Savage Love Episode 1037

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_06] 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!

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_08] Visibility is important. Representation is important. Diversity is important. And I remember how excited we all were, all LGBT people, but especially B people, when the first openly bisexual person was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2019, striking a blow for visibility and representation and diversity. NBC News called her election historic. LGBT organizations pumped

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_08] out ecstatic press releases. The LGBT Victory Fund, whose early financial support helped get her campaign for the Senate off the ground. The LGBT Victory Fund called her election a game-changer. And not just for bisexual candidates, but for all LGBTQIA++++ candidates. And yet, you won't see her face in any posters during Bisexuality Visibility Month, which is this month, September. And you won't

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_08] read about her in any stories about Bisexuality Visibility Week, which is this week. Or see her in any Instagram posts about Bisexuality Visibility Day, which is tomorrow. Because our first openly bisexual member of the U.S. Senate was Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. To describe Sinema as a disappointment would be an understatement. She buddied up to Mitch McConnell once she got to the Senate. She palled around with billionaires. She teamed up with Republicans to block Joe Biden's economic agenda.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_08] She also blocked efforts to raise the minimum wage. And after her approval ratings with Democrats in Arizona tanked, and it became clear she would lose a primary if she were to run for re-election, she became an independent, putting the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate at risk. And when it became clear she had no chance of winning a primary in her state, even as an independent, when it became clear that everybody hated her and she had no political future, she left the Senate.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_08] So yeah, I just skimmed an article on out.com about famous bisexual women in America, and she's not in there. So while we all agree bisexual erasure is a bad thing, it seems like we're all willing to make an exception for Kristen Sinema, who's still in the news thanks to an alienation of affection lawsuit brought against her by the former wife of her bodyguard that she was having an affair with while she was in the Senate. And yeah, I'm not going to go into any more detail

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_08] about that as the story plays into the worst stereotypes about bisexual women. All right, let's change the subject. Let's talk about Chris Gallant, the Democratic candidate for a U.S. house seat in New York. The news about Chris broke right after I finished recording my intro to last week's show. You know how much I hate that? I hate it when a sexy news story breaks after my deadline. And Chris Gallant, a military pilot who flew Black Hawk helicopters, an air traffic controller,

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_08] a volunteer firefighter. Yeah, he's one very sexy thing. The dude is handsome. The dude is stacked. And as it turns out, the dude is kinky. A Democratic congressional candidate from Long Island acknowledged on Monday that he had posed years ago in an explicit ad campaign modeling leather bondage gear. The New York Times reported last week, Gallant said that the photos and his personal

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_08] life had no bearing on his campaign or ability to serve. The pictures were taken for Mr. S. Leather 15 years ago. That's the famous SF-based leather and bondage gear store that my husband has done some modeling for. Gallant can be seen as the New York Times primly notes shirtless and variously wearing a leather collar attached to a chain and a leather face mask. In some of the photos, he is in intimate

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_08] situations with another man. The intimate situations the New York Times referred to took place in a cage. I have some thoughts. First, I want to credit Chris Gallant, who immediately released a pitch perfect statement saying he was proud of who he was and would not be shamed into dropping out of the race. He then sent out a fundraising pitch. I donated. The Suffolk County Democratic Committee to its

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_08] everlasting credit is standing by their man. The only thing these old photos, 15-year-old photos, proved, the organization said, is that Republicans are running scared and that their candidate, Chris Gallant, has a six-pack and the Republican candidate does not. The district Chris Gallant is running in doesn't just represent Long Island. It also represents famously gay Fire Island too. Seems to me that the man representing Fire Island maybe should have a six-pack. The fact that Gallant

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_08] is kinky and I'm saying that he is and not that he might be because Mr. S only works with models that are actually kinky. Ask me how I know. The fact that Gallant is kinky seems to me like a really good argument in favor of sending Gallant to Washington. BDSM is rooted in consent as Thriving O noted on threads last week when the story broke and a politician being into it, BDSM and consent,

