Any time I have relationship questions, I always ask my inner Dan Savage, and he never leads me astray! My boyfriend and I have had a wonderful relationship for six years. We have had “girlfriends” in the past who were involved with both of us simultaneously. He recently met a girl and they instantly clicked. They have been on a few dates—nothing physical yet—and she seems infatuated with him. She is aware that he lives with me/we are together, but I’ve yet to meet her. I am fine with them dating, but I have a few questions:
1. My guy and I share everything. He’s shown me her texts and told me about her life. We both feel slightly uncomfortable with me knowing such personal things about her without meeting her, but we don’t want to limit the intensely open communication we have earned with each other. How much am I entitled to know about her/them, and how can he tell me about her without being disrespectful?
2. Can I meet her? Under what circumstances?
3. Can this end well for her? Every girl we’ve dated has ended up hurt because our relationship with each other is always more important than she is. I worry this girl will be devastated when he doesn’t leave me for her. Should he squelch all the romance now? She’s had a rough few years, and he doesn’t want to add to her problems. Should he even consider bringing her into our relationship? Things always end badly for the other girl, and I don’t want to hurt her.
Curious And Respectful
Your outer Dan Savage won’t lead you astray either, CAR, but he will smack you around:
1. Your guy needs to tell this girl that he shares absofuckinlutely everything with you. He needs to tell her that he’s in a successful open relationship—successful for you two, anyway—and that he has no intention of limiting the “intensely open communication” that has made your relationship work. She needs to know that you’re hearing about their dates and the details of her life, reading every text, etc.
2. Sure, you can meet her—you absofuckinlutely should meet her, CAR, as soon as possible. How about under coffee circumstances? Or drinks circumstances? Or dinner circumstances?
3. Um… gee. If every girl you two have ever “dated” has wound up hurt, CAR, then a reasonable person might conclude that YOU’RE DOING THIS OPEN-RELATIONSHIP SHIT ALL WRONG. Your “wonderful” open relationship may be working for you, but if it’s not working for them, CAR, then it’s not working.
So your outer Dan Savage is ordering you to refrain from inviting anyone else into your “wonderful” relationship until you get a handle on what’s so un-fucking-wonderful about it for your thirds. If you can’t come up with anything—if it’s really not anything you’re doing wrong—then you should have a few laminated cards made that read, “He’ll never leave me for you, his relationship with me will ALWAYS be more important than his relationship with you, and this will most likely end in tears for you. Enjoy the ride.”
Finally, CAR, if this woman is reeling from a rough few years and she can’t handle more heartache right now and everyone you’ve ever messed around with has gotten hurt and you elect to “bring her into your relationship” despite my advice, then at least have the decency to stop pretending that you give a shit about the people you mess around with. Fuck her, fuck her over, move on—but don’t stand there wringing your hands, pretending that you’re just heartsick about the damage you two are doing to people.
My 20-year-old brother is gay. He came out to my mom—she found his Facebook profile; he hasn’t come out to anyone else in the family, but we all found out anyway. (I already knew because I would be treated to some interesting porn whenever I opened the browser on the family computer after he used it.) I’ve voiced my acceptance of homosexuality while he is around, but he hasn’t come out. Should I pull him aside and tell him that the family is okay with him?
His Straight Big Brother
If you wanted to pull your brother aside to tell him the same shit every homo on earth has heard ten million times by age 20—”I love you, bro, but Jesus said that every time two dudes get it on, an angel gets an anal fissure”—I would advise you to keep your mouth shut. But since you’re supportive, and mom already knows, and it’s on his freakin’ Facebook page, pull the little coward aside. Tell him everybody knows, everybody loves him, but everybody is sick of having to pretend that they don’t know what they damn well do.
I’m a hetero guy in my late 20s. I’ve been dating a woman I am crazy about for two months. We waited a little while to have sex, but once we finally did, during the ensuing pillow talk she probed my general fantasies and I dropped that I sometimes fantasize about superheroines. Despite the fact that these fantasies are otherwise very vanilla, she freaked out and said it reflects some kind of deep psychological problems and fundamental immaturity.
Dan, these women are drawn to appeal to what the inner pubescent boy in every hetero guy wants! Can you weigh in on whether there’s something unhealthy about a grown man fantasizing about Supergirl and Zatanna?
