Savage Lovecast Episode 1000

We all need advice, but it's not always clear who to ask, even in 2026. Sometimes even I don't know where to go for advice, which is why I recommend checking out How To, the long-standing advice show, and 2026 Ambi Award-nominated Best Personal Growth podcast. It's hosted by my friend and award-winning journalist Mike Peska. You might be familiar with Mike's work on the just the longest running daily news podcast. Each week on How To, Mike tackles a listener question, including one of mine, ranging from mental health and finance to relationships and beyond. And he gets help from world-class experts who actually know what they're talking about. Think of it as eavesdropping on someone else's therapy session without the copay or the awkward silence or the stairs. No question is too big or too specific. I was happy again to appear in a recent episode of How To, focused on the topic of how to emigrate as a threpple. How To is a great companion to our show and you will learn something new listening to How To. I always learn something new every time I listen to Mike. So follow How To with Mike Peska on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and let him know the Lovecasts send you. You're listening to the Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage's Sex and Relationship show for grown-ups. If you're under 18, get out of here, young'un. If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harmony, while there's nothing you can't ask on the Savage Lovecast. Hey, Nancy. Hi, Dan. We did it. We are about to do our 1,000th episode of the Savage Lovecast. How many of these other podcasters have done 1,000 episodes? I want to know. And that we've been doing it as long as we've been doing it? We are one of the originals. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's one other podcast that's been longer than ours, and it's the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. So we're coming for you. All right. Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. We are going to outwit, outplay, outlast, and outcast you. Watch your back. If it's the last thing we do, we will crush the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast under our feet. Nancy, when people ask me why I started doing the Lovecast or how the Lovecast came to me, I always credit you because it was really your idea to do a podcast. When you brought it to me, I didn't even know what a podcast was. Yeah. Well, you had done a radio show, and it was awesome, but then it had been some years. And so it was actually like, I can't take full credit because it was Katie Lake at the Portland Mercury who said, Dan Savage should do that radio show again. It should be a podcast. And we were all like, oh, yeah, we should do that. And you kind of had dragged me kicking and screaming a little bit. Oh, yeah. Because I am a lotite. I am suspicious of new technologies, and I don't like new things, and it took me some time. The only way that we could convince you to do it was if we told you that we were going to hire a bevy of tech savvy at-risk youth who would like circle around and help. And that once we brought that in, you were like, I'm in. You told me I could design their work uniforms, and I was down, and the Lovecast was up and running. It's crazy to sit here with you and do our thousandth episode just because I ache for you because you have to listen to me run my mouth other people out there who listen to the podcast. You get the edited version of me. You get what Nancy has trimmed. You get the better Dan Savage. But Nancy has to listen to me not only fucking run my mouth when we sit and record the show, but then has to listen to me again while she edits it all down. You have heard my voice rattling around in your head for nearly 20 years, a thousand episodes. You must hear my voice in your sleep. You've listened to me. My voice is more familiar to you than your own husbands or your own because you probably listen to me talk more than you have to listen to yourself talk. How are you still saying after a thousand episodes? Dan, it is a pleasure to edit you. I'm always amazed that you open your mouth and all this stuff just comes pouring out, and I don't mind it a bit, not a bit. It's been a blast doing this show. We love doing this show. We love doing it for you listeners, micro listeners, magnum subs, equally. Love bringing you guys this show every week. Honored to be in your ears. And we're excited to do this special episode where what's the premise here? We're going to try to answer as many questions as we can, and I have to keep it short. Yeah, it's a quickie show. So a bunch of you, lots of you, thank you, called with questions that are a minute or less. You did it. And then Dan is going to attempt to answer each question in under two minutes. Which is not something I'm very good at. He will fail. So Nancy, in the last thousand episodes, nearly 20 years. So what's changed in the last 20 years while we've been doing this podcast? Thousandth episode, what's different now? Well, I don't have to explain what a podcast is anymore. You had to explain it to me. Yeah, it's like a radio show, but it's on your computer. I remember saying that over and over again to people. Now they know what it is. Now I know what it is. Yeah, everyone's got a podcast. Yeah, everyone. I said once like 20 years ago, 15 years ago, riffing on Andy Warhol that in the future, everyone would have a podcast for 15 episodes. And it was a joke when I said it, but it has absolutely come true. Yeah. Everyone has a podcast. Everyone has a podcast. What else has changed? Well, so back in the day, when bisexual women would call, they would act as if it was like the most sort of exotic, edgy thing they would say. I'm a 27-year-old bisexual woman. You could hear the italics. Let that sink in. And now it's totally mundane. And you know, like they're just like, oh, I'm a 27-year-old bisexual woman. And here's my problem. Which is great. We wanted people to be able to be a matter of fact about being bisexual and have it not be something rare and freakish. Yeah, more bisexual people, please. And then the men started to come along, you know, a few years later in exactly the same way. Like at first, they were just sort of this weird animal. And now there's just bisexual men everywhere and God bless them. Or they thought they were some, they would talk about themselves like they were some sort of weird animal. And listening to shows like this and being a part of the wider discourse convinced a lot of people who are bisexual that actually know there's a lot of us out there. