I want to thank everyone who attended our third Savage Love Livestream last Saturday night. Mistress Matisse was our very special guest, and we tackled a lot of questions about BDSM over a very lively 90 minutes. We didn’t get to every question—there were so many—but I will now, as promised, power through as many livestream leftovers as I can in this week’s column…
You say people need to be in “good working order” to be in a relationship. What if you will never be in “good working order” because you cope with a mental health condition?
Having a mental health condition isn’t proof a person isn’t or can’t be in good working order; likewise, not having a mental health condition isn’t proof a person is in good working order. I mean, we all know people without mental health conditions who are walking disasters. Now someone with a mental health condition who refuses to get help or to stay on their meds might not be in good enough working order to be in or sustain a relationship. But taking care of ourselves is one of the most important ways we demonstrate that we are, in actual fact, in good enough working order to fuck, date, or marry. Or all three. So far from proving you’re not fit to be in a relationship, having a mental health condition that you’re doing something about—having one or more that you’re actively coping with—is evidence you are good working order.
I’m a bi widower and not out to anyone. While teaching a zoom class to young people I accidentally left open a tab that read “gay.” One of the students alerted me in the chat and I closed it right away. It was embarrassing and awkward. Should I just ignore it or address it in some way?
If you wanted to come out you could seize this opportunity to do so. If you don’t want to come out, well, you aren’t obligated to, gay tab or no gay tab. Unless parents are complaining and demanding an explanation, you’re free to shrug this off. And if someone assumes you’re gay because they saw a gay tab, well, you’re free to tell them that they’re mistaken… because you’re not gay, you’re bi.
I’m way more into BDSM than my huzzben. He enjoys it, but he does not initiate play. How can I encourage him to be the instigator of rough sex? We have negotiated limits and safe words but he finds using restraints and toys to be too much work!
Since your huzzben has made it clear that restraints and toys are too much work, I would advise you to relieve him of the burden of tying you up and shoving toys in your ass by finding a third who enjoys your kinks and/or regularly attending play parties with or without your husband—when the pandemic ends, of course. Who knows? Your husband might not like doing the work of tying you up but he might enjoy making out with you (or someone else) while someone else does the work of tying you up.
If my fiancée bought a house, do we say, “We bought a house”? I got laid off at the start of the pandemic, but her career has taken off and she’s proud of being able to afford a house all on her own. So how do we keep things respectful while still honoring her accomplishment? She wants the house to feel like mine as well. (I’m a dude.)
To casual acquaintances you could say, “Hey, we got a new place.” To close friends and family you could say, “She’s doing so well that she bought this house—I’m really proud of her and so lucky to be with her.” Hell, you could say those things to casual acquaintances and close friends interchangeably because both are true. And assuming you live in a marital property state, Mr. Dude, the house becomes yours too after you’re married. In the meantime you can earn a little sweat equity (and homeowner cred) by taking the lead on fixing the place up.
I have a question about the “tech-savvy, at-risk youth” who work on the Savage Lovecast. Wouldn’t it be nicer to just refer to them as the tech-savvy youth? How do they feel about having the “at-risk” label applied to them? Surely it gives you guys a perhaps deserved pat on the back, but I can’t help thinking that little bit of stigma could be damaging. I was once an “at-risk” youth myself and even though I enjoyed and benefited from programs that were specifically created to help teens/youth in my situation, I was always keenly aware that it made me feel “less than” and like I needed special treatment.
I wasn’t trying to give myself a pat on the back when I started referring to the kids who were working on the Lovecast as the “tech-savvy, at-risk youth.” It was just a joke—maybe not a funny one—as they were all certainly tech-savvy, for sure, but the only risk they were running was being in the same room with me. I’m sorry if that joke reminds you of a time in your life when you felt “less than.”
We have a friend who could be a unicorn. They have already subtly expressed interest though they are generally possessive and need to be “number one” in a relationship. We’re interested but we worry about their possessiveness causing problems.