Superheroines Unconsciously Permeate Erotic Romps
There’s nothing unhealthy about a grown man fantasizing about superheroines, SUPER, but there is something deeply disturbing about a grown man using the present tense the way you did in your letter. You wrote “a woman I am crazy about,” when what you clearly should have said was “a woman I was crazy about.”
She drew you out after sex and encouraged you to open up to her about your sexual fantasies, and then she stomped on you like that? That was an asshole move on her part, borderline emotionally/sexually abusive, and I hope you arranged to have the door hit her in the ass on her way out of your apartment.
I love it when you invent words, and I want to nominate a nameless phenomenon that sometimes afflicts boring het guys like me (as well as all other guys): The blockage that is created by dried semen on the tip of your dick after sex. You wake up at 3:00 a.m. to drop a line after dozing off after sex, and either the urine gets blocked for a moment and then bursts out like a geyser (which kinda hurts) or the blockage is only partial and the piss sprays off at some crazy angle and gets all over the floor or the walls (which kinda sucks). This phenomenon should have a name!
Can’t Spell Neologism Without Gism
I’m tempted to ask SUPER what his girlfriend’s name is, CSNWG, because if anyone on earth deserves to be forever associated with a crusty blockage that has to be pissed away after sex, it’s her. But I’m sure my readers—the folks behind “santorum”—can come up with something better. Gang?
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
how about Dyke VanDick.
dutch translation: dam from the dick.
i.e.”Gotta go pee so I don’t wake up with Dyke VanDick.”
sement is good but too subtle aurally.
filibuster- isn’t that already what happens while you’re generating Santorum?
in response to CSNWG: I like sement and if popular opinion rules it will probably be the winner, BUT since we are talking about a “semen cap” on one’s penis, I looked up the official name of the caps Seamen wear – “Gob Cap” – it fit perfectly!
My vote goes for spitzer
****GOPpage***crusty Boehner Blockage
Why not call it GOPpage (rhymes with blockage)?
From #62:
A Congressional House/Senate Republican minority is the crusty blockage that refuses to be pissed away after sex. A GOP minority blocks everything up so that important things (like pissing, health-care reform, gun control laws) can’t get done or get done so badly that there’s a huge mess to clean up afterward.
SUPER: If you can’t say what turns you on to the girl without being attacked for it, then you should not fuck her. I think you should take offense for how she treated you.
If I had been in SUPER’s girlfriend’s shoes, I would have felt myself being supergirl! Man! She missed a great oportunity!
@ 198, thank you.
Never meant any offense. Whatsoever. Please don’t get butt-hurt about it; just letting the bitch out for air (he needs air too, apparently); trying to be more expressive, and not let people walk all over me. I am a fan of writing comments without getting advice as a response; and again I admit that it was my fault in the first place.
Thanks anyway.
Well, bsmaster, your inner bitch met our nosy bitches, it seems…! Cheers.
@152 I guess #55 could change their name to “NOBODY” since they did say,
“as for SUPER, if the girl’s still willing to fuck him, he just needs to start hate-fucking her until she leaves.”
@74: PUT THE ROMANCE NOVELS DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. People who can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality are crazy. People who let imaginary bedmates threaten their real sex lives have big problems, and probably shouldn’t be asking their partners to talk about fantasies unless they are specifically trying to sabotage the relationship. And assuming that women are too delicate and insecure to handle harmless fantasies is as misguided as it is absurd – women’s magazines and romance novels are full of shirtless musclemen whose sexual prowess is matched only by the depths of their intimacy, the depths of their (almost invariably blue) eyes, and their superhuman understanding of what a woman wants, feels, needs, desires, or fantasizes about, without her having to say a word. And oh, right, we mustn’t forget THE BIG COCK.
Sheesh… it’s like you took a women’s studies class and only learned enough to be dangerous. The justifications you dreamed up sound more fanciful and alarming than anything I’ve ever seen drawn on the page of a superhero comic.
The crusty blockage should be called a “SPORK” a hybrid of the words sperm and cork…..though…maybe not as isn’t that also what you call one of those spoon fork things you get at the 7-11 ??
I love sement … as in:
“go pee after you have sex or you will have a sement problem”. 🙂
****GOPpage***Def. n: 1. Crusty Boehner Blockage 2. Uretherally retentive plug to temporarily prevent any sharing, even of waste product
Why not call it GOPpage (rhymes with blockage)?
Please vote for this one!!!!!
From #62:
A Congressional House/Senate Republican minority is the crusty blockage that refuses to be pissed away after sex. A GOP minority blocks everything up so that important things (like pissing, health-care reform, gun control laws) can’t get done or get done so badly that there’s a huge mess to clean up afterward.
