May 9, 2018 at 4:48 pm

Savage Love Letter of the Day

Comments

1

SWITCH is a gay man who voted FOR Donald Dickhead Trumpzilla??!!? WTF??
Did the LW have his head up his butt?

2

Stop beating around the bush, Dan; tell us how you REALLY feel.

(Every f-ing word endorsed, btw; fuck these homocons)

3

Ugh...his letter reeks of the "I'm the real victim" pose of the Aunt Toms. If you voted for Trump you don't deserve sex with right thinking people. Go find another troglodyte to fuck, bitch.

4

To answer the question: Yes you can sleep with them anyway, and no it's not unethical.

5

Trump supports ain't tryin' to read a buncha facts.

6

*supporters.

7

This needs to be a staged monologue starring someone like Glenda Jackson or Ian McKellan.

8

As a practical matter, I suppose you could hide your political affiliations long enough for a one-night stand, and no one would be the wiser. So it depends on what you are using dating apps for.

I am older and married, and I confess I have never used Grindr or any other dating app. But if I were to use such an app for the sole purpose of finding NSA sex for one night, then I wouldn't much care about the political views of the other person I'm hooking up with, so long as he can keep his yap shut about Trump (talking about Trump would be a boner killer and a deal breaker).

On the other hand, if I were looking for more than a one-off hook up, if I were looking for potential relationship material, then your political views would absolutely matter 100%. While I can conceive of fucking a republican on a hook up, I cannot conceive of forming any kind of meaningful relationship with a Trump voter. I've been around since the Kennedy administration, and Trump is by far the worst president in my lifetime. I'm old enough to remember the Watergate hearings, and Trump is far worse than Nixon.

So if you're only looking for a one-time hookup and you can keep your views to yourself, you can probably get away with it, and I would consider it only a minor offense. If you are looking for any kind of relationship, even the possibility of a few dates that might include conversation, then I absolutely think you should disclose it, and not bother trying to date someone who specifically states they don't want to meet republicans or Trump voters.

And seriously, you voted for Trump? WTF is the matter with you?

9

Seattle Blues will fuck you, Trump voters. That bitch is one THIRSTY closet case.

But he'll cry in the bathroom for half an hour after. So vacate quick.

10

Dear SWITCH,

do you know what will get you laid?

NOTHING!!!!

Eat sh*t you traitorous racist, sexist POS. I hope your penis shrivels up and falls off from dis-use! May you die alone and unloved in the filthiest unregulated roach infested nursing home because the GOP defunded the medicaid program that pays for it!

11

So he's gay incel due to his own making. He should just go to the sex clubs to get laid and leave the MAGA hat in the car.

12

Well, I'm monogamous, but if I was out there, after reading this I would try to look up any hookup's voter registration before meeting. In many states you can.

What was that old expression? "Trust but verify."

13

Good answer, Dan. Succinct, to the point.

14

My interactions with Trump voting gays is that these guys need a role model. They are desperate for any interaction with gay men, but lack the maturity to realize that they are the reason they aren't getting it.

You're weird guys! Yes, you need to go to the gym. You need some honest feedback from someone you trust. You need therapy. And almost all of you desperately need new pants and shoes!

Do the work.

Don't write to Dan Savage because you need gay attention. And don't bad mouth other gays to straight assholes so they'll give you attention. Just do the work. Make some gay friends (you might need to move). Buy some new pants. Get your dick sucked the honest way.

15

Years ago I dated a man for about a month when he "came out" as not just a member, but ON THE BOARD of Log Cabin Republicans.
We argued the rest of the evening (he believed Pat Buchanan would make a great POTUS), then I left and never returned his many calls or talked to him again. I wish I could take back every orgasm I gave him.

16

"I view written proscriptions against groups of people as mean spirited at best"
And you voted for SCROTUS, the Orange-Crapstain-in-Chief? Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

17

“If you supported Hillary in the primaries, even by half measures, kindly fuck right off.”

That sounds about right.

18

If this guy is expecting sympathy for his plight, he's come to the wrong place. Why go on an app where people want nothing to do with self-loathing gays who would vote for the Trumpster fire? Find a local Log Cabins Republican group; I'm sure there you'll find someone who will understand why you voted for the guy who picked as his running running mate one of the most anti-gay guys outside the Westboro Baptist Church.

Although I think men who vote for guys like Trump don't deserve to get laid again unless they have a giant epiphany.