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_08] that would actually be a relief. Slate notes that the photos of Gallant depict a consensual assignation. He wasn't betraying anyone's trust by engaging in it. There's no reason at all to look askance at his actions. Slate goes on, this raises a good chance for Democrats to practice acclimatizing voters to the right kind of candidate sex story, the kind where no one did anything wrong. Something else voters need to acclimate themselves to? Everyone under the age of 50. Gallant is 37.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_08] The pictures were taken when he was 22. Everyone under the age of 50 has dirty pics out there somewhere. Disqualifying Gallant from holding public office, disqualifying anyone with dirty pics out there from holding public office. Yeah, that is going to make our gerontocracy problem a lot worse, not better. If you don't want the Senate to be just 100 Mitch McConnell's a few years from now, you should really think about joining me and donating a little money to Chris Gallant.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_08] All of this brings me to what I actually wanted to say. I'm excited by Chris Gallant's candidacy. I am excited that we might elect our first openly kinky and extremely hot gay man to the U.S. House of Representatives because representation and visibility are important. But I am not letting myself get too excited because Gallant first is running in a district. Donald Trump won by 10 points

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_08] in 2024. He's running against a Republican incumbent, a MAGA ball wash, whose name I'm not even going to mention. And the Cook Political Report rates his district as solidly GOP. But people are predicting a massive blue wave this November. Another recent New York Times headline, Democrats gain edge as Trump drags down GOP. New nationwide poll finds. Anything is possible in a wave election, including sending a guy

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_08] in a harness. And while Gallant's district does cover a big chunk of Long Island, where these pictures of him in bondage gear may not play well. Again, it also covers a huge chunk of Fire Island, where men and some of these men have to be registered voters were no doubt taking very similar pictures of themselves and their boyfriends this weekend. But, but, but, but before I let myself get too excited about

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_08] Chris Gallant and what his election would mean to hot kinky gay men who look good in harnesses everywhere. Finally, they're going to get some representation in Congress. I want to wait and see how he votes once he's in office, if he gets elected, which I hope he does, which is why I made a donation. Still, I'm taking a wait and see attitude because the last time we let ourselves over here in LGBT land get really excited about sending someone to Congress to represent a slice of us,

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_08] she turned out to be Chris in fucking cinema. But if it turns out that Gallant, once elected, is as good a Democrat as he is a boy, and based on these photographs, Chris Gallant is a very good boy, then we can celebrate. Maybe at the Folsom Street Fair, maybe with Chris Gallant in attendance in 2027. All right, coming up on this week's show, have you heard of grapefruiting? You are about to,

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_08] I'm sorry to say. A woman wonders if piss is an acquired taste. And another caller asks about the ethics of entering into a lavender marriage. And on the Magnum, cardiologist Dr. Eugene Phan, making his first appearance on a podcast anywhere, and he is absolutely delightful, joins me to answer a couple of heart and boner-related listener questions. No spoilers, but Dr. Phan has some very good news for men out there who've had heart attacks and want to get back to wanking. That's

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_08] on the Magnum, which you can subscribe to or give as a gift by heading over to savage.love and clicking the subscribe button. If you become a subscriber or gift a subscription, you will be getting or giving so much more of the Savage Love universe, and you'll be supporting the folks here who work on the show. And coming up on Friday, for every single one of my listeners, micro and Magnum sub alike.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_07] I don't know if it was the heat of the moment or because I'm Canadian and I'm polite. I didn't,

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_08] I didn't stop. I just kept going. That's on after action report, which you will find in your feeds this Friday. All right, onto the first call. This episode of the Lovecast is brought to you by the

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_06] 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.

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[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_03] Hey Dan, bye guy here, 47 years old. I just learned about a new technique called grapefruiting of giving a blowjob, where as the name implies, you would cut the ends off of a grapefruit and kind of work that up and down on the shaft while giving head to give additional sensation to the penis. Have you ever

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_03] heard of this? Is it bullshit? Would it actually work? I'm envisioning terrible issues with citrus juice getting into possible skin broken by friction, but I don't know. Is this just a new technique I've never heard of?

