Isn't this the guy that said women should still have sex with their partners even if they are tired?

transcript, please?? (I'm Deaf.. if anybody can fill me in what he said, that'd be great)

Brown trash punk, delivered! 90 WPM ftw.

Hey, Sarah Palin, my name is Dan Savage and I'd like to be your gay friend. Here's why I think I'd be a great choice for your gay friend. I write a sex advice column called Savage Love and I talk to a lot of teenagers about sex and sexuality and responsibility and birth control. You have kids, who have been apparently deprived of any sort of sex education because your religiously opposed to it, and I could be their sort of cool gay uncle, kinda close to their parents age, but the one they could come to and confide in about their sex problems, and come to when they need advice about birth control or abortions or men. And I think they could relate to me, particularly Levi, your future son-in-law, because I have sort of a potty mouth like he does, uh, please see this poster here. Huh? Huh? Levi'll love it? So if I was your gay friend. what would happen would be I would come up to your house and we'd hang out, we'd all have dinner, and then maybe while you and Todd were doing dishes, or gutting and field-dressing the moose, your kids could, y'know, confide in me about their sex lives and their sex problems and get info from me about how to get their hands on birth control, which your family clearly needs more hands on. While I talk to your kids about sex, you and Todd can talk to my kid about God! Because he would really like to see you guys skin a moose. That'd be right up his alley, and it's not something he ever gets to see at home. So, Sarah Palin, my name is Dan Savage and I'd like to be your gay friend.

Now that that's out of the way, Dan Savage's sex advice column is something I started reading at 15, and I think every sex-obsessed teenager should do the same.

http://www.thestranger.com/savage

Dan Savage gets in hot water with a lot of people and has been called out on a few things here. I read his column every week and most the time I agree with him, about the same rate I agree with Feministing actually. I think disagreement is healthy. Overall he's an advocate of sexual freedom and mutual responsibility between partners.

Without Dan Savage or Feministing, my little world would be a darker place that's for sure. Thanks for posting.

Isn't this the guy that said women should still have sex with their partners even if they are tired?

No.

But it's really easy to take one of his answers out of context and make him seem like an asshole, as has been done over in Community recently. You're far better off reading several full Q&As by him to get a flavor for his advice.

hey alixana, I've been reading Savage Love for half a decade, and though I didn't when I was younger, I've now gotten to a point where I do really adamently object to some of his common pieces of advice. I do think he tends to favor advice that benefits more men than women, mainly b/c of pre-existing cultural conditions and whathaveyou. I also don't like his position that certain sex acts ought to be obligatory (even if for both partners), such as oral sex. He heavily favors experimentation and pushing boundaries over conservativsm, and well, in some relationships maybe that's fine, but I think in reality in most relationships guys still put more pressure on their gfs for that sort of stuff than vice versa.

I like that Dan donates to gay rights campaigns, and I like his strong support of safe sex & sex education, especially for youth. I like that he wants parents to accept their gay kids.

But this doesn't mean he hasn't said some really fucked up sexist shit. I'm sorry. And yes, I have been reading his column weekly for the past six years. These are some seriously problematic things I have noticed, and I regret I don't have the links, but they can be dug up through archives:

1)The "ewww gross yucky vaginas" attitude, which perpetuates the stereotype that gay guys hate women, and certainly does nothing to help young women feel positive about our bodies.

2)The time(s) Dan doubted/questioned that a woman in a particular letter had been raped/abused.I think this happened twice.

3)Fatphobia (against both genders). Better not gain weight or your partner has every right to be disgusted & cheat!

4)The time Dan said that it wasn't a big deal for a woman to do all of the cleaning and chores if her boyfriend wouldn't do it.

5)The time Dan told a man to give his partner Ambien if he wanted to fuck her while she was sleeping. (The guy wrote in saying his wife consented to sleep sex when she was awake but always struggled/pushed him away when she was sleeping)

etc etc

oh, and yes, I DON'T think any sex act should be obligatory in a relationship for any gender. That seems so fucking obvious to me.

If there is one thing I learned from feminism, it's that I never have to do something sexually that I don't feel comfortable with just to please my partner.

thanks for the transcript. Gotcha.

yeah I dont always agree with his column, but he advocates sex awareness, which I totally favor.

