Savage Love Episode 1025

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_05] 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!

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_03] If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harm, Savage Lovecast!

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_07] Let those amongst you who have not gone on vacation with your scorchingly hot and totally stacked live-in senior mal-advisors cast the first stone. Well, I haven't. I do live with a couple of dudes, but if anyone is advising anyone around here, it's me. I am the senior mal-advisor. So I will go ahead and cast a stone, but not, as it turns out, the first stone.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_07] Credit for the first stone or two goes to Tim Miller and Will Sommer at the Bulwark Takes podcast over the weekend. They elaborated on a story posted at SourcesSay.News and sources cited by SourcesSay said, try saying that three times fast. Sources cited by SourcesSay said, Representative Abe Hamada, Republican of Arizona and a rising star in the MAGA movement, first elected to Congress in 2024.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_07] For an unmarried man, incidentally, that guy, that unmarried male congressman from Arizona, Republican, has a senior live-in male advisor who happens to be a former realtor with no background in politics. This advisor, live-in male, was the highest paid member of Hamada's staff until he was moved over to his re-election campaign a couple of months ago. And the two men, according to sources cited by SourcesSay, they live together.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_07] Have I mentioned that they live together? In Washington, D.C. And go on vacations together and work out together. There is a lot of pink smoke here. What may be a little gay sex scandal just in time for the last day of Pride Month. And in what may be the biggest tell of all, the very first thing Representative Hamada did when he got to Congress was redecorate his office to look like something out of a British costume drama.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_07] I have seen the pictures. Looks like Bridgerton in there. But in Hamada's version of Bridgerton, the best heaving bosoms are on his senior male advisor and not on the marriageable daughters of the aristocracy. Some of you who've been paying attention for a little longer might recall a former Republican member of Congress, Aaron Schock, who had his office redecorated to look like something out of Downton Abbey. Schock also had a hot staffer, a male photographer that he traveled with.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_07] And like Hamada, Schock was unmarried. So a tale of two closet cases to close out Pride Month. Like Hamada, Schock, who is now out of Congress and out of the closet as well. Schock liked to post sexy pics. It was shirtless pics for Schock, pictures taken by his live-in and travel-with male staff photographer. But Representative Hamada, it's pantsless pics.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_07] He shared a pic after that appalling fight on the White House lawn. A pic of him in the White House wrapped in an American flag wearing nothing but a square cut red Speedo looking thing. And again, no pants. Hamada would, in that outfit, fit right in at a July 4th party on Fire Island this weekend. It would be funny. I would be able to enjoy this more if everything happening absolutely everywhere at this moment

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_07] weren't so fucking tragic. But I am going to will myself to take what pleasure I can in this story. Hamada is a first-generation American, an Arab, born to Syrian immigrant parents. Hamada supports Trump and ICE rounding up immigrants and Trump wanting to end the kind of birthright citizenship that made Hamada himself a citizen. And Hamada has said, nothing I could find while Trump administration officials float the idea of stripping

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_07] naturalized citizens and anchor babies, babies like Hamada, of their citizenship and deporting them to countries where they've never lived and do not speak the language. And of course, like shock, Hamada is a vocal opponent of gay rights. He's introduced legislation to ban the display of pride flags on federal property. He opposes quote-unquote gender ideology.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_07] It is always the closet cases who are the most vocal opponents of LGBT rights because they think it puts them above suspicion, so far above suspicion that they can live with hot men and vacation with hot men and post pictures shirtless or in their underwear without setting off anyone's or everyone's gaydar. There's been some debate about the ethics of outing when people are talking about Hamada.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_07] It was the same debate we had about shock. But the fact is, no one outed shock and no one is outing Hamada. These guys, both of them, were outing themselves. One sexy staffer, one sexy shirtless or pantsless selfie, one over-the-top office reno at a time. All right, speaking of gay members of Congress, I would really like to see Scott Weiner, an out and

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_07] proud gay man, a gay man who has served in the California state legislature for more than a decade where he's effectively championed LGBT rights. And by effectively, I mean he didn't just talk the talk about supporting LGBT people. He got a lot of important pro-LGBT legislation passed and onto the governor's desk and signed. I would like to see him elected to Congress this fall to Nancy Pelosi's old seat.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_07] Scott has been a champion of the trans community, which is what was so galling about seeing him attacked at a rally for trans rights in SF this weekend, which he has attended every year for the last 22 years. The loudest person attacking Scott, as we later learned, is a straight cis guy who identifies, big sigh here, as quote unquote culturally queer.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_07] That man, again, that straight cis man was telling Scott loudly on video that he posted, proud of himself, he told Scott that unlike his straight ass, Scott, who's been an out gay man for decades and decades and decades, isn't queer. That no one at this event was shouting down the people shouting at Scott was a sad indictment of all the other people at this event, maybe getting rid of the gatekeepers, as it turns out, may have been a mistake.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_07] Like a lot of people this weekend, I kicked in some money for Scott's campaign. It was his biggest fundraising day ever. So that attack on Scott backfired. If you're inclined to join me, if you'd like to see Scott Weiner in Congress, if you've got a few dollars to spare and you want to help put not just a fighter for LGBT rights into Congress, but someone who's led the fight for housing and been a guest here on the Savage Lovecast to talk about housing. You know, a whole lot of desperately needed housing is going to be built in California