I’m guessing your friend is hot—I mean, that would explain why you’re willing to overlook how emotionally unsuited they are for the unicorn role. Because if you’re looking for someone to play a sexy-but-subordinate role in your relationship, if you’re not seeking an equal partner and/or you’re not open to your unicorn becoming an equal partner, the last person on earth you should consider for your unicorn is someone you know to be possessive and interested in being first, not last.
I’m a 27-year-old queer/poly woman from NYC. My question: I used to babysit my friend’s baby. And when I would show up to babysit, her husband would be there to let me in to the apartment and we would chat for 10 minutes before he left for work. I don’t babysit anymore, but sometimes he texts me a picture of the baby and I’ll reply with, “So cute!” That felt normal. But one day he texted me two selfies. I didn’t reply because I thought that was weird. Is this something I should mention to my friend? I can’t tell if this is weird enough to bring up to her. Or is there something I should have said to him?
You don’t know what’s going on in your friend’s relationship—maybe flirting with others is allowed—but you do know how you feel about her husband sending your selfies: You don’t like it. If your silence wasn’t enough to put a stop to it and he sends more photos and/or messages that make you feel uncomfortable, tell him to knock it off. If he doesn’t knock it off, tell him he’s gonna leave you with no choice but to alert his wife. If he still doesn’t knock it off, alert his wife.
I’m 39 years old, cis, and female. COVID has really tanked my sex drive. I’ve masturbated like twice in the last four months. I guess my question is… do you think things are gonna go back to normal? Please tell me yes.
Yes.
I have imposter syndrome when I go to rope jams and such, but I really love the community of kinksters. Is it okay to go to kinky events even if I have trouble identifying my kinks?
So long as you’re respectful—so long as you aren’t gawking or taking photos without permission or making shocked faces—you’re more than welcome at most big kink events. Sometimes the hosts of smaller and more intimate play parties have rules that would preclude the attendance of someone who had no kinks of their own or had yet to identify their kinks; at smaller parties the host might want everyone to be in a certain kind of gear or interested in a certain kind of play. If you’re wondering if you’re welcome to observe the play at a particular rope jam or event, email the organizers and ask.
I’ve got a friend who wanted to do pet-play and talked about being a cow and bought breast pumps to try and start lactation. Have you any advice on how to safely support her in this? I’m potentially open to play with her, if it’s safe, and I’m curious about her even being able to start lactation.
Do people keep cows as pets? Regardless, according to the La Leche League, regular use of a breast pump can “induce lactation,” which is “the official term for making milk without pregnancy and birth.” So the sooner your friend gets started with that pump, the sooner she can pretend to be your sexy, sexy pet cow.
Thanks again to everyone who joined us for the livestream and we’re going to schedule another one very soon!
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59 Comments
LW3:
He doesn’t initiate play because you keep referring to him as your huzzben
how to get divorced with 1 word
That made me snort my coffee. Well-played.
I read that and my immediate thought was, Oh, so this is how mature adults have relationships?
That’s how Dan refers to his husband on the podcast.
This needs more stars. I heard Dan’s voice in my head as I read it.
Thank you. Because WTF?
Re: LW2I had a recent scare like that on a Teams call with a major client. They needed some instruction via screen sharing, and partway through I had to tab over to Google Drive to share a file. The “recent” thumbnails were all self porn.So about halfway into a heart attack I remembered that my screen share was limited to the program I was demonstrating, and double checked, and crisis averted.I’m a lot more diligent about what’s on my screen, now.On a call a few days later, someone else had to share their screen, and did share their whole screen, and on the desktop there were, like, four or five Photoshop files all named something like “god emperor president” and the thumbnails were different color levels edits of that stupid meme where they pop Trump’s face onto a 40K character. So at least I know that even had I inadvertently shared the lewd contents of my Google Drive, it wouldn’t have been the most embarrassing thing possible.
