Savage Love Mar 29, 2019 at 2:25 pm

Savage Love Letter of the Day: Reader Advice Round-up

Comments

1

OK I know we shouldn't take bigots seriously, but...

What is that "taping little black boys" stuff about? At first I thought the bigot was referencing US history- white slave owners purchasing black people, including children, and then using them for sex which is in fact a real horror though I don't know what it has to do with Jackson or Dan. But then this: "and buy a little black boy and take him and tape him." Is he talking about kiddie porn? So I re-read the sentence and he did say "a few years ago"- like what terrible thing is he referencing here? Anyone know?

Meanwhile, back to Jackson- sure the US justice system is racist but it's also rigged in the favor of millionaires, and that has been pretty consistently true even when the rich man is guilty of fucking children. Polanski is still free, Epstein got a slap on the wrist, and the continued existence of the Catholic Church doesn't prevent bigots from calling gay men ungodly child rapists.

"Go suck a big black cock if u got nothing better to do you fucking degenerate."
I wonder if we could make this actually insulting rather than the offer to indulge in a potential pleasurable experience?

"Go gather up all your sex toys and pile them all up in your sex dungeon and then lock the door and lose the key so that you can never enter it again then you'll have nothing to do you fucking chaste and well-behaved person."

2

"Go buy a bunch of big black robes and take them to a leather party and cover up all the scantily clad men if u got nothing better to do you fucking modest busybody."

3

"Go eat a greasy hamburger with a side of fries dipped in ranch dressing and then go home and collapse in a food coma instead of having sex with your partner you hungry busy person who doesn't like to cook."

4

It seems that there is a pattern with people with persistent kinks - they grow with use, not unlike a muscle. From the ABDL who found her partner essentially only wanted his fetish/kink; the latex and handjob commentor who found their partner eventually only wanted latex restraint handjob, the woman in this post who started sleeping with stranger males to appease her partner, eventually that's all he wanted, as well.

I think, perhaps, we should be a bit more precise in our language in differentiating between Kinks and Fetishes. If I recall properly, fetishes are basically sexual requirements - people can't orgasm without them; I'd be comfortable calling everything else (including fetish behavior that isn't mandatory for sexual success) a kink.

While this won't help anyone directly, when someone says (properly) that they have a fetish, there could be a greater chance that their partner understands what they're getting in to - in all three of those cases, the partners were hoping to satiate their partners kink, unwittingly growing that kink into a full fledged fetish. Perhaps if we understood how these worked better, we would have less instances of people realizing "I didn't sign up for this".

5

Guarantee that dude talking about MJ is white.

6

Regarding OWED, since I was a little late to comment in the other thread - my biggest concern, if I were the wife, would be the concern that Dan brought up, namely that my husband might resent me afterward for doing what he spent ten years begging me to do. I’m in a long term monogamous marriage and have no desire to change that (hey @60 I agree, Dan has some sort of personal stake in pretending that no-one is naturally monogamous, but he’s wrong. There’s tons of us) but I know more than one woman who has had exactly that happen to them.

There’s even a very old joke to that effect:

It’s the fifties in middle america. This guy has a sweetheart, a “good girl” and they’re in love. Guy wants nothing more than a blowjob, but every time he asks, girl says “no, you won’t resoect me if I do that.” Eventually they get married. On their wedding night, guy asks again for a blowjob. He says “honey, you’re my wife now, I will love you forever.” she says “I can’t, I know you won’t resoect me if I do.” Time goes by, they have children, the children are growing up. They’re in their forties now. Guy says “my sweetheart, I love you so much,you’re my dream woman, won’t you please give me this one thing I want?” She says “I would, but I just know....” and he says “oh forget it.” He doesn’t ask again until they are little old people, in their eighties, retired. Ine night he says “my dearest wife, we’ve been together for sixty years, I’ve never shown you anything but love and respect, you’re the mother of my children, the grandmother of my grandchildren... surely by now you k ow I’d never lose respect for you just because you kissed my penis. Won’t you please? Before we’re dead?” And the last thinks a while and says, “I guess you’re right, dear, it’s true you’ve been a loving and respectful husband all these years, and I really ought to trust you by now. Okay, let’s do it.” And she does. When he’s done, she shyly looks up at him and is about to ask how it was when the phone rings. Husband answers the phone, listens for a minute, and then holds the phone out to his wife and says “it’s for you, cocksucker.”

gueralinda on March 29, 2019 at 5:2

7

Mr Landia - You're right; it was too polite.

8

In my re-watching of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, I have just arrived at the plot line in which white supremacist group the Twilight Teachers of Truth has begun to re-brand itself as the Glorious Guardians of Good.

