Hit or miss on the advice. He tends to be pretty offensive to everyone, but deliberately so for humor value, I think. I read the column every now and then, but the comments afterward are always more entertaining. And sometimes, more informative.

Dan Savage is entertaining, and that's all he's ever claimed to be. I think that he had a bad, knee-jerk, (oh, those homophobic black folks! Because we know there are no gay black people, and all those black people in California hate the gays!) reaction to the Prop 8 situation (those wacky polls...is there anything they can't be made to look like?), yes. I think he totally bought into the hateful and inflammatory racist rhetoric flying around the internets and the medias at the time. I think he was wrong.
Do I like him? Yes, I find him funny most of the time. He takes a certain position on sex and sex-related matters, and pretty much sticks to it. I like sex positivity and the idea that consenting adults can do whatever they want in the bedroom. And yes, he can be sort of callous about certain things. I think that's pretty much his persona. Very much tongue in cheek and purposefully rude at times. That's why people write into him.

I really enjoy it more for entertainment value than anything. The podcast has turned into him sarcastically apologizing to his hate mail half the time.

I found it pretty funny when someone wrote in and basically said "I dislike you and oppose gay marriage, how can I convince my wife to let me give her money shots" and he said pretty much "lol I'm not telling you. If anyone who supports gay marriage wants to know they can e-mail me"

I do think his "dump the mother fucker" line is great though. So often people stay in shitty relationships for no reason. When you hear him asking "do you have kids with this person?" you know the next line is going to be "DUMP THE MOTHER FUCKER" if the person says no.

He says a lot of things off the cuff, and I don't think they should be taken too seriously. For instance he made the generalization that it's easier to get a man off then a woman or it's easier to "deal with penises" than vaginas. I know a lot of people got mad, but welp there is a grain of truth.

So yeah don't take him too seriously he's not a doctor or anything. However I think I'd take his biases over someone like Dr. Drew's.

I LOVE Dan Savage. I don't think he gets it right all the time, but what advice columnist does?

I think his is an important, pro-sexuality voice to have out there. He encourages people to be understanding and open-minded about sex, as well as to honestly communicate their needs. That's definitely a positive message for people generally, but especially women, to hear.

He's okay, but I tend to avoid reading his sex columns because it just depresses me. I prefer Professer Foxy, that's for sure.

I've been reading the Savage Love column for many years. I don't think all of his advice is perfect, but it's usually pretty good. Having a gay person openly talking about sex with no apologies for how he lives his life definitely helped me when I was coming out.

The language is often vulgar, but sometimes that's what you get when you have open, adult conversations about sex.

I think my opinion is going to be the same as most. I enjoy Dan Savage for entertainment value and do not think his comments should be taken seriously. However, I do wonder if some of his "advice" is given just to create more talk. I do agree with Impression that he does have a strong point to keep people aware and open minded about sexual issues of any kind.

I generally like him a lot, but agree that at times he misses the mark and says things that are insensitive. In his defense, he's usually willing to listen to an explanation of why it was insensitive, and often apologizes if he finds the explanation compelling. And I don't think you can expect an advice columnist to be right 100% of the time, and I dislike the trend of writing people off and dismissing all the good things they've said or done once they say one insensitive thing. Everyone's human.

I read Dan Savage first through his memoirs "The Kid" and "The Commitment," which I really enjoyed. Even though he was coming from a more conservative (oddly enough) background on the family/marriage thing, sometimes, than I am, I enjoyed reading his thoughts on the subject.

I find his sex advice is a little too invested in being hip and outrageous for my taste. I get that the style is purposefully that way for the humor, etc., but it's not necessarily where I'm at. And while I hesitate to say that because he's a guy he can't give good advice to women, I *do* feel like he often buys into gender stereotypes fairly carelessly -- especially when it comes to things like sex drive and relationship needs and desires.

He's fairly entertaining and usually gives decent advice. I definitely prefer him to Professor Foxy.

I think he's an asshole who happens to be sex-positive and open to a continuum idea of sexuality. Other than that, he's just a racist, fatphobic, and I wouldn't doubt ablist jerk. He takes the hipsterism Liberalism-Lite (when it suits me) approach, and that turns me off. Plus what anna said about buying into gender stereotypes.

