Welcome to the recap for this week’s Savage Lovecast. We’ve got the column too for your reading pleasure.
Dan gives us a history lesson about the stolen children of Argentina whose parents were disappeared by the military junta during the 1970s. This topic was inspired by a recent AP article about refugee parents who have been deported under Trump’s immigration policies losing their children to involuntary adoption. It’s just very sad, so let’s segue to the calls without the usual exclamation point.
A woman in her early 30s has always been pretty paranoid about an unwanted pregnancy and told the guy she was seeing so. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. She had an abortion but it was still an ordeal for her. She later found out that this guy has been telling women he had had a vasectomy and several have ended up pregnant. It is unclear if he told the caller the same thing but it is strongly implied that he deceived her somehow about pregnancy risk with him. She has spoken to a lawyer who says she has cause to bring battery charges against this guy. Her friends are weirdly blasé and think she just treat it as one of those things that happens. Should she bring charges? Should she dump her friends? Dan says yes and yes.
A 40 something man isn’t quite sure if his relationship of 3.5 years is over. He’s been out of work for a while and his girlfriend has been drinking and smoking pot a lot. Eventually they both agree that they both need a break. They establish some ground rules about checking in periodically during the break but the girlfriend isn’t doing it. Dan says pay attention to her actions not her words. Even if she said she wasn’t ready to break up it sure seems like she is.
A 57 year old married woman has been corresponding with her gay male friend “Link”. They have a very intimate but of course not romantic friendship. He husband is fine with it. Meanwhile the husband has a platonic female friend and the caller is fine with that too just not quite as fine with it. The caller wants to take some big trip with Link. It would be cheap for her to go because she has frequent flyer miles from work but if hubby wanted to come along too they would have to pay (plus the wife kind of doesn’t want him there anyway). How can she ask her husband about taking this trip with Link and what should she do if he says no? Dan says she can ask and he may well say yes, but if she says no to the trip she has to respect that as she would he expect him to if she told him he couldn’t travel with his female friend. He goes on for a while about the importance of having friends apart from your spouse and how they can really enrich your marriage.
A woman in her early 30s is new to online dating. One of the first guys she went out with turned out to be very kinky. During their first (and only) sexual encounter he started with impregnation fantasies (which the caller played along with) then moved on to talking about piss play. Later he whipped out his dick and peed in front of her. The caller wants to know if this was too early for this guy to break out his kinks. Dan says yes it is unless they met on a kink-specific app. He says kinky people need to demonstrate they can be good partners with vanilla sex before rolling out the kink.
A 25 year old bi male-presenting non-binary person wants to know how to meet people in New York City. Dan says app are a possibility, but if you want to meet in meatspace the trick is not to go out alone. Being out with a friend is an advertisement than you are someone friendworthy and having company means the night won’t be a total loss even if you don’t make any new connections. Good advice but not everybody has a pool of friends who are routinely available for hanging out. Speaking from experience.
A woman is about to break up with her boyfriend. She has warned her friends that she may need to lean on them more and is thinking about taking a post-breakup trip. Is there anything else she needs to do? Dan says no she seems to have a handle on it. Breaking up can be as hard for the breaker as the breakee and you’re allowed to wallow for a couple weeks. After that you need your friends to stop indulging you and push you to move on. A fun trip seems like a good way to do that.
A 33 year old guy is at a wedding. His cousin is there with a date but he Facetimed with some other girl last night. What should the caller do? Dan says what the fuck? He Facetimed with somebody else? Who cares? This call was stupid and made me mad, but righteous indignation is a fun emotion so I kind of enjoyed it. More morons please, Dan.
A 22 year old woman has been with her boyfriend for nine years. They have a good relationship but she has gotten bored with the sex. She floated opening up the relationship but the boyfriend said no (but not hell no). Another thing she’s thought about is trying some kind of public sex with her partner. Most of Dan’s reply (about every fourth sentence) is about how flabbergasted he is that this couple has been together since middle school. Which, fair enough. Between bouts of astonishment he tells the caller that it’s good that they are recognizing the problem and talking about it. Swingers clubs are a possibility if you want to have sex in front of other people and that doesn’t mean you have to have sex with other people. Even if the boyfriend doesn’t want an open relationship maybe he’d enjoy a nice three way.
A caller wants to know what’s the deal with drag queens. Is it sexual? Dan says no. Drag is about performance not sex. A lot of drag queens are pretty mild mannered in everyday life and use their persona as a way to be something they’re not.
Speaking of drag, Dan has on Simon Doonan for a talk about his new book Drag: The Complete Story. This was a perfectly nice conversation but nothing about it grabbed me so I’ll just mention that the proceeds from Doonan’s book go towards the Ali Forney Center which provides services for homeless LGTBQ youth.
A 25 year old gay man wants to know the etiquette about dating a recently divorced person. Dan doesn’t believe in a lot of the conventional wisdom about rebound relationships. Nonetheless, he advises the caller to go slow; a person who has just gone through the painful process of disentangling their affairs from someone else’s may not be eager to embrace more such entanglements. Just enjoy the relationship for what it is now.
No tweets this week just response calls: Dumping the ex’s stuff inside or outside the apartment could cost the caller from last week her deposit. Instead, pay for one month of a cheap storage unit and tell him where it is. The woman who wants to date non-Trump supporters should volunteer for a Democratic presidential campaign as a way to meet people. Cuddling and giving your partner a BJ while you’re on your period are both nice, especially if he brings you a burger and chocolate.
Thanks for reading.