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_07] over the next 20 years. Thanks to legislation Scott proposed and got through the legislature and onto the governor's desk for his signature over the last 10 housing that will, in many cases, wind up being homes for trans refugees fleeing to California from increasingly hostile red states. If you would like to see a fearless fighter like Scott in Congress, go to ScottWeiner.com, click on donate.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_07] The messy closet cases, of course, they are fun, fun to talk about, fun to watch, stumble out of their glass closets. But an out gay man, an already out gay man who's not going to redecorate his office in some ridiculous way, an out gay man with a track record of legislative accomplishments, that's the kind of gay man we need in Congress right now, not Representative Hamada. All right, coming up on today's show, flooding someone's basement can be a good thing.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_07] That can be a sexy thing, metaphorically. But this caller's boyfriend is having his basement flooded regularly and there's nothing sexy about it. Find out why and find out who the culprit is. Also this week, friend of the show, Dr. Carlton drops by to weigh in on the A-Ball, a product that is supposed to replace douching. It is the talk of the internet and this week it is the talk here on the Savage Lovecast.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_07] And joining me here on the Magnum, Sean Galenos, host of the Love Drive podcast. He drops in to help me answer a question from a very, very horny woman who wonders whether she should hire a male sex worker if she could find one who works with female clients. Sean, a straight guy who used to be a sex worker that worked with female clients, has some suggestions for my callers on locating providers like him.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_07] My convo list, Sean, again, is on the Magnum, the longer, stronger, ad-free version of the show that you can subscribe to at savage.love.com. And if you subscribe today, June 30th, you get a full year of Magnum for half off. It's our annual June sale for new subscribers. Just 25 bucks gets you the longer, ad-free, guest-filled Magnum Lovecast. Sex and Politics, my longer form show. More Savage Love, invites to Savage Love Live, and yeah, more, just more. All for supporting the show.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_07] Last week, Savage Love Live with my husband, Terry, was a blast. 500 people came by to ask a lot of nosy but welcome and invited and calmly answered questions about our relationship. And they got to see me and Terry be the Bickersons in real time. For Magnum subs who missed the show, you will be able to watch a recording of it. We will email all Magnum subs a link to the video this week. Be sure to look for it in your inboxes and to subscribe. To support the show, to become a sub, head over to savage.love.com.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_07] Oh, and one last thing. P.S. Last night at dinner, Tom, that would be Terry's live-in boyfriend, his junior male advisor, he asked whether he could come on Savage Love Live. So, Magnum subs, you have that convo to look forward to. All right, let's get to the first call.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_05] This episode of the Lovecast is brought to you by the good folks at Squarespace. They make it easy to build a beautiful website, blog, or online store. Head on over to squarespace.com slash savage for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code savage to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_07] This episode is brought to you by Field, an app where curious people come to connect. Download Field on the App Store or Google Play and find out why so many of my listeners are already using it.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_09] Hello, Dan, Nancy, and the Tech Savvy at Risk Youth. I have a question about self-deprecating remarks because my husband recently voiced some concern that I have been sort of down on myself regarding my looks to give you some idea of my background. No one ever called me hot or handsome, but thanks to like working out at the gym and watching

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_09] my diet from about age 20 to about age 60, I would describe myself as fuckable. You know, not hot, not good looking, but you know, I'd fuck that guy. But you know, now I look in the mirror and I would not fuck that guy. And you know, I make some comments about it sometimes. And anyway, my husband thinks it's bad for my mental health. Anyway, so what do you think? Self-deprecating comments? Unhealthy? Healthy? Neutral?

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_09] I guess, obviously, I should stop making them in front of my husband. But other than that, what do you think?