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Although we do want this show to still be a safe space for the monosexuals, for the homosexuals and heterosexuals. We see you. And we hear you. Keep crawling. We love you. I am one of you. I am absolutely 100% monosexual. One other big change. Here come the Polly's. Here come the Polly's. I'm picturing them all marching up the hill. You're all Polly now. Everybody's Polly now. So many polycules. Sometimes I look at the world that I helped to create and I'm a little unsure of whether that was in the best interest of the world. I used to think 30 years ago when I first started raising up, there are people out there doing monogamy. We shouldn't be doing monogamy. It's not making them happy. It doesn't work for them. They need to know that they have options. And sometimes now listening to the calls or just like the discourse, I think there are some people out there now who are doing Polly and it doesn't work for them. And it's not what they should be doing and it's not making them happy. And it's a little, maybe it's just like selection bias. My audience, there's a lot of people out there who seem to be aspirationally Polly. They feel like Polly should work for them and they're trying to make it work for them because they want to be Polly. But sometimes I listen to the calls from Polly people and I think you should maybe give monogamy and try. But those are the people who are calling the show. I can't believe I'm saying this to you. It's great that there's all these options. That's what's wonderful is that human sexuality is so diverse and so freaky and it just keeps blossoming and there's room for everybody. There really is. There is. And we are so happy that you've made room for us listeners and callers over the last thousand episodes and we've so enjoyed making this show. We're going to keep making this show. They're going to have to pry this show out of our cold, dead hands one day. Just like they pride Anlander's column out of her cold, dead hands when she died sitting at her computer answering questions. And today we're going to try to answer as many questions as we possibly can. And not just me. We shared some of the calls that you sent us with some guest experts and people who've been on the show before just so that we could have a nice mix of voices like we try to do every week. It's a star studed cast. All right, shall we get on with it? Yeah, let's take our first call. This episode is brought to you by Blue Land. Going eco has never been easier. Revolutionary, refillable cleaning essentials, eliminating single use plastics. Right now get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com slash savage. This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep, makers of the best mattresses ever. And right now my listeners get 27% off site wide when you go to helixsleep.com slash savage. This episode is brought to you by Load Boost. Every guy wants to finish strong. If you've ever wished you finished bigger, a little more fireworks in your finale, let me tell you about Load Boost from VB Health. Load Boost is a supplement designed to improve the taste, volume, and overwhelm health of your semen. A whopping 88% of customers give Load Boost four or five stars. See for yourself and visit loadboost.com. Use code savage for 10% off these amazing supplements. Or you can click the link in the episode description. Hi Dan, long time listener from Europe here. I'm a gay man in an open relationship. My husband and I have been together for six years and we have a great sex life. We're still very attracted to one another. The thing I want to ask you about is not really a problem, but more of a curiosity, I guess. So I've never heard anyone say that they share this experience, but when I have sex with my husband, I tend to drool. So it's like when one's mouth sort of waters in anticipation of food. Maybe it's not exactly the same way, but I tend to drool when he turns me on. So this has never happened to me with another sex partner. And I was just wondering if this phenomenon is something you've ever heard of before. As far as I know, when we drool at the side of food, it's because the brain sort of triggers some sort of reflex to prepare for digestion and this obviously cannot be the same for sex, right? So is this normal and what might the reason be for my drooling? Well, when we're aroused, all of our erectile tissues become inflamed, become engorged, make sense that you salivate. And you're not, of course, preparing to digest your husband, but you are preparing to ingest some small parts of your husband. You're going to suck his dick, you're going to eat his ass, you're going to swallow his load and a nice spitty slick mouth, like a nice pre-com-slick garythra is going to help with all of those activities. I don't know why it happens just with your husband, unless his name is Pavlov and he's been secretly training you to salivate when he rocks your shit or rings your bell. But I'm going to guess, as you have guessed or assumed as you have assumed that this is a good sign about the strength of your bond with your husband and the degree of your ongoing sexual attraction toward your husband and urge you not to worry about it. Doesn't mean you can't talk about it. Doesn't mean you can't call in to Sex Advise Podcast to ask about it. It is interesting, particularly that this is a specific physiological reaction you have when you're about to have sex with your husband and you don't have it when you're having sex with other men. Something interesting to observe, keep an eye on, but not worry about. And it, I think, is one of those questions that ultimately you can only hypothesize about and can't really, truly answer. Not why do you salivate, not why do you get spitty and slick when you're aroused, but why it only happens when your husband arouses you and doesn't happen when other men are arousing you. Interesting question. Hi, Dan. I'm a 50-something woman in the southeast, and I recently met a guy who lives in the big city that's a few hours away, and we had sex, and it was really fun. He said it was fun too. And I told him that I was going to be in town in a few months, and I'd like to see him because I was coming into town for a concert. And he said, that sounded great, and he would put it on his calendar. So that's all good. But my question is, I'm white and he's black. And I've heard before that white people shouldn't touch black people's hair, particularly black women, but black people in general. But my thought is, in this situation, if a guy's going down on you, you can touch his hair, even if you're white and he's black, right? Nancy, are either of us qualified to answer this question considering? Considering, maybe. Seems to me, though, that this taboo, I don't know, what do you call it, a stricture, a taboo? The problem with white people touching black people's hair is that white people will other eyes and objectify black people that they don't know and will come up to somebody on the street or somebody they know casually, somebody in a workplace and think