For the caller who works in the group home: self-determination is a pretty big thing these days for those concerned with the rights of developmentally disabled adults. I would look at the rights of your residents as outlined by the company who owns your group home to see if there's something you can point to when you talk to your employer about having these conversations with the residents. I'm guessing there's also a distinction between people who are considered legally competent to consent and those who aren't. Riding the Bus With My Sister is an interesting memoir that really gets into these issues of sex, sterilization, refusing medical care, etc. for adults with developmental disabilities. But at a very basic level, it seems like these guys have a right (and maybe already had exposure through their school experiences) to a jr. high health class kind of discussion about safe sex and good relationships. I wonder, too, if you could get more acceptance around the topic if, when discussing it with family/employer, you hide it a little in the hypothetical "if they get engaged/married, they should still understand birth control and consent, etc." With the guys you could present it as "you know your parents think sex is only for married people, but it's important to know XYZ because sometimes people have sex even when they're not married and sex in any relationship should be safe and consensual. Here's how."

I usually love your opening comments, but I had to skip after the 5th minute of covering enormous saline balls.

(jump to 7:40 to skip the grapefruit balls discussion)

"Your balls after this..." HAHAHA!

Ugh, another "I'm way too good-looking for my lover, what do I do?" call. Isn't that kind of patronizing to both your friends and boyfriend to assume A. Your friends are all shallow assholes and B. Your boyfriend couldn't handle your dumb friends' bullshit opinions about him? Just a thought. Love who you love, no need to explain yourself.
If somebody called me to warn me that their boyfriend didn't looke like somebody I'd want to have sex with, I'd say "What's your point?" I'd probably think they were looking for reassurance to dump the ugly guy.

PS--saline balls sound like fun--if a little risky/time-consuming. If they could do that same thing to breasts, it would probably be REALLY popular.

Re: Barmitzvah and Ugly Boyfriend..... err.... welcome to 2012? There's facebook, G+, flickr, instagram and everything in between. Coming out about anything has never been this easy nor this lowkey!
Make her/him your official FB relationship - SOLVED
Share a few pictures of your last week-end getaway - SOLVED

My slant on the woman with the alcoholic boyfriend comes from being married to a drunk for twenty years, spending time in al anon, and getting some insight on how totally fucked up we all were, whole family, not just him.

Friends of alcoholics tend to also be alcoholics, so that's one thing I'd be looking at - friend might look better to this woman right now because boyfriend is a mess, but might not be better in any real sense. People who have been in long term relationships with alcoholics tend to be messes themselves, often have this martyr thing going, tend to be very controlling while pretending not to be, etc etc and are usually not really much better relationship material than the drunks are, unless they step back and get a little clarity. So what happens when "another person" is the impetus to getting out of an alcoholic relationship is not a move to something better, but more like a lurch to yet another flavour of disaster. Another aspect of this is what we call in al anon the "it's hard to get rid of an alcoholic" syndrome - the breakup might not be as clean and clear, from the caller's point of view, as she wants it to be, and having someone else involved might make it a real mess.

My advice to the caller would be to get out of this relationship, and spend some time getting healthier, take a look at why she put up with this shit for so long, and how likely she is to fall smack into the same shit again. Very common to lurch from one drunk to another, until you do a little work to find out what you're getting out of the mess. If friend still looks good after six months or so of reading, thinking, talking, then go for it.

I'll put the "coming out at the bar mitzvah" issue down to Dan's not feeling well. IT'S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT SEX. In this case, it's about a celebrating a boy's passage into manhood, not about some relative (she said she didn't associate with them much) coming out of the closet. To credit the caller, it didn't sound like she was pursuing it, her mother was - but what right does her pushy mother and her sexual identity have to do with a bar mitzvah? NOT an appropriate venue for a coming out (unless it's the bar mitzvah boy coming out. That's another story.) What right does she have to make the story of the party "the day Sarah announced she was bisexual but dating a woman"? SELFISH.

As for the woman calling with the "not as attractive" boyfriend - I would expect my friends to be decent human beings and realize that we are more than we appear. If my friends were nasty/rude/dismissive about the "not conventionally good looking" guy I was dating, they wouldn't be my friends anymore.

Thanks for the shout out, Dan, to the many straight volunteers working on any of the 4 gay marriage initiatives. I have been honored to have volunteered for this in my state, alongside people literally age 14 to 85, gay, bi, and straight, 'abled', and disabled. It completely blows my mind that the 14 yr old (a straight girl) did it despite being extraordinarily shy and all but terrified to work the phones, despite the fact that she can't vote, and despite her not living at home at the moment, due to issues with her parents. It's impossible to not be inspired by shit like that.

I have to say I only wish the leadership here had had a smidgeon of her heart and brains and guts.

Here's hoping the voters do the right thing in all four states, (come ON, people!) but even if they don't, this time ... fucking thing's coming down the pike. We all know it. Just a matter of time.

PS: if it passes in Washington, you and Terry really must have a big public wedding ...

Bisexual Bar Mitzvah guest here: Thanks, Dan, for taking my call. And thank you Samantha (#6) for your insight: Yes, part of my pushy mom's thinking is that it wouldn't be right to take attention away from the kid being celebrated here.

A little background info: I came out to my parents as a teenager and they chose not to share that information with other relatives. I'm still not out to much of my extended family because we're not that close and this is the first serious relationship I've had with a woman as an adult.

I did take Dan's suggestion and come out on Facebook and that helped with some relatives.

The whole "ugly boyfriend" exchange was insane. If a friend prefaced my meeting her boyfriend with "he's awesome, the sex is great... but he doesn't look like my other boyfriends," I would be mortified at both her shallowness and her lack of boundaries. Honestly, I don't need to be reassured that "the sex is great" with you and your beau who has an unsightly facial mole.