I like Dan Savage a lot, but that's mainly on the basis of his books The Kid and The Commitment, both of which were incredibly touching.

He says a lot of things that I find offensive, but they are offensive in a way that I prefer to other offensive radio personalities although I can see where others don't agree.

Well, I do like his podcast sometimes, but it's invariably... difficult. He can give fantastic advice, and terrible advice. On top of the racism and sizism issues, there's his erm... 'interesting' views on bisexuality...

I recommend going back and seeing if you can find the show he did with a woman he used to co-host with on a radio show. I can't remember her name, but it was some time last year. It was... instructive how different the show was, and I liked the dynamic of it a lot more. Partly because she challenged him, meaning he was no longer the lone voice of authority (as even when he has guests on, they often defer to him a *lot*) :-)

I think he, like anyone who starts out the path, has followed Righteous Anger into Bitter and Destructive Anger.

I love me some Dan Savage. I listen to his podcast religiously and read his column every week. I love his humour and his crazy rants and I generally thinks he gives very good advice. Sure, he can be an asshole sometimes but I think the good by far outweight the bad. Nobody's perfect and Dan actually has that rare gift of being able to look back and admit that he was wrong and behaved like a total dick.

the guy is kind of a fuck sometimes, but fuck, i love the fuck. he's funny, and he knows his shit.

I haven't listened to the podcast at all (maybe I will now), but I loved his books The Kid and The Commitment. I read his column every week, and sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't. Sometimes he has good advice and sometimes its rather offensive, but he's really only claiming to be entertaining. Sometimes he starts his column with something like "I'm drunk right now while I'm writing this." Its not meant to be sensitive or anything. I also like his DTMFA acronym, and so many people who write in to him need that advice.

Its hard to compare him and Professor Foxy since she's only had a few columns, and his have varied a lot over the years. But so far I haven't found hers to be as interesting or informative as his, on average. However, the comment threads here tend to have a lot more useful information; the comment threads on Savage Love sometimes do but are a lot harder to read, partly because they don't have nested comments. And there are a lot more pointless posts over there saying things like "first!!", heh.

I'd actually like to have a discussion, if anyone's up for it, of specifically which of his opinions are offensive and why -- I know I've found some things he's written offensive (I just read the weekly column), but more often than not, I can come up with some kind of explanation as to why his view might not be quite as offensive as I thought it was, or at least how it arises from legitimately conflicting priorities.

For example, I remember reading a column not terribly long ago where there was some kind of question as to how to deal with a lover who had gained weight and thus become less sexually stimulating to the person writing in, and Dan Savage responded by saying that they should lose weight or risk being dumped over it. This really rubbed me the wrong way at first (for obvious reasons), but I think at the very least that problems like this do come up when you start to take sexual fulfillment very seriously as an essential part of life, and as a legitimate dealbreaker for a relationship (which, in all honesty, I do think it should be).

Idiolect, I am offended by his bigotry against bisexuals and fat people. I think there are a lot of people who are so desperate to hear anybody talking about gay or kinky sex in a positive way that they don't care about being insulted. That doesn't make Savage's behavior ok. He is really consistent about regarding fat as a character flaw for which people deserve to get dumped.

I read Savage Love fairly often, and I like a lot of things about it, but I do find a lot of his views on women and their sexuality pretty lazy and dismissive. The standard porn-in-relationships advice he gives women - 'every man you ever meet is going to masturbate over images of women you find degrading, so get over it and join in' - just seems like a pointless thing to say to anyone who is genuinely upset about or politically adverse to certain types of pornography. I would like a bit more acknowledgment that 'ideological differences' are a legitimate reason to break up with someone, and porn use is not insulated from every other facet of someone's life. I wouldn't want to spend my life with someone who liked to decorate their house with racist images, so why I am suddenly supposed to choke back that anger when they start masturbating over them?

Dan definitely irritates me more than he entertains me. I'm not a big fan of snark, though, and I realize there are others who enjoy that style. I consider it destructive, not constructive, but I guess that's just me.

