Hey there, and welcome to your Savage Lovecast recap and review. Better late than never!
You can listen to this week’s episode. You can read this week’s Savage Love article.
Dan’s rant this week is about Jim Jordan, the Republican from Ohio who has had allegations of knowing and doing nothing about abuse from his time as a wrestling coach at Ohio State. Besides blaming the Deep State(tm), Jordan has denied knowledge of the abuse because he was told about it in a locker room (seriously!). If the Deep State were powerful enough to plant evidence 20 years ago on an obscure coach to go after Trump, Dan wonders, why didn’t they just prevent Trump’s election in the first place?
On to the calls! A cis woman used to love anal, before she had a fissure while having a baby. How does she get back into that mentally and physically? Dan says, while fissures are painful, once they heal you should be good to go. Some people, however, are prone to fissures. If that’s the case, lubricate more. To get back into it mentally, go slowly, the way you did when you first got into anal.
A 20-something woman is in a monogamous relationship with a 40-something man. He wants to bring in a unicorn, but only if it’s a woman, no guys or couples. She wants to explore with other men. How to proceed? There’s no proceed here, says Dan – you’re at an impasse, and something’s got to give. Men seem to get jealous and insecure in these kinds of situations, which ain’t that funny? But high-minded appeals to justice won’t help our caller here.
A 21-year-old bi man is a progressive feminist in real life, but is really into consensually dominating and degrading his (usually female and femme male) sexual partners. Dan refers our caller to last week’s episode with Justin Lehmiller about sexual desires. Part of our sexual desires involve transgression, and that’s what’s happening here. A way to feel better about this is to get specific consent for each step along the degraded path. It is not a contradiction to be a feminist and kinky.
How does Dan deal with following politics? Escape and fantasy, says Dan, just like Anne Frank (who had photos of movie stars by her bed in her hideout). You have to find joy and pleasure where you can, and it is not a betrayal of #theresistance to take a night and…any guesses?…get stoned.
A woman just got married in May. They went on a quick honeymoon, but then had to get separated for seven weeks. He has a roommate, so at most times, phone sex and Skype is off the table. He doesn’t want her to use porn. How does she deal? Dan says that our caller needs to do what she’s gotta do to stay married and stay sane, and if that means she watches porn and doesn’t mention it or denies it, then that’s acceptable. Also, this guy’s excuse is bullshit.
A 25-year-old straight man has been dating his girlfriend for five years. A couple years ago, he convinced her to open up the relationship, but he wasn’t good at following guidelines. Now she wants to open it up again, and he’s getting jealous of the guy she’s seeing. He’s thinking of moving away to give her space. Should he? The question our caller has to ask himself, says Dan, is whether this new thing where the girlfriend isn’t as excited to see our caller anymore is new relationship energy or the beginning of the end. Our caller might have even stumbled into an unwitting poly relationship. Either way, they need to sit down and have a real talk about what’s going on. I’m not optimistic here.
A family a woman and her family know recently came out to them: the dad is a trans man. Our caller is very supportive, and the other family is eager to answer questions. The problem: our caller has questions, but she doesn’t want to pry. The questions, though, aren’t invasive, but innocuous – stuff like How did you meet? When did you transition? When did you decide to have children? Dan says these are the kinds of questions that straight couples ask each other all the time, and they aren’t made prying just because a transition was involved in there at some point.
A married couple, a straight woman and bi man, explore outside their marriage. But lately, he’s been finding more guys than she has. She worries about getting STDs from her husband. He says he’s safe and she believes him, but she still worries. Dan says there’s no way to sugarcoat this: people in open relationships are more likely to contract STIs than people in actual monogamous relationships. And the fact that the husband is with men increases the risk further. There are steps the husband can take, though, and he should reassure the wife that he’s doing so. He should be on Prep and use condoms when engaged in anal sex. But our caller is at higher risk for herpes and HPV. Does that outweigh the risk involved in not letting the husband explore himself? Dan doesn’t think so, but our caller needs to decide.
A 24-year-old newly poly queer person wants to know how to quit comparing their partners. Sophie Lucido Johnson, author of Many Love: A Memoir of Polyamory and Finding Loves, is on to talk about poly issues. Johnson points out that we compare things all the time. Especially in some poly relationships, where there are delineated primary and secondary partnerships. You should be preferencing your primary partner. Johnson points out that the answer to every poly question is “Talk about it.” New relationship energy can also throw a wrench in the works.
Johnson talks about her book. She talks about the differences in sacrifices that poly people and other folks make for love. Poly people sacrifice some of the security that comes in a coupled relationship, for example.
Back to the calls! A caller’s 14-year-old nephew came out to his family as gay when he was 3. His parents squashed that at the time and all the time since, but it’s hard to deny now. Our caller wants to know how to support him. If you’re in the community, says Dan, make sure to let him know that he’s always welcome in your house. This will give him space to hide. If you’re not around, invite him to where you are or keep in contact on social media. Model your life to teach him that you are an ally without saying it explicitly.
A 33-year-old straight man has been in an amazing relationship of 6 months with a woman he’s known since childhood. Yesterday, on her birthday, they went out drinking. She started flirting with others, and he called her out on it and got really mad. When she was dancing with a group of guys, he barged through, grabbed her by the throat, told her “You’re now single,” and pushed her aggressively. That was last night. Our caller knows the relationship is toast, and he wants to move on. He’s already signed up for therapy. How can he avoid being this person in the future? Dan thinks our caller will avoid being the kind of man who abuses women because he’s looking inward instead of taking the normal abuser route of going back to the girlfriend and escalating the violence or manipulating her into taking her back. You don’t have to be the guy that you were in the club, Dan declares. Don’t take remedial steps to improve yourself to win her back – do it for the other people you’ll meet down the road, and do it for yourself. In addition to the therapy, Dan suggests an anger management class and alcohol treatment.
A man was swiping on Tinder when he saw his cousin’s girlfriend, who he may or may not still be in a relationship with. Should he tell anyone? Keep your goddamn mouth shut, says Dan. Dan immediately goes to the open relationship thing, but I want to point out that some dating apps keep profiles up even after users stop using them or deactivate them. That might be an even more benign explanation to this common conundrum.
A woman is looking to open her 7-year marriage. Our caller thinks she’s poly, while the husband is excited to try something. But they each are the only people they’ve ever slept with or even dated. Are they naive? Marriages can survive opening up, even when both partners have only ever been with each other. But can Dan guarantee that our caller’s marriage will survive? No. What might help? Not jumping headlong into polyamory when the husband isn’t there yet, but instead finding the common desire, which is sex with other people. Maybe the first adventure should be together, like at a sex club with no intimacy on the table.
A 33-year-old woman has been in a 7-month relationship with a man. They’ve really opened up to each other during this time. She confided in him about an abortion she had that ended a long-term relationship, but she didn’t tell him that she was married at the time. If she’s going to get married to this guy, she’ll have to come clean, but she’s nervous to. Dan reminds her that this is a new relationship – just say it. He’s seen things with her married name on it already, after all. He probably knows and is waiting for her to bring it up. If that’s not the case, and he freaks out about it, she’s well rid of him. But that’s probably not the case. Share this with him, as well as your fears about revealing it, and he will probably rush to comfort you.
Caller feedback! A sub can give a subtle visual cue, like a tie on the door, that lets the partner know to initiate sex. Be blunt and honest with autistic people. A woman just got a porn star fucking with her partner’s fingers – just have her get on top, and it looks like he’s fucking her.
Thanks for reading.