Latest / The Love Drive with Shaun Galanos / Good sex is reciprocal with Dan Savage

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Good sex is reciprocal with Dan Savage · The Love Drive with Shaun Galanos

• 0:00
  That's how my mom found out that I I downloaded Grinder.
• 0:02
  But you're not gay. But I'm not gay.
• 0:05
  I I have never been on grinder. You have done a gayer thing than
• 0:08
  I have. I've had two Dicks in my mouth
• 0:12
  but I have never OK, this is exciting.
• 0:34
  Welcome back to the love Drive and our first ever podcast
• 0:39
  relaunch guest is none other than Dan Savage, the iconic
• 0:44
  legendary sex and love advice giver.
• 0:49
  He's been doing this for decades.
• 0:50
  Host of the Savage Love podcast has been running a syndicated
• 0:55
  advice column in The Stranger for as long as I can remember
• 1:00
  and I've been a huge fan of his work for a really long time.
• 1:02
  Six months ago Dan Savage started following me on
• 1:06
  Instagram and I got really excited and I thought hey he
• 1:09
  should be the 1st guest on the Love Dr. relaunch.
• 1:13
  And so I DM Ed him and he left me on red as he should.
• 1:18
  But I am not to be dissuaded so easily.
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  You can leave me on red. I will double text you and
• 1:25
  triple text you like an anxious little girly.
• 1:27
  And I did because sometimes you just got to do it.
• 1:30
  You got to do it and I've got no shame.
• 1:33
  So I pinged him again. I said, hey, I'd really love to
• 1:35
  have you. I'm a huge fan.
• 1:36
  And he wrote back, let's do it. So I'm really excited that we
• 1:40
  got to have this conversation. We talk about lots, lots and
• 1:44
  lots and lots herpes stigma, my personal experience, his advice,
• 1:49
  We talk about the acronym GGG, good giving and game, what that
• 1:54
  means as a sex positive person. He pushes back on the burned
• 1:59
  haystack dating method. So next week's guest is Jenny
• 2:02
  Young, and she pioneered this thing called the burned haystack
• 2:05
  dating method, which is basically burn the haystack down
• 2:08
  to find the needle. And Dan shares how if he had
• 2:11
  done that, he probably never would have met his husband and
• 2:13
  his boyfriend. Speaking of that, we talk about
• 2:15
  polyamory. We touch on heated rivalry, how
• 2:18
  it has gripped the country and the world by storm.
• 2:23
  Gripped by storm, Is that even? I don't know, but that's what we
• 2:26
  talk about. We talk about how a little bit
• 2:29
  about my past experience as a sex worker erotic masseur in San
• 2:32
  Francisco. We talk about the growing
• 2:35
  political incompatibility between young men and women,
• 2:38
  specifically conservative men and liberal women.
• 2:41
  Why straight men are policed more harshly than women for
• 2:44
  sexual curiosity. And maybe we touch a little bit
• 2:47
  about my sexual curiosity, how erections do not equal arousal.
• 2:52
  We also touch on age gap relationships and his campsite
• 2:57
  rule, which you will know if you listen to the episode.
• 3:01
  Let me just. Say this is a very sexually
• 3:04
  explicit episode. I was a little reticent to post
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  this as my first one, but I love Dan and his work and it's a
• 3:09
  really beautiful conversation. And I don't want you to think
• 3:12
  that this podcast is all about sex, but sex is part of love.
• 3:16
  And this is the love drive after all.
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  And I am a sex positive girly. So I twice, twice now I've
• 3:22
  referred to myself as a girly. We'll just, we'll just go with
• 3:26
  it. So I'm excited, I'm excited for
• 3:28
  this episode. I'm excited to be back.
• 3:31
  Speaking about being back, I'm feeling rusty on the microphone.
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  I also don't normally record solo episodes while looking at
• 3:41
  the camera, but that's what I'm going to be doing now.
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  So give me a little bit of grace.
• 3:46
  I'm finding my my podcasting legs back.
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  It's going to be clunky. It's going to be messy, but I'm
• 3:51
  here for it. Hopefully you are too.
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  And so without further ado, I give you a conversation with Dan
• 3:57
  Savage. And my name is Sean Galanos.
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  And this is the love drive. OK, Dan Savage.
• 4:03
  Welcome to the Love Drive podcast.
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  Thanks for having me. Yeah, happy to be here.
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  Also, I I have to come clean about something with you.
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  I've been a huge fan for a really, really long time.
• 4:13
  And I used to call myself the younger, straighter Dan Savage.
• 4:19
  I'm pro that you can pro that cool.
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  They used to call me the Gay and Landers.
• 4:23
  So you can have the straight dance.
• 4:24
  Savage. It's.
• 4:24
  Just the gay and you're the gay and Landers, yeah.
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  Gay and dirty, The gay, dirty and Landers.