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_07] I am right there with you. I have never once looked in a mirror and thought, I would fuck that guy. But I did learn eventually to take yes for an answer and that there were guys who wanted to fuck me. So I cleared the fuckable bar, which is a pretty low bar generally. And those guys would sometimes tell me that they thought I was hot. And I had a problem hearing that. I couldn't really hear that. I would roll my eyes. I would scoff.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_07] I still kind of do. And it was an insult to them, their taste, their intelligence, their truthfulness. When I would do that, I was basically saying, you're lying to me when some guy, like the guy I married, or some other guys would tell me that they thought I was hot. And I had to really beat it into my own head that hot is subjective and that there are people out there that friends of mine think are hot that I don't.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_07] And people out there that I think are hot that other people don't. And it's perfectly possible for me to think I'm not that hot, but to accept that other people do find me hot. I don't know about you, but sometimes, you know, I look at pictures of myself in my thirties and forties when I felt unfuckable and not hot. And I'm like, huh, I was all right. I wasn't bad. And so it stands to reason, even though I've gotten older, that the people who are telling

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_07] me they want to fuck me now, people for whom I clear, not just the fuckable bar, but the hot bar are telling me the truth. And when I'm in my eighties, I'm going to look at some pictures of myself in my sixties when I was convinced I wasn't hot or fuckable and go, ah, wasn't that bad. You got to do the same. And yes, absolutely positively self-deprecating comments, the grunting, the shrugging, the scoffing. Like I used to do unhelpful.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_07] When your husband pays you a compliment, do not insult his intelligence or his tastes or tell him that his feelings about you or his attraction to you is invalid. It is exhausting. And it's exhausting in part because when you're the one who doesn't think you're hot and you're told you're hot and you scoff, it puts that other person in the position of having to do the emotional labor of arguing with you about it, of having to say it again.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_07] My husband will sometimes tell me I'm hot. That's his job. My boyfriend will sometimes tell me I'm hot. That's his job. And it's fine. I die a little inside when they say it to me because I still don't quite believe it. Maybe when, again, when I look at those pictures of myself in my sixties, when I'm on my death bed, I'll go, yeah, they weren't lying to me then either. But I've learned to mask it. I have internalized the scoff. I no longer scoff audibly or visibly.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_07] I spare them that because refusing to take their word for it, refusing to take that yes for an answer that you are fuckable and the person who is standing there with a boner wanting to fuck you sabotages your relationship and reinforces your own negative attitudes about yourself. And you don't need any help with that, particularly from yourself. Now, reaching around with the insecurities.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_10] Hey, Dan and the tech savvy at rescue was in Chicago neighborhood Andersonville this past week for the midsummer festival, which is a white gay neighborhood within Chicago. As Dan, you probably know better than I was with my girlfriend holding hands, walking around and more than a few times was requested to have an additional hand held by the very gay population there. Only my hand was requested to be held.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_10] Happy to hold hands. Seemed like a fun little inclusive thing. But later on, is this a bit was a question that entered my mind. Is there something that means something that I don't know? I am a big, dumb, straight guy, but curious if this is a thing or just a pleasantry that was nice enough.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_07] So when Terry and I moved into the house where we live on the block, where we live in Seattle 20 plus years ago, our next door neighbor heard that gay men were moving in and she marched across the street to a stay at home dad who is now one of our very best friends. And asked him what he was going to do if the gay guy is moving into the house directly across the street from his, if we tried to kiss him, because that is of course what gay men do. We run through the neighborhood kissing straight stay at home dads.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_07] It's totally from the gay recruitment playbook. No, that is not a thing that happens. That's not a thing that gay couples, when they move into the neighborhood, do. We don't run up and down the street kissing the straight married men who live on our block. We live in Seattle. There is no shortage here of gay guys who want to kiss other gay guys. We do not have to resort to recruiting or sexually assaulting straight guys.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_07] Our next door neighbor, now one of our biggest fans, friends, it's all fine. It all worked out. This is how people learn and grow, particularly 20 plus years ago when we were literally the first gays, first gay men on our blog. So just as 20 years ago, we had to reassure our neighbors that this isn't a thing that gay men do. My feeling is this thing that happened to you? Not a thing gay men do.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_07] Maybe it was a bit. I'm thinking maybe a friend group at the street party in Andersonville, which wasn't a gay neighborhood when I was growing up in Chicago, but is absolutely a gay neighborhood. Now it was a Swedish neighborhood when I was growing up. The Swedes left, the gays moved in, the lesbians moved in. Yeah, it's a gay neighborhood now. I'm thinking a friend group at the festival clocked you and your girlfriend, and maybe they

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_07] thought that you were clinging to her in a gay panic sort of way, telegraphing to everyone on the street, that you were happy to be at the gay festival, but you didn't want anyone to think for even a single second that you might be a gay man yourself. So you couldn't let go of your girlfriend for even an instant. We've seen straight guys do that in gay bars.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_07] We see straight guys do that at gay street festivals or gay neighborhood parties. I've seen straight guys do that at mostly gay dinner parties that they were invited to. As if gay men invite the straight couple who just moved into the building or onto the block over for dinner to try to pick off the straight boyfriend, not a thing that happens. Maybe a friend group clocked you and they were just goofing, teasing.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_07] On a dare, they came up to you one after another and asked if they could hold your hand too. This is not anything that you will find in the protocols of the elders of West Hollywood about how to torment straight guys in public. This is not a thing. Not doubting that this is a thing that happened to you on this day at this street party, but the explanation has to be something simpler than the directive went out from gay HQ