they're being complimentary by saying, oh, your hair is so different, so interesting, can I touch it? And that's what's problematic is when somebody who has no good reason to touch a black person's hair asks or just does touch a black person's hair to satisfy their white person curiosity about the difference between the feel of a white person's hair and a black person's hair. If that person is eating your pussy, I think she should just lean into the like sexy, dirty taboo of it all, baby. I'm going to touch your hair. I think this is why I'm the host of this show and you are not, because I think that is terrible advice because that will sort of invoke the specter of all the reasons a white person shouldn't, motivations that a white person shouldn't have in touching a black person's hair to other eyes them. But if he's going down on you, it would be weird, ask yourself as a white person, would it be weird if I didn't touch this black person's hair or had at this moment? And this would be a moment when not touching someone's hair would be kind of drawing attention to their hair in the same way that touching their hair in a context where you have no good reason to touch their hair would draw attention. I think everyone's overthinking it, including the people in this room. I think we just, she just says, I'm going to touch your hair, is that all right? The end and then he's just fine. But he's going to say, why wouldn't you touch my hair? And then she's going to say, because I've heard it's racist for white people to touch black people's. They'll both laugh. It'll be fine. It's going to be great. Don't worry, lady, touch his hair. Maybe ask beforehand. It's gonna be fine. Don't ask. Just take a hold of that head when he is eating your pussy. It would be weird if you didn't touch his head and hair at that moment. And just thank you, Lucky Stars. Hey, Dan and everyone else. I'm a gay dude in New York City, and I have become a bug chaser. I have the reasons I give people, but if I'm being totally honest, I don't really know why I want to become HIV positive. Like, what's the psychology behind that? I really want it so bad. It's harder than I thought it would be, but I am still trying. Help me up. It is harder these days. It's hard out there for a bug chaser because guys who know themselves to be HIV positive are on medications that reduce their viral load to undetectable and an undetectable guy with HIV can't give HIV to somebody else. And other guys who aren't HIV positive or sexually active are or should be on PrEP, which makes it impossible for them to acquire HIV. So pity the poor bug chasers, I guess, because the environment in which bug chasers are operating, far less likely for you to get infected, especially if you're on PrEP, which I'm assuming you're not since what you want to do is get HIV, but you should be. Why? Why are you out there doing this to yourself? Freud called it the death drive. The desire to self-destruct, to destroy and punish yourself, often manifested in compulsive, self-destructive behaviors. You see it in a lot of ways. You see people working themselves to death. You see people drinking themselves to death. You see people eating themselves to death. And among same gay men, you do see guys fucking themselves to death. And what HIV kind of doesn't mean now, but once meant very self-destructive, very attractive to someone, or what it meant about death and destruction. That's what it used to mean to have HIV. Also, having HIV probably in some scary recess of your brain, it connects you to the man who gave it to you permanently. It creates this kind of lasting, intimate bond. It's an insane way to seek meaning and connection that you're out there trying to get HIV because of what HIV meant 30, 40 years ago. And you're trying to forge a connection with another man because you will always have the virus that he infected you with. And then what next? What after? So you contract HIV. Once you've acquired it, what then? What is the next self-destructive impulse? What are the next set of rocks you're going to dash yourself against? Dude, get into therapy. Get a therapist and please get on PrEP. Hey, Dan. Congrats on your 1000th from a Magnum sub. So you and Terry used to have this agreement where you weren't allowed to talk or write about your private lives together. And now you are. What changed? Terry changed. When I first met Terry, I was one of those 90s sex columnists who occasionally wrote about my own sex life, my own sexual adventures. And I met this guy who was really, really private and he said, well, you can write about the sex you're having or you can have sex with me, but you can't do both. And so I stopped writing about the sex I was having because I wanted to have sex with him. And I'm convinced I've credited Terry for years for the longevity of savage love where all these sex columnists who are writing about their own sex lives in the 90s came and went but savage love lasted and lasted because it wasn't about me, it was about my readers and readers never got the impression that I was out there having sexual adventures just for the content, just for the copy. And so I never kind of broke faith with my readers in the same way other columnists either did or were perceived to have done by their readership. What changed was Instagram. What changed was Terry getting more comfortable being a public person mostly on Instagram. And I don't talk about my private life. I just I'm able to now acknowledge the existence of Terry's boyfriend, which would be weird. Terry and his boyfriend are all over Instagram together. It'd be weird if they could talk about it publicly on such large platforms, but I couldn't talk about it. But I don't talk about the details. I don't talk about the sex they're having. I don't talk about the sex Terry and I are having. I don't talk about the sex that my boyfriend and I are having. I just am now allowed to acknowledge the existence of his boyfriend, my boyfriend and how complicated everything is. But that's not talking about your private life. Who you're with, boyfriends, husbands, there's a public facing role, public facing element of those relationships. And that's what I talk about and acknowledge now, that I don't get into the dirty, dirty, dirty details. Terry wouldn't like it. And his boyfriend wouldn't like it. And my boyfriend would kill me. I have a personal question for you. How old is your mattress? That's none of my business. I realize, but if your mattress is getting up there, I have a great new year's resolution for you, get yourself a Helix sleep mattress, then you can have a brand new mattress. You can sleep better and we can be mattress twins. With Helix, you take a sleep quiz that makes buying a mattress easy. It matches you with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs. We at our place have the Midnight Luxe model and I love it so much. So does my husband. So do our very special guest stars. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the US and they offer seamless returns and exchanges. The happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk-free customer first experience designed to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your new mattress and you will be. They also offer a 129th sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty and get this just for you right now. My listeners get 27% off site-wide. Now is the time to invest in your coziness. Again, go to helixsleep.com slash savage for 27% off site-wide. Make sure you enter Savage Lovecast into the post-purchase survey so they know the Lovecast sent you. That's helixsleep.com slash savage. Hi, Dan. This is the call for the quickies episode. As a long-time listener, I know that you often give the same advice over and over over the years because it's what people need to learn over and over. My question is what are some of the pieces of advice you've had to repeat over the years that you are proudest of? Some of your maybe top two or three favorites that you're proudest of? Two of my favorites are Homophobia is the ugly little brother of misogyny and Fuck First. Thinking about the show here on our thousandth episode, a really important part of the show over the last nearly 20 years, has been guest experts. We reach out to people. We bring other voices onto the show and for our thousandth episode, we wanted to uphold the guest expert tradition and invite some of our favorite people to drop by and take one of your quick questions for our thousandth episode. Joining us to answer your question, columnist, writer, podcaster, author, co-author of abundance, Ezra Klein. Hey, Dan. I am so happy to jump in on this. This is Ezra Klein from The Ezra Klein Show. And I thought I would offer two. One of your ideas that I've loved over the years is ticket to ride. I think there is so much wisdom in recognizing that there are parts of other people that are just parts of them. And whether or not it annoys you or whether or not that part of you annoys someone else, it's not changing. And so recognizing the part of being in a genuine relationship with a person who is genuinely another person is simply accepting those parts. I think when we talked about it once, you said to me, like, you're not going to walk into the house and see clean dishes basically ever. And you've simply accepted that and stopped being unhappy about it. And I think there are so many things like that in life. And we are taught so often about how to try to change things and how to bring them up, sometimes how to accept things where the real wisdom lies. And then on that point of the real wisdom, something Dan, you said to me when we did a show together some years ago, was that every relationship, every marriage, every couple is a shared story, a shared narrative. And I thought there was so much wisdom in that, so much packed into that in the way that one thing that can be really dangerous for a couple is when one or both people cease to believe in that shared story. And that often what is needed to save or evolve a relationship is a new story that both sides can believe in, that both sides can share. And then also that requires knowing what story you both actually have. And sometimes it's not something we're taught to talk about. We are storytelling creatures, but we are also storytelling lovers. So Dan, thank you so much for so many great years of wisdom, of advice, of honesty, and of helping people find their way in the strange thickets of love. Hey Dan, I'm wondering why every single man I've ever known in my life, gay, straight, or otherwise, has always had so much more offensive smelling farts than any woman that I've ever met. Is it biological? Is there a medical explanation? It just seems like every man's like standard farts smells like what my gut feels like when it is super sick, and I don't understand it. Hi, this is Nancy, producer of the Savage Love Cast, and I can answer this one. You haven't smelled my farts. They are just as bad as any man fart you've ever smelled. I'm not proud of this, but it's true. But I do have three theories as to why men's farts are perceived as being more stinky than female farts. Number one, a man might be more likely to just let her rip, whereas a woman would be more likely to kind of hold it in because we're polite. So you've smelled more men's farts. They're out there. You just haven't smelled them. A man might be more likely to like hoover down a bunch of undercooked beans before a hookup, whereas a woman might be a little bit more aware to not do such a thing. Do you think that's true as a homosexual male? I think there are a lot of bottoms out there who would disagree with you. It's kind of a cliche bottom thing that there are foods you don't eat before a hookup. And then my third theory is men are bigger. So there's more there there. More GI tract to create the gases that then are released into the world. I'm really glad you took this one because you have a larger frame of reference. Men fart in front of me, like terryl fart in front of me. I'm a gay guy and I know women casually and women are my friends, but you don't fart in front of your friends the way you fart in front of your intimates. And so I can't remember being in a room where a woman has farted. I have no frame of reference for this. All the farts that I have been exposed to have been guy farts, boy farts. You know that I think about it. I mean, I'm not aware. Yeah, it's only when you're with your partner that you smell farts generally or when like there's like a big toxic event that happens every now and again. So how does the caller know how bad women's farts? She only has her farts to judge men's farts by. Right. And so you need to go fart in this woman's face. So she has a slightly broader frame of reference for how terrible a woman's farts can be. Well, I wouldn't go that far. I'm a lady. I'm a lady. My listeners are do-gooders. They want to do good to and with each other and do good things for the planet too. Each year, Americans throw away 25% more trash from Thanksgiving to New Year's. That is too much trash. We are just as guilty as anyone at our house, but we have made the switch to Blue Land cleaning products at our house to decrease our stream of trash going into the New Year. Good time to rethink routines and try to build more sustainable habits at home. So please think about joining us and using Blue Land. Certified by Cradle to Cradle, Blue Land products meet the highest standards of clean. They're effective yet gentle on people and the planet. From cleaning sprays and toilet bowl cleaner to dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets, Blue Land's 100% microplastic free, EPA safer choice, certified formulas are