Defending Dan Savage:

He described oral sex as something to be expected, and made exception for people who have a specific reason (e.g., sexual assault) to be disgusted by it. However, the overall message from his advice column is always one of finding people with whom you can be comfortably mutually satisfied. So when he says it's fair game to break up with someone because they won't go down on you, that's where it's coming from -- he's against people being in relationships where they're not getting what they want sexually.

That's also where the fatphobia comes from, and I don't see what's wrong with it. If you won't be sexually satisfied with an overweight partner, and you're up-front about it, then it's fine to leave a relationship because you won't be sexually satisfied in it. I'm curious what you think they should do, alice-paul. Man up (woman up) and turn the lights out during sex? Then nobody will be happy.

The cleaning and chores thing, like everything else, is something he's egalitarian about. If a couple works out better with an uneven division of chores, so be it. What he's saying isn't make me a sandwich, it's don't make yourself unhappy just to avoid traditional gender roles. The advice was to a couple in which the woman was okay with cleaning more, who needed a cleaner environment than the guy did. He compared it to gay relationships in which one partner is more domestic. Columns like that have taught me that relationships don't have to be symmetrical, which has helped me a lot in my relationship with my partner. Also, would it be a big deal for a guy to do all the cleaning and chores if his girlfriend wouldn't do them? No, so long as they were both honestly happy with the relationship that way.

Finally, the Ambien thing. This is something I view as an intensely feminist issue, and will fight to my last breath that every man and woman on earth has the right to fulfill whatever fetish they want to, if they can find consenting adult human partners to fulfill them with. The man wanted to have sex with his wife while she slept, and the wife repeatedly consented while awake, but pushed him away while asleep. Dan Savage advised that the wife take Ambien (not that the husband slip her Ambien).

The problem, apparently: the wife will be in a situation where she can't retract consent. Saying that's not okay is taking away female agency. There are people out there with fetishes that involve being in situations where they can't retract consent (bound and gagged, for example), and they have the right to consensually enter that situation with someone they trust.

Phew. Okay, hit me.

Hah. Love this.

Dan Savage is one of my favorite columnists. He occasionally gives some pretty fucked up advice, but he'll usually admit he was wrong and post some responses. He has a well-known habit of writing while drunk and/or stoned, which explains a lot of it.

And some of it is just really taken out of context, like the bit of perfectly reasonable advice being bitched about in the community forum right now.

@alice-paul:

1) He doesn't care about being politically correct, which is one of the things I like about him. Considering that he regularly tells straight men to stop complaining and start enjoying eating pussy, it's pretty obvious that he doesn't think vaginas are that disgusting.

2) Yeah, that's one of my pet peeves about him. I hate it when he does that.

3) He's sometimes fatphobic, but he's never advised anyone to cheat just because their partner was fat, at least not that I can remember. He's just of the opinion that sex is very important in a relationship, and if you're not attracted to your partner that's something you need to deal with.

4) When was that? That's douchebaggy.

5) Okay, now you're just being insane. I remember that column. The guy had a sleepsex fetish and his wife told him that it was okay if he had sex with her while she was asleep. So he tried, and she'd always push him off, at which point he always STOPPED. Dan said that the problem should go away if she took an ambien. There's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, I see how maybe someone could use that information on someone who wasn't so willing, but that's a dumb reason not to print it.

"oh, and yes, I DON'T think any sex act should be obligatory in a relationship for any gender."

dan savage's point (often repeated) is this: if you really want a sex act (especially a vanilla sex act like oral sex), and your partner flat out refuses to even try it, no matter how nicely you ask, then you're justified in finding a new partner.

Sexual compatibility is just as important as any other part of a relationship. There is nothing wrong with moving on from a relationship if you and your partner isn't sexually compatible.

Well. NOW, I have something for which to be jealous of Sarah Palin.

Of which. Algebra exams do NOT help my grammar.