9

@1 figured it was typing on a phone keyboard that didn't like to say "rape". But the keys are also next to each other I guess.

10

I'm glad that Dan shared that letter with OWED and that she is reading the comments! I spend a lot more time than I probably care to admit reading Savage Love comments....

Also EmmaLiz. Your comments are making my evening.

"Go and put on your most comfortable pajamas and crawl into bed and sleep in tomorrow instead of staying up until 2 in the morning, you tired degenerate!"

... mine wasn't as funny.

@4 Sportlandia, I agree that differentiating between kink and fetish more clearly and fostering that understanding might help people understand sort of how they ended up in situations like that and why the ABDL was able to just cut out the things his wife enjoyed to the point where he was no longer enjoying anything outside of his fetish. It is a really unfortunate position for that LW to be in.

11

"and buy a little black boy and take him and tape him." I understood this as aligning with the Trumpian fantasy of duct taping smuggled women. What struck me was the idea of using duct tape in the days of slave markets although I doubt anything like it existed at the time. Let alone video.
Then again, an auto-correction or mistyping of rape would also be a reasonable explanation.

12

@4/Sportlandia: The one commonality that you're missing is that all these situations involve submissive men whose fantasies run toward extreme power imbalances. While I have certainly met submissive women whose kinks have not been met by vanilla partners, as I have mentioned before submissive women with vanilla men are likelier to have their needs met because it pushes along hetero-normative behaviors. Hetero-normativity may also explain why why women who enjoy extreme power imbalances seem better able to get their needs met. It is simply be easier for submissive women to openly acknowledge being submissive and wanting a relationship predicated on power exchange than it is for men, in which masculinity is very much wrapped up in notions of being powerful, if not dominant.

13

I don’t know if it’s healthy for you to read all those abusive and negative emails Dan. Their hatred and homophobia are not to be countenanced. Delete without reading further than the first few lines. Why let their bile into your head, and then into ours.
To the rude writer going on about Michael. Face it tool, he was a paedophile. He slept with children. He was a very damaged man and many colluded with him and protected him because of his talent and fame. The children who testified at his trial, lied. Now they are grown men, they are telling the truth.

14

The saddest part for me about OWED, is that he kept pestering her. He didn’t respect and accept her answer all of ten years ago. If this kink/wish/ desire/ fantasy, whatever you call it, was so important to him, then they should have parted then. Or at any other time over the last decade.
No. He just kept on and on about it. For that, OWED could think seriously about spending another ten years with him, or not.

15

Monogamy has its benefits, it’s a closed circuit, so the intensity of that can propel a powerful intimacy. It’s not for everyone, we see that, it’s still a worthwhile structure for those who prefer it.

16

Dan, you give the rest of us grammar loose cannons, cover.

17

I appreciate the letter and response and other response, really all the discussion on the subject, concerning OWED. As a man with that fetish, I really understand the extreme nature of it and want to ensure my partner is not coerced into anything she doesn't want.

It's also a fetish that is difficult to find outlets outside of porn to realize unlike others that one partner could allow the other to fulfill outside the relationship. The hard part is that this is a fetish that requires both partners and has to be taken with extra care. Part of me wishes I just had a bdsm kink that I could go out and find a dom or sub to fulfill part time.

Letter writer, if you are not comfortable, you really need to be assertive in letting him know that it is not going to happen. Really, the decision isn't whether to be GGG but if he can handle the price of not fulfilling this fantasy if it means being with you.

18

Sublime @12: Interesting perspective. I've only seen one side of it, and my impression has been that, yes, it's harder for submissive men to find dominant women to fulfill their desires because there are fewer of us who are into that kind of thing, and yes, once a submissive man DOES find a woman who will, the floodgates open and they want it ALL, like a kid in a candy store. Having suppressed their desires fully for so long, they find it difficult to now express them in moderation. I hadn't considered the gender-role aspect of it. But, of course, I would not see that aspect because I would not be drawn to anyone who expressed himself as traditionally masculine anyway. As to whether it's harder for men to express submissive desires, I would think that it would also be hard for feminist women (and submissive feminists I know have said as much) to express a desire to be dominated by a man sexually when that is the opposite of what they want for society and in their relationships outside of the the bedroom. Asking a man to dominate her risks setting back the idea of equality, or implying that she is a hypocrite for wanting to be treated with full respect in public but like a slut in bed.

