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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
you rock my world, dan savage.
xoxo
jill
http://www.inbedwithmarriedwomen.com
Australia is of age.. ( though, not quite there yet).
So yes, go with Dans suggestions.
The Dr showed he was respectful of your privacy- just double check he won't disclose private matters, when you go back.
Please, go again to check what is happening with your body. Maybe you'd be more comfortable with a woman Dr?
I wish the doctor had told her what he was thinking when he asked. He might have said "I'm trying to rule out these particular STDs or know whether it makes sense to do a lab test for them so I need to know whether you're sexually active."
I don't like Dan's advice to let something awful happen first (doctor betrays trust), then count on a swift and appropriate punishment after (the LGBT group does exactly what?) since SAT would still be dealing with the fallout anyway. It would seem better to ask the doctor point blank why he asked about her sexual activity.
For my part, I'm trying to figure out what sort of STD or result of lesbian activity 2 years previous could make a young woman suddenly sick enough to see a doctor? I can't think of anything, but this isn't my area of expertise. I can think of STDs, but wouldn't the symptoms show up sooner?
If she does that, then you can fuck her. Unless you value the friendship more, in which case go to your friend after he's dating again, tell him you're attracted to his ex, and see how he takes it.
As for SAT, I would ask the doctor what specifically he is concerned about, and what specific activites might generate those concerns. Then you just have to say "yes, I've done that" rather than telling him a whole story because you don't know what the relevant bits are.
Although odds are good that he was just checking for STIs and pregnancy, because when somebody is mysteriously ill and there is any chance that person could be pregnant or have an STI, doctors like to check it no matter how much of a long-shot it is. Basically, it's easy to test for, so there's an attitude of why not rule it out? Doctors also dislike running out of ideas. So, it probably wasn't that anything looked likely, so much as with all of the more likely things ruled out, the doctor figured it was something to check for. And, honestly, if you are mysteriously ill, it's not a bad idea to have a thorough set of STI testing even if you haven't engaged in high risk behavior. Because it is pretty easy to rule out, and you've already ruled out the obvious stuff.
@2 inbed: I agree---thank heavens for no decapitated snake heads this week!
@4 LavaGirl: Excellent advice for SAT.
@5 Crinoline: I was wondering the same thing about STDs, too, although I myself have never actually had any.
Excellent advice for IBIAM, Dan. It does sound like he's going to lose his friendship with his BF, whether or not he gets the girl. I agree with EricaP @6 regarding LW2's asking his friend first about dating his ex if IBIAM values his friendship.
Also, good advice for SAT, Dan, LavaGirl, & Erica, on asking her doctor to be more specific on what he was so privately concerned about (STI / STD?).
Great internationally themed column this week!
I am having a lot of fun musically, and my beloved VW
had a tune-up and new ignition switch installed recently.
Fall is here, but we'll still take convertible weather while
we still can.
Last year's jaunt to the Pacific Ocean put a little spring into our step, both humanly and automotively speaking.
SAT - can you find a sex-positive, queer-friendly woman doctor?
Dan is possibly wrong on SAT and the doctor-patient confidentiality thing: in most countries healthcare providers have legal obligations to inform a parent about the treatment a legal minor is receiving
According to findlaw.com.au in Australia the age of consent for sex is 16, but the age of majority for medical matters is 18, before which parents may have a legal right to details about their minor child's care -- with lots of fuzziness left up to the discretion of the provider about what is essential info:
http://www.findlaw.com.au/articles/432/a…
So, if SAT doesn't get a good vibe, I would urge her to find a different doc, if she can (make up some excuse for the parents), but not to file a complaint. Especially as she is not out to her parents yet.
Pretty much anything you can get from giving head to a guy you can get from going down on a girl. If you used penetrative toys, say you did oral and vaginal sex with a guy. But I'd recommend finding a friendly doc. Most OB/GYNs should be more up on a full STI screen and protecting your confidentiality at age 16, in the spirit of Australian law rather than ruling on the side of the parents' right to know -- and you're at an age where you might reasonably have your first OB/GYN appointment? Good luck coming out to your parents when the time is right for you!
