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.

mail@savagelove.net

301 replies on “Savage Love”

  1. How about Palin.

    Like the crusty little blockage that exists in Sarah Palin’s mental process that prevents her from realizing she how foolish she sounds when she publically speaks.

  9. Becklimbaugh – Whatever comes out its hole is either sperm or urine, it goes off on crazy tangents and it would be funny if it didn’t leave a big mess for someone to clean up.

  12. it’s gotta be sement. WTF is supergirl doing with an assault rifle? and your therapist is probably using the DSM-IV, the fifth iteration is on the way.

  13. it’s gotta be sement. WTF is supergirl holding an assault rifle? and your therapist probably used the dsm-IV to diagnose you. it replaced the dsm-III-R in 1994. the dsm-V is on the way.

  15. SUPER – there has to be a reason why shows like Wonderwoman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias….etc. are so big – and it is not the stories or the acting. There is a clearly a huge subset of men (and women) who get turned on by hot strong chicks who can kickass and physically dominate their men. Some guys act on this by focusing on women with muscle (see sites like herbiceps.com), some guys go for women can literally wrestle them down (see grapplinggirls.com or wb270.com for a huge list of women you can wrestle if you pay) and some guys…like superheroines. I like all three! Tell your girl to grow up and get willing to share her own fantasies with you – they are probably even kinkier. – CaptainCarolina

  21. I can’t believe it took 74 comments for someone to hit the nail on the head.

    Dan, I’m sorry, but you really missed the boat on that one. You must not realize how painfully insecure almost ALL women are about their myriad physical flaws. When SUPER said “Sometimes I fantasize about superheroines”, his GF heard “Your body will never be good enough for me.” Her reaction was probably bad, but cut her some slack. We girls never can meet that fantasy standard, and most women have trouble accepting that that’s okay.

  22. Rgirl, I simply disagree with letting her off and not criticising her. Not that I am saying he should automatically dump her but I think this would need to be addressed, she is wrong and it was unfair. She might be insecure about it but it does not excuse her actions and I do not see why anyone should cut someone slack for acting in an immature way based on their insecurities. She is an adult and has to be grown up. She might have interpreted what he said incorrectly but that is her issue, not his (unless he really did fumble when explaining this but we will never know. As with all letters here we can only go on what is written, the rest is speculation, sometimes more informed than others). Everyone is insecure but when we act on these in an unfair way we are still unfair. Understandable but still wrong.

  23. Maybe SUPER’s girlfriend was freaked out because the way SUPER worded his fantasy makes it seem kind of creepy. I mean, his first mention of a sexy super heroine is Super Girl, and she’s a teenager. Then he starts talking about his “inner pubescent boy.” It makes him sound like kind of a pedophile. Or like he’s still stuck being attracted to the young teen girls he was attracted to when he was a teen himself- as if he hasn’t grown past that stage. Maybe that’s why she called him immature and said it seemed like he was disturbed.

    He might have gotten a better reaction if he’d just said he was attracted to more age-appropriate super heroes, like Wonder Woman and Cat Woman, and left out the stuff about the pubescent boy inside of him.

  25. deseret-

    assuming that a man talking about his inner pre-pubescent boy is somehow pedophilia is just retarded. if that was the reason she freaked out on him, he should dump her for being a dumbass, if for no other reason. oh, and supergirl? she had tits and hips. maybe not as round and big as wonder woman’s, but big enough not to qualify fantasies about her as pedophilia. people who get all worked up about this kind of thing don’t deserve to be humored.

  26. CAR and her BF sound like real-life vampires and I don’t mean that in a good way. I think they’re much lower than SUPER’s (hopefully) ex. She sounds like just an insensitive snot and there’s always hope that she learned her lesson. But CAR and BF just keep using people and thinking they’re awesome for doing it. Yig.

    and I vote for “sement”! The infamous names of Palin, Boner, Beck, Limbo et all really deserve something a lot worse. It almost has to involve diarrhea, pus, vomit, or rotted animal carcasses, or all four.

  27. The Wax Dart

    The explanation may not be the same, but the blockage is.

    “I haven’t had sex in so long, the next time I come it’s going to be like a wax dart shooting out of the end of my dick!” -Bill Hicks

  28. The Wax Dart

    The explanation may not be the same, but the blockage is.

    “I haven’t had sex in so long, the next time I come it’s going to be like a wax dart shooting out of the end of my dick!” -Bill Hicks

  32. Instead of sement which has the homonym problem, let’s go with:

    penisement

    Don’t pronounce the first two syllables like “penis” but like “penicillin”

  33. “Sement” is the best option posted so far.

    It’s good for both men and women to pee after sex. Bladder infections are no fun.

  34. Dan! Let’s call the semen plug a “Foley Plug” for US Rep Mark Foley, the foremost opponent of child pornography in the Senate, who was scandalized for sending teenaged Congressional Pages sexual emails for years. And, Foley Plug seems like it could also be a component of the urination facilitator the “Foley Catheter.”

  35. Although I know Sement has by far the most votes, Rush Limblock gets mine for the win.
    You could park a car in the shadow of his ass!

  36. Poor girl, how has she never had a fantasy about fucking Batman?

    SUPER’s gf is the type of girl I can thank for giving every decent man I have slept with some sort of complex about sharing sexual fantasies.