19

This is exactly like all those whiny bitch ass "incels" who can't understand why women don't want to fuck them. Some people smell like shit and anyone with a basic lizard brain wants NOTHING to do with them. I do wonder, exactly as Dan does, why don't they all just fuck each other (the Republican, Trump voting gays, not the "incels")? Seriously, as a heterosexual woman, anyone who voted for the pussy grabber, rapist, I want to fuck my daughter, publicly mocks disabled people, calls immigrants rapist and murderers and black people lazy and unintelligent (with nothing to lose - oh yeah except their lives), POS that is DJT is a pariah to me - as a friend, a fuck, or anything else. People who voted for DJT are hateful people, the horror show of humanity. Fuck them (not literally, just figuratively). I do not feel anything but contempt for anyone who voted for that shit stain.

20

I assume dude is a masochist, why else would he write this letter to Dan? And yes @4, lying is indeed unethical. Lying to get something you want is even more unethical. Lying to manipulate someone in a relationship based on a certain amount of vulnerability and trust, super unethical. Just because the prez lies with every other word out of his mouth, does not mean that it's suddenly fine.

21

SWITCH should have voted for Obama.
Who ran on a platform opposing gay marriage.
Twice.
Dirty Rat.
But relax, Obama will get his.
In fact; with the flushing of the crap Arm Iran nuke deal Trump has pretty much erased every thing Obama did.
Karma.

22

"And, hey, if you can manage to pull your head out of your ass before 2020, SWITCH, you might have an easier time finding a guy who wants to stick his dicks in there."
"dicks" plural?

23

(Also, shame on the Stranger web monkeys who disabled all the HTML tags. How am I supposed to show emphasis now?)

24

This LW is a great example of why I am currently intentionally celibate.

25

"GAY REPUBLICAN" ............is an "Oxymoron"! NO such thing = Impossible!!
*OXYMORON just like they are......MORONS!!

26

@4: I mean, if you ever told any women how you really felt about them...

27

@21: The zeal you have for Trump's reversal of LGBT human rights protections detracts from your phony sanctimony.

http://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-rights/

28

@12 btmom Wait up, not only do Americans have to register that they're going to vote for a particular party, but randos can look it up anytime? What happened to the secret ballot? That seems fucking wacky to me.

29

Funnily enough the article Dan linked also links to this article: "Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them."

30

Dan is having another Joy Reid moment of inclusivity even among his own community. Too bad there are a lot of gay republicans out there. Some voted for Trump, some didnt. But when a Zealot degrades someone publicly under the guise of being someone who is supposed to help (even with this low brow genre) my interest becomes piqued. Clearly the bait has proven Dan to be a zealot who has the emotional control of a two year old. You see SWITCH, zealots can cavort with child molesters and have their brains so far up the yahoo of “deplorable”-labeling hypocrites that it makes them feel better. They lash out because they are forced to look into a mirror and cant fathom that someone differs from their National Socialist Brownshirt group-think. SWITCH has proven he has the courage to stand up be a real man and counted as an individual and that scares zealots because they cant. They’ll throw everything they have at you even when Mike Pence just swore in the first gay ambassador to Germany with his partner by his side. You see, the liberal narrative is falling apart and they know it. Take my word for it, if the gay community is so closed off that politics is a standard to get laid then its not much of a community anymore anyway - unless of course you pretend they arent HIV positive and have a quarter of crystal meth in your pocket. Trust me, You’ll find someone, it just means that in this day and age you’ll have to apply yourself and be more inventive, but never change because someone, be it king, pauper or aged editorial queen who will have to answer to his own kids one day. Be yourself and be proud of who you are and be confident out there. I am an openly gay republican and although I didnt vote for him in 2016, I will vote for him in 2020. Not to spite aged editorial queens or liberal, progressive, socialist group-thinkers, but because “Hope and Change” identity politics failed me more voting cycles than not and when you look at the economic, homeless, wage-stagnated, criminal, out-of-control-cost-of-living disarray of Seattle now, I know my decision is the right one.

31

Hufflepuffs rule.

Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Syltherins are just different flavors of self-absorbed assholes who wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire. They all voted for Trump.

32

@21: you not do know what “platform” means. But even granting you what you want granted, Obama pushed gay rights and equality and acceptance in the forward direction. Trump is pushing backwards. Republicans are pushing backwards. Democrats are pushing forwards. It matters.

33

@phascogale #28

One of the stupidities of the US electoral system is that the candidate selection for the two major parties is done using a 'pre-election' system. So in each election you vote twice, first in the primary and then again in the general election.

However, you can only vote once during the primaries even though, (in most states¹), there are two primary elections. As such, your voter registration indicates which party you are registered to vote in the primaries for. And yes, many states allow anyone to check the voter list.

If you think this is bad, let me tell you something that makes it even more brain dead: A large chunk of voter registration is done by private groups in registration drives, where they go out and try and get people to fill out registration forms which will then be turned in to the elections agency. That's right, for many people their ability to vote can be in the hands of random people who have a very good idea of which party you support. At this point, I doubt you will be shocked that it is a regular occurrence for piles of completed voter registration forms to be found in places like dumpsters².