As to Dan's advice-giving, he is often needlessly cruel to people who are clearly struggling with issues around relationship conflicts. One person he responded to fairly recently was struggling with her partner's raising the subject of opening their relationship some years after the partner initially raised the issue when they married. Dan slapped her around verbally because she was struggling with her partner's renewed interest in an open relationship and blamed her for being surprised and reluctant to agree. In my many years of experience teaching classes on polyamory relationship skills, and specifically on opening a monogamous relationship, I've learned that this is definitely NOT the way to help a reluctant partner find the strength to make the leap when their fear of losing their partner is strong.

Bottom line: Pretty much hate him.

This fat bisexual woman loves Dan Savage.

He's actually a lot better than I expected. Of course, my expectations were a bit nil. But I think he's, if this makes any sense, a gateway. Accessible enough to Cosmo-reading types yet a whole lot more on point.

I love Dan Savage! I don't always agree with all his advice, but he usually gets it right. I grew up in a repressed, religious environment, so I find his brutal honesty refreshing and empowering. His column is hilarious and informative, and sometimes even touching or moving. I love his sarcastic, satirical style. And yes, when the world sucks, it's still fun to talk about sex. I look forward to reading his column every week.

I used to really like Dan Savage. As many commenters have said, I appreciate a sex positive columnist and he's often entertaining to read. However, I read one of his columns a few months ago where he told a teenage girl who was raped to confront her rapist and talk to him. Her boyfriend was blaming her for being raped and she was upset about it (obviously). His solution to dealing with her rape was to confront the guy that raped her with no mention of emotional or physcial safety. Certainly, for some people, that may be cathartic, but a lot of healing and safety planning needs to happen before that is presented as an option (I'm an anti-domestic/sexual violence advocate. I can't imagine telling someone a few weeks or even a few months after they were raped to go and talk to their rapist about it. Seriously, wtf?). I wrote him a very angry, pissed off email about how much danger he put her in, emotionally and physically, by giving that advice. Especially since the advice placed much of the onus on her and not on her rapist or those around her who were victim blaming. I haven't read his column since.

The only thing I don't really agree with on account of Savage is bisexuality... He has a tendency of treating sexuality like you're either gay or straight.

But otherwise, I love the guy. I find I usually agree with him, and he has a sense of humor that appeals to me.

Another fat bisexual woman who loves Dan Savage here. I can definitely see how he rubs some people the wrong way, and I don’t think he’s always right. He’s tons of fun to read and I love his total raging anger against the religious right wing.

I was really touched by his books “The Kid” and “The Commitment.” “The Kid” in particular said a lot to me before I had my own child.

I read Savage Love in print form in The Onion when I lived in Milwaukee and in The Stranger while in Seattle. Since I first started reading his columns in 1994 I have found his advice to be brutally honest. His advice to straight men on how to sexually please women is awesome.

Dan Savage is awesome, Dr. Foxxy comes across as a watered down form of Dan Savage.

I love Dan Savage, sometimes he does post without thinking (or, by his own admission, while drunk!) but he listens to people who tell him he's wrong, and more than once he's owned up to making a mistake in the column.

I like him because he's brutally honest. He doesn't sugarcoat, and he doesn't worry about offending people. He's opinionated but not pigheaded, or stupid.

I love Dan Savage- I might not agree with everything he writes, but he's always entertaining, and generally pretty awesome.

I really WANT to love him, but I do find him biphobic, fatphobic, and at times misogynistic. For instance, he really has a "eeww gay guys think vaginas are gross" thing going on. My response to that is A) maybe HE finds them gross, but don't generalize to all other gay men and B) if he isn't being silly and really means it, well I don't want sex advice from a guy who feels that way.

I find his comments like "you better look the exact same way as you did when you met your partner or he/she has every right to leave you" harsh and cruel. My example: I was 100 lbs when I met my ex because of an eating disorder. Within about a year, I got up to a healthy 117 due to treatment, and I did look a bit different. Well, my partner didn't like that I wasn't "tiny" anymore and my appearance had "changed." What would Dan Savage say?