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_08] Would this work? Sure. It would work. You could shove a dick through a thick slice of grapefruit, but why would you want to? In addition to pulp and juice getting everywhere and the possibility of that strong acidic grapefruit juice going into the slit of your penis and burning your urethra,

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_08] you wouldn't be creating any greater sensation for the person who's being blown having a part of a grapefruit wrapped around the base of his dick than you could have created by wrapping your wet, spitty fist around the base of their dick if that's what you wanted to do. There are sex toys out there, there are masturbation sleeves, there are things designed for sex that you can use on a dick during a blowjob or during mutual masturbation or during masturbation or during lots of other things

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_08] that could provide additional sensation, including vibrating cock rings, oh nuts, there's just lots of things like why make a mess? Why bring food into the bed? I've never understood this, that there's something kinky or fun or sexually adventurous about incorporating food, particularly messy foods, like putting whipped cream on somebody's nipples or genitals.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_08] I think we all do that once or twice when we're like 15 or 16 years old because we think that's kinky and we're home alone and there's a can of whipped cream in the fridge. It takes about a minute before you realize that putting whipped cream on someone, it melts instantly and then it smells like a baby barfed on them. There's nothing hot about it. The same thing, it's just going to make a mess and there's not going to be anything hot about this. There was nothing hot about Timothee

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_08] Chalamet fucking that peach in Call Me By Your Name and yeah, this is not a new king. Nobody is doing this. Nobody even thought about doing this until you heard about somebody doing it and then talked about somebody doing it, talked about you doing it, asked me about it on my show and now some people are thinking about it. One or two people might try it. Against my advice, please do not attempt this

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_08] at home. But it's not going to be hot and it's not going to add any value that the hands you brought to that blowjob couldn't have added all by themselves. Eat the grapefruit after you eat the deck.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_10] I am confused. This is in response to the faking it thing on the last episode and other faking it orgasm for women's situations. And so I'm so confused because there is an undeniable physical response in the woman's body. There's a contraction and you can feel it on your cock or your fingers or your arm or

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_08] something. So what's going on? Yeah, when a woman has an orgasm, there are contractions, rapid involuntary rhythmic muscle contractions, vagina. And how do you fake those? Well, you could do kegels while you're faking your orgasm. You can bear down, you can squeeze. But often when you think about the context in which a woman

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_08] might be faking an orgasm, she's faking an orgasm with someone who doesn't turn her on or with someone she's always faked orgasms with. Or, as is way too often the case with straight men, with someone who has never made a woman come but sure thinks he's made women come because he's been with nothing but a string of women who faked their orgasms. So he doesn't know the difference. He's never been inside a woman who was actually coming. Only inside women who were faking orgasms. And so the absence of

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_08] contractions that he's never felt will not to him feel conspicuous or even noticeable. Also, you know, some guys' dicks are bigger or smaller. Some contractions are more powerful or weaker. There is vaginal atrophy over time. There are women out there who have powerful orgasms and comparatively weak

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_08] or weaker over time contractions. And so it's just possible that there are women out there who aren't faking orgasms and aren't having contractions that are to the male partner. Maybe he's very small. Maybe he's just never noticed that it's not registering the contractions, their presence or their absence. But I could see, you know, I know I've only been dead sex with men, mostly,

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_08] over the course of my life, but there are guys who could contract. I imagine there are women who can control those muscles, those powerful pelvic floor muscles that are not just faking what an orgasm sounds like when they're faking an orgasm, but could be faking what an orgasm for him, when she has one, feels like too.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_06] This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. They make it easy to build a website, blog or online store. Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand all in one place. And I know, because you may know, the Lovecast is run out of the Stranger newspaper here in Seattle, and we just started a new project called Noise Complaint. It showcases local bands, so it offers video and audio and links to other sites. It's a little complicated, and it was a breeze to put in a