Just a correction to the end of the show: the amendment in Minnesota was _not_ for marriage equality. Instead, we blocked a constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. Which is still awesome. But gay folks in MN still can't get married, so we've got more work to do.

Hi Bisexual Bar Mitvah Guest, I wonder if it is actually your mother feeling guilty for not letting you come out earlier to the rest of the family. I am Asian, so trust me I understand what having a pushy mother is like. Anyway, I was also curious if she actually liked your girlfriend and wanted to celebrate that you are happy with her. Perhaps, she thought that there was a possibility that you guys would make a partnership and become part of the family. However, perhaps it is better to do that in a less formal setting.

As for the woman with the 'ugly boyfriend'. How utterly shallow. One thing that I have appreciated about my friends is that they have pulled me back from the brink of shallowness. They are often happy if another friend is with someone who adores them and treats them well. I have learnt to be kinder and more considerate from their actions and now regret moments when I have been shallow. Perhaps, she needs to change her attitude.

Finally, the period story. I have had heavy periods in the past and it is not cute or fun when you bleed all over someone's bed. It is also a hassle when you have to clean it. I am not ashamed of my periods but I understand why someone would not want to have sex with me at that time. One thing that Dan needs to take into account that female to male transmission of HIV heightens when the female partner is on her period. So as horny as I get during that time, I take consideration of my partner's safety although I get regularly tested for STDs etc.

Thanks for the shoutout to the suffering victims of Hurricane Sandy; your NY area listeners quite appreciate it.

I'm going to chalk it up to the Vicodin that Dan didn't get insecure about dating himself with a Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom reference.

Nice,

Mark
www.whosaroundtown.com
100% Free Adult Social Network

The "ugly" boyfriend caller has been dating the guy, and telling her friends about him for months, but they don't know what he looks like yet.... In the Facebook age, they must know something is up! Why doesn't she just post some pictures and get it over with? She says her friends are great, so hopefully she can trust them enough not to post any nasty comments, and they shouldn't be surprised when she deletes them if they do!

Congratulations to Dan and Terry on their impending marriage, on December 9 in Washington State!

http://straightupthanks.tumblr.com/

Hi Concerned Commenter (#17): Yes, probably a few of your suggestions are at play here. My parents didn't handle my coming out very well 15+ years ago, and have evolved some since then. And yes, my girlfriend is awesome, and they can tell she makes me happy :)

Regarding pushy moms: Oy. Can anyone suggest any good books or websites for adult children of pushy mothers? Or do we need to write it ourselves?

@20: Well, if you're a guy, you probably keep your wallet in your pants pocket, where your condoms will get nice and warm... which is a great way to get the latex to degrade, I believe. In addition, getting stuff in and out of your wallet all the time will cause friction which also causes the condom to degrade.

The best way to store condoms is to stick them in a place that is dry, slightly cooler than room temperature, and not jostled all the time. Your wallet in your pants pocket is not these things.

Re: Alcoholic Boyfriend - There's one other small thing I want to add. If you break up with him because of his alcoholism, that sends a clear message. If you cheat on him and he breaks up with you, or start dating his friend immediately after dumping him (perceived as "dumped to be with other guy"), that sends a more hazy message, and the original message of "I can't be with someone so self destructive" might be lost.

Re: Jerk ExBF Got me pregnant
Don't forget that you can totally ask him to fork over half the cost for the procedure!

To the guy who works in the group home:

PLEASE don't risk your job! I worked with developmentally disabled adults for 14 years, and I know how rare it is to find someone who actually cares about the rights of the people they serve. They need you. If your company is so dead-set against sex education, and you defy them in an attempt to provide that information anyway, the guys you're trying to help could lose you, and still not be in a position to get the education they deserve. You can help them much more by advocating for them, and doing everything you can from within the system. I disagree with Dan on this one. You'll fail them more if you lose your job, and are potentially replaced by someone who has no real concern for the best interest of your clients!

Why does Dan pronounce URL as "earl"?

re the group home worker -- I had a second job at a group home for a couple of years. In NY State, each developmentally disabled person gets a psychiatric evaluation, and they're rated on how much consent they're able give in a sexual situation. The social workers at the agency where I worked would then talk to the client and their families about how much consent the client was allowed to have. The workers were instructed about each client's levels and how to handle their sexual behavior. It was pretty enlightened.

NY State is pretty good about this, and our agency instructs us workers that EVERYONE is a sexual being, and mentally challenged people have the same rights to be a sexual being, within the boundaries of their ability to give consent. I knew one resident who liked to go to strip clubs when he got his weekly allowance, and because he was so physically disabled, the worker had to put the dollar bill into the stripper's G-string. The agency told us that if we had a problem with that, we could get a job somewhere else.

One of my managers at a home for men who were very severely physically and mentally challenged started work at the house, and noticed that all the guys had posters on their walls of kitties and puppies their parents had bought for them. She took the guys out to a poster store, and asked them what posters THEY would like. The guys all picked the sort of pics you'd see in the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. LOTS of posters. She wanted to get them naked posters, but the agency wouldn't allow it.

Only one of the guy's parents objected and made the manager take down the posters. We found out that one elderly white guy in his 80s preferred posters of black women with big breasts.

One of the residents with cerebral palsy only had voluntary control of his right hand. And good for him, he would spend all day Saturday and Sunday in his room with his door closed, giving his right hand a workout. When we'd come in to help him get his shower at night, he'd look down at his clothes, which bore evidence of his recreational activity -- lots of evidence -- and he'd giggle. I'd say, "You go for it, Name of Client.'" And he'd giggle again.

I thought that manager ROCKED. The first day I was there, she showed me all the posters, and asked me if I had a problem with them, and if I did, I could damned well go to another home.