So, I’m not SheepLauncher, who is enjoying a well earned retirement from this thread. And I am not stepping up to be his permanent replacement. But I do find myself with a good bit of free time today (thanks, Hurricane Florence), so I don’t mind taking up the mantle for one week. I’m probably going to be a bit briefer with the recaps than SheepLauncher, but not quite as terse as the one time I did this before.

Dan seems to be back and recovered from his surgery, or at least enough so to record a timely rant. He declares himself to be on Team Serena, tells some of his fellow gays to stop hassling the straights about using the word “partner”, high fives the Dems for fighting the good fight against Brett Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS nom, and wants us all to drop some cash to fund an opponent to challenge Susan Collins (R-ME) if she votes yes on Kavanaugh. All good stuff, but I’m skeptical of the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh for his lies if there is anything short of a blue tsunami in November.

On to the calls:

A 20-something female intern is attracted to an older guy at work, but he’s pretty quiet and she can’t tell if he’s interested. Dan says maybe he’s not or maybe he’s just trying not to be the guy who preys on interns. He tells her to make a pass and give the guy her number on her way out the door when the internship ends.

A 30-something married woman is concerned about her husband’s use of marijuana. He uses every day, which has her concerned, plus she just doesn’t like the smoke. Dan, not surprisingly, doesn’t think daily pot use is necessarily a problem, but does point to a recent Atlantic article that explores the issue in more depth. Dan says she should ask herself if pot is actually causing any problems or stopping him from getting things done. There are options for the smoke and smell, like vaping and edibles.

A 26-year-old woman has a problem with her boyfriend’s porn use. She notes that while he can get hard for sex with her, he can’t finish. Dan says this might not be related to the porn use. It might just be how he’s wired, or how he has wired himself through Death Grip Syndrome. There shouldn’t be any shame in his finishing himself off with his hand if he needs to.

A 28-year-old woman just moved to Seattle and wants to make (platonic) friends. Dan’s most novel suggestion is renting a slot at a coworking space so she can make some “work friends”. The rest is just standard issue advice: get out there, try volunteering, strike up conversations with people at coffee shops, though on the last point I tend to agree with the conclusions of this highly scientific study.

A 27-female feels like she has to be in an open relationship because she tends to get lots of crushes. I think Dan’s advice was essentially to be honest about her fears with her partners but not to necessarily start off assuming the worst case scenario, but the call was pretty boring, so I kind of tuned out.

A 22-year-old gay guy’s fuck buddy doesn’t return his texts and seems generally to be a dick. Dan says this guy obviously doesn’t care about the friends part of FWB, and the caller should drop him and look for someone else. There are plenty of friendlier guys on the apps, even in the world of casual relationships.

A 24-year-old woman and her friend met a couple guys at a bar and they came to her place and stayed the night. She fooled around with one of them some but didn’t have sex. Later, her mom, who was around for some reason, send her a link to a cheater-shaming website with the guy on it. She’s maintained contact with the guy via text and he says the post on the site is the work of a stalker ex. The caller doesn’t get any bad vibes from the guy and wants to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dan says that’s fine but keep in mind that if creepy people always gave off creepy vibes, no one would ever get creeped on, so take your gut instincts with a grain of salt. Mostly I was creeped out by the fact that Mom apparently has a front row seat for her adult daughter’s social life. Boundaries, people.

A 20-something woman has been dating an older guy and they have gotten into swinging. The guy told her the couples they were hooking up with were friends from work, but it turns out they were randos from Craigslist. Dan says this is a huge violation and she should DTMFA with extreme prejudice. Dan is right.

Dan takes a break from the calls to chat with Dr. Nick Cuneo, who just a wrote an editorial for the LA Times about the restrictions on blood donations by men who have sex with men. Dan admits that this has never been an issue that he has gotten very worked up about. Dan and Dr. Nick acknowledge that gay and bi men are a higher risk for a variety of sexually transmitted infections than other population groups, and in the early days of the HIV crisis the blunt instrument of an outright ban on donations might have been appropriate. But now that there are better tests for infections in blood and better methods for screening donors based on individual risk, they agree that a blanket ban is needlessly discriminatory.

Back to the calls:

A divorced guy who cheated a few times during is 18 year marriage is in love with a new girlfriend, but wants to know how he can keep from cheating again. Dan says there is no magic formula. Talk about expectations before you get married and make a plan for how you might recover if there is cheating. I may be getting a few details from this call confused with the similar call from earlier. They were both boring.

A 23-year-old woman had a shitty boyfriend she didn’t lose her virginity to and now has a nice one she did. She thinks she wants to marry him, but her friends say it’s a mistake to get married if you’ve only ever slept with one person. Dan thinks there are reasons not to rush into a marriage young but only having slept with one person ain’t one of them. Besides, due to the magic powers of consensual nonmonogamy, she might have an opportunity to sleep with other people in the future even if they do get married.

A 21-year-old woman’s boyfriend likes to wind her up sexually and then leave her hanging. Dan says he’s being a cruel in order to bait her into dumping him because he’s done with the relationship.

A 30-year-old bi woman into ethical nonmonogamy went to dinner with her (male) partner, her (female) side piece, and her side piece’s husband. The husband said some weird, borderline slut-shamy things to the partner during dinner, and at the end of the meal got into a fight with his wife that ended with his throwing the wife into a pile of New York garbage. What can / should they do about this clearly abusive relationship? Dan says it’s an awful and tricky situation. Yes, the caller and her guy should try to help, but not to the point of putting themselves in this creepy violent guy’s sites.

A 29-year-old woman has been married to her same aged husband since they were 18. After saying no for a long time, she recently agreed to try anal with him, despite his big dick. It hurt at first but they figured out the magic lube and time formula and now it just feels like nothing. Dan says that she certainly has the right to take anal off the table, especially if it hurts, but if the feeling is just nothing, why not indulge her husband occasionally? In return, she has the right to expect hubby to sometimes offer pleasure in a way that doesn’t necessarily do anything for him (Dan uses extended and intense cunnilingus as an example). Dan didn’t present it as strict quid pro quo, more a case of “Why not both be accommodating when you can?”

Caller feedback:

The guy who hit on the tie store clerk was a bigger asshole than Dan gave him credit for because the girl was at work. If you want to hit on people and not subject yourself to public rejection, give them your number. The daughter whose mom died should be happy her dad is moving on rather than sitting around his house alone and miserable and drinking himself to death; also, fuck tie store guy.

Whew. That’s a wrap.