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[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02] Hi, Dan. I'm a 39-year-old woman, cis straight, living on the West Coast. I have been dating this guy for a year. He's 40, and he has some unhealed trauma that he has not faced until now. Six years ago, he got divorced, and he did not see it coming. It was a big shock and the most traumatic thing he's ever been through. Since then, he's had a string of three- to five-month-long relationships.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_02] This is the first relationship that's broken that pattern and challenged him to face some of the emotional things he's been avoiding. We recently started saying, I love you. This is the first time he has said that since his divorce. I said it first. He did say it back, but I have felt a hesitancy on his part, and he's not initiated. Last week, he told me that he's not felt quite confident in saying that.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_02] He's comparing how it feels saying it to me to how it felt saying to his ex-wife when he was 22 and baggage-free. He does not want to break up. He does not know if the absence of the feeling of being swept up and in love is because he is really guarded and not available for feeling in love, or if he just doesn't feel that way about me. He says he knows he loves me and cares for me as a person,

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_02] but that the absence of the thrill of love is confusing and worrisome, which I understand. And up until this point, he's been adamantly against therapy generally. I told him that the only way I could consider staying to navigate this with him is if he went to therapy to do the work. And he agreed. He did not fight me on it at all. He seems resigned to the fact that he can't outrun this any longer.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02] And he's been saying a lot of things to me that, like, ideally people would say to their therapist first so they can understand their emotional response and not lay this unprocessed, scary thought at the feet of their partner, putting them through unnecessary, like, pain and stress before they understand themselves. I think it's a really good sign that he's so willing to go to therapy, but I'm obviously having a lot of sadness and anxiety over not feeling loved, even though I have felt the love from him.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_02] And it seems to be the milestone of saying the words that's triggering this. It makes a lot of sense to me that his heart is locked up and guarded, and he's afraid of letting someone else in again. But I'm desperately trying to figure out if I can or should continue to hang in there while he does this work. We don't have all the information at this point because he hasn't done the work on himself, and so I'm hoping it's a matter of unblocking his heart. But I'm also terrified that he just doesn't feel that way about me.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02] We're really compatible in so many ways. We have so much fun. We make each other laugh. The sex is phenomenal. We travel well. We've talked about, like, big life partner stuff, and I don't want to give all of that up if there's a good chance of what's in the way is, like, his defense mechanisms preventing him from heartbreak. But I don't want to be an idiot who's not reading the signs and walking away when I should. Do you think I should give this more time?

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_08] I don't want you to stay in a relationship that's making you sad and anxious. I don't want you to end a relationship where the sex is, your word, phenomenal, and you travel well together, and you enjoy each other's company, and you make each other laugh. That's great stuff. And I guess the question for you is how much sadness and anxiety and trauma dumping

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_08] and him saying things to you that are hurtful to hear that he should have said to his therapist first or figured out with a therapist how to roll out with his girlfriend in such a way as to cause her the least amount of pain. Is all of that worth putting up with? If only you can make that decision. I worry, though, that you are kind of trauma-washing this relationship in a way.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_08] You're looking at all the things he's been through, his unhealed trauma, getting divorced in his 40s, which is something that a lot of people have been through. And then having a string of three- to five-month relationships, which is something a lot of people go through in midlife when they get out of a relationship, when a significant relationship ends and they begin dating again. And a little hesitancy to say, I love you, and I worry you're just projecting yourself into his experience

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_08] to justify the ways in which he treats you that don't work for you, rather than saying to him, trauma or no trauma, you can't talk to me like that. Trauma or no trauma, if you're not ready to say I love you too when I say I love you without making that face, whatever the hesitancy looks like, then you're not ready to be in a relationship. You're not in good enough working order, and you should go talk to a fucking therapist for a while