Plus consider getting the HPV vaccine if you didn't yet -- Australia now optionally gives it out free in schools to everyone at age 12-13! Civilized country! http://hpv.health.gov.au
23 yrs of age. Maybe not a great moral compass has evolved for you yet. Though, if my nearly 17 yr old son, behaved as you are- or plan to, I'd question him pretty strongly about what the fuck his life values were.
These friends of yours have been dating for two years, a pretty substantial length of time.
My suggestion to you, is step right back. Disengage from this woman( who is a cheater), step back from your friend,
( who you are planning to betray)..
And take a long hard look at yourself. What sort of man do you want to be?
Nice, Dan.
His friend (I assume also in the same age range) having a 2 year relationship with a woman (also about that same age) isn't unusual. But at that age, people date around and a change in relationships isn't a shocker. People should also understand that when someone does go shopping around for their next significant other, odds are it will be in or near their circle of friends. Yes, this will make his buddy uncomfortable. And he needs to consider whether that is important to him. As I got older and more serious about LTRs, the reaction of my circle of friends became less important in my selection of partners.
It does sound like the woman in question isn't that mature yet. The whole 'cheating with a girl' thing seems to indicate that she was buying into the letter of the law with regards to relationships but not the spirit. But her admitting that to IBIAM and describing it as 'cheating' indicates that she might be maturing with respect to her definitions of a relationship. After all, she admits being bi to IBIAM, so the relationship is going to start out with an agreement about monogamy with respect to other women as well as men. In fact it may be easier for her to end a current relationship and negotiate a new one starting with a clean slate and everything out in the open than it wouuld be to seek forgiveness from the current b.f. for her extra-curricular activities.
Researchers are also, in many cases, piss-poor at understanding the problems inherent in data that comes from self-reporting subjects. Can you think of any reason why women would be less likely to admit sexual fixations than men? I can think of about 20...
Not sure about your country but in the US we have the Bros Before Hos Act of 1987. It's like federal law or something.
Second: "How can I trust her when I know she is a cheater?" Really? How can she trust you?
He still looks good!
As far as women being less likely to admit fixations: I am pleasantly surprised by the forthrightness people (both men and women) answer properly anonymized and randomized surveys. All the way back to Kinsey, I don't think there is much that anyone still hides so long as they are assured their kinks aren't outed.
Great he asked & I answered.
FEET is obviously from another country; English isn't his first language. In many other languages, there is a word for (only) sons and a word for (only) daughters, but when you want to say "children" the word used is "sons." Think "hijos," "hijas," "hijos" in Spanish.
I assume that when FEET wrote "sons" he meant "children."
I couldn't express myself as well as he did in another language.
And you say if they got tog they would have a clean slate? Can't see that one.
And yes Dan, there are still Freudian therapists around. For all his difficult proclamations, Freud was a genius.
The Oedipal dynamic, as I've always understood it - relates well to the traditional nuclear family. The male child gets caught competing with the father for the mother. Good parents know how to help the child resolve these issues.
This LW had a violent father. He goes limp when trying to have sex with women. Maybe he's gay? Hence, he's still a virgin. He's into being humiliated sexually, & has a foot fetish, yet won't accept that part of himself & wants to just get with a woman & make babies.
His therapist is working on his relationships with his parents. Not a bad place for a therapist to look at.
This man needs to accept his sexual fantasies, however they originated. Accept he is aroused by humiliation by his foot fetish. Accept himself.
Maybe look around for a therapist who gives him this validation. Must be some groups in his country where he can find people with similar tastes. It's the accepting of himself that seems the big problem here.
Healthier attitudes towards sexuality in general, but no geographic cures for what ails him. Agreed with Lavagirl that being okay with himself is the first step, you can't run away from yourself. Finding a better place for dating than smalltown America isn't the worst idea, but do it for personal development first.
