Savage Lovecast Episode 1005

This episode of the Savage Lovecast is brought to you by Soaking Wet by VB Health, the world's first probiotic specifically designed for vaginal and vulva health and wellness. Visit soakingwet.com and use code SAVAGE for 10% off or click the link in this episode's show notes. You're listening to the Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage's sex and relationship show for grownups. If you're under 18, get out of here, youngin'. If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harmony, well, there's nothing you can't ask on the Savage Lovecast. People are always asking me, sometimes big burly men with tears in their eyes ask me, Dan, what am I supposed to do with this old dildo? The kind of person who owns a dildo and cares about my dildo opinions and dildo hot takes and dildo best practices, typically an environmentally conscious lefty who doesn't want to throw things into landfills. Unfortunately, it's not easy to recycle a dildo or even really possible to recycle a dildo. Someone tried to start a sex toy recycling business a few years ago, quickly went under because there's no money in that banana stand. And recycling generally, I just gotta say, is a scam. A lie designed to make the consumer feel like we as individuals were responsible for solving the problems of overpackaging and single-use plastics. And we could solve these problems by sorting these things into the right bins. When the problem with the waste stream can really only be solved upstream of the consumer, not downstream. And dildos can't really be rehomed. even quality ones. You can sterilize a silicone dildo. You can boil it or run it through the dishwasher. But most people don't want a rescue, not when it comes to dildos. And dildos, unless you're getting them from a trusted supplier, a trusted source, like Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis that deserves your business, go to Smitten Kitten online right now and order something I just did. Unless you're getting your dildos from a trusted source, you can never be 100% sure what they're made of. Some unscrupulous sex toy manufacturers have slapped 100% silicone labels on dildos made from mystery meat plastics loaded with phthalates and other nasty chemicals. And often the dildo a person wants to throw away or get rid of without putting it into a landfill, it's that person's first dildo, which was because they were poor or they underestimated how much they were going to love dildos, a cheap mystery meat dildo. that they bought and used, hopefully with a latex condom on it, more than once, so not a single-use plastic. And now they're ready to replace it with something quality. So what are we supposed to do with our old dildos? Or to borrow a phrase from Davis on Blue Sky, what are we supposed to do with our expired dicks? We now have an answer to that question, thanks to the good people of Minnesota, who are not only showing us every day how to resist Trump and fight ice. They're showing us now how to best dispose of our old dildos, how to get rid of those expired dicks, throw them at cars with ice agents in them. Podcasting isn't a visual medium. You can't see what I see, but right now I am looking at, and my soul is being restored by, pictures and videos of dildos in flight. We will post links to those photos and news stories and videos in our show notes. These pictures that I'm looking at right now were taken over the weekend at protests outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis. Protests held to mark the one-month anniversary of the cold-blooded murder of Renee Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis. And protesters at this protest are pelting cars with ICE officers in them and pelting sheriffs sent to protect ICE officers from the community when it's really the community that needs to be protected from ICE officers, they are pelting those cars with those agents and those sheriffs in them with dildos. Look, I'm sorry to say all those dildos are still going to wind up in landfills. Someone is going to gather them up and throw them in the trash and they're going to get hauled away to the nearest dump. But your dildo, we now know, doesn't have to go straight to the landfill. It has one more job to do. If I were a dildo, if I'd spent most of my life inside, in the dark, in the dark of a warehouse, in the dark of a cardboard package, in the dark of a dresser drawer, in the dark insides of a butt or a pussy, if I was a dildo and it was my time, I can't think of a better and more joyful way to go than flying through the air in the sunlight of a crisp Minnesota winter morning and doing what I've always done best, pounding some asshole who deserves it. 50 people were arrested at Operation Dildo Blitz this weekend. The people chanting, eat a dick while they threw dildos at cars with ICE agents in them. And what I want to say to them, what I want to say to everyone at the protests in Minnesota, what I've said to every dildo I've sent to a landfill myself, thank you. Sincerely, thank you for your service. All right, coming up on today's show, we asked you to submit your gnarliest breakup stories, and our inbox got ugly. We handpicked our favorites. We will play them at the beginning of the show. Don't worry, we're not going to dedicate the entire show to sad breakup stories. There are six on the Magnum, three on the Micro. These are there but for the grace of God stories for the partnered and I may be alone this Valentine's Day, but I am not alone in being alone stories for the single. Happy Valentine's Day to all who celebrate solo or partnered. Then we hear from a man who sneezes uncontrollably after he comes, a woman, a woman after my own heart, who is begging all men everywhere to shave off those beards finally. And a man wonders whether there was a kinder, gentler way to tell the hookup she gave him gonorrhea. Did he