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_08] and then give me a call when you're in better working order. But good working order doesn't mean perfect. It doesn't have to be perfect. And I just keep bumping, like listening to your call. I was just like, break the fuck up with this dude, break the fuck up with this dude. But then when you got to the end of the call and you started listening to what was working about this relationship, I could see hanging in there for a little bit longer while also being a little clearer about what it is he needs to do.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_08] And you say that he now knows he needs to get his fucking butt into therapy. Has he contacted a therapist yet? Does he have a fucking intake appointment yet? You might want to make that a condition of your next phenomenal sex session. And is he making any progress? Or is he just bull in a china shopping around and hurting your feelings and then you empathize with him so much that you're excusing the ways in which he's hurting your feelings

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_08] because, oh, he has all this unhealed trauma. We all have unhealed trauma. And it's our job. It's our responsibility to get our shit sorted out before we present ourselves to someone who has the reasonable expectation that we're in good enough working order emotionally, socially, sexually to be in a relationship. You also have to take responsibility for your own choices if you want to be with this guy

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_08] despite the sadness and anxiety that you sometimes feel with him because you sense that hesitancy before he says, I love you too. That causes you pain and you still want to be with him anyway because great sex, fun vacations, good times. All right. Then eat the sadness, eat the anxiety, own your own choices, choose to be in this relationship, pay that price of admission. But if that's too high a price to pay,

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_08] then you need to end it, obviously. And it doesn't mean you can't restart it. But if he begins to get his shit together, it's been like three to five months. You say, you've broken this pattern. So it's maybe been longer than five months with you. And he finally recognizes that he needs to get therapy. All right. Don't say he's gotten any. You don't mention the appointment that he's made. Is he just saying that? Or is he doing that?

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_08] If he's just saying it, I would end it. I would break the fuck up with him if he kept saying it and not doing it. So maybe that's the marker you lay down. Do the thing or it's over. Get the therapy, get the therapist, get your butt onto that couch for the first appointment or we're over. And if he can't do that, then he's not serious about doing anything about whatever trauma that he suffered that is causing you to suffer. He's just instrumentalizing it,

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_08] his trauma, to control you and make you prioritize his feelings over yours, which sometimes we do in relationships. Sometimes we do prioritize our partner's feelings over ours, but not at three months, not at five months. So sadness, anxiety, one side of the scale, great sex, fun times, other side of the scale. Make your own choice. Insist that he make that first appointment. When was the last time you tried something radically new

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[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_05] Hi Dan. Am I the asshole? After hooking up with a guy two times, he disclosed that he was immunocompromised. A few weeks later, we became committed partners. A few weeks after that, he saw a prescription cold sore medication in my travel bag and said nothing. Months later, he asked about the purpose of a lysine supplement I take and I immediately disclosed it was a preventative for cold sores. I wasn't hiding anything, but I just didn't think to disclose it.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_05] It's so common. He's expressed that my failing to disclose about having HSV-1, yes, herpes, when we became committed partners was dishonest. I'm confused. I had no idea he was immunocompromised the first couple of times we hooked up and if this was asked, I would have immediately told him. I've been completely asymptomatic the duration of our relationship and put him at no additional risk after we became committed partners. than he was in during the hookups. Was I in the wrong here?

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_08] No. No, you are not in the wrong here. If this dude is so fragile, if this dude is so immunocompromised that he can't risk being with someone who has this very, very common quote-unquote, rolling my eyes, sexually transmitted infection that almost all people who are sexually active adults who've made out with randos have already or have been exposed to repeatedly,

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_08] then he should get a sex doll, not a girlfriend because almost all girlfriends are going to come with the built-in risk of some exposure or risk of exposure to HSV-1 or HSV-2 or HPV. And again, if his immune system is so compromised that a cold sore could kill him, he should be celibate or have a sex doll,

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_08] not a real live girl who was taking a medication that protected her from outbreaks and also protected him potentially from exposure and infection. most people who should be on that sort of medication to suppress HSV-1 aren't because they don't know they have it. And so you were probably a safer bet than some other woman who