safe to use around my cozy polycule and they will be safe to use around your loved ones too. And I love not having to choose between the safe option and what actually gets my house clean. I'm a huge fan of the dishwasher tablets. They're proven to perform on baked on burnt on stains, no rinse aid needed, and they're so easy to use and think about it. A lot of the cleaning products you buy, a lot of the cleaning products we used to buy are just water, mostly water, and water is heavy and shipping it places burns a lot of fossil fuels and then you have to lug it home. A lot of Blue Land products though, let you add the water part at home, which saves you money, makes your carbon footprint smaller and your grocery bags lighter. Blue Land is a special offer for my listeners right now. Get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com slash savage. You won't want to miss this blue land dot com slash savage for 15% off. Let them know the love cast sent you blue land dot com slash savage to get 15% off. Hi Dan, Nancy and the tech savvy at risk youth. When do you know a relationship is over versus when it just needs some work? You know, I think I'm waiting for a big event to happen to end the relationship and give me a reason, but I think in my heart of hearts right now, my feelings just aren't there. Even though I know the person is fantastic and deserve so much love, I just given things that have happened and conflicts that have happened. I just my inclination is to say it's my fault and just to keep working on it, but I just don't know where that line in the sand is drawn or where I need to draw it. So help girl out. Great question. Interesting question. Emotionally complicated question. So we shared your question with the great Esther Perrell and invited her onto our thousandth episode to take your question for us. You seem to be experiencing a flatness, a lack of enthusiasm, but also a sense of responsibility about what may have contributed to this condition. You seem to be saying I'm waiting for something big to happen that would kind of make a definitive and would convince me, would kind of legitimize my decision, maybe something else that you need to do that is going to cause conflict and that would let your partner maybe make the decision for you or lead you into that. Here's the thing. You can ask yourself a few questions. How have you been watering your relationship? Is it living like a fertile plant or is it like a cactus that is pretty much just always on the edge at this point, but with very little nurturing, with very little fertilizing, with very little attention? You kind of are saying I'm with a wonderful person and I'm not feeling in love with this person or I don't seem to have the energetic, erotic push towards this person, erotic in the sense of aliveness, not just sexually. One thing I would say is also feelings are not always the most reliable or the only reliable marker of the vibrancy and the longevity of a relationship. Feeling sometimes come and go. Attraction sometimes comes and goes. Desire goes through intermittent eclipses. So I think it's not only how do I feel and I'm not experiencing any intensity about this. It's also what responsibility do I take? What do I do to improve our relationship? How complacent have I been and just kind of said it's not happening, but I'm not making anything happen. Often people stay in a long state of ambivalence until something kind of whisks them finally, jolts them out of their complacency and says, you know, time to go. Sometimes it's a conversation with the other person. It's not a decision just that you make alone. Sometimes it's a trial separation. Sometimes it's, I know I am not living by what I think my partner deserves and I'm basically stringing them along. And if I have a little bit of a sense that that's what you were hinting at, in that case set them free sooner rather than later. Hi Dan, what do I do if I'm in a relationship with a wonderful, wonderful partner, but I still have very strong feelings for someone else and that partner does not want to be non-monogamous. Okay, a little quick peek behind the scenes here. This is how it works. Nancy listens to the calls as they come in and then sends me short summaries. Then I pick the calls I might be interested in listening to and responding to and then Nancy sends me the actual calls. But in the summary, every once in a while after the summary, there will be a string of the letter Z at the end of the call. Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z. Nancy, what does it mean when you put all those Zs at the end of one of your summaries? I'm so sorry, caller, but it means boring. What's boring about this person's question? Because the answer is, it's just suffer, bitch. That's all you can say. He doesn't want to be non-monogamous, so that's that. We're done here. I have, people are always asking me to pull out of my ass some secret thing that they can say, some magic incantation that's going to turn a monogamous person into a monogamous person. The thing that comes up all the time for me is, oh, I'm trapped in a sexless marriage and I don't want to cheat and I don't want to leave and I don't want to get a divorce. I don't want to ask, what should I do? It's like, there's no magic fourth option. You can cheat, you can leave, you can ask, period. There's no magic fourth option that I'm holding out that I've been hiding from people all these years. I think the same applies here. There's no magic option. You're with somebody to stay with that person. You have to be monogamous to that person. They're not interested in opening the relationship and you have a crush on somebody else that's really common and suffer, bitch. Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z. Now you know how cruel I am. Nancy is a cruel mistress. I've been married to my husband for two years and we are both very happy about pretty vanilla. Most exciting thing we do is anal and I don't think people even consider that unique anymore. What advice do you have for adding light spice to our sexual relationship? Lovelessly, many people with much more unique sex lives, but I need recommendations along the lines of a Boudoir photo shoot, unless that's corny. There's nobody I know who's better at spicing things up than Mistress Matisse, who's been a regular recurring guest on the Savage Lovecast for the entire time we've been doing the Savage Lovecast. She may have been our first guest on the Savage Lovecast and we shared your question with her. Welcome to the show, my friend, the amazing, the wonderful, fascinating and kinky as fuck, Mistress Matisse. Hello there, Spice Up. First of all, do not worry about being corny. If something turns you on and your partner on, then it's a good thing. The way to keep the sexy, exciting energy in a long-term relationship is to make it a little