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  And I'll be the young, the, the, the straight, the straight and
• 4:34
  savage. Yeah.
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  So it's great to meet you. It's like it feels a little
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  surreal. And I'm just excited to to chat
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  with you for the next hour. Do you even know who and Landers
• 4:42
  is? Oh yeah, I used to.
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  I mean, so I'm 43, I was born in 1982 and I have always loved
• 4:51
  columns, advice columns from like the the tender age of like
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  7 or 8 or something. I'm always reading.
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  It was the first thing I would I would go to in a newspaper.
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  People ask me how I got to write an advice column, and I always
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  tell people, I let this guy at a party who started the newspaper
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  and I said to him, you should have an advice column because
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  you see that Q&A format and you can't not read it.
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  Everybody loves an advice column.
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  And he looked at me and went great advice, write the advice
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  column. And I'd grown up reading and
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  Landers in the sometimes and Epigal Van Buren and Chicago
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  Tribune. And then when my brothers hit
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  puberty, my older brothers are straight.
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  So I read the Playboy Advisor and Playboy and Exhibaria
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  Hollander. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing her
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  first name correctly in Penthouse magazine.
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  Ask them Adam. And those were my advice column
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  addictions, all four of them. And I didn't know that whole
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  time that I was obsessed with advice columns, that I was in
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  training, that I could have skipped college and just kept
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  reading advice columns. I could have skipped college as
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  well. For me, it was it was Ann
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  Landers, dear Ann, right? Is that what she was?
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  Ask Ann Landers. Ask Ann Landers.
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  And then you know Doctor Drew and Adam Corolla on Loveline.
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  Which I never loved, but. But as a 13 year old, I think
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  we're we're, I think I'm a little bit younger than you A.
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  Little bit like 20 plus years younger than I am.
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  No, that's impossible. How old are you?
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  I'm 61. OK, I guess almost almost 20
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  years older, but for me, like I was 13 when Loveline, when I
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  started listening to Loveline, I think I didn't.
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  I didn't have a critical ear at that point.
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  I was just happy to be hearing that other people were
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  struggling with sex, love and dating.
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  Which was important, but you know, when every time I dipped
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  in to listen to Love Line and you know, part of it is like, I
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  should have had that show, like you always have to tease out
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  your professional jealousy from your assessment of other people
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  who are kind of doing what you're doing.
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  But there would just be such misinformation, such kink
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  shaming, such slut shaming. The one time I like OK, I'm
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  going to listen to Love Line and they started talking about
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  answer a question from somebody who's like 15 years old and have
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  oral sex for the first time saying you have to use a condom
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  because you can get HIV from oral sex.
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  Which by then we knew really was almost impossible to get oral
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  HIV from oral sex. But also in the context
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  impossible for someone who's never gotten a blowjob before to
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  get their first blowjob from someone who's never given a
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  blowjob before. They made it sound like HIV
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  spontaneously generated by gay sex.
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  And if you rub 2 gay sticks together, you're going to get
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  HIV. And it was like, as if gay kids
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  then 20 years ago, didn't have enough to be terrified of.
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  Yeah, they turned to these guys for medical advice.
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  And they made it sound like touch a Dick with your face and
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  you're going to explode. Yeah.
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  Well, so that's unfortunate. And there's probably, there was
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  probably a ton of that. Yeah.
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  But from an entertainment perspective, I think a lot of
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  people were entertained. And I guess that does, you know,
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  it doesn't make you think like you should be careful about
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  where you're getting your information.
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  And it also speaks to the fact that there's so much
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  disinformation when it comes to sexually transmitted infections.
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  Right. Like especially in the 90s and
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  odds when basically the federal government was funding
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  disinformation and still to a certain extent funding pumping
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  10s of millions of dollars into abstinence education campaigns
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  and campaigns that want to overestimate the terrify people
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  into being as sexually conservative and cautious as our
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  president has been. No sex before marriage.
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  No sex outside of marriage. No adultery, No sex with porn
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  stars who are my friends. Yeah, there's a lot of
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  disinformation. It's hard.
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  So I got HSVA couple years ago and it's been really hard to get
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  good information about like how not to transmit it, how to take
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  care of myself. If you've got 1, you got 2.
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  Can you still get 1? You get it up here, you get it
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  down there. And so it's it's tough to figure
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  out like how to how to educate yourself when it comes to when
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  it comes to sex. So thank you.
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  Thank you for being here. Get on valocyclovir and forget
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  about it, but just stay on valocyclovir.
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  Just the one a day get get the the one a day Is there there no
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  side no long term side effects to to doing 1 valocyclovir a
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  day? No long term side effects, but
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  also if you are between partners you're not having sex with
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  anybody. You can like go off valocyclovir
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  for a while because a lot of people have one outbreak of HSV
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  and they never have another one. And that's why most people who
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  have it don't even know they have it.