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_08] didn't know. And it's not a big deal in the lives of most people who have it and so it didn't occur to you to disclose it. So I'm surprised you're still together, frankly. And if he breaks up with you over this and gets back out there and starts dating and kissing random women before entering into a committed relationship, he is going to be exposed to this and other potential sexually transmitted infections again.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_08] There are just certain things that as sexually active adults moving through the world, kissing other sexually active adults, we have to be at ease about and have some comfort with the risks of exposure or infection and HSV-1 and cold sores are at the top of the list. There's nothing about being immunocompromised that can prevent a person from growing the fuck up. This episode of the Savage Lovecast is brought to you by Drive Boost. Terry,

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[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_01] Hello, Dan. I have a question about lavender marriages. Being from a South Asian background, quite a few of my other gay friends, both male and female, have partaken in lavender marriages and there are many Instagram pages such as lavender marriage, Kerala and India, where people advertise looking for either a female or a male lavender partner that they are free to be in same-sex couples,

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_01] but will act as a straight couple in front of the families. It is something that I have considered in the past and I know that living abroad it would be doable, but I know that reading about lavender marriages in the United States or Europe, they are frowned upon now, but I am considering something like this. What are your thoughts about it

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_01] and is it just another lie covering up a lie? It would take some pressure off being 40 and unmarried, but also I have conflicted feelings about it.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_08] As long as no one in the marriage is being deceived, I don't have a problem with it. If you're not in a position to come out to your family and you lie to your family, you let them make assumptions about the man you married, that it is a romantic and sexual relationship when it is not, when it is for you perhaps a marriage of convenience or a lavender marriage, although a lot of people are now using the term lavender marriage to describe marriages between typically gay men who are out to their wives and their wives who know that their husbands are gay and

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_08] don't fucking give a shit because they want that man, they want the stability of the relationship, they value the friendship, it is a companionate marriage and they're both free or not free depending on their agreement to pursue other partners if they so choose. People are often using lavender marriage in that way. What you describe as kind of a marriage of convenience under a certain cultural or familial degree of duress. If you're in a position where you can't be out and it would be highly suspect if you were not married

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_08] and you can find a man who's in a similar circumstance and you two with honesty when you approach each other and compassion for each other and a mutual respect and affection for each other as friends, wish to marry and live together as husband or wife and allow other people, family to make whatever assumptions they're going to make about your life. If that's something that you need to do, you have no choice but to do.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_08] I don't think you've done anything wrong so long as you're not lying to the person that you married. The problem with marriages between someone who is gay and someone who is not is very often the person who is gay is not out to the person that they married and the person like used to hear about this a lot. Used to hear, there used to be a thing called the straight spouse network and it was for usually women who were with gay men. Gay men said that they loved them, lied to them, closeted men,

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_08] lied to them, hollowed them out, lived inside these women like they were closets. He had in these relationships and a lot of these women were in these marriages for 10, 15, 20, 30 years and they knew something was wrong and they thought it was something was wrong with them. And often if their husbands were toxic and manipulative they would, to deflect attention away from what was wrong with them, that they were closeted gay men, would try to convince

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_08] their wives that it was them, that there was something wrong with the woman in the relationship with the wife, that she was doing something wrong. She wasn't hot enough, she wasn't this enough, she wasn't that enough. That was the reason they weren't having sex. That was the reason their marriage felt empty. And when that woman finds the gay porn or that guy came out of the closet, it was shattering. That was the problem with those sorts of lavender marriages where there was a closet and there was deceit and someone was being used and lied to

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_08] and destroyed what you described. What's possible for people who believe they're in situations and circumstances where it is not safe for them to be single and they do not wish to have a heterosexual relationship, but they must marry and it must be someone of the opposite sex. I've met a few people, a few people actually from, who are Indian, from South Asia, who are in these kinds of marriages of convenience. Lesbian women

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_08] who found and married, often in the West, when they were at school, out gay men, also from India, and had big weddings that their families approved of and then they lived together as husband and wife but in a companionate relationship where there was respect and real affection. I knew one of these couples pretty well. Real affection, an admirable marriage. A marriage is whatever two people in it say that it is. It doesn't have to be

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_08] sexual, it doesn't have to be romantic, it can be all about other things. And so, if you ultimately decide at 40 that you need to marry and you can find a man that you can marry, that you do not have to lie to or deceive, and you feel safe being out to him at least, and you make that choice, I think that's a fine choice and I wouldn't want you to feel bad about making that choice. Even if we can both recognize it's

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_08] not the choice, that if you were completely free, that you would have made for yourself.