1: Some have switched to unified primaries that are a more normal kind of round 1 election where whoever the top two are go on to the general election even if they are from the same party.

2: The political leanings of the groups involved in this illegal discarding³ of forms and the registered affiliations of the people on those forms are both remarkably consistent.

3: Legally you have to turn every single complete form in, even the ones that say things like "Name: Twilight Sparkle, Address: Friendship Palace, Ponyville".

34

I think the good Doctor @20 has it right. As I type this, the LW is reading this comment thread,
his cheeks aflame with what he knows is well-deserved shame, and his hand down his pants.

35

@30: "never change because someone, be it king, pauper or aged editorial queen who will have to answer to his own kids one day"

You come off a sociopath.

36

Aren't there any dating apps specifically so gay assholes can fuck each other and leave other people out of it?

37

"Gay Trump Voter: No One Will Fuck Me!"
Gay Trump Voter -- not True!
Trumpfy Fucking You NOW.
He Fucing Everyone.
Unless you're rich.

38

Correction: He's fucking Fucking Everyone Now.

39

Gay incels. Incels. Soon this freak will be demanding the government provide him virgin thinks and to exclusively legalize gay anal rape

40

Unless you're rich.

41

Whoops, meant to say Gincels after "gay incels".

42

Yo, Bloated -- what does this, "...provide him virgin thinks..." translate to?
Got me puzzled.

43

Bloody autocorrect. Virgin twinks.

44

It is not right to sleep with partners whom you consciously know would not sleep with you if you were being forthcoming. Call it rape, call it not rape, call it whatever you want, but it is certainly unethical. While not all omissions are lies, and while not all lies are necessarily unethical so long as they serve expressly positive purposes, if you consciously omit information in order to influence a major decision of another person, directly against their stated wishes, that is unethical.

Imagine if a surgeon were to know that a patient who doesn't want surgery also doesn't technically need it, but it would make him money anyways, and there's a good chance that the patient would make it through the surgery. Would it then be ethical for the surgeon to fail to tell the patient about another route of treatment? The only difference between the LW and our hypothetical surgeon is that a surgeon has sworn an oath and is bound by rather serious laws which work as strong incentives against this sort of thing, and LW is clearly asking permission to sleep with people who do not want to sleep with him. He thinks he's somehow found an ethical loophole where he gets to have sex with people who would want nothing to do with him, because he just doesn't tell them enough about him. He hasn't, it's still unethical.

To fit this to this specific case, and to make it explicit, if you were to pretend to not be a Trump supporter in order to sleep with someone who would definitely not sleep with Trump supporters, that is unethical, yes. Would it make you a bad person to do this? Yes, it would. Does it make you a bad person if you do this? Yes, it does.

With that said, if you're having no-questions-asked casual sex with other people, you don't then get to retroactively ask questions. State your limits up front. I would go as far as saying that you ought to even put your own ethically questionable limits (like racial 'preferences') up front, because if this guy openly stated he was a Trump supporter on his profile, he would never have to deal with this problem, and would only ever sleep with guys who don't mind that, i.e. truly consenting and aware partners. People may feel really hurt and left out by these, in the cases of things like race, weight, mannerisms, etc, and yes, a lot of them are fucky, but it would be a great gift to be able to instantly discount all partners with these shitty preferences and limits, not to mention a way to impose positive limits (for example, no people like LW) easily.

Always be wary of too-blank profiles and unanswered questions.

45

tl;dr if you're ignoring a potential partner's clear 'no,' whether or not they know it, that sex is not fully consensual.

46

@7: Glenda Jackson, a great actress. I saw her in Sydney three times in a play, I had such a crush on her.

What, there's no gay trump voters. Ring Milo, he'll have some buddies.

47

LW- be advised that quite a few people who assume Trump voters to be fairly stupid are likely to be strongly reassured of their position after reading your letter.

48

"I view written proscriptions against groups of people as mean spirited at best." Ha! Says someone who voted for Trump!? The hypocrisy is amazing.

No, it's not ethical to pretend you are someone you aren't in order to get laid. At least your tiny sense of ethics recognises that. Keep swiping left and blocking and saving these people from the horror of unknowingly fucking a supporter of bigotry. I agree with Dan: Go fuck other gay Trump supporters; at least you won't breed.

49

Hook me up with this dude. I'm 26 and living in New Braunfels, TX. Lots of dudes wanna fuck me. I'll fuck this dude.

And to the rest of you who are so malevolent and venomous, go look in a mirror so you can die from the horror of your own self-awareness. Because frankly, you're disgusting people.

50

So much anger devoted towards the people on the bottom of the heap. No thought about how we ended up here. The problem isn't that people are racist, homophobic, sexist assholes. People have always been racist, homophobic sexist assholes. The problem is that we live in a time when racist, homophobic sexist assholes can and do thrive, drive the debate and win. The meaningful questions is... why is that? Under what conditions do these people and ideas thrive and spread, and under what conditions do they recede?