stick the dismount? Find out on today's show. And joining me on the Magnum, Adam Smith, author of Deep Sniff, A History of Poppers and Queer Futures, returns to the show to help answer a straight woman's question about how to get her hands on quality poppers. Magnum subs, be sure to check out your email on Thursday morning for a link to Savage Love Live. Thursday at noon. My Zoom hangout for our Magnum sub starts at noon Pacific time. We will see you there. If you would like to become a Magnum sub, get all the perks of being a Magnum sub supporter of the Savage Lovecast, which includes more calls, more guests on the Lovecast, more questions in the column, invites to Savage Love Live, and more perks. Go to savage.love and click on subscribe right now. All right, let's get to our first breakup story. This episode is brought to you by Beducated, the platform for pleasure-based sex education for adults. Look, sex is a skill. Beducated is where you can learn about sex and acquire those skills with over 150 online courses from the world's top sex experts. You can learn everything you need to level up your sex life. Right now, click the link on the show notes and go to beducated.com to take their quiz and start your personalized pleasure journey. This episode of the Lovecast is brought to you by the good folks at Squarespace. They make it easy to build a beautiful website, blog, or online store. Head on over to squarespace.com slash savage for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code savage to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hi, Dan, Nancy, and the tech savvy at Risk Youth. This is my breakup story for your Valentine's Day episode. My husband of eight years at the time and I decided to rent our house to be closer to his work. He heard from a friend who was interested in renting. Before a lease was even signed, she made comments about how she had always had a crush on him. This seemed a little odd to me because she hadn't made contact with him for years, and it was honestly a weird thing to say before entering into a business relationship, but I trusted him. Skipping ahead, surprise, surprise, we needed to evict. She didn't pay rent and left the house with considerable damage. At the time, I was working two jobs to keep us afloat and maxing out my credit cards to pay for home repairs, etc. My husband seemed to turn from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Then I got a text from our tenant's ex-husband saying that she was bragging about how my ex-husband was giving her gifts and clearly in love with her. I confronted him about this. He was angry, not at me or the ex-husband, but his friend for sharing their private conversations. Skip ahead. About a month after the eviction, one night I rolled over in bed and my husband said, ow, when I grazed his leg. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he had recently got a tattoo and it was sore where I touched him. I asked if I could see the tattoo and he refused. It was only days later that he had revealed that he had gotten our now former tenant's initials and a heart permanently inked on his calf. That was when I took off my wedding ring and spent the night crying in our guest room. We continued therapy and lived as roommates for over a year, for financial reasons primarily. Finally, I went to him and said I needed to open the marriage to stay married and stay sane. He reluctantly agreed to this, but it soon became apparent that a married woman looking for NSA sex got a lot more attention than a married man, and he started to resent me even more. I continued to support my husband emotionally and financially, but was regularly escaping our home to have sex with other men, sometimes knowing that I was only doing so in return for a safe place to stay for the night that they agreed to pay for. This went on for well over a year until my husband met the person who is now his wife. I'm sure many listening will be thinking how stupid we both were, and I don't agree in many respects. But honestly, I still can't say there's much I could have done differently, let alone anything I would do differently. Along the way, I not only discovered a sexual freedom that I never would have expected, I also made good friends that I'm incredibly grateful for. And Dan, your words of advice served me well so often. And for that, I really wanted to say thank you. Happy Valentine's. But I trusted him. How many sad, sad breakup stories have that expression or phrase Is that utterance buried deep in the narrative? But I trusted him. Yeah, you trusted this guy not to get some other woman's initials tattooed on his leg. That seems, re-baseline, that seems like something you should be able to trust a guy that you are married to not to do. This is a classic case of someone who wants out, forcing you to dump them so that they can play the victim. You ended the marriage. You left them. You took your wedding ring off. And so they get to go and complain to your mutuals that you broke their heart, that you abandoned them, that you left them. And I'm sure in his retelling of the story, he omits the part about getting his deadbeat former tenant's initials tattooed on his leg inside a heart without first checking with his wife whether that would be okay or not. And obviously it would not be okay. I'm really glad that you had that year of openness. You had those sexual adventures. Some people think when you have a cum springa or a slutty phase that that's not going to bring anything good or lasting into your life. And you are an example of someone that that brought something good and lasting into your life. You made some wonderful friends during that year of living not dangerously, but living sexually. I'm glad you had that year. I'm glad you're rid of this man. Dying to know if the person he's married to now is the same person whose initials he got tattooed on his leg. But