Love Dan. Professor Foxxy is too boring and wishy-washy for my taste. She seems to purposely give "safe" but vague and less constructive advice. She's only had a few columns though, and I do enjoy them, so hopefully they'll get more interesting. If I were going to write in I'd still pick Savage.

I love Dan Savage. He has the funniest, most realistic and down-to-earth sex column I've ever read. Also, I think it's wonderful that he truly values positive sex experiences. I remember him really lecturing this one jerk who complained because his girlfriend couldn't orgasm without clitoral stimulation. Dan told him to get over it and make his girlfriend happy, or she'd dump his sorry dick-centered ass. Love it!! He's generally a huge advocate of communication, honesty, and mutual enjoyment during sex, which is important for everyone.

I love Dan Savage. His column is always very interesting and I love how he doesn't sugar coat his responses. Some people really need to hear some of his advice, I think he is doing them a favour.

I sometimes get angry that Dan Savage seems to be so biphobic, but most of the time I think his advice is pretty spot on and I love that he advocates talking to your partner about the sexual things you really want.

I enjoy him, but I find him sexist more often than I'd like to.

Love him. I think he's feminist. He's pretty egalitarian when it comes to most things. I have yet to read something of his that was unfeminist.

I love him too. Occasionally I disagree with him on the finer point of something he says, but 99% of the time he's right on the mark.

I like that Dan Savage has such a sex-positive, open, and honest way of discussing sexuality. I think for the most part he gives really good advice in a non-judgemental way, which is really refreshing given our society's lack of real sex education and tendency to view sexuality in very shameful ways, especially women's sexuality. I also really love that he supports womens choices regarding contraception, and abortion.

However, I often have some real issues with his use of derogatory terms and overall immaturity regarding womens bodies (he referred to vagina's as "the terror eye"). He also tends to discount or disregard the role that sexism and oppression affects womens sexuality...as others have mentioned here. I totally agree with Dulcinea's comment regarding his views on porn. I think its just that sometimes he really shows his white male privilege...and you can tell he is not exactly connected with lesbian communities or womens groups very much...which I think if he did listen to, or seek out those communities more, his advice would be so much more inclusive.

Sorry, but Dan Savage isn't "Fatphobic," and I'm still not sure that should even count as a word. Arguing that people in relationships should remain healthy and have an obligation not to let themselves go is not fatphobia, it's simply a recognition of the fact that relationships, especially sexual ones, often have a superficial component. Realizing that there's nothing wrong with this is not fatphobic, it's just realistic.

Beyond that, he often indicates to people who say that they're overweight but don't feel like reducing their superficial standards and can't find an SO or a sex partner that they either need to go to the gym or recalibrate their standards. Again, not fatphobic, just realistic. More power to you if you consider yourself overweight and landed a skin-deep hot SO or sex partner--your mileage may vary.

He's an entertainer, and it works for him, meaning that he gets through to people. My attention span is simply way too short for Professor Foxy and I have yet to agree with this blog's sex advice as much as I agree with Dan's. In my opinion he's a Feminist, with some flaws. Turns out, we all have flaws in our ideologies. Who knew? Plenty of writing goes on in these comments and on the pages of this blog that is not Feminist as I consider it--including shaming of people for sexual proclivities and a desire to close debate and dominate other discussants, but that doesn't make this blog antifeminist.

It would be nice if we could consider honesty and openness as important Feminist ideals rather than valuing circumspect and over-delicate communication which obscures understanding. No need to be gender- or race-insensitive sure, but also no need to conform what you say to what you think everyone else wants to hear.

I like Dan Savage but I like Miss Information on Nerve even better. She's frank and no-nonsense and swear but not a dick about it like Savage sometimes is.

I just think his point of view is depressing. Certain sex acts are mandatory? You have to be good, giving, and game or you're a terrible partner? And then he goes off on political rants all the time when he's supposed to be writing an advice column. I just can't read his column. It makes me depressed.

I'm curious -- which sexual acts does he believe are mandatory?

I've listened to a number of Savage Love podcasts and I've never heard him say that you have to perform a particular act or else you don't deserve to be in a sexual relationship. I have, however, heard him say that if, for example, a guy absolutely refuses to go down on his girlfriend despite her requests, then that is enough to justify a break-up.