Everything else is just making yourself feel righteous and getting off on your rage. Congrats. Just about everyone here has got that one down.

51

@philosophy school dropout:

Your premises don't follow. "Under what conditions do these people and ideas thrive and spread?" Under polite deference to them. To quote MLK "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;"

Under what conditions do they recede? Conditions where people refuse to tolerate them. Fighting a war against the Nazis in WWII, Stetson Kennedy mocking the KKK and making them publicly ridiculous in the 1940s, the Punk movement in the 70's and 80's saying "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" and backing it up with their fists. Appeasement has never worked - direct confrontation does.

52

@30, politics to you is like fashion. You can argue over it like that because you're never really affected by it. Oh, you have to pay taxes, boo-fucking-hoo. What you don't understand, and why your comment about the Ambassador to Germany means jack shit, is that politics have real-world consequences, and the people you oppose are the very people who are affected by them. They take those positions because they can't afford not to.

That's what I think is up with LW. I bet he's a white guy that came from an upper-middle class background who never considers politics except every four years and just votes for whomever everyone else around him seems to like. Being from Texas, it was easy to blend in. Now he's shocked, shocked I say, to see that some people take this "politics" thing quite seriously! How dare they! If they need money, why don't they just ask their parents? If they have some legal trouble, daddy's lawyer can work something out. People today!

LW: Instead of swiping around, read those articles Dan provided you. And then read some more: Books, newspapers, articles, on all sorts of subjects. Your world, the people you claim as your own are telling you something: You're a dumbfuck. Great thing is, there is a cure for it.

53

Philosophy school dropout; not sure people who chose trump can be reasoned with. I mean, the pig showed his true colours before voting day. His sexism was super visible, his mocking a man with a disability etc etc etc etc. Voting for trump means the LW agreed with what that man stood for. So which bit should we tackle first?
These people ( incl @30) have hate in their hearts for others, see others as less than, feel zero empathy for most of the earth's peoples and their pain and persecution. How do you shift their hearts and minds? And the cheek of this narcissistic little twit writing Dan, asking about ethics. HaHa.

54

Hi Dan, hi others,

You might be interested in reading this paper by the philosopher Tom Dougherty:

https://philpapers.org/archive/DOUSLA-2.pdf

He takes a harder line than you and the people you quote seem to: he thinks that, if you know that a certain political affiliation is a deal-breaker for someone, and you lie about it to them in order to get laid, you've not got their consent, and so you've done them a really serious moral wrong. It's a really good paper—well-written and thought-provoking, even if you don't agree with his conclusions.

55

I'm going to have to call this one a really transparent troll and maybe even fake.

I mean, nobody is so dumb as to think they would get anything other than this response from Dan, right? I mean, this is Dan "ITMFA" Savage, after all.

But then, this is a gay guy who voted for Trump so...maybe he is that dumb.

56

Several years ago there was a news item about a man who represented himself as a doctor, told women he would give them a pelvic exam, did so, and only later did they discover that he was just feeling them up. Lawmakers were appalled and tried to figure out what law he'd broken. He wasn't exactly practicing medicine without a license. He'd lied, but there's no law against that. Lawmakers tried to write legislation that would make what he'd done illegal, but they ran into trouble. No matter how they worded it, they ran into making it a crime for a man to represent himself as single when he was married, or what if he represented himself as interested in a long term relationship because he really feels like he's falling for a woman, hasn't felt like this in years, is falling in love, when really, you know.

(Obviously I'm going by memory and have many of the details wrong. I welcome correction if anyone is able to find the real story about the non-doctor.)

What about the situation where a woman consents to sex if he's wearing a condom, and then he removes the condom when she's got her eyes closed and before entering her? I'd call that rape. I don't know how I'd prosecute it or if a jury would agree.

I can think of many other consent/not consent situations. I can imagine situations where it goes off the deep end in the other direction. I can imagine a backlash. Like the man who got laid by lying and saying he was in love countering that it doesn't count because he thought she was a natural blond but it turns out she dyes her hair.

None of us is wholly honest.

57

And when Pence becomes President, after trump's demise, that Ambassador will be recalled from Germany. Then he and you LW and you @30, along with all the other queer Americans will know a different story. Pence hates gays, you not notice @30? He's keeping his nose clean, so when the axe falls, he gets the top job.
Then again we could all be embroiled in a new war by them or trump will abandon all pretence and fully align with Russia. After all, he knows what happens to Russian operatives once they have blown their cover and others' cover with their incompetence.
So LW, you and your vote has helped bring this down on the whole world's heads, along with the millions Just Like You who voted for trump. A brother and sisterhood of haters and sadists.
So if some guy says he doesn't want to fuck a trump voter he means you. So do the guy a favour and respect who he wants his body near. And who he doesn't. You.