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_07] and now this is what gay people do at street parties when they spot straight guys. No, some gay guys saw you and decided to pick the wings off the straight fly. That would be you. Sorry, that's kind of dehumanizing rhetoric. They decided to tease you by coming up and asking to hold your hand too. It's a kind of razzing, kind of affectionate hazing where they were at once acknowledging that you weren't out of place, but you weren't like all the others,

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_07] but also wanting you to feel welcome, but on their terms. It's also a way for gay men, maybe gay men at that street party that you were at where this happened, to police the event. Because if you weren't comfortable being approached, even in a joking way, by a gay man about holding your hand, you would have fled. You would have run screaming from the event. You wouldn't have belonged at the event if you were a straight guy prone to gay panic.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_07] So maybe they were trying to panic you out of there if you didn't belong there. And you proved by sticking around to be asked again and again and again and holding guys' hands from the sounds of things that you did belong there, that you were, although straight, one of us.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_05] This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. They make it easy to build a website, blog, or online store. I use Squarespace for my stupid klezmer band. We use Squarespace for Dan's stupid film festival. You will use Squarespace for your cool business or creative project. Squarespace has state-of-the-art design tools, so anyone can build a classy, professional-looking online presence that fits your vibe. It discovered fast with integrated Squarespace SEO tools.

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[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, Dan. My boyfriend is a very handsome man, and he lives in a ground-floor apartment, and his neighbor upstairs is a guy in his late 50s, and this guy has flooded the ground-floor apartment at least 20 times. Every time this happens, it's the same thing. It's always the evening. My boyfriend is always home. Water starts coming through the ceiling,

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_00] and my boyfriend runs to bang on his neighbor's door and alert him, and this guy emerges wearing women's lingerie. My boyfriend goes back in, starts to mop up, and then he gets this really apologetic email from the neighbor, who's like really beating himself up, and he always says that he was just running a bath and lost track of time. Now, my boyfriend is focused on dealing with the insurers

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_00] and getting his ceiling fixed, and I'm trying to work out what is going on. This has happened so many times that it's just impossible to believe that this is an accident. I think the neighbor is absorbed in some kind of water-related kink, and I should add that this always happens whenever the neighbor's wife is away, and I think that it happens after the neighbor has seen my boyfriend outside,

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00] like they've passed in the street. I mean, I interpret this apologetic email as some kind of post-wank shame. My question for you, Dan, is have you heard of a kink where people get off on the sound of running water?

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_07] This is not an accident, nor is it a water-related kink. Your boyfriend's, your hot boyfriend's upstairs neighbor, who's a cross-dresser, has a humiliation kink, wants to get caught in his women's scanties by a hot dude, and he now knows 20 times, he's done this 20 times, he now knows that he can summon a hot dude to his door whenever he wants because your boyfriend moved in under him downstairs,

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_07] and he just has to let the tub overflow, get into his women's panties while the tub is overflowing, start having his wank while he stares at his front door, waiting for your boyfriend to materialize at the door, to knock at the door. And then he opens the door and says, oh my God, I'm so sorry, oh, you caught me, oh, look at me, I'm in my, I'm in my women's underpants, how mortifying. And then he shuts the door, opens the drain in the tub, and finishes having his wank.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_07] It is a fine thing to wank about neighbors, coworkers, and we're all free to wank about whoever we want to wank about. We are not free to press gang someone into making an appearance in our wank session against their will, and then send them a self-lacerating, self-flagellating email after, where you try to style yourself as the victim of your own stupidity, to try to elicit sympathy

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_07] from the person you just violated and used the way this guy upstairs is violating and using your neighbor. Overflow drains have been a standard feature on tubs, on bathtubs. I looked it up for a hundred years. This is not happening by accident. Not only is he putting the plug in the tub, he's also stuffing a washcloth or something into the overflow drain at the top of the tub

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_07] so that it overflows, so that it summons your boyfriend, who he clocked coming into the building. He only does this after he checks whether your boyfriend is home or knows that your boyfriend is home, because it brings him to the front door. So what do you do? Well, you could take it up at the condo association. Your boyfriend could contact the last person who lived in this apartment before he moved in or owned the apartment before he moved in to find out if this was something this guy was doing to them. And I guarantee you,

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_07] if the previous tenant or owner was hot and male too, he was probably doing it to them. Didn't think of it right after your boyfriend arrived. And you build a case and sue if you want to really get ugly about it. But I think there's a simpler route, which is these emails and the fact, the evidence that you have that he's hiding this activity from his wife. He sends these emails after it happens,

