C’mon folks, you remember your personal defense classes: when you say No! (or stop, or something to that effect), and your partner / assailant doesn’t*, you are being assaulted. If you’re being subdued, it’s battery as well. If sex is involved (by Dan‘s standards), it’s sexual assault, aka rape.

   By these definitions, and by the limited information we have in DEFINE’s account, rape was not involved.

   * To clarify: On the contingency that you are unable to consent, then it is assumed you don’t, except to life-saving care (i.e. first aid) in which case you automatically consent without a DNR.

9. @1 – Dan Savage is too on Facebook, and has been for quite some time. He posts several times a week. Did you even try looking him up?

10. i believe there is a fan page, but not an individual page. dan is not a social animal, folks.

11. While the development around Santorum (politician and word) brings me much joy whenever I think about it, I actually much prefer the verb, to saddleback which describes the non-coital unsafe sex that adolescents have while preserving their technical virginity, much thanks to the Abstinence Only campaigns that teach Christian dogma and gender stereotypes along with their sex-ed disinformation.

12. OH YES EXACTLY, Uriel-238! I admire you and all your isotopes.

    So any idea how those of us who like to get naked (baring our souls) can avoid those who freak out when getting naked(no clothes) turns in to naked (bared)?

    Any telltale signs?

13. Shit I’m really screwing up today. 62 was in response to 57.

14. Mrs. DEFINE had sex. I use a vibrator almost every day. When I’m doing so, I’m having sex with myself. If my husband was using the vibrator on me, I’d be having sex with him. If someone else is using the vibrator on me, I’d be having sex with that person. To classify sex as only insertion of Tab A into Slot B or Slot C shows a lack of imagination.

15. As far as the definition of sex, I personally consider it to be vaginal penitration with the penis.

    If someone asks me when the last time I had sex was, I don’t refer to the last time I got a handjob or a blowjob, I refer to the last time I had my penis in someone’s vagina.

    It’s all personal opinion, I suppose.

16. I don’t even see any indication she was not into it or had regrets. All he says is she called a stop to the proceedings. maybe she had to go to class. maybe the guy was into just giving her an orgasm, maybe she just felt satisfied and did not want to have insertional intercourse. I don’t see any indication of regret.

    As for sex or not, Dan’s description is not quite the same. What if she kept her panties on? Would it be sex or not. What if she didn’t have an orgasm? Would it be sex or not. What if they made out and he only stuck his hand in for a second? Would that be sex. I say not sex in this case. Sex may be hard to define clearly, but if i just fingered a girl to orgasm, I would not consider that sex. if a girl jacks me off, i would not consider that sex. I would call it a hand job.

17. “He goes through all of the effort to make sure she comes first before even getting undressed and she takes off on him. At his next encounter I’ll bet he made sure to come first, just in case. Way to go, Wifey…”
    Posted by Dal Tiger on September 23, 2009 at 6:06 AM

    If the guy did not take his clothes off, did not even take his dick out of his pants and play with it, all thru the foreplay, vibrator play and orgasm, he probably did not WANT to have genital intercourse with her. Go to CraigsList to the M4M site and see how many guys are into offering blowjobs and want no reciprocation. Quite a few. Why wouldn’t there be a few straight guys who just want to pleasure an attractive woman? He could have been self-conscious about his body, or genital herpes or warts, or his dick size or not being able to get it up, which also might explain why the wife called it quits. To me it sounds like she inadvertently got turned on by an unattractive guy and knew she would have to end it sooner or later. So she ended it abruptly and for all we know the guy is still jacking off to the memory to this day.

18. Here I was cruisin’ thru the comments, gettin’ all excited thinkin’ “Why hasn’t anybody thought of this?” when, BAM!, #32 stole my thunder.

    But you’re right, 32! I love B.C., best Prez ever, but he did say it, and the vernacular definition has been quite vague ever since.

    As to Ms. Define’s situation, I say she had sex, he didn’t; he just helped… Whatta guy!

19. BTW: Bill and Monica DID have sex together, with the possible exception of the cigar thing…

20. And another thing… A single guy who has a vibrator? And then never takes off his clothes. I’m guessing the most this guy wanted out of this wife was cunnilingus, which may be what the husband was referring to when he said the guy wanted his wife for lunch.

21. The world of consensual sex is not divided into rape and not-rape. There are shades of gray. And there was definitely a lack of enthusiastic consent in the first letter. Even if it’s not rape, it’s not not-rape, either.

