Hey there, and welcome to your Savage Lovecast recap and review for the week of August 21. I want to know what your policy on texting is. What’s a polite period to return a text, especially one from someone you’re dating or interested in dating? On the flip side, when do you expect your texts to be returned? And do you use texting for all kinds of communication? Is anything out of bounds?
You can listen to this week’s episode and read this week’s Savage Love column.
Dan’s rant this week is about an email in his inbox that promised him eternal damnation if he didn’t change his ways and believe in Jesus. Dan is bemused at the thought that an email from a stranger would make him reconsider his long-held position against the existence of God. But what bothered him was the timing – this came days after the results of the grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania which detailed abuse allegations against more than 300 priests by over a thousand victims. The bishop who confirmed me got called out as being especially heinous (as I lamented when I read through part of the report). Dan thinks that now isn’t the time for people to proclaim Jesus as the path to personal salvation. Dan notes that other church communities, such as evangelicals, have their own issues with child rape scandals. Dan argues that people let their guard down around priests, pastors, and “people of God,” when evidence suggests that we should be more wary. Dan ends by advising people to stop taking their kids to church. I’m sure this will cause no controversy.
On to the calls! A straight man has been seeing a woman for 3 months (after a false start of 3 months). He’s sensitive, and has told her he loves her, but she didn’t reciprocate. She only wants to do things in groups and doesn’t want to hang out with him alone. When they’re in groups, she doesn’t spend much time talking to him. He doesn’t feel like they’re connecting. Dan sees a broken-down relationship. Time to turn this on-again off-again relationship off again.
A 30-year-old woman has a question about dating in New York City (“I’m getting out of this town alive if it kills me!”). Our caller has been every size from 00 to 22, but now she’s at a healthy weight for her. Still, she’s intimidated to date in New York because everyone is so skinny. She doesn’t believe that anyone would ever be attracted to her when there are so many thinner people around. She’s also insecure about her stretch marks. Dan advises one thing up top – don’t date any guy who encourages her to lose weight. This question reminds Dan of one he gets from gay guys. If all you see are skinny women, that’s all you’re looking at. When guys flirt with you, take that yes for an answer. As for the stretch marks, it may or may not be an issue for some guys, but you can always fuck with some clothes on or in the dark. It may help to unpack these issues with a therapist. (One weird thing about this call: Dan points out that “the only women in New York are skinny bitches” is a false statement, and our caller disproves that by herself. Which may be technically true, but I can’t possibly see how that tautology would help anyone. Is Dan reading a book called “How To Use Banal Logic To Own Conservatives” or something?)
A 30-year-old woman recently met a man on FetLife who presented himself as everything she wanted – a spanking fetishist into social justice. After they had sex, she realized he lied: he’s a married lead pastor at a local church. Our caller feels violated. Does she have a responsibility to out this guy? Dan calls back. Dan and the caller look at the church’s website together, and Dan observes that it looks like your standard anti-gay anti-women Trump-supporting evangelical church. The caller chuckles that he offered to go with her to a Bernie Sanders rally, and Dan thinks she should have taken him. She found out who he was, presented him with the evidence, and asked him what Jesus would say about rape by deception. Dan gives her a verbal high-five for that. The only hang-up she has is she doesn’t want to destroy his family. Dan acknowledges that, but also doesn’t want to give license to creepy pastors. Dan throws out the possibility of reaching out privately to a couple of higher-ups in the church, but admits he doesn’t know what to do. Dan finally settles on that, with the caveat that you don’t want to cause disruption to the kids. Dan thinks this guy is a threat to the congregation, which he may be, but am I wrong in thinking that the first place this guy should be outed is on FetLife? I don’t know how you would go about it, but if there’s a way to warn other people on the site, I think that would be a worthwhile way to channel the caller’s rage. Finally, in the interest of personal protection, Dan recommends laying low, maybe stay with family or friends, if she’s concerned for her personal safety. And she has her own secrets that she doesn’t want outed, so it’s understandable if that plays a role in her decision. There’s also no reason that she can’t wait if she’s concerned that personal repercussions will come to her.
A late-20s gay guy came out a couple years ago. When he starts dating guys and tells them this, they pull away and say “whoa, that’s so recent.” How does he handle this? Dan points out that people who come out later in life have to learn the lessons of dating and interaction in adulthood that their straight peers were learning as teenagers. The guys our caller is meeting may be intuiting that our caller is not yet ready for a serious relationship and recoiling based on that. Dan thinks he shouldn’t lie, though. Eventually you’re going to meet a guy for whom it won’t matter. That said, you can stop initiating the coming out conversation, but when pressed, answer truthfully.