Yes. That was my whole point.
Maybe just leave the having babies bit until you find some inner resolution. Sexuality, really, no right or wrong. Your erotic life is a beautiful part of you. If you can't find people to share with, then find an online group.
Not "perhaps". It's actually quite obvious.
As a translator with a BA in linguistics and a French native speaker, I can assure you that nocutename's explanation is good. The LW speaks a romance language ("I'm virgin" instead of "I'm a virgin" is a pretty clear indication of that, as well as the way he uses "finally"). Spanish or Italian is my guess.
In romance languages, the masculine is also the neutral form that you use when talking about both genders. So children would be expressed as "sons" (Spanish hijos, Italian figli). Portuguese and French have neutral words, crianças and enfants, respectively, but you can also use filhos and fils in this context, both masculine/neutral (although this has gone out of fashion in French by now). Still, if he spoke either of these last two languages, he would probably not have made that mistake as he would have learned that the English word is equivalent to the neutral word in his language.
You really shouldn't read anything else into it. Trying to play armchair psychiatrist by erroneously making deductions that can only apply to speakers of your own language (or language family) only underlines your ignorance of other cultures.
It's a shame that Anglo-Saxons the world over generally don't bother learning other languages. They have no idea what they're missing out on.
@13 & @14 LavaGirl: Happy Spring Break at Noosa! I'd love to visit Australia one day, and the Oregon coast again soon---we did last year, and had a blast all along Highway 101!
@15 Still Thinking: Yep--my VW's the love of my life, and he's put up with me for almost 41 years now, nutty as I am.
If she's going to be prescribed any kind of medication, have an X-ray or other imaging, or if surgery is under consideration, her MD was really smart to check in about sexual activity.
When the doctor asks you to leave the room when examining your child, and you leave without objection, you are to some extent giving permission for the child to have a confidential relationship with that doctor.
I started sending my kids in to the doctor without me when they were around twelve. And that's when doctors stopped talking to me about their treatment. I'm sure that if I had asked them, when the kids were that age, they would have had to tell me. But they did not seem to feel it *necessary* to tell me if I didn't ask.
Chances are very good, seeing how everyone acted in SAT's case, that she has nothing to worry about - the doctor acted correctly in asking the question in privacy, her mother acted correctly in leaving the room, and, presumably, not third-degreeing SAT as soon as they got home about what the doctor wanted.
My experience has also been that doctors always ask if a person is sexually active, because it's useful information. My doctors certainly have always asked me, if I came in with a condition not immediately apparent. And they asked my kids as soon as they started having private medical consultations (I know this because my daughter was appalled by the question when she was first asked at about the age of 12, and couldn't wait to tell me all about it) It's a normal question, just like they ask about your bowel regularity and your periods. The idea floated by one commenter earlier that the doctor asked in order to get off on it seems to reveal more about the commenter than any doctor, to my mind.
I'm glad you wrote in with a mother's take on the situation. I just wish the doctor had prefaced the question with something like "it's so important to consider the possibility of pregnancy ..." That way SAT would have had a head's up about the question.
SAT's reaction to that question doesn't strike me as too odd as she's very young - note my own daughter's reaction, above. I'm a little surprised that the reaction of all the adults here hasn't been "Well, yes, duh, of course he asked that - that's the kind of question doctors ask", though. It's such a standard thing to ask that I suspect the doctor doesn't consider it to be startling in any way, and therefore not needing any preface.
I know when I took/take my teenaged daughters to the pediatrician, for any reason at all, including to get a throat culture because we think she might have strep, I am routinely dismissed from the room at some point and my daughters tell me/have told me that the doctor asks the "are you sexually active" question and then talks about birth control and disease prevention.
If the lw doesn't trust her doc to not be judgmental or not to out her to her mom, all she (the lw) needs to do is say she hasn't had vaginal intercourse yet (or penis-in-vagina). That's true, and it suggests, also truthfully, that the patient (our lw) has engaged in some sort of sexual behavior, about which the risks for disease transmission are, if not identical, at least present no matter whose fingers or tongue touched her. So listen to the info on using condoms (could come in handy if you're ever with a guy) and rest assured that the doctor is trying to right by his patient.