bit less predictable but a lot more intentional. Spice up your sex life by starting the session before you're even in the room together. Building up your longing for each other through the day makes the energy hot at night. So during the day, when you're apart, send him a saucy picture of you, one he hasn't seen before that you took just for him. Send him the picture along with just a few sentences of a sexual fantasy. Don't bog it down with too, too, too many details yet. This is just an idea to set a mood and let your partner sit with that image in those words longing for you until you rendezvous later. The fantasy could be something like, I'm going to play with your ass tonight or we're going to watch a cam show while we fuck tonight. Try telling him you're going to dress him up in a garter belt and stockings. They often look really hot on men. Blindfolds can be a really fun way for a committed couple to play with the edge of dominance and submission. And if you have the budget, try a rendezvous in a hotel room one night. Arrive separately like secret lovers or role play that you just met each other in a bar and this is a taboo trist. Don't be afraid to try things because you think they may not turn out exactly like they do in the porn movies. In real life, sometimes you fall off the bed or the butt plug accidentally goes flying across the room or a strap on your dildo harness breaks. Just laugh and play through it. Sex is very important, but you can't ever take it completely seriously. So if it was fun and you laugh together and something sexy happened between you, then whatever you did, it was a success in all the ways that matter. Do poppers last longer in the freezer? They do not. Once open to bottle of poppers is good for about a month, the compounds that begin to break down no matter what temperature you store them at. So store your poppers in a cool dark place, the drawer of the bedside table in your bedroom where you're going to use the poppers as a perfectly fine place to store your poppers. Store them upright because those are really caustic chemicals in that little brown bottle. And if you leave them lying on their side, they can begin to break down the lid or the lining on the inside of the lid. And you'd want to inhale that shit. I think people shouldn't really want to inhale poppers that often or that much. And I worry for people who have to have poppers every time they have an orgasm who created such a powerful dependency on poppers or such a powerful association with poppers that they can barely get hard or come without them. I worry for you guys. I worry for you guys. But don't put your poppers in the fridge. Don't put them in the freezer, especially now. Now that they're out there selling little energy drinks and what look like little popper bottles, people have mistakenly done poppers like a shot and wound up in the hospital. You don't want to leave your poppers in the fridge and have some idiot house guest or friend assume that this is some energy drink that you have in the fridge and knock it back. I know it's kind of a low probability, but it is a high consequence event if that should happen. So don't leave your poppers in the fridge, put them in your bedroom. And every once in a while, if you're a popper's user, just have an orgasm without using poppers just to prove to yourself that you still can. Hi, Dan. What is the definition of sex? You've gotten words into the dictionary. We could look up the current dictionary definition, but it's not adequate. It tells us about the biology of sex. But we all know that sex is not just for reproduction. Philosophically, physiologically, in any other context, what is sex? As I've said a million times, I feel like when it comes to our sex lives with our partners, we want to define sex as broadly as possible. So it's not just PIV. It's not just intercourse that it can just be anything that two or more people can do together that's erotic and arousing, may or may not end up with somebody getting fucked or anybody having an orgasm. It's just an erotic sexual experience that's mutually pleasurable, mutually consented to, and that everybody enjoys. And that's just so broad a definition as to be nearly meaningless, because almost anything that a person, an individual, or two people together experience as sexual or sexualized or arousing could count. That's why it's really hard to define sex in this way that encompasses pleasure, because pleasure is so subjective. And one person's pleasure is another person's what is that? That's just a roll of duct tape. What do you mean that's part of your sex life? So what you're asking me to do is almost impossible. That said, and this is where this is where it comes up in the context of the show all the time, is when it comes to all of our sex lives, I want us with our partners to define sex as broadly as possible, because then you and your partner will have a lot of sex. If more than just PIV or PIB, penis and vagina, penis and butt, count as sex, then you can have a lot of sex with your partner. And if every time you say yes to sex, it doesn't mean you got to fuck somebody or you got to get fucked, then you'll probably say yes to sex a lot more often. But when it comes to what counts as cheating, I want people paradoxically and this exists in tension with what I've just said, I want people to define sex as narrowly as possible. I want people really almost to define sex just as PIV, PIB, sexual intercourse, oral, so that they're much less likely to get cheated on. Define it broadly with your partner, you'll have a ton of it, define it narrowly when it comes to others, and you won't get cheated on often or ever. Define it narrowly when it comes to others and hey, you're a lot less likely to get cheated on. Hi, Dan. I have an etymology question for you. I know you guys originated pegging, and I am deeply grateful for the introduction of a new word. The question is, is it about pirates? Is the peg leg like a strap on? Is that what we're getting at here? Is you strap on a peg leg, you're strapping on a dick? I don't know, I need an answer. Is this where the word comes from? Please tell me. Pegging the word comes from a contest I had in Savage Love in the early 2000s, 2001, I believe. I was getting a lot of questions from guys, straight guys who are interested in getting fucked in the ass by a woman wearing a strap on dildo. Now, this was back when the column was just in print. I want to get fucked in the ass by a woman wearing a strap on dildo. It's a lot of words, and when you had a tight word count as I did then, just having to repeat that phrase over and over and over again would eat up too much space, and I needed a pithy one word punchy name for this sex act that people kept writing in to ask me about, and I invited my readers to write in and pitch names, name this thing, and then I