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  You know, we overestimate its impact.
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  You know, there are people out there who have severe cases and
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  really suffer and we should remember them when we try to
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  like, correct for them. That kind of case being like
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  held up as like every bit every case when it's just not true.
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  But there are people out there who really suffer.
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  But for most people, HSV exposure to it is a given.
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  It drives me crazy when someone has to confess to somebody there
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  that they're HSV positive, HS positive for HSVHSV, they had
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  one outbreak and then they get rejected for being honest about
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  it by someone who doubtless has been exposed many, many, many
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  times by people who didn't know to disclose or just didn't
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  disclose because they didn't want to face the stigma.
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  So it's a little bananas. Our relationship to HSVHPVHSV
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  are skin conditions and kind of the price of admission that we
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  all have to pay, the risk of exposure for the kinds of sex
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  legs we want to have, which are in the cases of people are
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  monogamous, serially monogamous, in the cases people are not
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  monogamous, not monogamous, and you can't be a baby about it and
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  it's worth it. What's worth it the the the risk
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  of exposure to have good? To have intimacy, to have human
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  connection to, to take those risks, to form those bonds.
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  Yeah, it's worth it. Just when it comes to sex, we
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  like, want to say there's any risk of anything, any bad
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  outcome, then the sex was illegitimate.
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  It's just that's just sex phobia, pretending to be
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  something else, to be caution. People go skiing and skiing to
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  trees and die. People jump out of airplanes and
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  parachutes don't open. People go have a chicken salad
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  sandwich and die of domain poisoning.
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  There'll be more of that under Trump because they're doing away
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  with food inspectors. And yet we say the pleasures of
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  skiing and skydiving and chicken salad sandwiches are worth the
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  risk. But when it comes to sex, if
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  there's any risk, then you just shouldn't do it.
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  And that's just people saying, you know what?
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  When it comes to sex, I'd rather think that nobody but me is
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  having it. I'd rather like everyone there
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  on the side of not having sex at all for my comfort.
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  Yeah. And it's it's bananas.
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  Like everything in life. People get in cars, people get
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  on airplanes. People do things every day in
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  pursuit of pleasure that we regard as having some built in
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  risk that's legitimate. But if they do something sexual
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  that has some eliminable risk factor, we're like, well,
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  obviously the pleasure of sex is not a pleasure that we could
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  endorse or accept any risk of any bad outcome for.
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  So people should just not have sex, which is not how sex works
• 12:00
  or people work and not. Realistic advice, no.
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  And and I also will say that my life has not been ruined by
• 12:07
  having HSV. My sex life has been almost non
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  impacted by it other than, you know, I have to disclose it
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  before having sex or I feel because I feel like that's the
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  right thing to do. I do feel like that's the right
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  thing to do for you. For me, yeah, right.
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  Is it not for for everybody? I just remember, you know, my
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  friends with HIV back when it was a death sentence in the 80s,
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  and there were guys who didn't want to sleep with guys who had
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  HIVI was not one of those guys. And, you know, some would worry
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  about disclosuring because they might get rejected.
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  And then, like, there was just kind of a vibe shift for a lot
• 12:45
  of my friends with HIV who was like, they didn't want to be in
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  bed with somebody who wouldn't want to be there because of
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  that, because of the emotional burden that placed on them.
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  And yeah, so it was became a sorting hat, like telling
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  someone you had HIV would scare away the people you wouldn't
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  want to have sex with anyway, correct.
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  And telling someone you have HSV who rejects you for that reason,
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  that's not somebody who's mature or thoughtful or informed about
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  sex, and probably therefore not somebody who's going to be any
• 13:14
  good at it or somebody you're going to have sex with.
• 13:16
  Yeah, I also have had the experience where you tell
• 13:18
  someone you have HSB and they go me too, then you high 5 and then
• 13:22
  you have sex. Oh my God, I love that that I
• 13:25
  call that Yahtzee moments. Like I always think of kinks
• 13:28
  like people have to, you know, if you meet through a non kink,
• 13:32
  you're not on fat life, you're not on field, you're not on
• 13:34
  Recon and you meet somebody and you're like, Oh my God, I have
• 13:36
  these kinks. I need these to be incorporated
• 13:38
  in my fact life from my sense of sexual fulfillment to bond to my
• 13:41
  partner. And eventually you have to tell
• 13:43
  them what they are. You have to lay your kink cards
• 13:45
  on the table. And every once in a while,
• 13:47
  someone's like, oh, I got to tell you like, and people make
• 13:51
  the mistake of like, rolling out their kinks like it's, I have
• 13:54
  leukemia. I just thought you should know
• 13:56
  that being with me means I have leukemia.
• 13:59
  And you have to like, treat it like it's Christmas morning.
• 14:01
  Like, surprise, there's this tree in the corner with these
• 14:04
  presents under it that are awesome.