58

@50: Or you could not be a sexist racist asshole.

@55: Possibly a Poe, but there are plenty of whiny shits in this thread. There are hateful persons who vote for tax money and cheerfully against women/themselves/races they see as inferior, none of this is a troll by default. I don’t think the community has ever lacked for the Trumpkin archetype.

59

@56: “None of us is wholly honest.”

You are comparable to these deceptions about who you truly are and how much hate is held in heart when you’re in the dating pool.

Either you need to speak for yourself here or stop normalizing Trumpism.

@57: They go to bed every night telling themselves “it can’t happen to me, I’m the good one”.

60

Republicans are horrible people, and Gay Republicans are just looking for attention.

Letter Writer dear: Just shut up and go to a bathhouse, or one of those bars in San Francisco where people will urinate on you if you ask them. But don't tell them about your ridiculous political fetish, as that might be too much, even for them.

61

@35: Actually, its psychopath - not sociopath (a distinct difference of clinical diagnosis). Frankly, my recommendation would be to brush up on your DSM-5 before attemping to slander someone with ignorance. Its common and a bit of a public embarrassment for you.

@52: I have observed and participated in liberal politics for over 20 years. Ive backed candidates from Bill Clinton, to Howard Dean to Murray and Cantwell. Now I see what has happened to Seattle communities under those I supported and voted for during that time: High taxes taxes, literal demolition of once great and unique neighborhoods for all communities be it Queen Anne, Cap Hill or Ballard and Wallingford, I see more hate crimes and more life-destroying drugs, more homeless, and a cost of living putting good, hard-working people of all walks of life on the street - all under these liberal demigod policies that have been a decade in the making. But really, does any of that matter at this point as really, for who can really afford, rent, food, healthcare, or general cost of living, let alone fashion in Seattle. Ironically enough for anyone to use “Fashion” as a metaphor, one must assume you work at Amazon, Microsoft or some other industry where your cost of living is met easily.

62

Since fucking shitstains that voted for Trump is wrong, why is it right to give them the courtesy of this part of Dan's reply: "you could sleep with guys who wouldn't sleep with you if you told them the truth...it wouldn't be rape". Let the piece of shit rely on (a Trump voter's presumable lack of) his own moral compass to (thus fail to) assuage his guilt on this sadly isolated instance of his ability to feel guilt.

63

Fichu @56: what does being married have to do with being a doctor? It's easy to make a law that punished someone who impersonates a medical professional in order to sexually assault someone - heck, we have laws against legitimate medical professionals who take advantage of the position to sexually assault someone.

64

“Your world, the people you [LW] claim as your own are telling you something: You're a dumbfuck. Great thing is, there is a cure for it.” --@52

Sorry – currently, there is no known cure for stupidity.

There are numerous cures, which you’ve graciously listed, which, when taken (and understood), can help to cure ignorance. The ignorant needn’t be villified.

While the willfully ignorant aren’t (necessarily) stupid, the difference may be too subtle for your average layman (including yours, truly). They could stand a little villification. Have at it.

65

SWITCH ~ Your astounding lack of brain cells is showing. Not only did you enable one of the most mysogynistic assholes on the planet, you wrote in to THIS column to complain about the consequences of your actions. Dan’s a nice guy columnist & extended an olive branch to you after rightfully pointing out the enormous error of your ways, I’m not. Fucking idiot. You deserve every bit of vitriol that comes your way.

66

@61 - neither "psychopath" nor "sociopath" are categories of mental disorder in the DSM-V. They are differing social labels for people with a diagnosis (or likely potential diagnosis) of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Stop trying to sound so smart. You will give other commenters fuel for their likely suspicion that you suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, much like our current President.

67

This is the greatest SLLOTD in the history of the Universe.

Also, @55 and everyone else who pointed out that LW for some reason wrote to the advice columnist who started the #ITMFA movement, thank you for saying it so I don't have to, but anyway #ITMFA.

68

@55: Strikes me as fake too. It hits every note just right, reinforces every preconceived notion, and gives Dan the perfect excuse to go on this rant. Even uses "woke" as seemingly a compliment, yet calls it something for different people, meaning he would both have to assume "woke" is a good thing, yet believe he is not "woke." This suggests he thinks his own politics are blind and bad.

Also, lives in Texas, yet can't find gay guys who are not so liberal that this is a deal breaker for random sex.

Makes no sense.

69

@58

After careful review of this thread and further reflection, I would like to invoke the sacred rite of "takesies backsies". I was factually mistaken.

Gods preserve us this is most likely real.