But more on the advice side, I think in LW2’s situation the best option is to play it cool. The vast majority of people will be polite enough not to ask, and beyond that can empathize, because who among us hasn’t accidentally shown the wrong computer file to the wrong person?Making a big deal out of the slip-up, or springboarding into a coming outing to your students. . . . That seems, I dunno, disruptive if not wholly inappropriate?EDIT: Alternatively, you could double down and try to play the gay tab off as part of an elaborate meta-joke, culminating in your last Zoom lesson just being this, fullscreen:
Yeah, it depends on the situation and how much they want to take on, but “say nothing” seems like the easiest response. Bisexual teachers should be as free to discuss their personal lives as straight ones — which might include passing references to partners in comfortable circumstances — but I’m not sure what a “formal” coming out conversation with the whole class would achieve. And it sounds awkward as hell.
Like at this point it’s video 101 to either keep your embarrassing stuff to another computer or put it in an incognito window and close that stuff down before you start doing work
Or have multiple desktops on the computer that don’t talk to each other, so I—I mean, someone—can open up their browser and type in “Romeo and Juliet” without it autocompleting “romantic bi threeway.”
Or, you know, whatever someone has been watching recently. “Romantic comedies with a Christian message,” that sort of thing.
Also, just because the tab says “gay”, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically something NSFW, or says anything about your own sexuality. There are plenty of news stories, blog posts, reviews of It’s A Sin etc that say “gay” somewhere prominent.I went to a school where a few teachers did come out to us as gay or bi, which was cool, but that was their choice – it would have been horrible if they’d felt forced to tell us.
Yeah, why can’t a straight person be researching gay lifestyles? Maybe he’s trying to be more inclusive and is wanting to learn how the other 10% live.
There’s a weird sort of too-online “Curb Your Enthusiasm” style episode to be made of this whole scenario, where it turns out the teacher was just looking up directions to Gaylordsville so he could attend a dinner party with a couple of his grad school friends.
Dedicated zoom tablet, ma dude.
Or dedicated porn tablet.
Or both. I do both. it’s perfect 🙂
What’s “self-porn”?
Typo – meant “shelf-porn”.
I’ve got some pretty tasty pics of a large cherry wood display unit I’ve been meaning to buy when I have a couple of hundred spare.
Ah, this column is still going to be published here, huh.
With nary a mention of the controversy, of course.
Do tell
Explain? The internet offers nothing I can immediately connect to this comment.
He was defending a transphobe journalist from a shitty publication is my understanding of the situation.
The Atlantic is now a shitty publication? The article may indeed have been shitty, even great publications produce shit articles sometimes (The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post all have made their mistakes), but it’s usually one of the best magazines still publishing.
Yep. He engaged in wrongthink and now must be obliterated. Even though he’s totally right.
I’m not too clear on what Dan actually *did* other than defend this problematic Jesse Singal character. People on Twitter are going off on Dan for being transphobic without citing anything specific. Can anyone cite anything specific that *Dan* actually *said*?! I’m confused.
I mean defending a notorious transphobe is in fact transphobic
Can you explain how Jesse Singal is a notorious transphobe? Not loooking to defend the guy if he sucks, but just curious. From what I can tell he wrote that big article for The Atlantic in which he found that in some cases adolescents feel they are trans and then realize they are not, and thus he pointed out that it might be worth thinking about allowing them to make physical changes to their body that are permanent.
He also explained how trans-rights organization feel that all adolescents who come out as trans should be supported fully, including possibly permanent physical changes to their bodies, as this is more affirming and helps combat the sad history of unsupported trans teens hurting themselves (and sometimes dying of suicide.)
Critics of Singal took his article to be stating that being trans is a choice or a fad. Even though I don’t believe he said that, but rather that there are some teens who don’t fit traditional gender norms and therefore these days identify with being trans — for a while are sure they are trans — only to discover that they were mistaken and just didn’t fit the traditional gender norms that society had imposed on them. And he seemed to say that given that there are these teens who think they are trans only to realize they are not, making permanent changes to their bodies could have major consequences.I could totally be misinterpreting what he said, so I’m happy to be corrected.
“Notorious transphobe.” Oy vey.
Yes, you had something to contribute?
Fair point — I’ll keep digging into this to see if I can get more clarity.
It’s just Twitter bullshit.