It is so much more likely that SAT's doctor is trying to help her than that he is trying to trip her up and get her to admit something he can go running to her mother about. The chances of it being the latter are vanishingly small, IMO.
It's not a safe place to talk about some things, since doctors are mandatory reporters, at least in the US and Google says in Australia as well. Depends on what you see as best and worst case scenarios.
It is a good place to get help, if that's what you want. But it can be a dangerous place to talk about sex with an older partner, or to admit to being abused if you don't want to see your abuser go to jail.
Look for a Bulk Billing female Dr, or a Women's Health Clinic or Women's Hospital , if you don't want to front the family GP, again.
You are allowed to be in charge of your own health. If you are still feeling unwell, please go see someone you can be upfront with, about yourself.
Another option - ruling pregnancy aside, pretty much all major urban areas also offer free anonymous sexual health screening. Look your local one up and find out when you can go get tested for free. If there is something residual from your last encounter it will be found that way! :-)
Ms Grizelda, if I'd realized you were so fond of the 80's, I'd have not waited until last week (or whenever it was that there was that LW with the married boyfriend who dumped his mistress for LW) to quote Simon le Bon.
as an aside, i'd be curious to know if the foreign letters come in to Dan in their native language and are translated by software and not people. Perhaps he can hook you up with a side job to spare us 'mericans from making such poor assumptions.
If the lw was using a translation program, but wasn't familiar enough with English to see that it had used one translation of "hijos" or "figli" rather than the correct one, he could easily make this mistake. If he is not very proficient in English, it's a very honest mistake to use the word "sons" and expect that the reader will understand it to mean either sons or children, depending on the actual people and since all the people are hypothetical and their gender is unknown, then "children."
This mistake is actually quite common.
It's true that the lw could be sexist and prefer having sons only to having children of either sex, but it seems like a weird tidbit to throw into the letter, and given his issues about gender roles and foot-licking/submissiveness, subservience/ cultural attitudes about gender roles and the anxiety it's causing him, it seems unlikely. It doesn't fit with the rest of the attitudes voiced in the letter.
So yes, it's an assumption that he didn't mean anything sexist by it. But it's by far the more logical assumption. When you come down to it we all assume a heck of a lot about all these letters and their writers and oftentimes the other people--not the letter writers themselves, but those people the letter writers are interacting with and writing about. We'll never know for sure how close we are in our understanding of the situation or of someone's thoughts or motivations, but it seems like a good, Occam's Razor-type practice to go with the most logical explanation and assumption.
@59 LavaGirl (re: comment @58 possibly about my previous comment @45):
It might be the spacebar on my computer....?
Also although your point @63 about the translation of sons is valid, I can't fathom how anyone would say that they exclusively want sons (or daughters) without giving an explanation as to why. People generally just don't talk like that, even when that's what they truly feel. If you have such clear-cut preferences for the gender of your offspring, you must be used to answer a barrage of questions every time you say them, and therefore you quickly learn to supply an answer before the questions are even asked. (This paragraph, I'll admit, is based on assumptions.)
Anyway, you've come to the right conclusion: you should always give the benefit of the doubt to non-native speakers. If you don't, it looks either like arrogance or projection.
And if it looks like arrogance, you can be sure I'll call you out on it, 'cause I really don't like having competition in that respect.
Maybe I'm entering my second (third? fourth?) childhood, what with my latest collecting of John Hughes comedies on DVD. I can't seem to help myself.
Of course first priorities are a live birth, a healthy child- then the sex.
When I gave birth to my third son, I did grieve. I wanted a daughter. I didn't wallow in those feelings, I did give myself permission to have them, though.
Then fell in love with my baby and he now is a 27 yr old man. Beautiful inside & out.
My next child was a daughter. Then I proceeded to have two more boys.