• 14:05
  And you lay your king cards on the table.
• 14:07
  And every once in a while I hear from somebody like, all right,
• 14:09
  told him I'm into bondage and S&M.
• 14:10
  And he looked at me and said, me too high 5.
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  And I love those moments, those Yahtzee moments.
• 14:16
  They're really sweet. I mean, it does take a lot of
• 14:18
  pressure off the table and it just sort of like opens up the
• 14:21
  playground a little bit and and it makes for a really fun
• 14:23
  experience. Yeah, I like that.
• 14:26
  OK, Let me see. I have some questions for you.
• 14:27
  I also ask my audience, you know, what should I ask you?
• 14:31
  I guess really quickly. You've been really enjoying
• 14:33
  talking about heated rivalry. Yes, Oh my God, love it.
• 14:37
  And my audience is trying to convince me to to get me to
• 14:41
  finish watching the series. Did you watch the first episode
• 14:44
  or two and. I watched, I watched the first 3
• 14:46
  episodes and I have kind of a hot take, right?
• 14:48
  Because everybody, everybody says don't worry, go.
• 14:53
  I hope I don't get roasted for this.
• 14:54
  Everybody says that heated rivalry is fantastic television.
• 14:58
  They also say you have to get through the 1st 3 episodes in
• 15:02
  order to access that fantastic television.
• 15:04
  My hot take is that if I have to get through three episodes for
• 15:08
  it to get to the good TV, it's not good TV.
• 15:10
  You know the first 3 episodes of The Sopranos suck.
• 15:13
  Right. And then it becomes yeah, the.
• 15:16
  First, the first season of Seinfeld was famously bad and
• 15:20
  they almost cancelled Seinfeld after the first season.
• 15:24
  Go watch the first 3 episodes of Friends.
• 15:27
  It can take a minute for a show to fight its group, but I
• 15:29
  actually think what Tierney did with those first 3 episodes was
• 15:33
  just lower everyone's expectations and everyone's
• 15:37
  emotional sort of force field was gone.
• 15:40
  Like our expectations of the show after the first 3 episodes
• 15:44
  were it's skinny Max, but in a hockey rink.
• 15:47
  It's kind of like 90s odds, HBO, late night skinny Max kind of
• 15:53
  softcore porn, which was mostly straight.
• 15:55
  And you're just like watching it going OK, OK, like, yeah, hot
• 15:58
  butts and like things going on here and then grinding.
• 16:03
  And then episode 4-5 and six, you're just, especially if
• 16:07
  you're gay. But a lot of straight women love
• 16:09
  it. And there's a lot of guys out
• 16:10
  there who really liked it. Straight guys, you just you're
• 16:14
  not prepared for how how it snuck up on you, how emotionally
• 16:19
  invested you became in these characters and then the depth of
• 16:22
  their feeling for each other and the complicated feelings being
• 16:27
  sort of explored and unpacked. It blindsides you.
• 16:30
  Like I watched the first three up and I didn't like the third
• 16:32
  episode. I thought Kip the that was no
• 16:35
  like art major, the guy who's like more ripped than any of the
• 16:40
  professional athletes. So it's like.
• 16:41
  The oh, the the smoothie, the smoothie, the guy who makes the
• 16:45
  smoothies, the. Smoothie I watched the first 3
• 16:47
  episodes and I was like I'm here for the sax.
• 16:50
  I feel dirty because like, I'm an old man watching these
• 16:54
  teenagers fuck. But like, all right.
• 16:56
  And then third episode, the bottle episode with Scott and
• 17:00
  Kemp is like, OK, OK. And then just cried watching
• 17:05
  episode 4, cried watching episode 5.
• 17:07
  And maybe you got to be, maybe you got to be a fag and maybe
• 17:10
  you got to be to be gay. But I know lots of straight
• 17:14
  people who've watched it and loved it.
• 17:16
  Straight guys, even. Not just straight girls who wish
• 17:19
  that. They were gay for a SEC.
• 17:22
  Who don't understand that they think, oh, my gay friends are
• 17:25
  all so nice and like why can't straight men be more like gay
• 17:27
  men? And I wish I was gay because gay
• 17:29
  men are all so nice. And I would look at them and
• 17:31
  say, you wouldn't say that if you were a gay man.
• 17:34
  Like, gay men are awful to each other because we're trying to
• 17:36
  get into each other's pants. And we're like, everything
• 17:39
  straight men do to you that you hate and that makes you feel
• 17:42
  weird and was such a real friendship.
• 17:44
  Or do they have an ulterior motive?
• 17:46
  And are they trying to get into my pants and all that shit?
• 17:49
  Gay guys do that shit to each other and stomp on each other's
• 17:51
  hearts. Yeah, I love my girlfriends.