I kind of doubt it. Kind of doubt it. Which means he's divorced. Not as marketable sexually as you are. So much easier for women to find dick than men to find pussy. And he has to explain that tattoo and its backstory to every woman he ever dates in the future. Hey Dan, Nancy, the tech savvy at-risk youth. Many years ago I found out about my ex cheating on me when he came to me because he had to go to another city because he had to take the woman he was been fucking for a year to have a late first term abortion because they couldn do it in the city that we lived oh my god fuck that guy you hear about secret second families this was the secret almost second family but they got the abortion so not secret second family just secret other girlfriend what a horrible way to find out that your partner has been cheating on you for a fucking year. I said, I promised when we solicited these calls from people about their heartbreaks and their awful relationships that ended that I would 100% take the side of the person who called, who got dumped in the worst way. But I'm going to give the tiniest sliver of credit to him that he actually, after a year of lying his fucking face off, manned up just a little bit to tell you what he was doing and that he didn't make this woman go off and do it on her own with a girlfriend or a gay friend, that he went with her. Yeah, he deserves to be executed at dawn, but he deserves a decent final meal. And you deserve all of our sympathy. Fuck that guy. Hi, Dan. When I was 19 with my first girlfriend, I decided for her birthday, since she is a massive Dan Savage fan, that I would have Dan call her to wish her a happy birthday, which he did, which was great. Thank you so much. Apparently they had a little chat during this call in which she was coached that maybe it was for the best that she break up with me. So two days before Christmas, a few days later, she broke up with me on the advice of Dan Savage after I had Dan Savage call her for her birthday. So I think that was the worst one. The good news is 16 years later, we are still friends. Thanks, Dan. I feel like I'm being deposed here and I want to invoke my rights under the Fifth Amendment and I want to answer every question with an I do not recall. I don't recall this call 16 years ago. 16 years ago, I don't recall fucking anything. And I don't keep a journal, so I can't consult my diary. But I don't doubt that this happened. This is the kind of thing that I could see myself possibly doing. Getting on the phone with somebody because the girlfriend asked me to give this girl a call because she was a fan. And then we start talking about the relationship and I sometimes can't help myself. And I started giving advice. Apparently, I advised your girlfriend to break up with you, which then she did two days before Christmas. I would have urged her to wait. I mean, the problem with waiting to break up with somebody around the holidays is can't do it around Thanksgiving, can't do it around Christmas, You can't do it around New Year's and then got to do it before Valentine's gets too close or then you can't do it because it's Valentine's Day. And if they're Irish, you can't do it because it's St. Patrick's Day and then another year goes by. I'm glad she did it promptly. Wish she waited till after January 1st. I'm glad you're still friends. And it's been 16 years and you've processed your anger. I assume you're probably mad at me at some point. You processed your anger with me and are no longer mad at me, which I very much appreciate considering what I did to you. Happy Valentine's Day. Okay, that's all the bad breakup stories. Now on to the rest of the show. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. It is time to get serious and it is time to get busy. You're going to need a website and it's got to look and work good. Fortunately, Squarespace has got you. combining two decades of industry-leading design experience with cutting-edge AI technology, you can unlock your strongest creative potential. It empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to your unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity to use across your entire online presence. Get started with Squarespace's award-winning designer templates, then customize the look, feel, and features to fit your brand or business. choose from expertly curated color palettes that can be applied to any template getting you one step closer to a finished product squarespace also has powerful built-in seo and commerce tools so you can quickly get a site up and running that supports your business oh my lordy there's so much more to yap about with squarespace that's why the hump film festival uses it and my stupid band too head on over to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com slash savage and use the offer code savage to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash savage and use the offer code savage. Hey, Dan, I am a straight male married for almost 30 years and regular sex life. It's got its ups and downs, but all in all pretty good. Weird little thing that's been happening. Hard to know when it started, maybe five, maybe 10 years ago. I don't know. After my wife and I have sex, I sneeze uncontrollably 10, 15, maybe 20 times in a row. It's not terrible. We laugh about it. It's funny. But in the end, I wish it didn't happen. So what's that about? Can it stop? It's unlikely to stop because what you got going on there is an indiscreet stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system during arousal that is filling the tissues that line your nasal passages, which some of them are erectile tissues that produce lubrication, as you know, when your nose runs. some mismatch some crossed wire in your system is causing you to to sneeze during sexual arousal and it's not an uncommon thing i'm looking here to study national library of medicine national institutes