@alice-paul:

You're so busy looking for sexism that you don't even realize you're more sexist than the guy you're accusing of sexism. He treats both partners as equals - almost as if they didn't have gender, you could say - and so if one likes to be cleaner than the other it doesn't matter what gender they are; it's okay for them to clean more if they don't mind. Look at that in comparison to your own reaction, which is basically "OMG A WOMANZ CAN'T CLEAN MORE THAN THE GUY THAT'S UNEQUAL!"

He doesn't hate vaginas, he acknowledges that some human beings don't find fat attractive (my partner & I included; we have promised to tell each other if either of us starts to let ourselves go), and the Ambien thing was a completely voluntary option for the wife to try. If she were a gay man I somehow doubt you'd have such a big problem with it.

And as for everyone railing against his saying partners owe each other oral sex, I completely agree with him...they do. I'm personally of the opinion that if you expect your partner to sleep with you and ONLY you, you'd better be willing to actually satisfy them sexually because otherwise you are one incredibly selfish human being. And that goes BOTH ways. Maybe I just have an extra-high libido for a woman or something but I've never understood people of either gender who won't perform certain actions for their SO's...or partners who expect complete monogamy and faithfulness but hardly ever put out. That's just wrong.

I think people are overeacting about Dan Savage. He does sometimes give some wacked out advice, but anyone who writes a weekly advice column will do that occasionally. Nobody's perfect, and he's always willing to publish the letters people send in to "correct" him.

But he often advises women that if their male partners won't give them oral sex then they're totally justified in not giving it either. And that's the kind of thing a lot more young women need to hear.

See that's another thing I don't get! How can any self-respecting individual possibly give their partner oral sex when that same partner can't be bothered to do the same for them?! God stuff like that drives me crazy...

"dan savage's point (often repeated) is this: if you really want a sex act (especially a vanilla sex act like oral sex), and your partner flat out refuses to even try it, no matter how nicely you ask, then you're justified in finding a new partner.

Sexual compatibility is just as important as any other part of a relationship. There is nothing wrong with moving on from a relationship if you and your partner isn't sexually compatible."

Well how's this:

Some of just aren't comfortable with oral sex. It's just not our thing. And Dan Savage is helping to create a culture (along with pornography and other factors) where everyone thinks they SHOULD be doing everything on the menu, or something is wrong with them.

I think this is well illustrated by a bf who once wrote to Dan Savage saying his gf was afraid she wasn't GGG enough b/c she didn't like giving oral sex b/c her uncle had abused her. Now Dan Savage give him the right advice, of course, but the fact you even have girls FEELING that way and being insecure about not being GGG enough shows the downside to this culture, I think...

And yes relationships ARE about compatibility, including sexual compatibility. But no couple is completely compatible, meaning some things will be compromised. When Dan Savage favors compromization, he always does it on the side of saying the person not all that into an activity should give in, or else the two should separate. And the reality is, a lot of men are more demanding sexually than a lot of women, in terms of wanting to try things their partner might be a little uncomfortable with. The couples are also making compromises outside the bedroom, but Dan Savage isn't covering that. So he's basically focusing on one aspect of a couple's life, dictating to which direction the compromise should go, without any holistic context. Maybe sometimes a relationship is worth keeping together even if the dude (or girl) doesn't get to act out every sexual fantasy or have sex every bit as often as they crave it -I mean, I think it's a little sad we act like sex is the be all end all these days. It's like western culture has swung from one extreme to the other...

I love Dan Savage. His advice re: one question actually brought me to tears. The questions was from a woman who felt very unattractive, although she didn't think that she had body dysmorphia. if I recall correctly, she was mostly tired of men asking her about her more attractive friends and being treated like shit for her looks, although she doesn't think she's much worse than average. Savage said something like heterosexual dudes are raised to believe that women are supposed to be beautiful for them and that they may feel affronted if any woman doesn't meet their standards. This is increased if they're 20something and get some liquor in them.
I love that he didn't automatically refer her to a psychologist and talked about the culture instead. I've dealt with the exact same issue for so long and the response was just so beautifully worded, it was really touching. Also, he had Sherman Alexie as a co-columnist in one issue, which just rocks.

What bothers me is that he assumes that because Palin is religiously opposed to a certain type of sex education and certain sexual practices, she won't teach her kids about sex.