[00:37:38] Good luck.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_12] Is piss an acquired taste? I tried drinking some of a couple of my ex-girlfriend's piss, mostly in the context of a piss squirt case test, which in that case was piss, but certainly not ever because I'm sure, don't come at me. And I found it astringent or acrid or something in a way that made it hard even just to keep it in my mouth. And I don't know,

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_12] maybe it's like a swallow it quickly thing or it's an acquired taste or it's a make your piss top drink a ton of water ahead of time so that there is just no flavor to it at all thing. But people just seem so into it and yeah, I mean, it's not like I like wine either and people are really into that. So maybe it's a me problem, but that's the question. Is piss an acquired taste?

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_08] Is piss an acquired taste? I imagine it could be, although infrequently acquired. Someone would have to be really motivated to acquire that taste. But yeah, piss, morning piss, piss 45 minutes after you had the asparagus risotto. Piss if you've been drinking pitchers of beer or a lot of water all night long. Piss is going to be very different in all three of those circumstances.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_08] Morning piss is powerful and dark yellow and acrid and smelly. Asparagus piss smells like asparagus piss. But if you've had a couple of pitchers of beer and a couple of glasses of water, when the piss comes out of you, it doesn't smell so strongly. It's really just hot water at that point. So yeah, when you clearly are interested in acquiring this taste, you've made a good faith effort now twice.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_08] If you want to be a piss drinking sub, then you should be intentional about when. And your partner, if they're interested in being a piss top and pissing in your mouth and seeing you swallow their piss or letting it run out of your mouth, they should be considerate about the preparation that they're going to do for that moment, which is not to piss in your mouth in the morning, not to order the asparagus risotto at dinner, if piss plays on the menu that night for you guys when you

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_08] get home, and to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Still going to taste like piss, I imagine, but it's not going to taste like morning piss or asparagus risotto piss. And maybe you could acquire a taste for that iteration of piss, for that well-hydrated, couple of pitchers of beer, couple of glasses of water, 11pm piss, as opposed to slept it off

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_08] 7am piss. Good luck. Time for listener feedback. First up, a few of the comments listeners left about last week's show in the comment threads at savage.love. Says in contempo, I don't think there is anything wrong with cum as skincare, but I sincerely doubt there is anything right with it either. Genes and luck with hormonal fluctuations showing mildly on the skin is a huge part of it. Sunscreen is a single best preventative measure, and the rest depends on skin type. I would just add, and I probably should have mentioned this in my

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_08] response to the caller who was wondering about using semen as moisturizer, that some people are allergic to a specific partner's semen. I experienced this myself. It's a reaction to a particular kind of enzyme. I had a boyfriend whose cum would literally raise welts on my body wherever it landed. This was in the on me, not in me era of HIV prevention. I wore his welts with pride, but he wasn't allowed to get that shit anywhere near my face. Says Delta 35, I laughed when Dan suggested to the jockstrap

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_08] caller that he use his words at sex parties, lest people misunderstand what he meant by that jockstrap. I know Dan is not one for sex parties, Delta continues. Dan has never been to Fire Island, but the volume levels at most sex parties make it very challenging to use your words. JJ72, about the same caller, said the jockstrap top made me think of these white socks that say I'm a top or I give the best blow jobs. That could do the trick for that caller.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_08] Otherwise, just use your words like Dan said. All right, to both of you, I gotta say, I imagine just as loud music makes it hard to use your words, dim lights at a sex party or a club might make it difficult to read your socks. And yet, people manage to find what they want at loud, dark sex parties. And yeah, Delta, I have been to Fire Island, but I have been to the mountaintop, Berlin, and I have seen the promised land, lab, so I'm not exactly a sex party virgin. Says Joe