****GOPpage***Def. n: 1. Crusty Boehner Blockage 2. Uretherally retentive plug to temporarily prevent any sharing, even of waste product
Why not call it GOPpage (rhymes with blockage)?
Please vote for this one!!!!!
From #62:
A Congressional House/Senate Republican minority is the crusty blockage that refuses to be pissed away after sex. A GOP minority blocks everything up so that important things (like pissing, health-care reform, gun control laws) can’t get done or get done so badly that there’s a huge mess to clean up afterward.
Hi Dan-
The term that CSNWG is looking for is too easy: Palin. I think it could be used as a noun or a verb…..
Noun: “After that quickie, I had a Palin.”
Verb: “After that quickie, I was Palin all over the place.”
The term that CSNWG is looking for is too easy: Palin. I think it could be used as a noun or a verb…..
Noun: “After that quickie, I had a Palin.”
Verb: “After that quickie, I was Palin all over the place.”
213: It’s so cute the way you’ve generated such an elaborate strawman from a totally unrelated comment and accused *women* of being the ones who can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality in the same post.
I like sement too, but we really need to find a good meaning for the term,
“Limp Rushbaugh”
I suspect it will be something like, “The inability to maintain an erection due to use/overuse of drugs/alcohol.”
As in: “Dan, what should I do? I only tend to find women in bars, but by the time we’re back at my place, the alcohol’s given me a limp rushbaugh.”
Another idea would be to name the uncomfortable feeling when attempting to rush anal sex.
“Palin the ass”
Example: “Lets take this a little more slowly, or I’ll get a palintheass.”
#111: Although I think Dan brought up some good points, I’m with you in that I do not think the failure of the third relationships necessarily means that CAR’s open relationship isn’t working. It seems likely that they may be finding their thirds among women who aren’t really comfortable being a secondary partner, or may be comfy with it while it’s casual, but find they can’t handle it if/when they start to fall in love with the BF. Instead, they should look for people who are either experienced with open relationships, or are actively seeking that kind of thing. Sure, finding the ideal third woman is a unicorn hunt, but it’s either that, or they’ll have to both admit (not just her) that they’re into using the third partner more than being concerned about whether or not it’s working for them.
I agree with Dan’s advice that they need to make it clear to the third party how their relationship works from the beginning – though not by outlining that it will end in heartache for the third, but by outlining that they have completely transparent communication, that the third will be expected to meet and interact nicely with the other primary partner even if she never gets sexually involved with her, that the secondary relationship will remain secondary, and any expressed desire for monogamy or further commitment will be grounds for immediate termination of the relationship. They should make this clear BEFORE the BF gets heavily involved, they should also all meet casually BEFORE heavy involvement, and this would go a long way to prevent the kind of illusions that will cause the third to imagine that one day, she’ll have him all to herself. If they can’t/aren’t willing to do that because they’re afraid it will ruin their chances to bring in a third, then they’re both douchbags, and should only fulfill their need for outside sex via one night stands and similar short-lived, sex only flings, so that the third will not expect or develop any emotional ties.
I also disagree with those suggesting that CAR sounds threatened by the other girlfriend, UNLESS it’s for the fact that she’s not met this other girlfriend yet, and this level of “secrecy” with the third is unusual (it sounds from the tone of her letter that this may be the first time the third has been so non-interactive with her). If that is unusual, then I can’t blame her if she’s suspicious – why the sudden change in how a third partner is approached, why haven’t they met yet, etc? If that is strange, and I was in her shoes, I would be concerned that either the third is completely uncomfortable with the arrangements already, thus unwilling to meet/be known by her (if she never meets the primary GF, she can imagine that the BF is monogamous with her), or that the BF is trying to keep them seperate because he really IS more into the new partner than the old, and doesn’t want her catching onto that. I suspect the former is more likely though, given that he has disclosed what he can on his own.
As for HSBB, it sounds to me like his brother is trying to passively come out so as to not create big waves. Seriously, leaving porn in the browser is something that everyone ought to know how to avoid by the time they’re a teenager, and if he’s openly gay on his FB page, how much more obvious can you get? It sounds like he WANTS people to just “discover” that he’s gay, so that he doesn’t have to go through a difficult and potentially dramatic coming out speech. He’s probably hoping that other family members will come to him, like his mom did, to tell him they’ve already figured it out. His behavior is just screaming for that. So yeah, he’s a coward for doing it passively (I could understand for distant relatives, but not close relatives), and for not picking up on his brother’s clear message, but obviously the big brother’s going to have to be the “bigger” person here too, and just tell him to knock it off already and that everyone knows and doesn’t care, and he wasn’t fooling anyone, Mr. Obvious.