of health from the journal of the royal society of medicine published on the nih website our government's nih website all about this very phenomenon sneezing induced by sexual ideation or orgasm, an underreported phenomenon. So underreported. There are more of you out there, more people with this condition or who developed this condition later in life than any of us are aware. But you know what's really depressing about this study that I just read at the NIH website? Not that some people sneeze after sex. Like, there's something about sneezing that is kind of enjoyable. And you're not sneezing during sex. It's not like while you're on the ramp up to orgasm, while you're in your partner and you want to be kissing your partner's face or burying your face in their armpit or nuzzling their tits, you're sneezing your head off and it's taking you out of the moment. It's happening for you after orgasm. So it's not a huge inconvenience. And if you like sneezing, it could be an extra pleasure. And there are sneezing fetishists out there who might like to meet you. What's depressing about reading this study is the notice at the top. Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date. Transactions submitted via the website may not be processed and the agency may not be able to respond, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. More evidence that the Trump administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are shivving our important institutions that protected our health, like the NIH, like the CDC. And it is so depressing. You should turn to these websites, the CDC's website, the NIH's website, for the most up-to-date and accurate information about sex, sexually transmitted infections, things like sneezing after orgasm or during arousal. And now I can't trust these websites. And it is so depressing watching it all atrophy and fall apart in real time. Fuck these people. So thank you for your call. Enjoy the sneezes. Could be worse. You could be sneezing during, you're sneezing after. Just roll with it. Nothing you can do about it. And you might want to listen to after action report number four from November 14th, where I spoke with a woman who has a sneezing fetish. Don't know if you guys are open, but there are people out there who would like to meet you, who would get off on being in the room with you after sex while you sneezed, snosed your head off. Nothing would give them more pleasure. So if you're ever single again, you could put yourself out there, look for a sneeze fetishist, or if you're poly or open, you can hang that shingle on field right now and make some sneeze fetishist. A very, very happy woman. Being a good lover is both an art and a skill, and you can always get better at it. Both giving and receiving sexual pleasure takes practice, and many of us could benefit from some training. I'm happy to say that there's no better place to learn, get that training, get that education, than Beducated, the world's largest platform for sex education. If you're going to learn anything, why not learn it from the masters? Beducated brings pleasure-based sex education right to your bedroom from the world's top sex experts. They offer 150-plus expert-led courses on everything from G-spot orgasms to tips and tricks for better oral techniques. Here are just a few of the classes they offer. 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Beducated has an awesome quiz that takes only five minutes and will recommend a personalized roadmap to sexual happiness just for you. No guessing. Right now, click the link in the show notes and go to beducated.com to kick off your personal pleasure journey. Hey, Dan. This dilemma for me is regarding a dear friend of mine. My friend is married, recently married to her long-term partner back in October. And her and her partner are in an open relationship. They both have other partners outside of their marriage. and my friend's boyfriend who she's had a couple months now she met at the club she is a dancer so they met at the strip club he's quite a bit older than her and he's married and he is not in an open relationship so he for whatever reason is cheating on his wife with my friend and when she first told me about this. She kind of told me in a way that felt like the doors were open for, I guess, my opinion. It definitely felt like she was looking for validation or approval. And at that time, I was like, you know, if this just kind of seems like a fling and I feel like you're covering your bases in your world and that's great. You don't have a responsibility to cover his bases in his world. And if that's the way that he's choosing to be in his relationship with his wife, then that's his choice. Since then, they've gotten much more serious. Even at one point, she had expressed to me feeling like she wanted to break up with him because it was going against her integrity and she was feeling guilty about being the other woman. Anyway, long story short, her birthday is coming up and her and her boyfriend did not break up. And in fact, they've gotten more serious. and for her birthday, she wants to go to dinner with her husband, her boyfriend, and two of her friends. So she wants me along with one other person to meet her boyfriend. And she's expressed feeling nervous about that. Part of that is she brought up to me that she actually feels like I'm more judgy than I originally portrayed about their situation. And I guess maybe some judgment has come out and mostly it's me being protective of her like who is this older guy that I yeah now have labeled as schmucky who has met my amazing friend at a strip club and cheats on his wife with her and who to say he telling her the truth anyways my question is how do I go to this dinner with an open mind It feels like she wants my approval and I already have kind of labeled him as schmucky What are your thoughts? How do I go into this