22. catballou @64 that reminds me…

    Thank you, attitude devant @62. To answer your question, I don’t know how to avoid them entirely, but you can improve your chances with more experienced lovers. Hot college students, while in that window of fresh hotness and age of consent tend to not know themselves very well, hence their hard and soft limits aren’t as clearly defined. Those who’ve been around a few more times are more inclined to trust that while they’re basking in post orgasm nakedness, the world is probably not going to end.

    I think the best tact when dealing with young people is to exercise immense amounts of patience. Telegraph all your moves and check in often to make sure he / she really wants this. (This is also the standard tact before beating the snot out of someone with a doeskin flogger, which is, in itself, a common technique to create religious experiences and relationship disasters all at the same time.)

    Oh, you know @65, I think expanding the definition of sex for the sake of common parlance is a good idea since there are plenty of social and safety reasons not to engage in coitus, yet we, as per all mammals, are really cuddly beings. As things are, adolescents still regard fucking as the holy grail of transcendence to adulthood. If sex was represented by a broader range of activities, kids could experiment and explore physical intimacy at a safer and more comfortable pace.

    Also, as Dan points out the more you define as sex, the more sex you will have.

    Myself, I just love, love, love playing with girl bits and do not require reciprocation at all (much to the confusion of plenty of my partners), and when someone lets me have my way with of her, even if it’s only my oral or manual way, I consider it having sex. It’s not coitus, but it’s definitely sex.

23. It’s silly to assume that those of us straight people who consider only penetrative sex to be Actual Sex are somehow ashamed or trying to diminish the experience. I consider non-penetrating sexual activity like oral and digital to be foreplay…fun but not the real deal and rarely as satisfying. There was a point in my life (due to being a late bloomer, probably) where I wanted to have MORE notches on my belt if anything…but couldn’t really bring myself to count a few makeout sessions that ended in oral or frottage to be “guys I had sex with.” It just wasn’t on the same level at all. Sorry, I don’t think Bill and Monica had sex. It was still cheating, of course…is there a rule it has to be full-on sex before it’s cheating? If my husband was fully clothed and masturbating a naked woman with a vibrator I’d be pissed off without calling what they did “having sex.”

24. Couple of comments- I agree that if Clinton had said “I did not have SEX with that woman,” he would have been in the right. In fact, I argued that before hearing the actual speech in which he said, “I did not have SEXUAL RELATIONS with that woman.” In that he was (sadly) lying.

    To post #3- you trivialize sexual assault and rape by applying it to any situation in which a person later regrets having a consentual encounter. Women are not children and to suggest that anything they later wish they had not participated in means that they were unfairly coerced implies that we’re just too weak to decide anything for ourselves.
    If a man claimed that he had been “raped” by a woman with a great line and transitory appeal who gave him a blow job he later regretted, it would be laughable. In fact, women have been giving their significant others, “I couldn’t help it, she overwhelmed me,” excuse the disbelieving laugh since time began.

    Sexual abuse is very real and horrific, as is child abuse. Nothing in the post suggested this person was abused and certainly not that she was a child. Don’t make women into passive, powerless subjects in their relations with men. It’s unfair to all men and women.

25. #25 — you get Dan’s response in the column, not a personal response in an email. He gets way too many emails to respond to everyone. That’s just the way all columnists work. Although I bet if you wrote a question here, you’d get volunteers to answer it or mock you, or both. But it wouldn’t be Dan Savage, he’s got enough to do, sorry.

26. Couple of comments- I agree that if Clinton had said “I did not have SEX with that woman,” he would have been in the right. In fact, I argued that before hearing the actual speech in which he said, “I did not have SEXUAL RELATIONS with that woman.” In that he was (sadly) lying.

    To post #3- you trivialize sexual assault and rape by applying it to any situation in which a person later regrets having a consentual encounter. Women are not children and to suggest that anything they later wish they had not participated in means that they were unfairly coerced implies that we’re just too weak to decide anything for ourselves.
    If a man claimed that he had been “raped” by a woman with a great line and transitory appeal who gave him a blow job he later regretted, it would be laughable. In fact, women have been giving their significant others, “I couldn’t help it, she overwhelmed me,” excuse the disbelieving laugh since time began.

    Sexual abuse is very real and horrific, as is child abuse. Nothing in the post suggested this person was abused and certainly not that she was a child. Don’t make women into passive, powerless subjects in their relations with men. It’s unfair to all men and women.

27. @28 I’m with you on that one, I thought that was where it was going as well

28. Being one of those guys that DOES enjoy licking a woman to orgasm or two or three and then sending her on her merry way, I will tell you that I have had sex with them. Sex is or at least should be defined as any genetil contact fondling by another person with the goal of physical pleasure. If you do it to yourself then it’s just masterbation.

    If penetration has to occur then no wonder all those homosexual men and women are so angry all the time. They hardly ever have sex, just alot of messing around with their mouths and a few toys.