• 17:53
  No woman has ever broken my heart because I could never love
• 17:55
  a woman. But, like, men have broken my
• 17:58
  heart. Yeah.
• 17:59
  When? I think of gay men.
• 18:00
  I don't think like, oh, such sweethearts.
• 18:02
  I just think men. Men who have more sex than
• 18:06
  straight men, yes, and who are more open about wanting sex.
• 18:10
  Straight men would do everything gay men do if straight men
• 18:14
  could. But straight men can't because
• 18:16
  women won't. Why won't women go to a bath
• 18:19
  house? You know, if I told straight
• 18:21
  guys, OK, there's this building and it's full of women who are
• 18:25
  already naked. Some of them are really fucking
• 18:27
  hot. Some of them are 19 fucking
• 18:29
  years old and they just want to fuck and they don't want to know
• 18:32
  your name and they don't want your contact information and you
• 18:35
  will never see them again. Straight men would go, there
• 18:39
  would be a line of straight men down the block to get into that
• 18:42
  building. So it's not like straight men
• 18:44
  hear about a gay bath house and they think I would never.
• 18:46
  Oh, gay men are so disgusting. We're so morally superior.
• 18:49
  They just think we don't have that opportunity.
• 18:51
  And why don't straight men have that opportunity?
• 18:54
  Violence, male violence. There's also women are less
• 18:57
  sexual for reasons, but also women are much more hesitant to
• 19:03
  have sex on impulse or to take a chance on a guy.
• 19:06
  Because women have to control constantly for male violence.
• 19:10
  Gay men do too to a more limited extent.
• 19:13
  I have a friend who was killed by a gay serial killer.
• 19:15
  Like gay men also have to factor that in that men are violent but
• 19:20
  men are not socialized to feel entitled to the bodies of other
• 19:25
  men. You're right.
• 19:26
  And there's a negotiation that happens when gay men have sex
• 19:30
  with each other. And there's often when a
• 19:32
  straight man is pursuing women, there's expectation and this
• 19:35
  attitude of entitlement that makes women feel unsafe and
• 19:38
  often because they are unsafe. And so.
• 19:41
  Yeah. Well, I like that, the
• 19:43
  distinction between a negotiation versus an
• 19:45
  expectation. There's just so much to unpack
• 19:48
  here. But when you think about it,
• 19:51
  like I hear from straight guys, you're like, oh, I wish I could
• 19:53
  have as much sex as you do. And I will say to them, you
• 19:56
  know, a lot of the sex that gay men have, you would you would
• 19:59
  think was a consolation prize. We negotiate about sex.
• 20:02
  Like two men go to bed together for the first time.
• 20:04
  And I call them the four magic words somebody says, what are
• 20:07
  you into? Because you can't just default
• 20:09
  to. Vaginal intercourse, yeah, with
• 20:12
  the knowing who's going to get fucked, like two men get to yes,
• 20:15
  and then they keep talking about what's going to happen.
• 20:18
  A man and a woman get to yes. And it's usually when they stop
• 20:20
  talking about what's going to happen right and at that moment.
• 20:23
  And it's one of the reasons gay men are sometimes really up for
• 20:25
  more sex and sexual opportunities.
• 20:28
  When you say what are you into? The other guy might say, I'm not
• 20:30
  into anal. You might say just like oral
• 20:33
  hand jobs rolling around, I want to do this.
• 20:35
  And if the straight guy said to a woman, like, what are you
• 20:37
  into? And she said, I'm not into
• 20:38
  vaginal penetration, I don't want to get fucked, he'd be
• 20:41
  like, I thought you said you wanted to have sex.
• 20:43
  Yeah, right. If straight guys got their asses
• 20:46
  fucked every single time they said yes to sex, they would say
• 20:49
  yes to sex less often than they might otherwise.
• 20:52
  If there were other options, the straight guys who might be
• 20:54
  listening. If you want women to say yes to
• 20:56
  sex more often, define sex more broadly.
• 20:59
  So a woman can say yes to sex without it meaning she has to
• 21:02
  get penetrated. Because let me tell you, as
• 21:04
  somebody penetrates and is penetrated, to be on the
• 21:07
  receiving end of the penetration is a greater physical cost and a
• 21:13
  greater emotional risk. Well, not to mention for women,
• 21:17
  the consequence can also be getting pregnant, you know.
• 21:20
  Sexually transmitted infections or.
• 21:22
  STI is, yeah. Like we were to go from male to
• 21:24
  female during intercourse. If somebody has been exposed,
• 21:26
  I'm not spontaneously generated. And also, I don't know, I'm
• 21:29
  probably just throwing this out there, but men are less likely
• 21:31
  to be aware of their sexual health as women.
• 21:34
  They're not getting tested as much or as often or are as
• 21:39
  knowledgeable not to throw men under the bus here or straight
• 21:41
  men, I guess, or as knowledgeable about transmission
• 21:44
  rates and etcetera, etcetera. So the risk is greater to women.