interaction with an open mind and a blank slate for this person? All right. Just listening to your call. One piece of evidence for the defense of this relationship. one extenuating circumstance that I think makes this perhaps less toxic than it might be, is that your friend is not pining for this married man to be her primary partner. She's not fucking some married man who's told her, oh, things were different. Oh, I'm going to leave my wife soon and we can be together. She doesn't want him to be her husband. She's got a husband. This guy is just her boyfriend, her piece on the side, her secondary, her backup, her whatever. she doesn't want him in a way that he can't be had he's married to somebody else doesn't sound like he is planning to get a divorce i'm sure if he was lying to your friend about wanting to be with her and maybe getting a divorce you would have included that information so that makes me feel like maybe this is a little less shitty and toxic and there's other facts not in evidence here that make me wonder about this guy. Because you don't include any details about what your friend knows of his marriage. And of course, all she can know of his marriage is what he's told her because she can't ask his wife. But there are people out there in loveless, sexless marriages who are taking my advice and doing what they need to do in order to stay married and stay sane. And there are sometimes very good reasons why people in sexless, low-conflict marriages might choose to stay married for the kids or for the social position or just for the inertia and shared history of it all and discreetly get their sexual needs met elsewhere and maybe his wife knows or maybe his wife doesn't officially know but knows and is tallie and would rather him go fuck somebody else than bother her for sex and it's fine or maybe he's a monster maybe he's a fucking monster and he's cheating on his wife with a stripper and 10 other women and his wife is miserable and she feels trapped in a marriage with a cheater that she can't leave for economic reasons because they have kids or she's entirely dependent on him we don't know whether he is a piece of shit your friend likes him now he's her boyfriend and she's gotten to know him better and that argues if your friend has any taste or judgment against him being a total piece of shit so i think you should go to this dinner and you should meet him and you should talk to him when i have spoken about relationships with significant age gaps and there's a significant age gap here you say this man is much older my take my advice to all involved or all implicated or all who witness is that the older partner in a significant age gap relationship, that that relationship should come in for a higher degree of scrutiny. And the older partner should welcome that scrutiny when it comes from family, when it comes from friends of the younger person that they're dating, that they should welcome the scrutiny and be able to understand why the friend might be skeptical about them, about their character, about the relationship, and be willing to answer questions that are asked in a not-assholy way. So go to dinner and then meet this guy and ask him some pointed questions. Like, ask him why the girlfriend on the side, why the wife doesn't know, why he isn't practicing, as the rest of you are, ethical non-monogamy and then give him a hearing. There are again circumstances that people in marriages may find themselves in where cheating is the least worst option for all involved, including the person being cheated on. And as my fave Esther Perel says, I've constantly tried to remind people the victim of the affair is not always the victim of the marriage. So go in with an open mind and meet this guy. And if what you hear makes you feel a little bit better about what your friend is doing in seeing this guy, okay, then you'll feel a little bit better about it. If you have a conversation with him and you leave feeling worse and you are convinced he's a piece of shit, tell your friend or your friend, if they're sitting at a table while this all goes down, we'll witness it. They won't need to be told. They'll know. But if you walk away, she wants you to meet him. If you walk away from this meeting, we want our friends to meet the people we're dating. We want our friends to meet our partners, our pieces on the sides, people we're cheating with. We want our friends to meet those people so that they can sometimes knock the rose-colored glasses off our faces and give us their honest opinion. And so, if you leave this dinner with a low opinion of this guy, your friend, by inviting you to this dinner, invited you to share that opinion with her. And you shouldn't hesitate. But go in with an open mind. You might leave this dinner with a higher opinion of Schmucky than you had when you went in, in which case you're going to need to come up with a new nickname for him. Hi, Dan. Last week you ranted about mustaches. Here's my rant about beards. This is a trend that has gone on for far too long. I live in the Northeast and 95% of the guys around here have beards. Guys, would you want to see a woman with her face half covered up with hair that literally feels like a dish scrubber? When I see a beard, I automatically think there is no way that thing is getting between my baby soft thighs. Guys, I want to kiss your smooth cheeks. I want to feel your cheek on my cheek. Come on, let's lose this trend. Please, just shave. Look like yourself and not like every other guy. Nothing much to add, but right there with you, God, how long has it been since I brought up heated rivalry? Too long, too long since I brought up heated rivalry. If Connor's story deserves credit for nothing else, I mean, credit in addition to nailing that Russian accent and having that ass. Connor's story is single-handedly bringing back shaggy hair, clean shaven. Oh my God. I love him for