Has anyone read Dear Prudie at Slate? I think its funny how she recommends counseling/therapy to almost everyone, like she's trying to cover herself legally or something.

Yeah, that sounds pretty spot-on to me. If you are going to deny your partner oral sex or, say, limit positions to missionary, you better be upfront from the start about that.

Sorry, for some reason all of my replies aren't showing up beneath the comment I'm replying too! Hope this doesn't confuse everyone.

Btw, I kind of adore all of your comments. I know I was more aggressive in the last post but it was nice to see you articulate so many of my own thoughts in a polite and clear manner.

@Pantheon

Yep, I was definitely replying to you.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT DAN SAVAGE:

1. His insistence that you have a RIGHT to a healthy sexual relationship with your partner/s, if you so desire. This applies equally to men & women & trans folk and he rarely lets anybody off the hook.

2. His political incorrect opinions (sometimes very refreshing)

3. His surprising, but often spot-on advice

THINGS I DO NOT LOVE ABOUT DAN SAVAGE:

1. When he says things just to shock people. For example, recently he made a big annoying show of saying penises were "better" than vaginas. Obviously he likes penises: he's gay! But seriously, it's like apples and oranges and by privileging one, you're just saying it to piss off all your lady listeners.

2. Half the time when he apologizes, it is dripping in sarcasm.

----> With all his faults, I still enjoy him and appreciate the podcast and column. I'm a fat woman who does not feel offended by his statements about weight. Like most of the Feministing commenters, I agree that it's about the expectations of the partner going into the relationship.

I started listening to lots of Savage Love last fall, but had to stop around November. I generally expect him to be abrasive, and I'm ok with it when we disagree. When a (male) caller asked how to deal with a (male) friend who had sex with an unconscious (or almost unconscious) woman at a party, Dan said almost all the right things. Yes, having sex with someone who's unconscious is rape, no you should not ignore said behavior, etc, but he also said it was important whether the woman was technically conscious during the rape, and that he should ask the guy in question to find out. I wanted to call in and point out how stupid that would be, and especially that rape is rape is having-sex-with-someone-who-doesn't-know-you're-having-sex is rape is rape is rape. I never called because I couldn't bear to listen anymore, even just to get the call-in number.

I'm another long-time Savage Love fan. He has made mistakes, but he does tend to admit it and has even published "Extras" columns of reader rebuttals.

I LOVE Dan Savage so much I named my screen-name after my favorite acronym of his :D

i'm another that LOVES dan savage. he tells it like it is, always always always stresses honest communication, and admits his own prejudices (he's a gay man. he doesn't like the vagina. this seems totally reasonable to me).
i read his column the second it comes online every week. love it. i honestly think he's changed the way i think about my rights and expectations in my relationship.

As a queer, I fucking HATE that he is asked to represent the queer communities on a national level (i.e. guest on radio and tv shows). He's a sexist, racist, childish asshole.

When he became the editor of the Stranger (one of our weekly papers here in Seattle), most of the female staff at the time quit. Coincidence?

He responds to any sort of critique with schoolyard name-calling (literally - I have the emails to prove it).

He deliberately spread lies and misleading exaggerations about a queer health organization that I once worked for - simply because he disagrees with the concept of harm reduction.

He deserves no respect and he certainly does not deserve the national platform that he has. He's a privileged white asshat. Just because he's occasionally funny (I'll totally give him credit for santorum) doesn't mean that he gets a free pass.

I don't have the time to read through the ups and downs of the previous posts...so I'll just leave my opinion and move on.

I'm deeply offended by the implication that Dan Savage is anti-feminist. I think that is the most ridiculous statement ever made about him...especially since there are so many different types of feminists and they don't agree on the same issues.

I have been reading Dan's column for many years and have only recently started listening to his podcasts, but love them more than the column and love him more than ever. I saw him speak once in my city - Philadelphia - against the awful Rick Santorum and thought he was not only funny, but incredibly insightful and a great speaker.

I had the opportunity to meet him very briefly so that I could score an autograph on a "Rick is Watching" anti-Santorum poster that I promptly removed from the wall after his talk.