Um...I'm Catholic, and I don't find sex disgusting, and I don't think talking about it or other sexual practices with others is a bad thing.

What bothers me is that he assumes that because Palin is religiously opposed to a certain type of sex education and certain sexual practices, she won't teach her kids about sex.
Uhm...I think it's pretty clear that she skipped a lesson.

I want to make it clear that I am a sex-positive, kink-positive person. (I'm a lesbo & a total sub). So my criticism of Dan does not come from a place of being anti-fetish.

And again, I have found some of his columns to be helpful & inspiring (like the one Moxie referenced).

but this:

"If she were a gay man I somehow doubt you'd have such a big problem with it."

I have NO idea how you reached this conclusion. Why would I hold a gay man and a woman to a different standard here? That makes no sense, please explain further.

Um, and the idea that I "owe" anyone certain types of sex I find undesirable, partner or not, is so offensive and triggering for me that I will have to bow out of this convo now.

I'm sorry, what does "GGG enough" mean?

GGG is one of Savage's commonly used adjectives. It stands for "Good, Giving and Game," in other words, what a person should be for his/her sexual partner.

His other common acronym is "DTMFA" (Dump The Mother Fucker Already), which is his basic response to people in horrendously bad relationships. For example, there was a man who had a girlfriend that would not even let him look at another woman. In a "if you're walking down the street, your eyes best be on your shoes" sort of way. There was also a woman who, in a snow storm, was stranded in the middle of nowhere at 2 am alone. She called her boyfriend to come pick her up. He said "no, I'm sleeping." Both got big DTMFAs.

Some of just aren't comfortable with oral sex. It's just not our thing.
Uh, yeah, this. Oral is not my thing. If a guy loves going down town he's out of luck because I do not recieve. Giving isn't completely off the menu, but it's not something I'm going to do all the time/in a casual relationship. I haven't been assaulted or abused, but that's okay because I don't need an excuse about why I don't want to perform a certain sex act. Flat out "I don't like it" is perfectly reasonable.

Hopefully a couple will have discussed what they need or expect out of a sex life before things get too serious. I personally put it right out there with people: What I do, what I like, what I don't do, what I don't like. If our expectations, wants, needs, and dislikes don't match up well enough the relationship just doesn't go anywhere and there's no messy break-up. It's that easy.

Isn't this the guy that said women should still have sex with their partners even if they are tired?

Yes. Feministing covered it, even.

This part:

Get info from me about how to get their hands on birth control, which your family clearly needs more hands on.

NOT ok. Judging other people's reproductive situations has no place in, well, anything, not even snarky commentary directed at right-wing anti-choicers.

FrumiousB, saying that Savage said "women should still have sex with their partners even if they are tired" and presenting that as if he said only to women that all women should just have sex when they're tired is a misrepresentation.

My best friend's husband falls asleep before they can have sex all the time. And it's making her miserable because they've only been married for a year and she can't believe that their sex life is already so sparse. From everything I've read from Dan Savage, if she asked him for advice, he'd A) address her situation and not generalize to include every couple in his response, and B) his advice would involve the husband still sometimes trying to have sex with his wife even if he's tired.

It's about context, not just saying, "Oh, he told this one woman this advice and therefore he thinks all women should do this and that men don't have the same obligations."

alixana,

Dan Savage is a widely read, influential force in our culture these days. People absolutely take things he writes to other couples and apply it in their own life.

I mean, in general, that's what published advice columns are all about... that's why the letters are published

But when he recommends Action A, he doesn't expect that one piece of advice will work for everyone. Which is why he answers multiple questions on similar issues over the years. And it's a mistake to assume that because he gives that piece of advice to a WOMAN in a Q&A that he means EVERY woman and ONLY women and that a man asking the same question would get a special-privileged-for-men answer

Under the theme/philosophy of GGG, there's a lot of room for different situations that pop up for different couples, and I've never gotten the feeling from him that he expects that what he tells one person will apply to everyone.

"And it's a mistake to assume that because he gives that piece of advice to a WOMAN in a Q&A that he means EVERY woman and ONLY women and that a man asking the same question would get a special-privileged-for-men answer

Under the theme/philosophy of GGG, there's a lot of room for different situations that pop up for different couples, and I've never gotten the feeling from him that he expects that what he tells one person will apply to everyone."