As for kinks vs fetishes, I think those people who have yet to explore their kinks may be unaware of which they are. How can one know one only wants to have sex involving diapers if one has previously been deprived of the opportunity to have sex involving diapers? They may THINK they also enjoy vanilla sex until they discover otherwise. I agree that if one knows the difference, they should be honest about that. However, I can see why, given the low odds that they will find someone to indulge them, they would downplay the extent of their proclivity to a new partner. Not honest, perhaps, but not many of us lead with our downsides.

19

100% chance that first letter was written by a White supremacist POS trying to portray Black people as queer-hostile defenders of sexual predators.

20

@18 hmm I think the era of female submissive sexuality being contrary to the arguments of feminism is over - the billion dollar grossing 50 Shades series makes a strong statement. I can't imagine a story about a submissive man ever capturing the zeitgeist to a similar degree.

21

@John Horstman, yup. Whenever I see a crazy troll like that, the first thing I think of is this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43093390

22

Sporty, I disagree. I mean specifically about a story about sexually submissive men. Erotica (for women) is full of that, it's just usually given a homosexual spin (these women's fantasy version of homosexuality).

The trick is the female interest in male vulnerability. If you can eroticize that, you can cash in on the next 50 shades. Male submission can't just be the flip side of female submission since that is still a male hetnorm sort thing. You are scratching at something very long programmed in the society. Male submission, in its eroticized form from a female sexual POV, isn't about physical dominance- it's about vulnerability. And yes, there are loads of romances and eroticas that center this shit. The devoted tender lover who'd sacrifice anything for you, what is that except male submission to female sexuality? The strong man who is afraid to show his emotions but then breaks down, gently, vulnerably, for the woman he loves?

It's just not about physical dominance (sex dungeons and the like) because the physicality aspect is male. This is why male fantasies of female domination are usually femme dom types (vixens, madams). Just because you can't flip it exactly and get the same thing in reverse isn't an indication that women are not into submissive dudes (at least in fantasy)- it's an indication that our ideas about submission are male oriented in the first place and women think of it / feel it differently.

Also I don't think 50 Shades necessarily shows a real world interest in submission from women. If you look at the popularity, the majority of women who were into it are pretty damn vanilla in real life, and it's basically an adaptation of YA fiction (like Twilight, literally). I think 50 Shades was a safe space. The main character was a nerdy girl virgin. She signed away her rights to a man who was filthy rich, considerate, loved her for her mind and body, and then married her. It's her one and only love- she trusted him with everything and he didn't fuck her over. And what sort of actually really kinky stuff did they do? Tied up, some spanking- I can't remember anything more than that, but sounds pretty tame. The real controling stuff was about her real life- what she can eat, what she wears, right? Which is how loads of women feel under patriarchy anyway. Only they also have no assurance of a long term security and devotion and love and hot sex from their dedicated one and only. And the audience base for the books, I don't know how many of you know people who are fans, but in my own life it was aunties and housewives and suburban moms and people who are as vanilla as can be. It's a place to project fantasies safely- kind of like a teenager lusting after a boy band. This indicates no real interest in doing those things.

Anyway back to the earlier point, what a great idea to capitalize on a neglected niche. I bet there is a huge market for more sexualized versions of submissive men from the female point of view. I'm going to get right on it, thank you, I'll remember you when I'm rich and famous.

23

Sporty @20: I don't think it's coincidence that the popularity of 50 Shades is happening at the same time as women's rights are taking several steps backwards.

EmmaLiz @22, I will be the first to pre-order your first book!

24

@EmmaLiz: I have a strong reaction to the following: "Male submission . . . isn't about physical dominance - it's about vulnerability . . . The devoted tender lover who'd sacrifice anything for you, what is that except male submission to female sexuality? The strong man who is afraid to show his emotions but then breaks down, gently, vulnerably, for the woman he loves?"

What this says unambiguously is that men who show vulnerability, who are tender lovers, who show emotions are seen as submissive. I do not doubt that many, and perhaps most, people view such men as submissive, which is why men are taught from a very young age, "boys don't cry," or when they are physically hurt, "rub some dirt on it, and get back out there." Men are not allowed to be vulnerable or tap into their soft emotions without being perceived as submissive, and less manly, and that inability is the genesis of toxic masculinity that we purport to want to stamp out.

There is a lot of discussion about how women are socialized with negative consequences, but I think there needs to be as much thought about how women socialize men with negative consequences.

25

It's Amerikkka's unwillingness to acknowledge Tape Culture, and stamp out the BDS-3M clubs and websites which proliferate.