A 42-year-old woman was molested at a young age by a family member. She was able to work through the trauma and confusion, but she married a man who also was abusive. She and her son got out of that marriage. Our caller is successful, loving, and beautiful. She is now living with her wonderful boyfriend of two years. She’s never had an orgasm with any partner except one ex-boyfriend. She’s not able to let go during sex. She can make herself orgasm. She’s convinced that the block is mental. How can she get past this? Dan admires the caller for overcoming so much. The issue is one that isn’t as much of a challenge. The way forward is to incorporate masturbation into sex. Step by step: First, masturbate with your boyfriend in the house. Then with him outside the door. Then with him in the room, but not looking at each other. Then in the bed next to you. Then holding you. Then with him assisting you and watching you. Then take his hands and put them on you or on the vibrator and make his hands stimulate you in the way you want to be stimulated. If you need a vibrator to come, incorporate that into sex. And if you can convince yourself that your issue isn’t related to the past trauma, which it may not be, it will become easier.
A man and his wife just had their first MFM threesome. Afterward, and into the next day, his wife felt giddy, euphoric, and kind of stoned, even though she was perfectly sober. Is there a term for this? Afterglow! Is the word our caller is looking for. If you’ve really stepped out of your usual and realized a truly liberating experience, it can last for days or even years.
A woman was on PornHub and saw “tribbing.” Urban Dictionary is no help – can Dan be? What does it mean? Dan’s version of Urban Dictionary is perfectly functional, and it says correctly that it is scissoring, or two women rubbing their vulvas and clitorises together.
A bi pan Latino has sex anxiety, especially when it comes to penetration. When it comes to bottoming, he worries he’s not clean enough, and when it comes to topping, he gets in his head and loses his erection. Can Dan help? Dan diagnoses poop shame, and prescribes an enema. But you can be a complete bi pan man without having anal sex at all (a statistic Dan cites all the time is that 25% of gay men don’t have anal sex). Frottage is always an option, and if anal isn’t an interest, you don’t have to do it.
Dr. Lori Brotto is on to talk about her new book “Better Sex Through Mindfulness.” In the book, she argues that women who practice mindfulness can change how they relate to sex and their own bodies. Can mindfulness increase women’s libido, or as Dan asks, is mindfulness the female Viagra? It is a way, says Dr. Brotto, for the mind and genitals to be more connected. Dan connects mindfulness to the novel sex he usually recommends to people whose sex lives have gone stale. Dan and Dr. Brotto also talk about fantasy and how that plays in the moment. For practical advice, Dr. Brotto advises (1) today, choose one activity, about five to ten minutes long, that you are going to deliberately pay attention to while you’re doing it, and (2) next time you’re sexually active, tune in to those points of contact and focus on what that feels like.
A 41-year-old single woman has been dating online, and while she’s met some guys, she hasn’t found anything long-term. She still wants a family. She is just starting the process of adoption. She wants to know how to roll this out to men she’s dating without scaring men off. Dan says that because our caller he started the adoption process, she should tell men that right away. But she can roll that out in a way that makes clear that at this point, the man is not under an obligation to be a parent.
A 25-year-old gay man wonders if he’s kind of strange. When he goes on a few dates with a guy, and they’re starting to get to the boyfriend stage, do you have to text or call every single day? What’s the deal with constant contact? Some guys are going to require reasonably constant contact, says Dan, and the question is whether our caller can provide that for the right guy. Being expected to check in every 20 minutes is not reasonable. If you can sit down and hash out an understanding of what your texting habits are, and more importantly what they mean, that can help. (I swear to God, I wrote the intro before I heard this call.)
Caller feedback! Women should go to a self-defense class, especially krav maga. The woman who likes men only until she sleeps with them may in fact be gay.
Remember the guest star in the threesome from last week who was accused of peeing all over the bed? She called in, and she is humiliated that the guy called in to a podcast he knew she listened to. She had a UTI, and so did the female partner. She does enjoy peeing on people, but has only done it twice, and didn’t do it this time. She says the medication she was on made her pee bright orange and unmistakable. Maybe she just squirted, which is a new thing for her. Dan says that they’ve never gotten a call like that before, and thanks the caller for reminding us that there are two sides to every story.
Thanks for reading.