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Recent Savage Love Letters of the Day: Is period blood sex ketchup? Should she cheat? Should this straight dude kiss his gay coworker? And some quickies! Also, last week's column and Savage Lovecast.

For PARENT:

It's yucky to discover your parent's kinks after they die suddenly—this happened to my husband. It took him a while to process and realize that this side of his parent was private and had nothing to do with my husband. Similarly, you might have told to PARENT that this was a private thing and was obviously never meant for her to discover. It also is a possibility her mother never knew. Or she knew, but decided putting up with his kinks was the price of having a marriage with him. Or it could be that she loved him despite his kinks. Finally, mourning takes time; it's a process. PARENT needs to learn to let go of this discovery and remember who her wonderful father was to her. PARENT is hurting and needs a little more reassurance and kindness. Grief is always near, we keep it our back pocket—no, our front pocket close to our heart.

For CHOKE:

Just read your advice to CHOKE regarding choking and breath play. Their fear about injuring the partner, and the professional advice you solicited, is all very reasonable. Please allow me to add a slightly different perspective: not all choking play is about breath play. These can be two different things. In my experience as a top, I’ve found that some bottoms simply like the feeling of hands around their throats, which gives them a feeling of being controlled. When I do it, I’m very careful to not choke them at all but merely to hold them. Perhaps CHOKE’s partner might be ok with this? Thanks for all your work!

Also for CHOKE:

Just here to chime in that yes, in Brazilian jujitsu, choking people is common and no one dies. Choking them unconscious happens now and then, and while I don't know how often people die as a result, I've never heard of it happening in the three years I've been heavily involved in two different gyms.

That said, it takes quite a bit of time to figure out how to manage yourself and your reactions while being choked, as well as to identify when a choke has been set properly and you might as well tap out, and when it has been set badly and you'll be just fine. There is a fair amount of skill and training involved. If the LW and his GF want to be safe, they should go join a course and take six months or so of classes. Not only will they learn all about chokes, they'll get a good workout and maybe learn some self defense skills.

For WOW:

DEFINITELY tell your friend about the nature of the film festival before going, early enough so you can find someone else to attend if she declines. The other friend saying "the shock value will be funny"? Ew. I'm surprised at Dan's advice. Somebody can be an adult, sex positive, and curious without being interested in attending HUMP!. There's a lot of social pressure to go along at the point of seeing signage and hearing the pre-show explanation. Not cool.

For KISS:

I understand that Dan is limited by space, but why the leap straight to cheating here? KISS is happily married, and maybe his wife would find him making out with a dude a major violation of their marriage... or a rather minor violation she'd rather not know about... or she might find it fucking hot and provide nothing but love and support while he explores (theoretically or actually) this dilemma. I mean, as a woman who would find it fucking hot, clearly I'm a little biased, but, really, if you can't get a little drunk or a little high and chat about/watch some softcore gay porn with your spouse, what's the point of being married?

For AWHN:

To me, this is one of those letters where tone makes me extraordinarily non-receptive to the LW. She denigrates her husband every way she can, including age- and size-shaming him. Everyone else is a great lover and they're amazing, and HUGE, and young, and knew how to make her squirt, or touch her and did I mention that he's a lot older than she is and one of her lovers is a hot younger man, and one guy's a massage therapist (of course he knows what to do with his hands), and one guy's got "stamina" (which means obviously the husband doesn't), and one of them "adored" her, and... not one good thing to say about her husband. But lots of blame. He never had fellatio before he met her, despite being a used-up, decrepit old man—and somehow that's a problem for her. He sucks at eating pussy—not eating her pussy, because different women might find different techniques satisfying, just eating pussy in general. He won't squeeze her. He wants to "go back to regular sex," "regular" apparently not including lingerie, toys, touch, oral. And what kind of normal man doesn't want to play with his wife anally? (Her attitude, as it comes through this letter, not my assertion.) In short, he sounds too bad to be true. But he sure sounds like a justification for cheating.

I can't tell if she is about ready to take some responsibility for the horrible sex life she has in her marriage. She says this, "I have had good sex prior to him but never understood sex or the female body so what me and my husband had was ok." So maybe she's suggesting that she really didn't know how good sex could be. But other than that, the blame rests solely with her husband. She is clearly not attracted to him now, if she ever really was ("what me and my husband had was ok" at the outset of a marriage is not a ringing endorsement).

She doesn't mention kids (which doesn't mean there aren't kids). She's 39. She hates having sex with her husband and says he wouldn't consider opening the marriage. She should leave.
But I think she's going to keep on cheating and what she wanted was absolution of her guilt.

On Candy Corn:

Seriously Dan, if god wanted us to eat candy corn, well first off I guess there would have to be a god, or gods, and they would have made it less gross. Sheesh.

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