70

ROThornhill dear, if you are going to live in the past, at least try to live in a reality-based version of the past. The glurgy glaze you have put on "old Seattle" might well give you mental diabetes - and the urban hellscape you see in your mind was largely created by GOP and neo-liberal policies on the federal level, combined with the dig-in-your-heels ignorance of the anti-income tax folks (who are alive and well throughout the state, including liberal Seattle)

As for "increased hate crimes", how would we even begin to know that, as gay-bashing used to be par for the course, and not reported. Indeed, the WSLCB and the SPD operated quite a shakedown operation against gay and minority-owned bars for decades, only to have it unravel in the 70's.

That utopian Seattle you harken back to is gone. (Actually, it never really existed. It was just a fluctuation created by the Boeing Bust). And it's never coming back. What we have is Capitalism run amok, but no one - and particularly not any of the sociopaths and halfwits associated with Trump or what passes for conservatism in the US these days - is going to do anything about it.

71

I can top this - at least "Trump waved a rainbow flag" (a sentence that could begin a productive discussion, but tends to be used by anti-SJWs as a perceived checkmate). I had an exchange a while back with a gay Moore voter. He did admit to disagreeing with Judge M about some of his positions, but, rather like the LCR person in the link, took the position typical of many SS young/ish people that there is no such thing as regression, and that, as we have "equality" (his word), gay issues were a dead letter. His top priority was being strongly anti-abortion.

I was able to allow that gays are perfectly entitled to prioritize non-gay issues, and conditionally allow that gay issues' becoming so settled as to become a genuine dead letter would be highly desirable, though we were not there yet. The only thing I can ever contribute on abortion is that I always defer to women on the question and hold no personal position as a point of principle (gay privilege). My point of most overt disagreement was that I could not adopt any metric by which someone concluded Judge M to be "a good person who loves America, there being no system I could visualize in which wanting homosexuality to be illegal could meet the standard for being a good person.

The discussion ended abruptly over something else. As "religious freedom of conscience" had also been mentioned, I raised my strong dislike that everyone on all sides seemed willing to allow a monolithic "Christian" opinion (and the way bakers/florists/etc's presenting only as "Christian" is always accepted without request for clearer definition), when the vast majority of Christians didn't have problems with baking the cake and numerous sects had adopted equal or at least accepting treatment. That was too much. The response came angrily that "it had been proved that couple went fifty miles away to find a baker they could sue" - when no specific case had been mentioned - and that was that.

My thanks to those who are advancing towards when gay issues no longer matter in party politics (for a good reason).

I was pleasantly surprised by Mr Savage's take on deception.

72

yeah this letter seems fake to me, and more of a letter about fraudulent rape than about gay trump supporters. the writer uses the set-up to try and get the answer from dan he wants: he wants dan to say lying is rape. this is the mechanism he thought would attain that ends. dan didn't fall for it.

that's my read.

rape by fraud -- as per the articles and court decisions dan provides -- is defined in some particular cases, and left to the specific facts in others. it seems our laws are heading in the right direction on this issue.

73

SWITCH:

You helped carry out a decapitation strike that destroyed America's leadership, installed a neo-fascist kleptocracy, and unleashed the alt-right tDUMPnazis and the KKK against LGBT people, immigrants, and people of color.

Some crimes can't be forgiven.

74

@71: Good take on it.

75

@70 I always think back to Jello Biafra's classic "Nostalgia For An Age That Never Existed:"

"View the world through Time Life and Nick at Nite... Do you wonder or even care how you wound up such a square?"

"All the stars had a pretty face
Children and negroes knew their place
Blocks of happy families
With Moms and Dads all in love
Or are these wholesome memories
Really from reruns on TV?"

"Giving up on future dreams
To dwell on rosy memories
Will make sure your best days
are in the past."

76

Spiral-63-- The connecting thread between in my examples was lying and the difficulty in writing legislation that would outlaw one sort of lying and not another. Impersonating a doctor is lying. Impersonating a single person is lying. I agree that there are laws on the books against doctors sexually assaulting patients. The conundrum is that the very same act (pelvic exam) is legitimate medical practice under one set of circumstances and sexual assault under another. I have no answers here, just think the questions are interesting.

77

Well Dan, it's your fault for using a MAGA hat as a required prop for Hump!

78

@33 the primaries exist for the benefit of the political parties, they are unrelated to the presidential election: they simply allow the parties to determine who their most preferred candidate for president is. You do not need to win a primary to run for president, you don't need to participate in a primary, and you can run even if you lose the primary.

However, in Winner-take-all system, consolidating votes helps, so all sizable parties abide by the primary system. As we've seen with H Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, and Bernie Sanders, running without a primary win makes it more likely for your least preferred candidate to win.

79

I'm certain that the Trump voter did not read past the first paragraph, and no way got to the end even if the article was about him. Being a republican in this decade is all about who you hate, what you hate and how you believe taking government away from helping someone else benefits you.