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_07] apologizing profusely and flagellating himself. Oh, you can't be mad at me. I'm so mad at myself. It would be piling on if you were mad at me too. We know this strategy. It's very manipulative when somebody does something wrong and you have every right to be mad at them, but you can't beat them up metaphorically because they're standing there in front of you beating themselves up. It's an abuser's tactic and a manipulative piece of shit's tactic. Forward these emails.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_07] Tell this guy you're going to forward the emails to his wife if it does not stop. And then the next time it happens, forward the emails to the wife. Let her know what the f... is going on. And that she's in some financial peril too because you are, your boyfriend is sick of this and going to sue and already has all the evidence he needs. That the upstairs neighbor is at fault.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_07] And of course you should turn this evidence over to his insurance dude, the insurance company that should be going after the upstairs neighbor to be reimbursed for the damage that he's been doing to your boyfriend's apartment that theoretically his condo insurance is covering. Not a running water fetish. That is not a thing. You know, I sometimes say that if it exists in the world somewhere, someone is jerking off to it right now. But I've never heard from anybody or heard about anybody with a running water fetish

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_07] or an overflowing tub fetish. Not a thing. Occam's razor. The thing is getting caught in those panties and the lingerie by a hot guy. And your boyfriend's upstairs neighbor knows exactly what button to press or what overflow drain to block to bring that hot guy to his door. This episode is brought to you by Field, the dating app you keep hearing my callers talk about on this show. If you're wondering why,

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[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02] Hi, Dan. I was wondering if you've seen or heard of the Polari Labs table that seems to be early advertising itself as a replacement for douching.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_07] Joining me to help answer this question, Dr. Carlton, the internet's favorite butt stuff and queer sexual health doc with nearly 400,000 followers across social media platforms. He is the co-host of Butt Honestly, a podcast about sex, socializing, love and butt stuff packed full of great info, laughs, and everything you need to know to hoe responsibly. Dr. Carlton, welcome back to the Savage Lovecast. Hey, thanks for having me, Dan. So, the Abel from Polari Labs. Have you heard of it?

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_08] Yeah, I actually have heard of it. I've had a lot of DMs on my Instagram about this product and people want to know what it is. Do I think it's going to work? You know, should they send money in for it? Or some are saying, hey, I'm sending money in for this project. You know, you should too. I've been contacted by the company but I don't want to deal with them.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_07] So, what is it? Just let us know what it is. For people who haven't, no one sent them the link yet or haven't heard anything about it yet, what is an Abel and how is it going to replace theoretically douching, cleaning out before anal sex?

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_08] So, the whole idea is it's designed as an alternative to anal douching before receptive anal sex. According to the company, it's a softball made primarily from collagen and alginate, which is like a seaweed-derived material. It's intended to act as a temporary barrier between stool and the anal canal during sex. So, what one does is wash their hands, apply water-based lube to this gelatinous ball, which is a little bit firm

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_08] initially, not too firm, and then you push it up into your anus, into the rectum with your finger. And then what's supposed to happen then is it's supposed to form a blockade between anything above that area and where you're getting fucked. So, basically, it's meant to be kind of like a dam. But, you know, I see a lot of potential pitfalls here. Over time, it's supposed to melt, not melt, but soften to a gelatinous consistency,

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_08] kind of like the consistency of stool, so that it can be expelled properly. For me, I'm concerned about it melting to, quickly, or not really making things clean enough inside the rectum. The rectal vault can be kind of wide in people, especially people who've been fisted before. You know, that vault is, I don't see how a little ball is going to block stool in someone's rectal vault that's been stretched out from fisting or large toys.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_07] So, let me just run through a couple of my doubts. Have you seen the cross-sections on their website?

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_08] Yes, definitely. And it's pretty, you know, stomach-turning.

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_07] Just about putting me off anal sex forever. Basically, you shove this gelatin ball up your butt and it functions as kind of a dam, a cervical cap, I guess, for your ass. Yeah. And the theory is the poop is further up the gut and this ball is in between your anus and this point in your gut and then somebody can fuck you and the idea is the ball melts and my first thing is like, how quickly does it melt and anal becomes a race against time? Because if there's a dam in there,

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_07] the dam could burst at any time. So, unlike douching, which you could do a couple of hours before you play, you could go out, you can go to dinner, having douched and be ready to go for anal later, you can't put this ball up your butt and go out because by the time, you know, if you're waiting an hour or two to fuck, it will have already come to room temperature and melted. But the other thing that they kind of buried the lead a little bit in the cross-sections is that it'll only work for the average-sized penis. If a dick is too big, the ball isn't going