29. @36 Teh Portly Dyke said it better than me here: http://portlytruestories.blogspot.com/20… but the basic idea is: the point of the Antioch rules was to be sure that both people are enthusiastically consenting. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t see it as a PROBLEM for my lover to be shouting “Yes! Yes! YES!” throughout sex…

    @71– I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that rape is not a clear-cut either/or black&white issue. Say someone has a trauma history– a really common reaction to being put in a similar sexual situation again is to panic, freeze up, and automatically comply with the other person in unconscious hopes of not getting hurt too badly this time. To someone who’s not bothering to look too carefully, that can look an awful lot like consent– after all, the person didn’t say “no.” But s/he also did NOT want to have that sex, and was likely badly upset and hurt by it. I think that a too-limited definition of “rape” leaves such a person entirely out of the equation– such a person really doesn’t FIT into “raped” (“s/he clearly said no”) or “not raped” (“s/he clearly consented”) if those are the only options considered legitimate.

30. What DEFINE never mentions, and I don’t think any of the above comments addressed it either, is: how does HE feel about it? Is he somehow feeling hurt/angry/betrayed by his wife’s past sexual encounters, including this one? If so, I could hardly blame her for defensively denying it was sex. But if they were just being playful & sharing stories, then Dan’s response was spot on.

    btw I got totally hard reading Dan’s subsequent speculation of picking up the husband in a bar & fisting him elbow deep. Just sayin’.

31. People could infiltrate Santorum rallies/town meetings and bring hand towels. “For the mess that he is”.

32. We should go to Santorum rallies and bring towels, “because he just makes a mess of things”.

33. The question of how we define sex is central to the debate over Sex Ed. Abstinence Only education does not address it, and both prevention-based and fear-based curricula tend to define it in heteronormative terms — vaginal/penile intercourse. Not only does this fail to address a huge amount of sexual activity that happens, but also serves to invalidate all same-sex sexual activity, and innumerable forms of sex play.

    Furthermore, defining sex by orgasm means that roughly 25% of women have never had sex. And as a woman who has a great deal of difficulty reaching orgasm, that means that I’ve only ever had sex with my present partner…. a claim I would strongly dispute.

    How any individual defines sex is entirely up to him or her. But on the whole, I think our society has a decidedly heteronormative and puritanical bias.

34. Nearly a hundred comments and not one has mentioned a key issue in defining sex (and the insufficienty of our vocabulary): If it can get you pregnant, it’s SEX. If it can’t get you pregnant, it’s sex. And I suspect that was the perspective of the wife.

35. Egads, so the only way I can achieve orgasm with a man (that is, through oral) is not considered sex? No wonder so many women feel insecure.

    I agree it’s a *little* weird to call a blowjob “sex.” I, however, think the problem isn’t the act itself, but the fact that it’s one-way in terms of direct, physical stimulation (allowing for the delightful people out there who get off on giving).

    “Having sex”, to me, always carried the connotation of pleasure for both parties, because there’s no other way of describing sex. No one ever calls it “receiving sex” or “giving sex.”

    I definitely call oral or manual sex “sex” if I received as well as gave it in the same session.

    From ASM’s letter:

    “Now, I think any time you have an orgasm you’ve had sex, and if someone else is present, even if they’re clothed, you definitely had sex.”

    Ok, his wording is a little weird, since is this someone directly involved? Or just standing in a corner?

    “My wife’s view is that since he never got his clothes off and she never saw his cock, she really didn’t have sex.”

    This is definitely crazy. Maybe it’s just poor wording on her part too, but *seeing* his cock has to happen? What if it was dark? What if she wore a blindfold? And you don’t have to be missing clothes to have sex.

    So did ASM’s wife have sex with the dude? Not *really* since she never gave him any physical stimulation (beyond kissing), but considering the definitions he and his wife are offering, I think the jury is definitely closer to agreeing with ASM than with his wife.

36. @84: I’m guessing you meant “If it can’t get you pregnant, it’s NOT sex.”

    But according to that view, if my boyfriend wears a condom and we have vaginal-penile intercourse, it’s not sex. If either of us is sterile, it’s not sex either. If he fucks me in the ass, it’s not sex. If we were both women or both men, we’d never ever have sex.

    Yeah.

37. Alla which impels me to describe one of the gf’s favorite things: when I do everything need to make love to her — undress her, fondle her in various places and so on and so on — and she extends not one voluntary act other than permitting me to do everything to her. That way, I guess, it gives her the rush of knowing that everything she does — coming like a tsunami, for example — are those physical reactions elicited by the sexual act itself.