Also, it doesn’t help he specifically cited a Quillette article by Jonathan Kay – an article that is the most whitewashy thing I have read in a while, in which Singal is portrayed as a sensitive and thoughtful soul assaulted and bullied by a cruel radical trans Twitter mob. Basically, Kay thinks that Singal is blamelessly ‘just asking questions’ (and even compares him to that former Google engineer James Damore, another ‘just asking questions’ character). Kay never actually explains why someone might think Singal is transphobic, and insinuates at one point that Singal’s critics are doing it for the clicks (ie, for their careers). But I’d expect nothing less from Jonathan Kay, Canada’s answer to Bari Weiss – but even worse somehow. He got started in journalism cause his mom is a long running and also controversial columnist for the National Post, a right-wing newspaper, and like a lot of Canada’s media elite he is a starf*cker & super cozy with politicians – he even helped ghost write Justin Trudeau’s book (with another guy who got in hot trouble for his role in the SNC Lavelin corruption affair!) Kay voluntarily left a sweet gig editing The Walrus (famous Canadian magazine) because he felt it conflicted with his career writing shitty hot takes – after Indigenous writers lambasted him for one of those hot takes when he wrote that ‘cultural appropriation is actually okay.’ [Now, there is a valid debate about how that term is applied, especially in the crab bucket of Twitter, what actually counts as appropriation, how it functions etc etc. – but the nepotism hire journalist friend of the Prime Minister is probably the last person who should be lecturing Indigenous people about the topic.] After that, he got on the ‘political correctness is out of control!’ squad and that has been his gig ever since. So, again, the last person who I’d want writing a profile of Singal – Kay definitely sees him as a ‘fellow traveler’. So, I don’t know – I don’t think Dan is transphobic himself – though he did say some shit in the late 2000s that was (and also Islamophobic stuff), he’s certainly way, way better now. But sharing a Jonathan Kay article to defend Jesse Singal is not a good look, as the kids say these days.
Thanks for explaining — I am a clueless (cis straight) American and didn’t realize how Canadian all of this Jesse Singal stuff was. My knowledge of Canada is mostly limited to “the woods outside of Vancouver are every planet in every sci-fi show” and “mmmm, poutine”, but I think I understood at least *some* of that.
Ah, I didn’t realize Dan said some bad stuff about trans people in the late 2000s — I didn’t read his column every week or subscribe to his podcast until a few years ago. That clears things up a bit. Maybe he’s a little bit more Bill-Maher-esque than I’d realized. OTOH, I agree with Dan when he says that, when someone changes their mind, educates themselves, and comes over to your side, you should welcome them instead of shunning them for their past bad actions, so if he’s willing to do that then I’ll respect him a lot, but I see how the Singal situation doesn’t look promising.
Veering off topic a bit, the Trudeau stuff you bring up intrigues me — is Trudeau basically seen by progressives as a Third Way/Clinton-esque sell-out who skates through on his charisma, or is there more to it than that? Are Canadian politics less polarized than American politics, with a significant moderate faction that supports Trudeau? Or are there mainly just two sides like in American politics? I get the vague impression that the conservatives keep shooting themselves in the foot and Trudeau capitalizes on that — is that right?
Also thanks for “the crab bucket of Twitter”, which is hilarious and, as a total Twitter addict, I’m stealing that.
Dan has written several terrible columns on trans issues in the past, full of shit advice and hateful language, and plenty of the twitter threads had links/receipts. I’ve tried to “shades of gray” his actions too, but his record of being at best a shitty advocate for trans people and at worst an active transphobe has been sadly earned.
His job isn’t twitter, why should he suffer for that (assuming he even did anything)?
Singal is annoying as fuck and his willingness to work with right wing channels because they’re willing to exploit his narrative needs to be scrutinised, but Dan is right. If you actually do look at what he’s accused of and what he actually reported, it doesn’t hold up.And even if Dan (and I, by agreeing with him, I guess) were wrong, he’s like 3 steps removed from the actual issue that pulling his column because a bunch of people on twitter got upset would be inane overkill.
These guys learned nothing from the James Gunn incident.