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_08] Aglow, eh, who hasn't done it on a Ferris wheel, but only at the top with an opaque bottomed seat and excellent end of show listener comments last week, Dan. Such a thoughtful and knowledgeable commentariat here at savage.love. Well, I've done it at a sex party. But I haven't done it on a Ferris wheel, and neither has no cute name who jumped in to add that. But I agree with Joe Aglow. We do have the most thoughtful and knowledgeable commentariat around, which is why Savage Love is literally the only place on the

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_08] internet where you should read the comments. All right, got something to say about something I said? Jump into the comment thread at savage.love and drop it in the comments, or give us a call at 206-302-2064, or email us a voice memo at q at savage.love if you want to say it here on the show. And now, Savage Love listeners who called in with comments about last week's show, our wonderful commentariat, get to have the last word on this week's show.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_04] Hi, Dan, Nancy, and the tech savvy at Risk Youth. I'm calling in response to Dan's intro to episode 1036, where he talked about the people who met on a Ferris wheel and the guy ended up getting arrested for getting a blowjob. I wanted to add on to Dan's talking about people meeting on hookup apps and having it be a surprise. Going back to the 80s, I knew a couple in Boston, a gay

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_04] couple, who had met in the early 1970s in, of all places, a tea room. Yes, they met having sex in a bathroom. And when I knew them in about 1987 or 1988, they'd been together for nearly 20 years. And they had met in a bathroom. It was a random hookup and they'd fell in love and met in a bathroom. So, yes, random,

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_04] gross, cruisy hookups can turn into a lifelong love affair.

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_11] Hi, Dan. This is a response to the woman who's having the intrusive thought about her boss during sex. I think the reality is that any intrusive thought can be pretty much handled the same way, which is that the more that we try to push it away or push it down, the more it hangs around. And so, really, my advice is just to welcome this thought in. Just allow it to be there. Allow your boss's face to be present during sex. Expect it, even, and welcome it. The more that you try to pathologize

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_11] it, I think the more powerful it becomes. And you can certainly talk to your therapist about it, but just do it from a place of interest. There's nothing wrong with you. Once you can kind of just accept it and welcome it and not worry too much about it, it will go away on its own.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, Dan, and everyone else. This is a response for episode 1036 for the woman who can't get the image of her co-worker's face out of her head while she's getting fucked. I think she should lean into it and enjoy the fact, enjoy the knowledge that wherever that guy is at the moment that she's thinking about him, he is definitely 100% not having as much fun as she is.

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_08] And we are going to leave it there. Got a question for me? Got a comment for us? Go to savage.love slash askdan to record and upload your question or your comment directly onto our website. Or you can email us a voice memo at q at savage.love or you can give us a call and leave us a message at 206-302-2064. If you tried something new and you want to tell me and my listeners all about it, email us at q at savage.love let us know what you tried and you might be my next guest on After Action Report.

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_08] And everybody, it is the most wonderful time of the year. That's right, the Hump Film Festival, the world's best dirty little film festival, is back in theaters now with a brand new lineup of sexy, funny, kinky, sometimes hilarious, sometimes harrowing, but always wildly entertaining creative short films. In select cities, you can join your fellow Hump goers for happy hours after parties and dirty fun after the show. Find out when Hump is coming to your town in or on a city near you and

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_08] get tickets and watch the trailer at humpfilmfest.com. Follow me at bluesguy at dan savage, follow me on Instagram at dan savage. The Savage Love Cast is produced every week by Nancy Hartunian and me and Nancy and the tech savvy at risk youth. We will all be back at you next week on the installment of the Savage Love Cast. Thank you for telling me.

[00:47:08] Bye.