My greater point in this matter is that people think they have some special right to never be offended. If Dan Savage offends you somehow, boo fucking hoo. And if you're jealous that he's become the "spokesperson" for queer America because of his national status, then I have some news for you...
Dan is a realist. He's not overly concerned with what is PC. He's not into bullshit. He doesn't beat around the bush. (Pun intended). And women don't hate him. I'm a woman - studying to be a sex therapist, in fact - and I FUCKING LOVE DAN SAVAGE.

The end.

Insightful? Probably not...but I don't give a shit. And here's to school-yard name-calling...

I'm a big fan of Savage, I read his column every week, though I do prefer his podcast. His advice is always bold, honest, and more often than not meticulously executed, though he may add in a subjective opinion here and there. He's a very intelligent and thoroughly researched fellow, and I'm not too proud to say I've learned quite a bit from him and re-examined how I think after listening to one of his many rants. His thoughts and opinions may not be perfect, which he does acknowledge regularly(by playing counterpoints and criticisms on almost ever podcast). He lays it all out on the line more than any other person in his field, and is continuously honing himself to the whim of his audience.

I just tried listening to the podcast for the first time, and I only lasted a few minutes. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but somehow its easier for me to read that kind of explicit language than it is to hear it spoken.

I like Dan Savage, largely because his influence is all that kept me from becoming the sexphobic guilt-ridden introvert that I was raised to be. When I discovered him in college, it was like seeing into a whole other world, where women were sexual beings, and where masturbation was healthy, expressing needs was healthy, and sex toys weren't the tools of Satan. I married the first man I ever dated (true love, not conservative-related), and Dan's column helped both of us learn where to get information on, you know, how to do things properly so everyone had a good time. The best sex education I ever got came from Savage Love.

I don't understand how anyone with basic reading (or listening) comprehension skills can evaluate his responses as biphobic, fatphobic, misogynist, etc. If you read and listen to his responses in their entirety, you'll see a use of the language that considers human limitations, sexual realities, personal experience, and respect for one's self and one's partner(s) and delivers advice that may often miss the mark, but is usually dispensed with the intent of promoting good sexual experiences for everyone, except assholes who oppose gay marriage.

OTH, I wish he'd lay off of complaining about vagina, as I have one and don't particularly care to hear about how much he thinks it's distasteful. I do find it amusing that he can go on and on about sounding without any apparent judgment while basic pussy discourse repels him. If the subject of vagina is so repulsive to him, maybe he's in the wrong business.

Dan's the man. The Savage Love Podcast is awesome, I've listened to every episode, so i consider myself an authority. Do you know the theme song and phone number by heart?

I love Dan's advice about sex, but most of all I love how Dan makes sex something you can talk about openly and honestly, and that nobody should be ashamed about. As a woman who loves sex, porn, and all of the above, but has always been made to feel awkward or like a slut when I express my interest in sex, I really appreciate how Dan has made me feel comfortable and confident about my sexuality. Dan's podcast has made my sex life better and I haven't even ever called in.....love you Dan, oh but you are totally an asshole sometimes : )

I'm not even gonna try swimming through all these comments. But I do feel that I should mention something that Dan himself often brings up when giving advice. He's not a psychologist, or some professional advice-giver; he's just a regular guy who tries to give his take on things. Whether or not someone chooses to listen to him is another thing, and he often tries to find guests who can answer questions guests give him. That or he tries searching the internet.
If there's anything that makes Dan different, maybe even better, from all the other advice columnists, is that he's speaking in very general terms. He's not high-and-mighty about his knowledge; he's no Dr. Drew who's going to psychoanalyze you. Plus, if anything, he does try to the best of his ability. His answers are sometimes very touching, very honest, and often quite good. And if he doesn't know, he tries directing you to someone who might.

I agree with Dan before he speaks. Love his sensible approach. Love his sex positive advice, "Go forth and do whatever." Love his boundaries, "As long as it's not with animals, children or siblings." Love his practical advice on how to do it. Love his "Communicate!" angle. Love that he says the words, no euphemisms. Love that he speaks like an actual person. Love that he is an actual person with opinions, and not a persona.