80

@52, @68

To continue beating a dead horse that keeps coming back to life, I'm going to point out that the LW lives in HOUSTON: a blue city that is minority-majority, international, major universities, industry, medical center, previous mayor was open lesbian, etc- not the sort of place that a young white gay bigot would blend in (@52) which is exactly why he finds it difficult to find a dude willing to knowingly fuck a Trump supporter (@68).

81

@55

It could be fake, but I think it's far more likely that he's one of those "free speech" "I'm a victim" thin-skinned white male Trump supporters (plenty of whom are gay, see Milo, Peter Thiel for famous examples) who isn't really writing a letter to Dan to get advice but rather to have a platform where he can bitch about how unfair the world is to him and how hypocritical he thinks the libs are- "you libs say you are open minded, but you are prejudiced against people like me just because our politics differ" etc.

Could be fake, but when you consider that these MAGA chuds just really love to "own the libs" and bitch about how THEY are really the true victims, then it seems totally likely that one would write in to a lib column and complain about what hypocrites libs are for not fucking him. Their favorite thing to do in the universe is to "trigger" a lib and get a rise out of them. Dan should've responded with one sentence of ridicule and then moved on.

82

I feel like something in my brain is broken because I cannot begin to grasp some of the thinking involved here. If I came across a dating profile that was fiercely in opposition to my political views and didn't want to date anyone holding them, I think I'd react with "okay, I guess that saves some time."

You COULD go out of your way to lie to such a person, either directly or by omission. Or, you could go through a couple more searches and find someone who doesn't hate everything you stand for. I have it on reasonable authority that such people exist. The mindset required to see a dating profile where the person would not like you and immediately decide that this can't be right, NO ONE CAN DENY ME is just...there is something about this that is entirely beyond my understanding and I feel like a lesser person for it.

Does that "no (party) allowed" add to the forbidden mystique or something? Maybe the idea that the person might at some point learn what you really think and end the relationship is a turn on for some people. That's my best guess, anyway.

83

Regdren, It's b/c their political attitudes are 45% resentment and 45% desire to trigger / own the libs. I'm giving them a VERY generous 10% of actual ideology. So if your politics are nearly entirely motivated by wanting to display how everyone else is unfair to you and also to piss off a lot of people, then this behavior would be exactly what you'd do.

84

@80, 81: As someone who has been a man for over three decades, if this guy is not willing to leave city limits to get laid, he doesn't care that much.

As to your suggestion that this guy is just writing this to garnish partisan sympathy...well, that would make it fake, wouldn't it?

85

@ Theodore

I don't know what it would be like trying to cruise the towns around Houston. I think he'd have more luck finding young Trump supporters though less luck finding gay men. The combo of the two is rare anywhere though certainly it exists. Also we don't know if he's willing to fuck men who aren't white which would decrease his chances too. But yes, I agree that he's obviously lazy and entitled.

Though, Theodore, I believe you said you are straight right? (Sorry if I've misremembered). I bet straight men in general are just used to working harder to get laid than gay men, right?

I didn't say he was writing to garnish partisan sympathy. Writing because it gives you a thrill to trigger libs and because you endlessly love to express your resentments is not the same as trying to garnish partisan sympathy. But in either case, I don't see why that would make his letter fake? Unless you mean that his motivation is not really to get advice (sure, but I think that's the case for a lot of these letters- people just like to express themselves, often times they are humble brags, etc). But I see no reason why the facts of his letter would be false under this understanding. It seems perfectly likely that dude is having a hard time finding gay men who are willing to knowingly fuck a Trump supporter in Houston. Also, like I said, we don't know if he's willing to fuck people who aren't white (since he's a Trump supporter, I wonder) as that would also exclude the sizable minority of Latinx Trump supporters in Houston. We have to keep in mind that only 25% of Houston is white, so if he's really racist, he's already working with a small sample size. But that's conjecture- let's assume he's willing to fuck people from all backgrounds. What about age? The conservative people in Houston tend to skew older, but it's the exact opposite among the gay population. Older white gay men tend to be very liberal in Houston b/c some of those neighborhoods were battle grounds in the earlier LGBT struggles and refuges during the plague years- so while young white gay dudes can flirt with fascism and talk about Daddy Trump b/c they enjoy shocking people, it would be a lot harder to find older gay men, white or not, who would humor that sort of bullshit. So my guess is that leaves him looking for young white gay Trump supporters like himself, and while they exist more among young people than they did a generation ago, it's still not going to be easy to find as every one of those categories (young, white, gay, Trump supporter) is a minority in Houston.

That he could get laid much more easily if he'd just try harder, yes of course. It's not THAT hard to get laid. But I don't think that makes the letter fake- I think it makes the LW lazy and entitled and more motivated by resentment than horniness.