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_07] to be far enough up. The ball itself isn't just going to block shit off from above, it's going to block the dick from below. And since half of all dicks are above-average dicks, that means this isn't going to work for half of all dicks.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_08] Yeah. And so if you're going to a sex party, also if you're going to a sex party or going to a bathhouse or any sort of event like that where you're going to have sex with multiple people, I'm a little worried about the timing of how long it's going to last effective for someone. So it could end up being a big mess in a situation like that. Obviously, also with fisting, you're not going to be able to use this for fisting. That's going to require a really deeper, more intense clean-out. So I personally don't understand what's so hard about douching a little bit and taking fiber

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_08] every day. I take fiber supplements daily, psyllium husk-based things and other fibers that clean up the residue in the colon and then make my rinse-out process a four- or five-time rinse-out and I'm ready to go for anal sex. It's not a big deal at all.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_07] So there's obviously demand for this. They started a Kickstarter and they've raised $504,000 for more than 5,000 contributors. You've heard about it from a bunch of people. I've heard about it from a bunch of people. People ask me whether I'm excited about this or it's going to work. I'm not sure it's going to work, but clearly, although I don't think douching is that big a deal, it's pretty easy, it's pretty quick, they make douching sound like this protracted, embarrassing, shameful nightmare, hence the need

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_07] for this product in theory. So other people want an alternative to douching. The company itself says bottoms deserve better than douching, but in your experience douching, not that big a deal. In my experience, not that big a deal. So I don't understand the need, I mean, understand the butts this product is going to fill. I don't understand the need it's supposedly trying to fill.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_08] There are some people that I still talk to in my DMs who say, oh my God, douching is like a three-hour process for me, and I'm like, you're doing something wrong if it's taking three hours. You're putting way too much water up there, you're creating more mess. Small amounts of water, you're only rinsing out that last little bit, you don't need to go gallons and gallons and gallons of your culling. So yeah, I think, I would like to see this in real life. Obviously, there's 5,000 people who donated over $500,000

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_08] to make this thing happen. I'd like to see them get their experience on what it was like in real life because, you know, I don't mean to quote, cuckoo this, Tonya Cheech. I really am really skeptical about it and I would like to see what real life does with this thing because it's not available on the market.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_07] Actually, it kind of sort of is. I have a conspiracy theory about this product. I don't know if you've ever seen an ovipositor dildo. Ovipositors, egg depositors. Oh, yeah. Dildos designed for people who have fantasies about bugs or aliens laying eggs in them and it's a hollow dildo that looks like an alien dick or phallus of some sort that you can shove balls up and the balls you're supposed to shove up according to the product, you can go to actually bad-dragon.com

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_07] and look up ovipositor and see one. Not plastic balls, not silicone balls, not balls that could get lost in you but gelatin balls and at Bad Dragon, they sell molds for you to make your gelatin balls for yourself and I have this theory and it's just a conspiracy theory. It might not be true. Maybe they just reinvented the wheel from whole cloth, lightning struck, great minds think alike and whoever thought of the ovipositor, somebody at Polari Labs thought of this separately

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_07] and they're not related but I have this theory that somebody was using an ovipositor and thought oh hey, this gelatin ball but that means you can already buy molds, you don't have to wait for this company to send you these gelatin balls, you can buy a mold right now to make your own gelatin balls and shove them up your butt and see if it works and then get back to me and Dr. Carlton about whether this works or not because we're all dying to know.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_08] Yeah, for sure, absolutely. I'm really interested in what's going to go on here but like I said this has caused quite a stir in people so I'm sure it'll probably come out at some point and we'll see what happens.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_07] Dr. Carlton host of the But Honestly podcast thank you so much for coming back on the Savage Love Coast.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_08] You bet always good to be here.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_01] Hi Dan, I'm a single straight woman in my late 30s and I was wondering if we could talk about condoms. I took birth control for a long time but I'm not taking it anymore so I rely on condoms for pregnancy prevention and also STD prevention. Some of my partners recently even though they've been kind of long-term partners I've had multiple partners so I don't know it just feels like it gets a little bit scary to me even though you know maybe their partners have a STD check so it's just kind of like a web

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_01] of hookups that I feel like I'm making myself vulnerable to STDs and also have a lot of fear around accidental pregnancy because I've been in that circumstance before and also the people I'm with don't want to have a child either so anyway you'd think that men would just be more interested in wearing condoms but it's been my experience that they're really avoidant about it and it feels like they have amnesia about the conversation even though we've talked about it multiple times and I know

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_01] these aren't just like total assholes like they're otherwise nice considerate kind people consent oriented partners and I wish they're a little more on board and the obvious answer to this is I should just always have condoms on me which I don't and have them ready to go but I just really feel like it should be their responsibility I did birth control for years like I said and I don't think it's a lot to ask

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_01] and it really just makes me feel so cared for when men show up with a condom and I don't have to ask and it's not even a conversation and they just wear it and so I guess that's kind of like my PSA also tell me if you think I'm off base but it's embarrassingly hard for me to insist on a condom too and I'm not saying I haven't had these conversations because I have but it is hard for me and that sucks but that is the truth of that gender dynamic and I know I need to work on that and lastly there are also these all

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_01] these men who don't seem like they're able to maintain an erection with a condom do you think that practicing jacking off with a condom would help them?