And /I/ was talking about the culture he helps create, as I thought I'd made clear. Although, I have to wonder about your reasoning even here, because he is after all replying on the basis of the letter which includes limited information about one person. So based on the limited information in a letter he responds to, there are lots of people who could have written a similar (or the same) letter, which is what we're talking about here.

And /I/ was talking about the culture he helps create, as I thought I'd made clear.

And where you get this:

Maybe sometimes a relationship is worth keeping together even if the dude (or girl) doesn't get to act out every sexual fantasy or have sex every bit as often as they crave it

In other words, why criticize the columnist for some people's misinterpretation and subsequent misapplication of the message?

What I'm missing is why people are reacting so negatively to the oral sex thing. It's not that partners HAVE to give oral sex, its that if they don't like oral sex, they have no responsibility being in a relationship where one partner is expected to go without because the first partner just doesn't like it.

He encourages people to TALK about what they like/don't like, and decide if they can live with those restrictions for the rest of their lives together. If people will not even countenance a fetish/desire that their partner has, it does not make the person the baddie, it makes them in a bad situation, and they have to decide if they can stay with their partner unfulfilled, or if they ought to seek out a pacifier outside the relationship.

Because I think he's influencing people's expectations for their relationship. The degree to which someone is unhappy about having to compromise is, to a large extent, influenced by their expectations.

For example, there are a lot of women out there who maybe do a little more kitchen work than their male counterpart, but don't feel as badly about it as they would if they thought they should expect him to do half.

If people read columns like this and expect to have all of their sexual desires fulfilled by their partner (Or, conversely, expect that they should attempt to fulfill all of their partners' sexual desires, even if not all those things make them happy) then you are affecting the way people approach relationships, and the way they expect to have to compromise. And again, the whole "GGG" thing translates into a lot of women being very concerned about being GGG enough for their bf or else he'll leave them, as illustrated by the letter I cited above. And it seems to me in our culture, again speaking in generalities, that men tend to be the ones already empowered to ask for a lot more sexually, and to persist trying get their way, whereas conversely I know very few women who'd want to do something with their partner if it was something their partner was uncomfortable with.

I haven't been in a LTR myself, but I would imagine that doing things you didn't particularly like just to make your partner happy (as Dan frequently recommends) would breed resentment. I guess I think I would tend to err on the side of NOT doing sexual activities that one or the other of us was not at all into. If there's other stuff we both enjoy, what's the harm of that?

And I think you're overestimating people if you think people only write to Dan Savage as a last resort when they're ready to break up a relationship...

I would imagine that doing things you didn't particularly like just to make your partner happy (as Dan frequently recommends) would breed resentment.

Not in my experience. I've told the story on here before about how I started "swallowing" after a boyfriend told me that spitting made him feel the same way I feel when a guy gets all, "Ewww, going down on you is gross." I wasn't thrilled with swallowing, but it mattered to me that I didn't make the guy I loved feel like he was gross after every orgasm. We had a conversation, he told me how he felt, and I cared about how he felt. I told that boyfriend I wanted to experiment with anal sex, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that, BUT was completely game to help me try it out with toys. It was a good give-and-take sort of relationship.

I had one relationship where the guy didn't want to have sex, but he wanted me to sexually humiliate him in lieu of having sex. I was willing to branch out and try some of the things he wanted, but he refused to "branch out" into the vanilla territory, and his unwillingness to compromise while I was doing nothing BUT is was what bred resentment. He really didn't give a flying fuck what I wanted (both in AND out of the bedroom), and his "me me me" attitude killed our relationship.

I think sexual compatibility and the willingness to compromise during sex is a huge part of a relationship. I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they stay with someone who couldn't compromise or agree on money issues or whether to have kids or how to raise them, or where to live, and I think sex just as important in the grand pie-chart of relationships.

I'm also suggesting compromization, alixana.

My problem again with Dan Savage is that he always suggests the compromizes about sex go one way (towards more sex, trying new things, whatever), which may not be best for every couple. Deciding you can be content /without/ a particular sex act would also be a form of compromization.