Although I like sement, it’s one of those words that works better written than spoken. I rather like the Dyke VanDick suggestion, although Crusty Boehner and Rushbo also appeal to me.
This is obviously an “I’m on the warpath and I’m taking no prisoners!” day for Dan, and three cheers for it. I love it when he doesn’t pull his punches and “tells it like it t-i-is!”
Breaking through crusted semen: cumbustion.
Ok folks. Maybe SUPER’s girlfriend can “learn” or “be educated”.
1. It’s not SUPER’s job
2.Dan’s advice is suggesting that it’s not worth the “maybe”, or even worth the time until she’s learned (if she’s going to).
3. Y’know what’s a pretty good eye-opener / teaching tool? Getting your ass dumped.
Re: CAR
While I agree with your advice, Dan, I suspect that CAR, her boyfriend, and their perspective playtoys need to learn the language and protocols of ethical polyamory. Given the tone and questions in her letter, I’m not sure they know that such relationship models actually exist.
It seems simple, here in the alternative cultures of America’s “alternative” poster child city, to take that knowledge for granted. Most folks, however, flat-out don’t KNOW that such options and protocols exist. Instead, they default to a lot of the old “swinger/ open relationship” models in which both partners understand what’s going on but their playmates remain more or less in the dark about it.
Given that CAR needs to ask whether or not it’s “okay” to meet or even speak to her lover’s girlfriend(s), I suspect that the couple doesn’t actually know how to language or manage their situation, while the girlfriends have been expecting the social default “one guy/ one girl” thing.
You’re totally right about this couple needing to get their shit straight with regards to their extra-relationship patterns. You’re dead-on when you tell them to be upfront with their secondaries about the mode of their relationship. I agree that they sound like toxic play-partners until they figure this shit out.
That said, I get the impression that they just don’t KNOW about how ethical, conscious polyamory works.
To that end, let’s offer a bit more advice about good resources for that knowledge, and a bit less vitriol about their ignorance… at least for now.
—————–
SOURCES
If you’re reading this, CAR (or people in CAR’s situation), check out the following sources about ethical, conscious polyamory… and then be aware that theory and practice are very different things. People are people, and every relationship mode is more complex than it ideally appears to be.
Pagan Polyamory, by Raven Kildara (not just for Pagans, this is the single most realistic book about poly relationships I have yet read)
The Ethical Slut, by Easton & Hardy (more queer/ kink-oriented, perhaps, than CAR and her boyfriend might be)
Opening Up, by Tristan Taormino (very good, very practical)
The New Love Without Limits and Polyamory in the 21st century, by Anapol (a bit too idealistic to be really practical, but with strong emphasis on the emotional bonds beyond the physical activities)
Oh, hell – here’s an amazon link. Read the various entries yourselves, and decide what sounds most fitting for your experience and situation:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u…
Beyond that, google “ethical polyamory,” join poly webgroups, talk to poly people and, like Dan said, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER before dragging other folks along for the ride.
Have fun, be safe, and play nice with your toys. If you keep breaking them, you’re doing it wrong.
how about SPUNKAGE? spunk + blockage = spunkage
That crusty blockage that has to be pissed away should be called Coulter.
Love,
Daddy
I could live with ‘Scalia’ as a term for dried semen, but it doesn’t quite have the right sound. At the risk of dating myself, I suggest ‘Swaggart,’ after the televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. It combines the ‘sw’ sound of ‘swab’ and ‘swill’ with the double ‘g’ and following vowel of ‘faggot’. I can’t think of a better (if belated) gift for the nasty old bastard.
However, if he’s too obsolete to bother with, then I suggest ‘Foley,’ after Mark Foley the page-molester.
‘Sement’ is brilliant, it gets my vote for blockage nomenclature.
I agree that the sideways piss spray needs another, separate name. The Sement can cause it, but it happens in other instances as well.
Calling the spray a “Spitzer” hits the right notes.
Example: “Duuuude, i just drove for 4 hours and when I took a pee break I Spitzered the wall.”
How about a “Hannity” – because it needs to be waterboarded to get it off.