invited my readers to vote on their favorites, and I'm going to read you the nomination for pegging that actually won the vote, that carried the day, and it wasn't about pirates. Paris P wrote in, boy prostitutes were sometimes called peg boys because they would sit on pegs to keep their assholes open between clients, so I would suggest the word peg. The woman would be the peggar, the boy would be the peggie, the act would be pegging, and the boy would write in his personal ad, I want to get pegged. There are a lot of reasons, I think, peg won the vote over punt, over bob, over the other nominees. A chief reason is just how percussive it is, how it pops around the mouth like cunt, or fuck, or other expletives. It has a kind of sexy mouth feel. Do I think boy prostitutes were sitting on pegs? I looked this up at the time, I tried to do a little research, see if there's anything to this. I couldn't find anything about it. I don't think it's true, you don't want the butt that you're selling to be loose and open all the time, actually that makes the vote less marketable. And yet, pegged carried the day, much to my aunt, Peggy's consternation. Hi Dan. What is the straight guy counterpart of lingerie? So what is some outfit that can turn on a woman in the bedroom or at the sex party? This is a hard one to answer, because it depends on the woman, it depends on the party. I know a really masculine straight guy, looks like a big bearded Viking with long hair, and he hosts and he goes to sex parties and he's sent me some pictures of the outfits he wears to these sex parties. And I just find it fascinating that when he dresses up for a sex party, he kind of dresses a little femme, like fishnets and camisole sorts of things that are in contrast to his really kind of hyper masculine body and looks. And it's almost like he's signaling to the women in the room that he's safe to play with, because although he's this big burly strapping Viking of a man, that he's comfortable with his own femininity, that he is safe then for these women to relax and play with in a way that, you know, if his gear, his lingerie were as brutish as he is, they might not feel as comfortable. It's almost like he's sending a cross signal, like there's the way I look, but then there's who I am and who I am on the inside is more feminine and approachable and safe, safe for women. And it's interesting because if that same guy were gay and he was going to a gay sex party and he was going to wear lingerie to attract and appeal to gay men, he would be emphasizing his masculinity and the threat, eroticized threat of his masculinity. And so really it depends on your audience, like you want to wear lingerie to attract women, there are going to be some women out there who are really into you wearing something slightly femcoded or feminizing, there will be other women out there who will be turned off by that because they want the guy that they're with to be kind of mask. So you need to, if you're going to a large group setting, ask yourself what kinds of women you want to attract, but if it's for one individual woman, you should use your words and ask her what she wants to see you in. She might want to see you in panties or she might want to see you in sexy boxer briefs or both at different times. Okay, micro listeners, as always, there's more on the magnum. We've got Therapy Jeff, Mike Peska, the long-suffering Dr. Barack, Joan Price, and Nancy. And even my husband, Terry, drops by to make an appearance on our special 1000th episode to subscribe to the magnum and get more Savage Lovecast and more Savage Love. Go to savage.love where you can get a year or you can get just a month to try it out for yourself or as a gift for someone else. Thanks for listening for all of these years and if you're tempted to finally try out becoming a magnum sub, now would be a really great time because the rest of this week's show is lit. All right, time for listener feedback. First up, a few comments. Listeners left in the comment threads about our last show. So as I said on that show, I am not a financial advisor. And the comments about my response to the caller who didn't know whether she should sell her house and move in with her boyfriend or not prove it. The comments about that call too long, too detailed to share here, but to the caller with the house, if you're listening and you have not yet sold that house, you definitely want to dive in and read them. All right, the rest of the comments I'm going to share this week are about what else heated rivalry, the hot gay hockey sex show we've all watched by now. And I'm only reading heated rivalry comments because when some audio archaeologist digs up our thousandth episode, a thousand years from now, I don't want them to think everyone was talking in January of 2026 about how wrong I was and that one response to that one caller. I want them to know we were all talking about and thinking about Ilya and Shane says Miriam Kushel, Hey, Dan, I know heartstopper and heated rivalry are telling very different stories to different audiences. But considering how dismissive you were at how long it took Nick and Charlie on Heartstopper to fuck, I think it's worth noting that in story time, it took Shane and Ilya two years from meeting to having sex and then another three to get to anal. Whereas it took Nick and Charlie only 1.5 years from meeting to having sex. The only difference is it was two episodes and heated rivalry and three seasons in Heartstopper. So it may have felt longer to the audience. Alright, point taken Miriam. But circumstances conspired to keep Ilya and Shane apart for those two years. They lacked opportunity. Whereas Nick and Charlie were together every single day for 1.5 years that Ilya and Shane fucked as soon as they could and established sexual chemistry and compatibility. Before they fell in love, those details make Ilya and Shane's romance seem much more authentically gay. Gay and bi Ilya's bi. And I think one of the reasons heated rivalry is a sensation and Heartstopper is merely a hit Ilya and Shane fuck and then fall in love the way guys who are actually into guys fucking fall in love. Whereas Charlie and Nick fall in love and then eventually get around to fucking a year and a half later like teenage girls fantasize about guys falling in love and fucking. Says Red Blonde. I am not watching heated rivalry but for everyone who is and hasn't been around hockey locker rooms, please imagine an unpleasant stench anytime there are sex scenes set in the locker room. Hockey pads hold smells in very particular ways. I swear it seeps into the rubber matting. I will be going to open skate at a hockey rink sometime over the holidays with my family Red Blonde continues and I will be holding my breath when I get my skates on in the locker room. There are no sex scenes in the locker rooms on heated rivalry