26

Oh jeez, Sublime, I have a strong reaction to the idea that women that are submissive like to choke on cocks until they vomit too, but these are fantasies expressed in different formats, and male vulnerability (in real life) isn't the same thing as how it is presented in sexy romance books. I know it sucks to see ways in which your complex inner world and outward expression of emotion within limited gender roles are sexualized by others. It seems to bother people mostly when they see the incongruence between their own real life and othered fantasies of that, not when they are enjoying their fantasies of how they perceive others.

Also I don't think it really matters about your strong reaction. My point was that this sort of romance playing in a sexual way with the vulnerability of men in submission to women has not really been overtly sexualized yet on as grand a scale of 50 Shades, at least not for straight men. But then 50 Shades didn't exist until recently, so it's a good opportunity for an energetic writer with some connections. That person isn't really me of course I was joking.

27

Also regarding socialization, you are saying something similar to Sporty a while back and my only response is that you guys need to stop getting your info here from online and read some feminist or QT or psych books. While they all disagree with one another (not saying there is a consensus) there is absolutely no one that says men socialize women and that's it. What they say is we live under patriarchy which does socialize both men and women and has detrimental affects on both of them and contributes to how we all treat each other.

Seriously I've said this at least ten times over the couple of years I've been on this forum, and yet a small number of men keep saying "yeah but no one is talking about what happens to men" which just tells me that you actually have no interest in learning about it.

28

rape not tape, typo

Yeah that makes sense. Wow. Imagine going there just to insult a columnist just because he made a comment about a documentary on a pop star's sex crimes.

29

BTW Sublime... now that I'm calm

Yes men are expected to be macho and emotionally stiff under patriarchy. Yes this is bad for men. It's also bad for women. Yes people eroticize things that are bad for them. Yes this especially discomfiting when you are the the person who is forced into a gender role which is bad for you and you see that opposite gender eroticizes that aspect and belittles you for it. Yes you might even be concerned about the possibility that these eroticized portrayals of toxic gender roles could have some influence on larger society. You might even want to get mad about it and tell the member of the opposite gender role that they want to consider what they are doing.

Gee whiz.

30

@25: Thanks, KewGardenCorpseFlower, you made me spit coffee at my screen! Nice to have a chuckle as I face the mountain of bills I can't pay.

31

BDF - you're too old to believe women's rights are going backwards in this country. Roe v Wade (which, btw, is still the law of the land) is not the beginning and end of women's rights. Would you rather go back to the 60's, when America Was Great?

32

EmmaLiz - I think that's a dodge. No one says "men socialize women and that's that" because it is the fundamental assumption. No one "says" gravity points down either, you know?

When we observe ways in which women are studiously negative towards each other, it's called "internalized patriarchal misogyny". Ups approaching pissing-on-my-shoes-and-telling-me-its-raining territory if you want to argue that the overwhelming mainstream narrative isn't "white cis men are the cause of all evil". (An argument you can find today from blue-checks: "Adam tricked Eve into eating the apple")

33

Nope. The problem is that you don't seem to understand that "patriarchy" does not mean "men". Those two things are not synonymous and no one said they are. Likewise, "white supremacy" does not mean "white people". There are women who enforce patriarchy. There are black people who enforce white supremacy. There are men who are feminists. There are white people who are anti-racist. And patriarchy also hurts plenty of men, just like white supremacy hurts plenty of white people. These things are often exploited, consciously and intentionally as well as unconsciously and unintentionally, by people to uphold patriarchy and white supremacy. The fact that you and other people are confused about this is really irrelevant. You are welcome to educate yourselves on your incorrect fundamental assumptions or not, but don't tell me that I'm misusing these words just because you misunderstand them.

34

Women's rights are going backwards. The projection was forward, and now it's backwards.

For example, there was a brief period after abolition in which black people held a lot of power throughout the country. The response to that was segregation and Jim Crow. When that happened, it was black people's rights going backwards after they had, for a brief period, moved forward. The fact that segregation under Jim Crow was better than slavery doesn't change that.

35

EL- I think you're being too harsh on Sublime. My impression of their post is very similar to that of BDF @ 18 first paragraph, all along experiencing/observing those very dynamics from a very different angle, a male-born sub to female-born(s).

Unfortunately at work right now, may elaborate later.

36

Spotlandia, by “this country” Ms. Bi is not referring to the US. She's British, and from what I here from friends who live there, women's rights are indeed moving backwards. Ps. Women's rights =/= abortion. There are lots of other things as well, even just basic things like just choosing how to dress without interference from the government.

37

I’m with you SA @24, submissive doesn’t equal vulnerable. Not that I’m up on how submissive males conduct themselves.
My thoughts on men who show vulnerable emotions, when those emotions are warranted, are that they are full humans. Able to easily move between emotional responses given changing circumstances.