• 21:48
  Yes, it's always greater to women and their four women are
• 21:51
  there. You know, I don't think if we
• 21:53
  could control from male violence and sexually transmitted
• 21:57
  infections and unplanned pregnancies perfectly, that
• 22:00
  would mean all women would behave just the same way gay men
• 22:02
  do. Because women aren't men.
• 22:04
  But there are, when you talk about 4 billion people and 4
• 22:07
  billion people, hundreds of millions of exceptions.
• 22:09
  There are probably more women out there who might like to have
• 22:12
  spontaneous or nearly anonymous gay sex.
• 22:15
  I just had on my show a woman who worked with an agency in
• 22:20
  Australia that sets up gang bangs for women where they
• 22:23
  screen the man and she gets to pick the man and it's all safe.
• 22:27
  And there are women out there who have gang bang fantasies and
• 22:31
  it has to be safe. And so there's some women out
• 22:33
  there who would like to like do all the crazy shit that gay men
• 22:35
  do, but they're not a majority. Also have to say, like I've
• 22:40
  never had sex in a bath house. Like I know the bath house is
• 22:42
  there for me if I ever should need it, but I can't share a can
• 22:46
  of coke with my sister. I'm not going to suck a Dick
• 22:47
  that's been in three other guys mouths or asses for all I know
• 22:51
  in the last half hour. Or like I have a cooties thing
• 22:54
  that's kept me safe. Know thyself, you know.
• 22:57
  I think that's where that comes from.
• 22:58
  Know thyself, whether you have cooties or not, or a cooties
• 23:01
  thing. Speaking of, you know, bath
• 23:06
  houses or similar like activities.
• 23:08
  I used to do erotic massage when I lived in San Francisco maybe
• 23:11
  10 years ago. I did a year of happy ending
• 23:14
  massage for women because I figured, oh, there's a market
• 23:18
  for men, right? Men can get massages either by
• 23:23
  gay masseurs or female, yeah, masseurs or female masseuses,
• 23:27
  right? So the market is there.
• 23:28
  There's no market for women. Were you able to to develop a
• 23:31
  clientele? 100% Oh my God, that's amazing.
• 23:34
  I love that. 100% on Craig because on Craigslist I would
• 23:38
  advertise. I would advertise happy ending
• 23:41
  massage or sensual massage for women because in my brain I knew
• 23:44
  there were women that wanted some sort of release.
• 23:47
  They wanted male touch, they wanted a hookup, they wanted A1
• 23:51
  night stand. But there was, other than
• 23:53
  cruising Craigslist or maybe a hotel bar, there's no real
• 23:59
  marketplace for women to get this kind of experience.
• 24:02
  And so I set it up. I set up the, you know, a little
• 24:04
  website with what you're going to expect.
• 24:06
  And and then I would invite, you know, I would invite women over
• 24:09
  to my house and I would give him this very safe experience.
• 24:12
  And it was also like the, you know, there is the fantasy of
• 24:17
  the masseur who goes a little, you know, who gives a little
• 24:20
  extra. And it was a really beautiful
• 24:23
  experience. I did it for a whole year and it
• 24:25
  really was an alternative, like a safe alternative for women to
• 24:28
  get that kind of pleasure. What was your rate?
• 24:31
  How did it compare to the rates that guys giving happy ending
• 24:35
  massages to other guys could charge?
• 24:37
  And why did you stop? My rate was, I think I started
• 24:41
  well because I had no experience, so I started low and
• 24:43
  then we just kind of raised my rate along along the way.
• 24:46
  So it started at like 75 bucks and then I think at the whenever
• 24:50
  I stopped, I think I was charging somewhere around 3 or
• 24:51
  $400 for a 90 minute or two hour experience.
• 24:55
  And why did you stop? I stopped because it was messing
• 24:57
  with my dating life and it was like I was.
• 25:01
  You'd have to explain that my side hustle is.
• 25:04
  And I did explain and a lot of people were just not into it.
• 25:07
  And also it, it, I was giving AI was giving a lot of energy,
• 25:12
  right? Like a lot of sexual energy of
• 25:14
  myself. To.
• 25:15
  This experience and it was kind of taxing from from just an
• 25:19
  energetic standpoint. And then I wasn't, I, I wasn't
• 25:22
  able to kind of feed my own sex life or my dating.
• 25:25
  Life and how many clients would you see in a given week?
• 25:28
  What was the market like? I would do only one client a day
• 25:31
  because of how like kind of taxing it was so.
• 25:33
  I so like $300 a day at the I got a Lamborghini out of it or
• 25:36
  something. $300 a day, three or $400.00 a day for like 2 hours
• 25:40
  of work and a lot of laundry. Lots of laundry.
