Didn't that same Savage Love story include Dan admitting that he was a chubby kid, and not always thin?

Love, love, love the last letter :) Wonderful to hear you're telling these cunts the truth!

@1: Thank you. I would like you at a party.

@1: Sounds like my sort of party!

I've been reading some upsetting studies about how genetically heritable obesity is. Turns out it might be as high as 70%, which makes it more heritable than just about anything. So, for some people being skinny really is easy and some people have to put a lot of effort into gaining weight.

the last letter made me smile, chuckle even! be the woman who owns her space and her self! you don't need the likes of any of us to validate you. you'll be A-OK. and a heck of a lot more confident.

Re the eight-year-old letter: it's both. NGE IS delusional if she thinks that someone who she always knew to have a kink for group sex fantasies will "want only her." And her boyfriend IS a selfish lover for refusing to keep fantasies she's told him she's disturbed by in his head. But the boyfriend didn't write in; NGE did, so only NGE has the opportunity to change her mindset and/or behaviour here. (Also, she's 25, not a "young girl.") Agree that if she asks him to stop doing Thing and he refuses to stop doing Thing, she should / should have left.

The writer of the last letter needs to go around giving seminars. She is SO right and we need to be unafraid of telling men off who've had zero consideration for women's feelings!

Wow Dan,

Didn't think you could get basic hygiene so, so wrong. I had to make an account when I remembered you actually had an intact son, so I hope you didn't pass this wrong information on.

Don't clean genitals with soap. Like, don't. Never. Not even then. Worst thing you can do. The pH change fucks up natural bacterial flora and can lead to infections. Same reason why vaginal douching is a bad idea. Only use water.

Maybe his girlfriend shouldn't write to an advice column, but he should go see a doctor?
Stink ain't normal, and covering up stink just means you're not dealing with the underlying issue.

@1 venomlash
I wonder what those people bait their breath WITH? Similarly "tow the line" (but don't tow it over your toe), "worse comes to worse" (thank goodness it never gets worst!), "for all intensive purposes (how intensive is your purpose?).

Curious @ 10 - The expression actually is "for all intents and purposes"... which I believe is self-explanatory.

@11 Ricardo
I thought it would be obvious that I was listing (and making fun of) very commonly mis-used expressions, but isn't easy to make jokes in writing. In other words, yes, I know.

Curious @ 12 - Oops! I guess I've inhaled too much heavy-duty cleaning products and whatever chemical the guys fixing my floor are using. Moving is not only hard on the body - also on the brain! Sorry.

@13 Ricardo
Thanks for being so kind about it, sorry for the misunderstanding.
Cleaning products really kick my ass. I just got an R95 respirator mask I'll try next time.

Curious @ 14 - I should have thought of using a mask. I'm super sensitive to cleaning products, but I just kept telling myself "it's only the oven", "it's only the bathroom"...

Don't be sorry for the misunderstanding: I'm the one who misunderstood lol.

Well, I’m glad someone wrote in about PICS. I wanted to leave a similar comment, but I was too tired to write coherently - as I am now, but…

Fwiw, PICS, if you’re reading this, get a book by Harriet Lerner. The Dance of Anger is a classic. This dynamic of one person nagging and getting increasingly hysterical while the other person refuses to discuss the issue (while claiming to be “reasonable”) is very common, but, unfortunately, not effective. You want to be heard and respected, but you’re going to have to change your approach to get that. And your boyfriend is going to have to change his.

Right now, you’re both saying the solution is “You need to change,” (He doesn’t get to decide what you think about, how much, or how you feel about it, nor do you get to decide what he does with his photos.) But, as I’m sure you’ve heard before, you can only change yourself. BOTH of you need to learn to communicate your feelings to each other, not point fingers and say, “You’re the one with a problem.”

Good luck.

@9. I've always heard use mild unperfumed soap to clean. I just did a Google search...about 3/4 of the articles say use soap, for babies, teens, adult men. In fact only 2 said don't (And that was more because of irritating the penis; nothing was said about how a vagina might react.)

Bowie @16: I'd like to query what you meant by the dynamic between PICS and her boyfriend being "not effective." In PICS's mind, "effective" means there's something she can say or some tone of voice she can adopt that will convince her boyfriend to comply with her demand. In truth he doesn't have to, it's his decision, he's stated it clearly, so why should he be expected to have the same discussion over and over again? I think it's perfectly "reasonable" for him to respond to this repeated request by stating he's already made his decision. Every person PICS dates will have a past, and if she can't accept this, she needs therapy or celibacy. In other words, sometimes there IS "the one with the problem," and in this case, it's PICS.

@17, American advice articles or European ones?

If you found an article claiming you should clean under the foreskin of babies with anything let alone soap, congrats. You found out Americans have no idea how to deal with intact penises anymore.

Babies' foreskins are fused to the glans. Attempted to clean under there is exactly like ripping off a nail to clean under it.

Have you ever wondered why it is that circumcision supposedly prevents UTIs while Europe and the US have comparable rates?

It's because Americans find foreskins gross, and their advice to clean them is shit and causes infections. Which then have to be fixed with circumcision. Yay, for-profit healthcare.

@17 as @19 pointed out, you have to rip the foreskin of off the glans of a baby to "wash under it". Don't ever do that. A baby's foreskin is not fully developed, it separates naturally from the glans after a few years. Yes, years. Leave it alone.

Also - soap does not have the right PH to sustain the healthy bacteria your skin needs to protect itself. It kills the good bacteria, then bad bacteria which can handle the bad PH take over. I learned this the hard way, and now use PH balanced body washes or shampoos (they're not made with soap) My favorite is just baby wash. A lot of online articles are based on what people thought was good before we knew much about normal skin bacteria. Our understanding has changed a lot with that new information.

But...but...it DOES signal the end of fun. (??????)

Twitter @21: If getting married signals the end of fun, you're marrying the wrong person.

I'm kidding, but there's more than just a kernel of truth to it, especially when you look at culture at large rather than any specific couple.

Re: men (not children) cleaning under foreskin - I have no opinion or experience. My husband washes his with soap pretty regularly without any problem, though it does retract all the way and others are different.

Re: Women not using soap- I get pretty tired of the confusion between soaping up a vagina (don't do that) and soaping up vulva (labia)- and like dicks, pussies are also different with some people having more external lips than others. Nobody should be shoving soap up their vaginas nor soapy fingers, but I pretty liberally wash my labia with suds every single day and have never had a prob with smell or infection or UTI as a result. I've read the advice that I should not do this- seems alarmist to me at worst and maybe correct if I'm willing to invest the time at best. Apparently if I stop washing my hair with shampoo, then after several weeks the natural oils will be back in working order and I'll not have to ever wash it with shampoo again and it will still shine and feel clean. But getting through those weeks seems pretty gross and oily. Same with my twat. If I don't wash with soap, I feel gross. And washing my vulva is not the same as messing with the pH of my vagina- the soap never goes internally. I have a close friend who is sensitive- she can only use a particular product or else she gets infections. if she uses no product at all, she gets infections.

I suspect (with neither experience nor study) that it's similar for a grown man's dick under the foreskin- individual differences regarding the appearance of the genitalia and personal practice. Nonetheless, I think a good rule of thumb is- if you stink after a shower (with soap or not) then there is a problem. Go see a doc.