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_07] Yeah it should be their responsibility should be Gabriel Stanley Blair the amazing writer interior designer and social media superstar wrote a whole book about it ejaculate responsibly maybe you should in addition to having a couple of boxes of condoms on your nightstand get yourself several dozen copies of ejaculate responsibly and hand them out to the guys who show up at your house and are suffering from a bout of condom amnesia that they've forgotten that the last time that you were with them

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_07] you explained that you needed them to wear a condom that it was sex with a condom or no sex and they somehow forgot they didn't forget they just don't want to wear a condom and yeah you're gonna have to get better about advocating for yourself you're not on birth control you don't want to contract an STI that you can avoid you do not want an unplanned pregnancy you need them to wear a condom you have to insist

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_07] and little advice from the darkest days of the HIV AIDS epidemic in your own best interest with casual sex partners to check while you're having sex that the condom hasn't quote unquote fallen off which just meant not pulling out necessarily not turning on the clay lights and inspecting the dick just letting your hand drift down every once in a while and feeling the dick because it's going in and out of you and making sure that that condom is still on that dick

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_07] as for advice for guys who have a problem wearing condoms or might lose their erection wearing a condom or are relying on losing an erection wearing a condom to get off the hook of having to wear a condom yeah you hit on something that was advice that was commonly given to gay men at the height of the HIV AIDS crisis get used to condoms sometimes jack off wearing a condom get accustomed to condoms that can help a guy maintain an erection with a condom if he associates having a condom

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_07] on with having orgasms and can self-stimulate and keep his erection also don't put the condom on the split second before penetration incorporate putting the condom on into the rolling around and the foreplay put it on well before penetration so that there isn't a sudden loss in that moment to open the condom packet which you can also do before you start fucking around if taking that moment pausing causes the erection to

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_07] begin to flag well yeah then keep rolling around keep playing with each other's tits keep sucking each other's faces do whatever it does that makes that dick hard whatever you were doing that was making that dick hard and you were getting ready for penetration keep doing that for a little bit and the erection will come back and the condom will then be at room temperature a dick temperature and not feel so foreign and the loss of sensation won't feel

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_07] so great when penetration starts also what a guy learns when he jacks off wearing a condom is that sometimes you need a little extra pressure so you should let guys know like sometimes guys go into penetrative sex with women with hangups about pulling out for a second stroking themselves and diving back in sometimes women give guys issues about that make guys feel self conscious about that because a woman will see a guy pull out give himself a few strokes before going back in and think oh he's not turned on

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_07] and will have a meltdown in some cases about the fact that oh like if I was he desired me enough if I was sexy enough if he was into me enough he wouldn't have to touch harder to be that hard at all times without the dude occasionally having to pump himself

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_07] back up so you should in addition to disinhibiting about insisting on condoms advocating for yourself making sure the guys know that if there's no condom there's no PIV other stuff you might be willing to do able to do you should let a guy know that you're not gonna think him less a man or any less attracted to you if mid-fucking you with that condom on he needs to pull out and use his own right hand for a minute and he also has the

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_07] option if you come from PIV sex maybe with the incorporation of a vibrator he also has the option of pulling out at the end taking the condom off and finishing not on your hole that carries risks for STI but on your tits on your back on your stomach anywhere that you're comfortable with him finishing on you and if not if that doesn't appeal to you a guy blowing his load on you then he can blow it on himself

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_04] hi Dan straight guy late 50s west coast so I recently had a surgery a holmium laser nucleation of the prostate or whole lip surgery for short which basically is a laser that's inserted into my urethra and it lops off a part that I didn't want in my case I had a

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_04] growth on my prostate that was pushing into my bladder causing a Hoover Dam like effect to my ability to void so they go in there and they lop it off and you can pee again but not pleasant not fun nothing about it fun I'm five or almost six days post op right now and part of my post op instructions are no heavy lifting no exercising and no sexual activity

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_04] including masturbation so ejaculation according to the surgeon can irritate the open wound that's on my prostate right now as it's healing and potentially cause bleeding infection and complications I have a great girlfriend and we have a great sex life so I've been trying to use this time to turn lemons into lemonade and focus on her and find new and interesting ways to go down on her and heat her ass and do all kinds of fun things

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_04] and make it different every night she wants to reciprocate without getting me to the point of ejaculation and one of the things she wants to do is suck my cock and my question is is it safe six seven days post surgery to have my girlfriend go down on me without me ejaculating or is that increasing my risk of infection

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_04] should I avoid even that maybe one of your medical experts can answer this one