• 25:44
  I will say that there's something really weird that
• 25:46
  happened is that I was using God, I can't believe I'm sharing
• 25:49
  this, but the mix of like I was using defraction a coconut oil
• 25:56
  and so the mix of that and and pussy juice, the smell still to
• 26:01
  this day kind of it just doesn't it doesn't work for me anymore.
• 26:06
  I I could see that. Yeah.
• 26:09
  I, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that would never
• 26:11
  have worked for me ever. So I I don't have to, I don't
• 26:14
  have to run the double-blind. I don't have to replicate your
• 26:16
  results of this experiment. I'll just like confirm them but
• 26:20
  wouldn't wouldn't work for me. But what I did find is that
• 26:23
  like, basically what I thought was, you know, oh, fun and sexy
• 26:27
  and a good way to make money turned into this experience of
• 26:29
  like giving women love and attention and affection.
• 26:34
  Who didn't? Normally get it?
• 26:36
  All of my friends who do sex work, and I've known a lot of
• 26:39
  people who've done sex work as professional dominatrixes.
• 26:42
  I've known gay male escorts. Half of them, all of them will
• 26:48
  say half their clients, you know, they want to get off, but
• 26:51
  they mostly want to talk. They want to be seen and they
• 26:54
  want to have a human connection, even if it's one they have to
• 26:58
  pay for. And they all were therapists in
• 27:02
  the end. Like a friend has been a
• 27:03
  dominatrix for decades and she has regular clients whose lives
• 27:08
  she has turned around by listening and giving them
• 27:12
  feedback and being empathetic. And some people are like, OK,
• 27:17
  but it's so transactional and she's providing a service.
• 27:19
  Like, have you ever had a really good lawyer in your life if
• 27:23
  you've ever needed one? I've needed lawyers a few times.
• 27:25
  Like I'm paying this guy $300.00 an hour and he's really wise and
• 27:28
  he's really experienced and like part of what I'm getting from
• 27:31
  him in addition to the service that I contracted with him for
• 27:36
  has been like downloads. You know, I've gotten in trouble
• 27:39
  a few times and I've had to like hire lawyers and lawyers have
• 27:41
  like games out with me, like how to do what I do without getting
• 27:43
  into this kind of trouble again and why I was getting into this
• 27:46
  kind of trouble. And how is that any different
• 27:48
  than the dominatrix that gives you the experience that you need
• 27:51
  and want, the service that you hired here for, but then you
• 27:55
  develop a rapport with and you begin to respect and they give
• 27:58
  you input. And that's my my friend the the
• 28:01
  pro Dom who's been at it for decades.
• 28:03
  Yeah, if the connection is there and you feel safety and there's
• 28:06
  trust, and they might hold some other wisdom and they might see
• 28:10
  you in a certain way that other people don't see you.
• 28:12
  I have a theory that gets me in trouble sometimes.
• 28:15
  My friends were sex workers about the in cells and the
• 28:18
  violent in cells which was more of a concern 5-10 years ago.
• 28:21
  Now they're all looks maxing celibates.
• 28:23
  But when it comes to sex work, we're comfortable.
• 28:28
  You know, Helen Hunt won an Oscar for that movie The
• 28:30
  Sessions, where she put a sex worker who is so good, a
• 28:33
  profoundly disabled client. Every once in a while there's a
• 28:35
  news story about a mom of a profoundly disabled adult son
• 28:39
  who went out and found a sex worker.
• 28:41
  And it's like a feel good story. Like this mom loves her son so
• 28:44
  much she wants him to have an adult sexual experience.
• 28:48
  But the only way it could happen, because he's dependent
• 28:50
  on his caretakers for everything, is for someone to
• 28:53
  make it happen for him. And everyone's like, oh, OK,
• 28:56
  yeah. When someone's profoundly
• 28:57
  disabled, where everyone's comfortable with sex, we'll give
• 29:00
  Oscars to people who pay the sex worker.
• 29:02
  In that scenario. There are people out there who
• 29:04
  are so profoundly socially disabled who don't have the
• 29:08
  social skills, who may be ambulatory, who may be able to
• 29:12
  go places and do things, but there's just something off.
• 29:16
  And it's really hard for them to make a human connection.
• 29:18
  And I do think people can be driven crazy by sexual
• 29:22
  deprivation and to be touch starved.
• 29:25
  And if we had a culture that didn't tell people that if you
• 29:29
  had to pay for it, you were a loser or a monster or sex
• 29:33
  trafficker, we would have more people who, you know, profoundly
• 29:37
  disabled but socially as opposed to physically accessing sex
• 29:41
  workers and not curdling into in cell looks, maxers or whatever
• 29:46
  the fuck. I don't think you take an angry
• 29:48
  in cell with a gun and give him a hooker and it winds the clock
• 29:53
  back and fixes him. I don't want my friends who are
• 29:55
  sex workers to be alone in a room with a violent dangerous in
• 29:59
  cell. But I think if we could get
• 30:01
  further upstream of the anger and the 4 Chan message boards
• 30:06
  and the, you know, the black mold of misogyny all over the
• 30:11
  Internet, that can really impact some people.