It absolutely does hold up though
Forget it, Matthew. It’s Canceltown.
It’s time for Savage Nobody! The advice column that’s late due to having to tend to its sexy, sexy pet cow!Question of the week: How hot does somebody have to be (or what other qualities must they have in abundance) before you are willing to put up with unpleasant personality traits? Savage Nobody used to know this absolutely awful person who broke into the farm Savage Nobody usually breaks into and fed Nobody’s sexy cow something that caused it to develop a problem with its ingluvies. Shortly afterwards, this person “accidentally” caught on fire and Savage Nobody decided they were hot enough to forgive their transgressions.
Sup Nobody,I used to mess around with this raving lunatic who was a perfect 10 (on my own subjective scale). To this day I often debate myself on whether or not the whole thing was worth it, as the whole thing left me a shell of a human being, unable to feel joy and traumatized by their unpredictable moods and fits of rage.On the other hand, they were seriously hot.Then again, emotionally scarred for a long time.So hot.Since I stopped seeing them as well as texting and speaking to them, my situation has improved vastly.REALLY hot though.Hmmmmm…………………
I guess my advice to anyone wrestling with this would be to rub one out real quick and then think again.
The pair of you mad bastards delight me.
None. None hot. You could be Idris Elba or Kristen Steward but if you’re an asshole, we will not be advancing past the first one night stand. I learned my lesson there.
I’m with you! I mean, there are questions of degrees – no one’s perfect, and expecting perfection in a partner is a great recipe for being alone, but if they’re a bad person/a bigot/a narcissist/etc, then they’re also a huge waste of your time, no matter what draws they might have.
There are really only so many character flaws that having a big dick can excuse and frankly that number gets lower every year I get older.
P.S. My apologies to fake girlfriend KStew for misspelling her name.
Being a hot lunatic, I feel attacked by this thread.
That 10 second orgasm I had 17 years ago during the only threesome I ever enjoyed in my life still provides me with the required spank material in my solo adventures. I mean, during my divorce, I lost my entire life savings, my mental and emotional health, and most likely at least ten years off my lifespan, but that unicorn was oh, so hot! So, totally worth it.
If you wanted to come out you could seize this opportunity to do so. If you don’t want to come out, well, you aren’t obligated to, gay tab or no gay tab.
To a class of young people he’s teaching ?
That’s terrible advice lol, it’s none of their business, and if he’s american he’d probably be fired or something.
Is it common to suggest bringing in a third party without having a clue how either member of the couple feels about it?Because this feels like a fairly presumptuous suggestion.
Dan has a macro on his computer that just defaults to “open the relationship.”
I like how Dan thinks a third person would somehow be “less work” than the sex toys the husband currently finds so onerous.
YES!!! This!
This advice always drives me nuts. What percentage of relationships would “bringing in a third” be a total non-starter for one or both members? Whatever that number is, it’s much, much higher than Dan thinks it is.
Somewhere in the ninetieth percentile, I’m guessing. Like 99.8%.
LW1) This question is nonsensicalLW2) Clearly your students know and don’t care, or just don’t care. As they are students, they don’t care. Worry about the parents, as they generally are the ones who get worked up with this kind of petty bullshit. LW3) Baron von Blubba handled his in a comment below perfectly, with the follow-up dunk by TyrannorabbitLW4) This isn’t really a question worth asking. Or answering. You sound like a passive-aggressive asshole though.
LW5) Lighten up Francis
LW6) Stupid question. You know the answer, tell him to fuck off. You just wanted to raise your hand to ask Dan a question and this was the best you could do.LW7) see The General’s end of response to LW6LW8) Ok, I’ll bite. What in the hell is a “rope jam” ?LW9) Eat more chicken.
Hey, everyone! Any advice for how to show love and support for a newly out trans woman relative who lives too far away to visit? They’re in their 60’s and pretty quiet, and a lot of what I find online seems to be for people who are younger and more open/confident in their identity.
‘Do people keep cows as pets?’
do not ask questions that you do not want the answers to. farmers and what constitutes a pet vs. livestock can get weird, fast