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_07] don't need the assistance of a medical expert to help you with this one your doctor said no sexual activity you shouldn't even be going down on your girlfriend you shouldn't be putting yourself in a position where you're becoming aroused because during arousal the prostate swells in preparation as it gets ready to blow that load if you tiptoe up to the point of orgasmic inevitability and you take one step over the line

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_07] put yourself past the point of orgasmic inevitability you will ejaculate and the prostate contracts both things aren't good for you Dr. Google told me both things are bad for you considering I looked up the procedure you had both things are a risk not just ejaculating your doctor didn't say no ejaculation but go ahead and go down on your girlfriend and get a boner and let her suck your dick he said no sexual activity it's arousal at least right now early on

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_07] prostate doesn't swell up like a water balloon or something it doesn't increase in size 20 times during arousal but it swells so no no your girlfriend's not going to suck your dick not if she cares about you not if she wants to suck your dick in the future to have anything come out of it she's not going to suck your dick and you know what you shouldn't be going down

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_07] from your doctor who performed this procedure you need the all clear from him not from me dude come the fuck on don't come no coming no sexual activity period the end all right time for listener feedback first up a few of the written comments listeners left about last week's show in the comment thread at savage.love says tall canadian for the guy in the side

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_07] slash top relationship it can totally work my husband and I are a side top couple and we still have an active sex life after a quarter of a century together we've been open from the beginning so anything we can't do for each other we can find elsewhere the outside sex also boosts the in relationship sex but if you choose to open your relationship make sure you have lots of ongoing conversations about what open looks like for you guys says foxtrot delta for the caller looking for

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_07] a gag for gag options I recommend they check out www.moanspeak.com they make bespoke gags they'll tell you how to measure the recipient's mouth and head and then you choose the size and type of gag and the size and type of headgear and they make it and then they ship it to you loads of options I'm quite sure they have something that will work for you and your sub great advice from sishetboy for the caller who was threatened by her girlfriend's vibrator

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_07] the whole comment too long to read here but I did want to share this part of it I've had the dumb luck and or good fortune to experience relationships with a few women who have like the caller's partner taken a lot of time and effort to achieve orgasm sishetboy continues many of them felt shame and inadequacy over their sexual response and have been made to feel insecure about the time it takes them please caller do not do anything to foster those feelings in

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_07] your partner got something to say about something I said on this week's show you can always jump into the comment threads at savage.love and say it there or you can give us a call at 206-302-2064 and leave us a message or you can email us a voice memo at q at savage.love and you might get to say it on next week's show and now savage love listeners who left messages on one of our many answering machines about last week's show get to have the last word as they always

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_07] do on this week's show

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_11] hi Dan this is a comment for the dom looking for a comfortable day to shut up his stuff I want to to consider using a pacifier this can be a really comfortable gag give it a try see how you like it

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_12] hi there I just wanted to have a response to the caller in episode 1024 who was looking for a safer type of tape to use as his partner you could also try vet tape which is used on animals when you have to tape around a wound or something it sticks to itself it doesn't stick to fur or hair and it's really easy to take off

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_06] hey this is for the caller whose partner doesn't like ball gags but he also didn't want to use tape I like the sort of oral penetration vibe of an actual gag rather than tape and coming from the shibari community I use something called a tenugui I may be mispronouncing that t-e-n-u-g-u-i this is a Japanese hand towel and it's sort of like a handkerchief but a bit longer and you can just use it as a gag just by tying it around your partner's head

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_06] you can tie a knot in the middle if you want a little bit of a ball gag vibe but it's a lot softer than a ball gag and I found people who don't like ball gags do often like that

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_07] and we are going to leave it there got a sex problem got a relationship quandary got a comment for us go to savage.love slash askdan to record and upload your question or comment directly onto our website or you can record a voice memo and email us your question at q at savage.love or you can call us at 206-302-2064 and leave us a message at any time of day or night and hey if you tried something new and you want to share all the dirty details

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_07] with me and my listeners send us an email at q at savage.love let us know what you tried and you might be our next guest on after action right now and heads up hump fans the fall season of hump hump 2026 part 2 is coming right up and our eager beaver pre-sale starts july 1st this is your chance to snag the lowest price tickets of the season before prices go up pick your screening grab your discounted tickets early and hey if your

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_07] plans change later we will help you switch to another available show visit humpfilmfest.com to get those eager early beaver tickets and we will see you this fall and while you are on the website click on submit to find out everything you need to know about getting your dirty little film into our dirty little film festival follow me on blue sky at dan savage follow me on instagram at dan savage follow dr carlton on instagram at dr carlton be sure to check out his podcast but

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_07] honestly follow sean galenos on instagram at the love drive savage love cast 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 downloading this episode of the savage love cast 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

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[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_07] load boost dot com and use offer code savage you