  38. CAR is delusional if she thinks her BF isn’t saying things to the other women that make them believe he will leave her. I met a man in this situation before and he trash talked his GF constantly. Of course, one would believe he would leave someone he felt so adamantly about, but always had BS excuses why he couldn’t. He “couldn’t” because he had a dumb bitch at home that didn’t realize how bad he made her look and the fact that he could do whatever he wanted. Yet, I met another man who was totally upfront saying he wanted to date me, but I should know he’s into open relationships and always will be. Kudos to him for being honest and letting a woman decide what she will/will not accept. CAR is a fool and they deserve each other. But hey CAR, you might want to actually find out the truth before you assume it’s the outside party that has issues. I’m willing to bet that the issues are YOU, you stupid bitch!

  41. A little harsh to CAR, I think. Some girls are just really, really, really immature. You can tell them from the beginning, “No, we’re not breaking up.” You can tell them, “No, he’s not leaving me for you.” You can be as honest and direct and blunt as you can possibly be, and they STILL get attached and heartbroken when WHAT YOU TOLD THEM WAS GOING TO HAPPEN ended up happening after all. Some girls are just stupid like that.

  43. CAR, You’re an ass and you are NOT respectful.

    Start with this, “Because our relationship with each other is always more important than she is.”

    If you start with the assumption that anyone besides the two of you is less important than your relationship, you begin by defining them as disposable. No one wants to be treated that way and that’s why you keep hurting people. If you just want to fool around at times with people and don’t want to pursue serious relationships with them that treat them as equals, hire someone or advertise for a play partner. Join a swinger’s club. Find a sex club. Don’t pretend that you’re dating and pursuing a relationship with them.

  44. @5 Why do people always suggest that Dan has a bias towards gay OR straight relationship advice?

    Not putting in the time and effort to extend that obviously disaster-waiting-to-happen-relationship has everything to do with the fact that it was only the first time they’d slept together and that it wasn’t a deep and meaningful relationship that needed to be nursed back to life.

    Way to project your sexuality-bias on other people, douchebag.

  45. I think SUPER’s girlfriend’s reaction was a major red flag. Unless she apologized in the next week, I think she should be toast.

    It isn’t just that the fantasy bothered her, it’s that she psychoanalyzed her boyfriend and diagnosed him as a villainous, sexist, immature neurotic.

    If something bothers her, or makes her jealous, she needs to take responsibility for her own emotions and reactions, instead of pointing the finger. If she reacted badly in the moment, she needs to apologize promptly and initiate a mature discussion. If she can’t do that he needs to dump her.

    I agree with Dan that this is a red flag for a manipulator or abuser.

    If my boyfriend told me he was into scat or incest fantasies, I might be disturbed, even as a longtime Savage Love reader (yes I know these fetishes are common but they still gross me out). However, I hope I would at least understand that my reactions or feelings of insecurity and grossness are just feelings and don’t mean that the other person is Ted Bundy. I don’t have to like it, but I don’t have to call the other person names either.

    The girlfriend’s crime isn’t being vanilla or boring in bed. It’s leaping to accusations and her attempt to shame her boyfriend that make the whole thing disturbing.

  50. actually, smegma is incorrect, smegma is a “cheesy substance”, …a combination of exfoliated (shed) epithelial cells, transudated skin oils, and moisture…it’s on the outside and it’s not hard, but smeary, like cream cheese (sorry if you’re eating and reading!). he’s talking about a drier crust that builds up inside his urethra. and actually, smegma is greek for soap. i don’t get the connection except for the thought that when smegma occurs, you need soap. btw, smegma happens to girls too..and not just humans.

    as for the brother who needs to come out…it’s true..he does. there is a huge amount of emotional baggage that builds up when you have to hide your true self away from people, especially the people closest to you, your family. how do i know this? i’m doing it. i knew i was bisexual by the time i was 9 and slept with a girl shortly after i slept with a guy for the first time. But, I live in a VERY small town, in a very conservative state…and my family wouldn’t understand, except maybe my gram. the rest would just think i was trying to get attention or being a slut. i moved from this small town to a huge city after high school. i got to be whoever and whatever i wanted to be. i didn’t have to censor myself, watch what i said…nothing..just free to be me. after about 6 years of this, i was forced to move back to my hometown due to circumstances beyond my control..and with moving back came shutting my true self down. only my husband knows. it feels like i’m lying every minute of everyday. it feels like i’m cheating myself, like i’m denying a huge part of me just to avoid conflict. someday i’ll leave here and be who i am, but there’ll still be part of me that knows i’m suppressing WHO I AM to the people i’m closest to…and that causes a major mindfuck. don’t do it to yourself if you can help it..just like Dan says about coming out, the only time you shouldn’t is if you are dependent on your family for basic needs, like i am, where it would be detrimental to you, not just a problem your family needs to get the hell over. …by now, there’s little need to tell them, since i’m married, but there’s part of me that wants to anyway, part of me that’s tired of being repressed, part of me that’s so freaking tired of hiding myself and feeling guilty for being me…for being bi. don’t do this to yourself if you can at all help it. you’ll feel so much better, not matter the outcome, (better to have your family upset than to live a lie forever) and your therapy bills will be SO much cheaper.

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