My suggestion for that blockage is to call it beckle–after that crusty dickhead Glenn Beck.
My suggestion for that blockage is beckle–after that crusty dickhead Glenn Beck.
I KNOW I KNOW—-Rush Limblock!!!!!!
I haven’t laughed out loud this long in years!!!
@15 and @157: Yeah! Yeah!! Crusty O’Donnell for the win!!
I know! I know—Rush Limblock!!!! LOL!!
I haven’t laughed out loud this long in years!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
@Can’t spell neologism without gism- what about a pissure?
@170 FTW
Crusty Blockage has never happened to me. It sounds made up. Like “poopnoodle”.
+1 for sement
Can we make up a sexual definition for the phrase “Boehner DeLay” and googlebomb it!?
SUPER, Jesus, DTMFBA, OK? What a nasty-@ss thing to do. If a guy I was into dropped such a cute little fantasy, you can bet your white leather calf boots Wonder Woman would answer the door the next time he knocked.
hmm, those bracelets…that’s kind of hot actually, black wig…yup, I think the guy and I may be in for a little costume fun this weekend…or maybe Zena…
For CSNWG, call it “Dick Cheney”
S
For CSNWG, call it Dick Cheney
Hey, CAR: Don’t be so sure he’ll never fall for another wo/man. The longer the game, the better his chances to fall in love with someone else.
SUPER: Dan’s right. She’ll do it again.
SEMENT is the best, but ‘boner vs. boehner’ is also great. There will be time for Palin and McCain, but there has to be some liberal out there that deserves a Santorum kind of name. It’s a matter of equilibrium. Yes, I like the proposed Spitzer. And Westboro, indeed, has to be for something gay, no doubt.
It sounds like the gal in letter #3 would have been freaked out even if his fantasy was being with 2 women at the same time! She probably took some kind of “Pysch 101 for Womyn” in college. I’m surprised that she didn’t make some statement that included the phrase “patriarchal society”.
Hi Dan, late to the party I know, but I thought I’d mention that I’ve been calling that crusty blockage “McCain” for years, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. In my case it started with the resultant mess on the floor, to which I would exclaim “Oh McCain, you’ve done it again” (the old slogan for McCain frozen vegetables) but in recent years it fits so well with the senator from Arizona.
Despite living intimately with a man for well over 40 years I had never heard of this phenomenon; I was astonished that my lover had never mentioned it. But then, we were the children of the “don’t talk about anything generations” from which it seems it will take an entire life to unfold. After much laughter I came up with “dookey-dick” and my husband topped me with “pissinterruptus.”
How about palinrush? Either as a verb or noun.
E.g.,
“Wow, after all that drunk sex last night, we just passed out after the fact. Woke up in a bed covered with Santorum, and to make matters worse, when I pissed later, I palinrushed all over the place.”
“Folks, in addition to preventing palinrush from forming, peeing after sex is really a good way to help prevent STDs.”
I like using boehner for something. Given it’s pronunciation is, I believe BAY-nor, how about using it to mean a dick which is leaking precum? As in,
“Dude, you totally have a boehner – better put a condom on.”
How about palinrush? Either as a verb or noun.
E.g.,
“Wow, after all that drunk sex last night, we just passed out after the fact. Woke up in a bed covered with Santorum, and to make matters worse, when I pissed later, I palinrushed all over the place.”
“Folks, in addition to preventing palinrush from forming, peeing after sex is really a good way to help prevent STDs.”
I like using boehner for something. Given it’s pronunciation is, I believe BAY-nor, how about using it to mean a dick which is leaking precum? As in,
“Dude, you totally have a boehner – better put a condom on.”
Oops – sorry for the repetition – moderator, please delete 250 or 249 (but not both of course). Thanks.
@ 74 – The most sensible post so far. It is astonishing how much lack of self awareness folks on this thread seem to exhibit. It’s all well and good to jump on what this guy’s girlfriend did or didn’t say but most of you are forgetting that there is ALWAYS two sides to every story and I’d be willing to bet that this guy was exhibiting other “immature” (read, irritating) traits that this woman was probably already noticing so his fantasy about comic book women just pushed her over the edge.
Yes, it is cowardly to not just drop someone at the first sign that you see the incompability but that is what humans do every day and long after all of us on this thread are dead and gone, humans will still be hanging onto relationships which so obviously will not work. He was probably annoying her outside the bed so his fantasy was just one more thing.
How about “CRUSM”?