that alone. Or I love Ilya for that alone. Yeah. The beard thing. It is a terror. It is a plague. There's so much to fear in the future. One of the things that I fear in the future, or maybe this would actually turn this around. President J.D. Vance. If, God forbid, Donald Trump should die in saddle and J.D. Vance, and I hope Donald Trump lives forever and dies surrounded by his loved ones at a ripe old age, and of course his loved ones would be a bank of television cameras. But if J.D. Vance becomes president, our first bearded president in a hundred plus years, worst case scenario, like that's going to make beards more popular, but J.D. Vance is so fucking repugnant a human being that maybe the one upside of a president fucking J.D. Vance will be everyone we suddenly revolted, as revolted by beards, as you, caller, are. And I am. Gotta look for those silver linings where we can find them. Hey, Dan. A few months ago, I reconnected with someone from my past that we had expressed interest in each other, but nothing had ever happened, and we ended up hooking up. We had a conversation before we did about STIs, and I said that I was pretty certain I was in the clear. I'd had one other partner. She said something more or less to the same effect. I went in for a routine STI screening not long after that, and I tested positive for oral gonorrhea. Now, because this person doesn't always have their phone or doesn't always have cell reception, I sent her a voice memo, a voice recording with this information. I was pretty light about it. I said, you know, I think one of us probably owes the other one an apology. If it's me, I'm sorry. And that was sort of that. And I didn't hear back from her. And given that gonorrhea is quickly becoming antibiotic resistant, I wanted to make sure that this didn't slip through the cracks. I didn't want to make sure that she was being safe as well. So I sent her a follow-up text a couple of days later, never heard anything. And I sent her another follow-up text about a week after that, and I still didn't hear back. This is someone I know relatively well. I'm wondering, like, should I have done something differently? I never heard back from her. It's been several months now. I did learn through talking to the other one other person who potentially could have given it to me that it wasn't from that other person. It was from this most recent hookup. Although she doesn't know that. For all she knows, maybe I gave it to her. So she might be mad at me for thinking that I gave her gonorrhea. She also might be embarrassed for thinking that she gave me gonorrhea. I just don't know. it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth because I tried to be pretty open and light about this. You know, maybe we both should have been a little bit more careful about our sexual health, but at the end of the day, this wasn't such a huge deal for me and nor should it have been, I think, for her. But I'm just wondering if I should have done something differently or if I'm right to be maybe a little bit disappointed by how she handled this. When I had gonorrhea decades ago, I called the person. I hadn't had sex for months. I had sex with somebody, came down with gonorrhea 10 days later, obviously had to have been this guy. And I called him just to let him know. No accusatory tone, cost of doing business, the price of freight. both adults. We know the risks. Entirely possible that he was asymptomatic when we had sex, but infectious and I was not angry. I just wanted him to know so that he could get tested, especially if he had oral gonorrhea or gonorrhea in the butt, which is probably where I got it, which doesn't always present the kind of symptoms that inspire someone to go to the clinic and get tested and treated because it's not painful. He was furiously angry with me and accused me of having given him gonorrhea, which was just looking at the calendar, impossible, but furiously angry with me that I had accused him of giving me a sexually transmitted infection, which I guess in a way I had because I went through the timing, but I was motivated by concern for him and his other sex partners. He was a slut. I'm a fan of sluts. So I feel you. That said, opening with one of us owes the other an apology is to kind of put a spin on doing the right thing here. That seems a little accusatory. Just wanted to let you know, I tested positive for gonorrhea. I'm so sorry about the timing. I'm so, I just want you to know you should get tested too. No, somebody owes somebody else an apology. We're sexually active adults. We have more than one partner. This is the cost of freight, cost of doing business. These are the risks we assume. You don't have to point a finger at her, which is probably how she took it, and then make up for pointing a finger at her by pointing that same finger back at yourself. There was no finger pointing. required. Could be she, like that guy who definitely gave me gonorrhea decades ago, could be she's insecure and upset about it. The thing about oral gonorrhea is that sometimes people don't know they have it. The symptoms can be subtle. They can pass quickly. Gonorrhea in the rectum. People can have gonorrhea that doesn't cause discharge and pain during urination, which is the kind of gonococcal infection that inspires people to go to the fucking doctor to let people know they need to go to the fucking STI clinic. So she could have had it for a while or you could have had it for a while. You went in for a standard STI screening and it caught it. Good for you. And you let her know about it Good for you Next time you find yourself in this position just leave off one of us owes the other an apology and just go with the matter-of-fact, friendly, responsible, non-shaming disclosure and encouragement to go get tested. Yeah. That could be why you haven't heard from her, or she could be defensive and weird, like that