I think people hide their disappointment, cause it's seen as not cool-
Yet it can bubble up and over that child. Best to own it, feel it , that can then free one up to love ..
Creates a better chance of sons or daughters- cause, as we know- it's the Men who determine the sex of children.
It's also an assumption on your part that "in other parts of the world", men openly root against having daughters. It's borderline racist, too. I've lived in various countries and dealt with people from almost everywhere when I worked in the tourist industry - you have no idea what confessions you can hear from people who know they'll never see you again - and I can't say that I've observed this phenomenon. What I did observe is that a good proportion of men of every origin would prefer having sons (yes, even American men!), but they won't say it unless they're asked, and they'll automatically provide their motivation.
However, IMO he should investigate other possibilities such as a slightly altered but outwardly conventional relationship where he and his partner could enjoy his (and her) kinks ... a sexual relationship where neither party feels that PIV is necessary for fulfillment, so that the pressure put on him to perform would be removed. If he and his partner want children, then they could use artificial insemination. Otherwise, I can see a lot of frustration and unhappiness if his entire sexual future hinges on his ability to sustain a boner for penetration.
However, if fertility isn't an issue, and he really can't stay hard when feet are out of the picture, he can always masturbate into a cup and they can use the old turkey baster. As long as neither is infertile, there's no need to go the actual in vitro route.
Also, I am currently dating a foot-licker, and one of the things he does is to fuck me while licking my toes. I'm on my back, with a leg up against his face. He's kind of kneeling above me. It's very effective and very hot--maybe FEET will be able to do something like that. He should have no trouble sustaining an erection under those conditions, and the only real problem will be one of flexibility.
@78 (Ricardo): If you're referring to Viagra and its ilk, that might not be the solution you think it is. Viagra is a vasodialtor, meaning it give you a boner by increasing blood flow. But you still need to be aroused, and Viagra/Cialis/Levitra don't affect that. So if FEET isn't aroused, he isn't going to magically get hard.
If he needs constant arousal, they face each other, the girl lying on her back. She lifts her legs, and he keeps playing with her feet while penetrating her.
@ 80 - Funny you, of all people, should tell me to get over myself.
And since you didn't understand the basics of what you're talking about (I sense a pattern emerging), the cat, like everything else, has already been observed by someone, somewhere.
Sons are a lot cheaper; I have found. Clothes- didnt mind their brothers clothes. Hair shampoo, don't go thru as much. Eat a bit, of course. And love their mamma, most of the time.
They don't get pregnant. A big plus, that one.
All of them, though, kiss you goodbye & go have their own lives. One hopes.
Not in my case.
It doesn't solve psychological issues. It only covers physicalities.
absolutely not the point of the Schrodinger's cat paradox. The point (to oversimplify) is that both possibilities (cat alive/cat dead) are true until the absolute has been determined...and if so, then the quantum state of the cat is at some indeterminant point in time both alive and dead simultaneously. Alright... i promise...no more posts this week.
Fetishist Expecting Lousy Interaction Not Eloquence
Our cat has just been on heat. Just can't afford the vet bill @ the moment. What a carry on. And a Tom planted himself on our verandah, hoping to break down the bathroom window, I guess..
Didn't really check the Toms state out closely- just kept sending him off but he'd plant himself under the house, calling.
Then she moved out of the phase & he was gone. Obviously, no pretense of love going on in the cat kingdom.
“According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box is opened. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; on the contrary, he intended the example to illustrate the absurdity of the existing view of quantum mechanics. However, since Schrödinger's time, other interpretations of the mathematics of quantum mechanics have been advanced by physicists, some of which regard the "alive and dead" cat superposition as quite real. Intended as a critique of the Copenhagen interpretation (the prevailing orthodoxy in 1935), the "Schrödinger's Cat" thought experiment remains a defining touchstone for modern interpretations of quantum mechanics.”
So while Schrödinger used the cat analogy to show that quantum mechanics was absurd, physicists thought it was really quite a good description.