38

Sportlandia, where have you been? VP Pence and his fundy Christian lot are eroding womens rights in the US. No abortion after the heartbeat is heard in some state. Pastors going on about how the bible tells us women can’t vote and should do what ever the hell their husbands tells them to do. Etc.

39

I don’t see feminism being inconsistent with a woman being submissive in the bedroom. Feminism is about choice, and D/s is a power exchange, consensually made. For a lot of people it’s play, not surrendering one’s power forever. As long as safe words are allowed, if it gets out of playtime.

40

EmmaLiz @27: "men socialise women"
If people are claiming that, they are confusing socialisation with grooming. Socialisation is what parents, teachers, advertisers, and other thought leaders do to children of all genders (I know you know that, but for the benefit of anyone who might be misunderstanding the term). If I, personally, talk more about female socialisation that's only because that's the flavour of socialisation I received, as someone designated "girl". The men of the board -- or women with brothers -- can speak more authoritatively to the socialisation boys receive, which I of course only have secondhand knowledge about.

Tachy @36: Thanks for your support, but I never said "this country" -- I never referred to a specific country -- but indeed it is the US where I see women's rights being eroded, by the attacks on Roe v Wade, the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, the installation of a rapist on the Supreme Court. (I lived in the US for the first 30 years of my life.) Everywhere, though, I see a reaction to the word feminism, young women distancing themselves because TERFs and other extremists have given it a bad name. There are steps forward in among the steps back. #MeToo has done more than anything I can think of to raise awareness about consent. Tachy, how exactly are women's rights in the UK specifically moving backwards? The Tory government has victimised women (primarily) through austerity, but I am not familiar with any overt attacks on women. Ireland even -- finally! -- legalised abortion, and we have many powerful female politicians these days. Shame one of them is Theresa May, haha.

Lava @39: I don't think that either male or female submission is incompatible with equality and respect in all areas of life, but misogynists are going to see a woman asking for abuse in the bedroom and that will confirm their attitude that women don't deserve to be treated as equals outside of it. And Sublime discussed the other side, a view that male submission equals a loss of masculinity, which is also bullshit. I think one must have strength to submit. Hell, those masochists take a lot more pain than I ever could, more power to them! ;-)

41

Ireland is, of course, not the UK but we share a land mass so I thought I would include it.

42

EmmaLiz @33: WORD. How many times will we have to repeat this?

43

As for women’s rights being taken away nowadays: from a conservative pov it was women’s rights in the 1960’s that led to homosexual rights and eventual marriage few decades later, and now we have all that gender/ trans stuff going on.
They believe that the key to stop all that is to put women back in their place and then the rest will follow. There is plenty talk nowadays about the joy and “strength” for being the good Christian submissive wife. Much of it is coming from women.

BDF @ 40
“misogynists are going to see a woman asking for abuse in the bedroom and that will confirm their attitude that women don't deserve to be treated as equals outside of it.”
Yes, some may mask their assholism by claiming "Dom.”

44

It's not just Christians, CMD. There's also all the weird sexual economy stuff (talking about redistributing access to sex), especially in SV, and the resentment & violence coming out of the manosphere (the incels, etc). Also there's a lot of actual fascism regarding the future of the white race and the degradation of Western Civilization that enforces patriarchy in order to keep having white babies and white families. And its more modern nihilistic version in the neoreactionaries (basically fascists that aren't religious, like gadgets and make memes). It's all jumbled up together, but the younger (under 50) iterations of this stuff is far less religious, and a lot of it is perfectly fine with gay men. In fact, gay men are often among the people voicing this world view (see Peter Thiel, Milo, etc). And yes of course, so are many women- as has always been the case- though it seems their roles are more behind the scenes in younger movements. This is all aside from the legal assaults of course.

But yea, the religious folks know that enforcing strict gender roles means keeping het men on top, but I think the wider resonance comes from a larger desire to maintain control over sexual access to women- resentful guys who can't get laid, people who are concerned about the collapse of civilization and think that if you kept the nuclear family in tact everything would make sense again, white supremacists who worry about white genocide, etc. It's bigger than either abortion rights or religious conservatism. Personally I think this is all a response to the failures of id pol and liberalism for most people + the lack of narratives explaining it that mak sense to people. So you end up with people rallying around the power structures that they think once ordered their lives - in our case that's patriarchy, white supremacy.

45

Yes, no ruling class would give it up voluntarily, and the rule of men is not exclusive to Christianity.
Also, just as some mask their assholism with “I’m a dom,” others do with religion. “I have no problem with it on a personal level, but this is what God wants.”


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