Red Blonde you would know that if you'd watched there's a little action in the showers but no locker room sex at all so you can safely watch the show without your sense memory spoiling it for you. Says Randy our local high school hockey team for as long as memory exists has made a fetish of not washing their jock straps during this season because it's bad luck I am not making this up. A joint school sports travel trips the swim team stays upwind of the hockey players and their toxic gear at all times. Those boys truly stink. Oh my god that is awful and disgusting but as anyone who listens to this show knows those boys could raise a lot of money for their school sports programs if they auction off those jock straps at the end of the season especially now especially post heated rivalry. All right if you have something to say about something I said on this week's show or any one of our 1000 episodes go to savage.love and say it and now savage love listeners who love to voicemail on our answering machine about last week's show get to have the last word on our 1000th episode just like they get to have the last word on every single episode of the savage love cast. Hi this is in response to the caller whose wife is not very physically affectionate it doesn't sex to send nudes and he's getting that from other people. I agree with everything Dan said but I just wanted to add that caller I want to remind you what something that Dan always talks about which is that you can't expect one person to meet every single need that you have. That's just an unreasonable expectation to put on others. The beautiful thing is you are in an open non-monogamous poly relationship and you have the freedom to go get all your needs met across your various connections and relationships with other people. I would encourage you to go and focus on the positives the needs your wife does bring to your life the needs she does meet because I'm sure there's things she's doing there otherwise you guys wouldn't have gotten married you wouldn't have gotten to this point. I also am a non-physically affectionate person it's something I struggle with I have to actively think about and I'm sure wife is kind of relieved that that pressure is being taken off her plate a little bit and that other people can help meet that need for you and the pressure is not solely on her to meet the level that you need. Personally I'm relieved that my partners can go get that elsewhere and instead we focus on the aspects of our dynamic that do work. So I would encourage you caller to kind of reframe how you're viewing your relationship with your wife be grateful for the dynamic you have be grateful that you have the opportunity to explore different connections with people get your needs met explore different dynamic relationship dynamics different levels of chemistry I don't really think you have a problem here I think you just kind of need to reframe how you're viewing everything things will be fine. This is a comment for the woman in episode 999 who wants to make sure that she has equity in her boyfriend's house ma'am under no circumstances rely on Dan Savage for financial advice. His description that when you get married all of his is half yours and all of yours is half is is just wrong even in California the community property state I spent way too much money trying to nail that down in my divorce buy an hour with a real financial planner or at least do a google search for your state and good luck in your relationship. Hi Dan and Nancy I am calling with a comment in response to the conversation about the phrase aftless chats it's true that all chats are technically aftless as a garment and I 100% agree with Dan that the phrase aftless chats just has that poetic ring to it but when we're asking to see someone in aftless chats what we're saying is we want the chats and nothing else. Chaps in a practical sense worn by an actual cowboy they're usually wearing dungarees or suede pants underneath no aft exposed so when we're asking for aftless chats what we're asking for is the aft. All right before we leave this week's episode I want to thank everyone who's listened to the show called in with a comment most importantly I want to thank everyone who's sent in a sexual relationship question over the last 1000 episodes. Nancy and I both love doing this show and we literally couldn't do it without you so thank you and a very special thanks this week to Ezra Klein, Esther Perrell, Mistress Matisse, Mike Peska, Therapy Jeff, Doc Barak, Joan Price all here representing all the amazing experts, authors and guests we bring on the show every week and thanks of course to Nancy Hartunian my partner in crime here on The Lovecast and to Terry Miller my partner in crime pretty much everywhere else and a quick shout out to the mystery man who helps me with production duties when I am in Europe thank you boss and a quick shout out and our love to the popovers the insanely catchy theme song you hear every week at the top of the show was created for us by the popovers a band that was led by the late great much-missed and still loved singer-songwriter Tim Lafellette who sings our theme song thank you Tim and thank you popovers and we're going to leave it there to get your question answered on the Savage Lovecast record it and email it to us at qat Savage.Love or call us at 206-302-2064 and leave us a message on our answering machine or go to Savage.Love slash ask Dan to record and upload your question directly onto our website and if you had a new sexual experience good bad mid man want to talk about it with me send us an email to qat Savage.Love tell us all about it and you may be our next guest on After Action Report follow me at Blue Sky at Dan Savage follow me on Instagram at Dan Savage the Savage Lovecast was produced every week by the great Nancy Hartoonian and me and Nancy and the tech savvy at risk youth we will all be back at you next week another installment of the Savage Lovecast thank you for downloading thank you for listening thank you for sending your questions thank you for the best job in the world I love it and I appreciate all of my listeners and all my readers thank you again you this episode of the Savage Lovecast is brought to you by Load Boost by VB Health Load Boost is a supplement designed to improve the taste the volume and the overall health of your semen if you're already putting in the work why not make your performance unforgettable made in the USA NSF certified and produced in an FDA registered facility thousands of guys across 50 states and 45 countries swear by Load Boost if you want bigger finishes and better reviews from your audiences if you want better taste better mouthfeel go to loadboost.com today and use code SAVAGE for 10% off or click the link in this week's episode description that's loadboost.com and use offer code SAVAGE