On the other hand, it could also be a total fake. Maybe dude is a straight incel living in his mom's basement.

86

Oh gee, SWITCH is another revolting conservative who's "sad" because nobody likes him.
Tough shit, SWITCH. You get no sympathy from me, especially when you knew fully well what you--and so many of us---had to lose by putting a grossly incompetent, narcissistic, xenophobic neofascist sewage spewing pig into the White House. When the Mein Trumpfy Evil Empire falls, you'll be going down with it.

87

SWITCH: Are you also going around insisting that "if we'd only voted for Romney, we wouldn't have the current mess now", too?

88

Meanwhile, Putin's laughing his ass off.

89

In the column, Dan said:

"there's no way to verify who someone voted for"

That's only half-true. Some states have semi-public voting records, and some people have taken those voting records and posted them to the internet. I found that out when I googled myself. It knew which elections I showed up for (all of them) and listed them individually.

I do not recall whether it listed my party affiliation, but it's at least a matter of public record at a birds-eye level, because you can get public records of Ward-level election results, and make an educated guess based on where somebody lives. And in my state, primaries are held according to party affiliation, which is part of registering, and you can derive party affiliation backwards from the voting record if there is an election where one party has a primary and the other does not.

91

I always get a little excited when I see you've joined us Catalina. Hope you go well.

92

@60 and? Capitalism writ large, that is the USA. You think trump et al are going to change any of these problems. They have made the human misery worse thru fear. He has activated sexists and racists and homophobes and transphobes religious bigots, haters of the land and its animals, deniers of climate change and fools with no knowledge of international issues etc to crawl out from under their rocks and speak their dark hearts in the open. You not notice this too?

93

speak and act their dark hearts. And I'm guessing @60, you're not a black man.

94

Shit, sorry Catalina, I'm not meaning you.
@61 is my target.

95

@51

It's not about appeasement at all. It's about fighting smart. We have fundamental problems in our society that give rise to right wing extremism. And they are fundamental to the core. Gotta fight the roots, not just the branches. Fighting the branches without taking on the roots makes the branches stronger. All anyone here is is a branch fighter, feeling righteous, echo chambering and making no progress.

Being angry and voting for Democrats ain't gonna cut it. I expect the majority here will be happy voting for Kamala Harris or whatever Hillary/Barack 2.0 clone gets nominated. This country will continue to go rightward and everything you hate is going to keep getting worse until the Democrats offer something other than the failed Washington Consensus. The Republicans have moved on... to hateful insanity. People hate what we have so much, they will take hateful insanity over it, and the Democrats continue to offer the status quo. If you want to move left, not right... raging against the outcome doesn't do shit. That's why this country is going to continue to move in the wrong direction. Raging against the outcome, thinking that will change anything.

96

@58

To have such little compassion for those you are against that anyone who expresses anything other than hate and rage towards them is shamed as the worst among us, is a mark of a deep moral void.

97

@95, I'm assuming many here are doing more than raging. The system has to change, obviously. Capitalism suits the very few and makes the rest of us run the treadmill or we fall off. Yes the root has to be attacked and what are your suggestions? Oh I have one. Rear intelligent well loved and nourished humans. The illnesses of the heart and mind that capitalism has spawned, it really maybe too late. The earth is suffering along with the people.
I don't hate ignorant and without empathy people, I see their damage and why they push it onto others, hence my focus is how we rear and educate our young in the west and it's pitiful. But you know, it's not seen as a worthy focus and bit late when we have all these damaged zombie like heartless haters walking between those of us lucky to have had some love and. Impassioned taught in our childhoods.
Let's hope a Bernie like person gets up before the next election, someone younger perhaps. Though Malaysia just voted a 92 yr old man as PM.

98

compassion.

99

@4 - I disagree. It would be unethical to disguise your voluntary, loathsome affiliations and have sex with people who don't want to really know you if you were honest.

100

@61: “Actually, its psychopath - not sociopath (a distinct difference of clinical diagnosis). Frankly, my recommendation would be to brush up on your DSM-5 before attemping to slander someone with ignorance. Its common and a bit of a public embarrassment for you.”

That you self-diagnose as a Psychopath and read about (but have not read) the DSM is not an embarrassment to me. As with the other poster NPD is likely a more realistic diagnosis, but I’m neither certified nor interested in a serious analysis of insincere wankers over the internet.

@82: They believe they’re entitled to sex, just like their het kin in ideology.

@95: Backing extremists is not stopping extremists. If you’re racist, sexist, and self hating you don’t deserve headpats for being you. You’re an asshole and live every moment trying to make things worse for the rest of us.

101

@99: The only thing he empathizes with is his penis.


    Please wait...

    Comments are closed.

    Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


    Add a comment
    Preview

    By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.