guy. to me 40 years ago and that's why you haven't heard from her and i think your framing was a little off and perhaps a little off-putting but good for you for calling good for you for following up you did absolutely did the right thing hey dan my boyfriend and i have been dating for about uh two and a half years i'm about to get my iudr moved in a couple of weeks and so this brought up the topic of contraception and i asked him if he was willing to get a vasectomy. And he said no, because he wasn't sure what the future holds, which was very confusing for me because we had talked about profusely that we didn't want kids. I mean, he made that very clear in the beginning of our relationship that he did not want kids. And so I probed him a little bit more asking about it. And he says that he doesn't want inexpensive reversal surgery, which again, reinforced my belief that he wasn't sure if he wanted kids or not. And then, you know, I asked him again and he said that he didn't want an unnecessary surgery for his body, which just sounds like an excuse to me. So I'm not sure how to ask this in a way that makes him understand that he might want kids. He's in denial right now. Everything that he has told me says that he might want kids, but for some reason in his mind, he's like, no, I don't want kids. But everything that he's telling me does. So I'm looking for some counsel and advice from you and your audience. 24 months, two years, you've been together 24 months and he is just your boyfriend and you're asking him to get a vasectomy. That is a big ask. You guys aren't married. You haven't been together for 10 years. You don't have the kids. You want to have all of the kids you want to have, nor have you come to the decision 10 years into your marriage that you never want to have kids. This is a big ask. 24 months in when you're just boyfriend and girlfriend and not committed life partners, at least in theory, committed for life. Big ask for him to alter his body in this way. He may not know whether he wants kids for sure right now or ever. And reversing a vasectomy is complicated. And there are potential long-term side effects from vasectomy that people like to dismiss, but they are fucking real in a certain small percentage of cases. Lifelong ball pain is a side effect of a vasectomy. There's a lot he has to think about here, including whether he wants kids someday with you or whether he's decided that maybe you aren't who he wants to have kids with, but he might want to have kids someday with somebody, just not you, and wants to preserve his reproductive capacity, his fertility. setting all that aside 24 months in you don't get to tell somebody to surgically alter your body i'm not this is an apples to oranges comparison i realize it's a much more invasive procedure with a higher complication rate and longer recovery but if he came to you and said hey girlfriend that i haven't married that i'm not committed to i think you should get your tubes tied for my convenience. So I don't have to get a vasectomy. You would laugh him out of the room, if not the relationship. And again, a vasectomy is a much less invasive procedure with a much shorter recovery time and a much lower complication rate than getting your tubes tied, than a woman getting her tubes tied. But still, I think it's a valid comparison. Sometimes you can compare an apple to an orange. They're both spherical. all. Condoms for you guys. You want to go off hormonal birth control. You want to take out that IUD until you're committed, until he's sure about what he wants to do, whether you guys want to have kids, condoms and anal. All right. Time for listener feedback. First up, a few comments listeners left in the comment thread under last week's show. Says Dimples and Dumples, how did we have a discussion about good sex scenes without any mention of Bridgerton, similar to heated rivalry in that they were based on romance novels and have some really good sexy scenes fair point dimples and dumples my bias for hot guys in hockey gear over hot guys in regency breaches might have been showing there also left out as comedian tv writer and pop culture expert and savage love cast guest ashley ray pointed out industry which is a huge hit with Gen Z, despite or because of all of the crazy, meaningless sex scenes. Says Pentatonic, to the woman looking to indulge in exhibitionism, reach out to the people who run the sex club you went to and ask them if it's fine for you and your partner to continue to go there without swinging. They will probably say yes. The club may cater to swingers, but swingers still like to watch. And who knows, maybe one day you'll find someone at the club who catches your eye. Others pointed out that you don't even have to ask. Lots of people go to sex clubs and swingers clubs with their partners just to be watched, but you will, if you go, have to tell. You will have to tell people that you were just there to see and be seen. Says Kendra Holliday, for the person wanting to learn how to top, how to dom, please look up Madhuri. I've taken a few of her classes. She is amazing. Kendra, I agree. She is. That's why we've had Madhuri on the show in the past. It's been too long. We will reach back out to Madhuri and invite her on the next time we get a Dom sub question. M. King also recommended Madhuri for Dom coaching, as well as Damaina Chai. You can find Madhuri at planetmadhuri.com and Damaina Chai at damainachaiphd.com. All right, time to take my lumps. Some listeners took exception to my use of woke scolds in last week's intro. No cute name, spoke for the prosecution. But I think we need to take woke back. It doesn't belong to the right. And we, on the left need to distinguish between being woke, good, being a woke scold, bad, and being dark woke, amazing, the best. But I will walk back my use of Puritans with purple hair, which I also said at the top of last week's