    Now I’m certain there are still 70s-style feminists out there who would call this rape. After all, she’s not doing anything to me and certainly says nothing to assent to any of this. And that sounds pretty much like what happened back in the day. Seems like not only sex, but pretty hot too!

38. Me! Me! Pick ME, Dan. I’ll spread santorum anywhere you want me to.

39. @85: Ugh, what? I was thinking of a totally different acronym, totally different letter. ASM = DEFINE!

40. Wow, Dan I completely disagree with the “sex” argument — you cannot “have SEX” with a vibrator. You can stick it in holes and go to town, but that does not change your “number”, meaning you never had sex with a person, whether a person was present or not.

    Sex is penetration penis to vagina. Or, if you’re gay, mouth to penis. I don’t even call a blow job a girl gives a guy sex. I wouldn’t say I had “sex” with someone I gave a blow job to — that would be everything “but”.

    I know you’re extremely liberal, but come on… vibrators do not = sex.

41. @90: How do lesbians have sex? The curious (and the lesbian) want to know!

42. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

    Here’s to spreading frothy Santorum!
    The more Repigs made to look ridiculous, the better!

43. Holy shit. I just realized something about the first question. Whether or not she knew or suspected it, that woman clearly fooled around with a butch lesbian, transsexual and/or drag king.

44. first question…. not sex! and totally unlikely , how many strait guys out there would bring a girl home, get her naked and then reach for a vibrator? how many strait guys have vibrators? and how many would use them in a fist encounter with a chick from college. I’m thinking one out of 1,000,000. maybe someone with an std that didn’t want to pass it along or an unusual kink. scientifically sex is the act of procreation although in our society it’s also commonly known to take on other characteristics and definitions . this however is not one of them… sounds like , to use baseball analogies , a foul ball, or a pop up

45. Hey #90, what about getting off with a vibrator all by myself? Is that sex?

    What about just plain ol’ male or female solo masturbation? Is that sex?

    AND HOW THE HECK CAN YOU SAY MALE TO MALE ORAL IS SEX,
    AND FEMALE TO MALE IS NOT?

    Sounds sexist rationalization to me…

46. Shazaam, Kazaam @93. I think that’s a good catch. I still think it was probably a guy she had sex with, but that’s a definite possibility. I hope the wife reads down this far in comments and replies. And johnjohn at @94, I’m not sure I follow your logic, but guys with kinks are way more than 1 in a million. More like twoferone (two kinks per guy).

47. And I have to say I am disappointed in the headline for this week regarding Senator Man-on-dog, (R-Va./Penna.) Did you even consider “Santorum Unleashed!”?
    Or how about:
    “After Marriage Equality in Iowa, Are Republican Rivals Prepared to Lick Santorum?”??
    “Mike Duvall Resigns after Bragging about Leaky Lobbyist. What Role did Santorum Play”
    “Still Reeling from Gay Marriage Court Ruling, Is Iowa Preparing for a Santorum Backlash?”

48. Please God let santorum be the republican nominee for president. please jesus christ almighty in heaven let Santorum run. it would be so fucking hilarious I want it to happen just to see Dan and everyone else react to it.

    Please Jesus I promise I won’t stick my penis anywhere bad if you let this happen. Let Santorum run, for the sake of all that is holy. I beseech you.

    Also, we should come up with a Huckabee too, just in case he runs, and a Romney. Since Romney is a cock that won’t go away, the romney could be the 4 hour erection that won’t go away after overdosing on viagra. no clue what to call huckabee but it should be done.

    “I stole some viagra from my catholic priest. After we warmed up with some saddlebacking and cleaned up the santorum, my friend with benefits wanted to huckabee. After I finished huckabeeing her bush, I had a romney and had to take an embarrassing trip to the ER.”

49. Who’s not on Facebook? I’m not. (I don’t tweet, either.) Penny, my prayers and thoughts go out to you and your beau. Just not on Facebook.

    As for Senator Frothy Mixture, let him try, just try, to gain the GOP nomination. The American public has proven it doesn’t want a church = state politician anywhere near the White House. He’ll get palined*, for sure. He’s a Catholic G. W. Bush.

    *If “bork” can be a transitive verb, surely “palin” can be.

50. What I find amusing about the people who define sex as strictly penile/vaginal, is that according to their logic, most gays and lesbians are virgins. If that is the case, than the right-wing Christian groups cannot accuse gays of rampant dangerous promiscuity and such, because these individuals are quite virginal and chaste.

    I’ve always defined sex as any genital contact of at least one person contacting any body part or device of another person. In other words, somebody’s getting genital stimulation with the help of somebody else. Doesn’t matter if anyone orgasms or not.

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