show. I don't like Puritans regardless of their hair color. And full disclosure, my gym crush right now has a shaggy purple mohawk, a moppy, floppy, muppety purple mohawk. And just in case he's a listener, I wasn't talking about you. Pretty sure context clues that you are no Puritan. And please don't change a thing about your hair. It is perfect. All right. Something you want to say about something I said on this week's show, go to savage.love and say it in the comment thread under this week's show. And now, Savage Love listeners who left voicemails on our answering machine about last week's show get to have the last word, as they always do, on this week's show. Hey, Dan. I'm a longtime Magnum sub and also the girlfriend of the caller in episode 1004, who has the 12-year-old miniature pinchers. I agree with my girlfriend's description of her dogs as anxious, intrusive, and literal ankle biters. I tried so hard to form a bond with these dogs over the past year, but ultimately I failed miserably. Anxiety medication made little difference and trainers we contacted said they were too old for meaningful improvement. One dog is medically complex and requires injections around the clock. they both are in diapers since one dog has indoor accidents and the other is fully frankly incontinent all this is to say that besides the fact that they were already kicked out of dog day care for behavior issues finding regular sitters who can handle them and give us a break wasn't realistic their care now falls entirely to my girlfriend who has increasingly structured her life around them and dan i think the sick dog has a year or so more on this earth before he dies but the other one is healthy as a horse. Apparently miniature pinchers have long lifespan, so this could go on for years. After some time, I realized that my dislike of these dogs, which judging from her call, I clearly do not hide well, was keeping my girlfriend from enjoying the limited time she has left with her pets. I also realized that having these dogs dictate my daily schedule and greatly limit my ability to leave the house or travel was causing a lot of resentment on my end. so we talked about it we met and came up with a plan together for a kind breakup that in short respects the campsite rule it hurts a lot but honestly this approach feels healthy as fuck my hope is that my now ex-girlfriend can focus on and enjoy her pets if she doesn't find another minpin enthusiast to date maybe we'll circle back in a few years and see where things go so thanks dan for your input in our lesbian dog drama hey dan calling in response the proof is in the pudding episode, the caller who asked what you thought of calling a butt a pussy. I really liked your response, but I thought you kind of missed the mark that not just that gay male culture has become less misogynistic. It's just that culture period has become less misogynistic. I feel that pussies have only been lit for like 15 years, maybe. But now, you know, media, music, movies, pussies are lit. They're popping. The pussies are popping. It wasn't that long ago that for straight men, pussies are gross and eating pussy made you more fucking gay. It's really recent. And I think that it's a powerful cultural shift of the last decade or so. Hi, this is in response to the caller who lives in the rural spot with the donkeys and the chickens who's looking for some partnership. I've lived rurally also. And yes, you do. There is a little bit of legwork that does need to happen. But my first thought was have a retreat or some sort of event where gay men come visit the farm. Maybe you can build out your land with a solar shower or with a hot tub. And the retreat doesn't have to be sex-focused or anything. It could be homesteading focused or community focused or meditation or hire a yoga teacher and come and do yoga for the weekend. But you can bring people out to your beautiful retreat space. You can have work days also. That's another really great way to meet like-minded people. I know that a lot of circus people and retired circus folks, production folks, the whole community, burners would love to come out to a gay retreat on a beautiful farm. and we are going to leave it there. Got a sex question? Got a relationship quandary? Go to savage.low slash askdan to record your question directly onto our website, or you can send a recording of your question to us via email at q at savage.love, or you can give us a call at 206-302-2064 and leave us a message on our answer mission. And if you've tried something new and you want to debrief about it with me, email us at q at savage.love, and you can come on. You can come all over after Action Report with me. The 21st edition of the best Dirty Little Film Festival in the world. The Hump Film Festival premieres in Portland, Oregon on February 20th with screenings to follow at cities all over North America and Europe this spring for a full list of cities, dates, and showtimes. And to watch the scorching hot trailer and order your tickets to see Hump in a theater as Hump was meant to be seen, go to humpfilmfest.com. Savage Love Live, again, reminder, this Thursday, watch those inboxes for your invites, Magnum Subs. And if you want to join us at this Savage Love Live and all subsequent Savage Love Lives and get more love cast and get more column and get other perks, become a Magnum Sub right now at savage.love. Follow me at bluesky at dan savage. Follow me on Instagram at dan savage. For all things Adam Smith, his books, Deep Sniff, Soulmates, and the log books, his podcasts and other projects, go to adamsmith.com. That's Adam Smith with a Z. You can also follow Adam on Instagram at adam.smith. The Savage Lovecast is produced every week by Nancy Hartunian. And me and Nancy and the tech savvy at-risk youth, we'll all be back after next week on the installment of Savage Lovecast. Thank you, as ever, for downloading.