• 30:13
  And we just told people that, you know, we did criminal sex
• 30:16
  work and we told people that if this is how you can access touch
• 30:19
  and intimacy and connection, you have to pay for it.
• 30:22
  You know what? The Dirty little secret of all
• 30:24
  relationships, everybody pays for it.
• 30:26
  All relationships are transactional.
• 30:28
  I pay my husband like I pay my boyfriend.
• 30:32
  I pay them in time, attention, affection, prioritization.
• 30:36
  I pay them with physical intimate with being present for
• 30:39
  them, not just physically, not just sex, but like being present
• 30:41
  for them and being on call for them.
• 30:44
  And if I stopped paying in in those ways, the relationship
• 30:47
  would end. And he, my husband pays me in
• 30:51
  the same way with all of those things.
• 30:53
  And it's a transactional relationship, but we're paying.
• 30:57
  Yeah. And we're all paying, Yeah.
• 31:00
  And you know, one of the problems I sometimes see in
• 31:02
  relationships is one person's paying and the other person's
• 31:04
  just cashing. And I only got fair, like the
• 31:09
  payments have to go back and forth.
• 31:11
  Only in a money for intimacy transaction relationship is the
• 31:15
  transaction one way, right? OK.
• 31:18
  So a couple questions. Thank you for sharing all of
• 31:20
  that. What the hell is looks maxing?
• 31:24
  Are you not following the Kalava Clear?
• 31:26
  Should Calva Kirk, because he's kind of.
• 31:30
  Usually I got a good I got a good finger on the pulse, but
• 31:32
  this one I missed out on. He was profiled in the New York
• 31:35
  Times. He's all over social media,
• 31:37
  looks, maxing. It's this subculture among
• 31:40
  young, mostly straight men where they think that they want to be
• 31:44
  Chads. It does grow.
• 31:46
  It did grow out of the in cell thing where you know, Chad is a
• 31:49
  guy who's hot who gets girls and the Stacey is a hot girl.
• 31:52
  And these guys who weren't Chads wanted Stacey's and not like
• 31:56
  women in their league and looks. Maxing is this movement of guys
• 32:01
  who are doing everything they can to be as hot as they
• 32:04
  possibly can be, including steroids, including smashing
• 32:08
  themselves in the face with hammers to get bigger jaws, to
• 32:13
  get bigger jaws to, to, to create bone growth, getting hair
• 32:16
  transplants, like just doing everything they can to be hot.
• 32:19
  What's weird about the looks maxing dudes out there is that
• 32:22
  they, they, they don't really let go of the resentment.
• 32:25
  Like, oh, now you're interested in me because I'm hot.
• 32:28
  And there's still this contempt, right and misogyny around it.
• 32:32
  It's this fascinating end of the world collapse of the Roman
• 32:36
  Empire, nihilistic symptom of of where we are around sex and
• 32:42
  culture and gender and relationships between the sexes,
• 32:47
  and it's hugely depressing. And you just Google looksmaxers.
• 32:50
  I will. I'm, I'm scared.
• 32:52
  Actually, I'm scared for, I'm scared for women out there, you
• 32:55
  know, who have to deal with these looksmaxers.
• 32:57
  I'm more scared where women have to deal with the MAGA
• 32:58
  motherfuckers. And what we've seen, especially
• 33:01
  among women under 35, is like young men are much are more and
• 33:05
  more MAGA, more and more conservative, and young women
• 33:08
  are more and more progressive and liberal and progressive
• 33:10
  liberal. Young women do not want to date,
• 33:13
  marry, fuck guys who are MAGA or would vote for Trump, or are
• 33:19
  sexist assholes who are out there on the Internet saying
• 33:22
  that women should be the right to vote, should be taken away
• 33:24
  from women, which some of them are arguing.
• 33:27
  And so increasingly, in all the ways that men and women are
• 33:31
  already not necessarily sexually compatible, they're increasingly
• 33:35
  not politically compatible. Yeah.
• 33:37
  And conservative young men indicate that they're willing to
• 33:39
  date liberal and progressive women, and that's very big of
• 33:42
  them and selfless. But young women are not willing
• 33:45
  to date men who. Actively voted for them.
• 33:50
  The rapist in the White House? Yeah, and think it's fine for
• 33:54
  them to be denied their bodily autonomy and our sexist pieces
• 33:58
  of shit. And so women are choosing no man
• 34:01
  over these men, and these men are not taking that well.
• 34:08
  Right. They'd rather date the bear.
• 34:11
  They'd rather spend a night with the bear then with, with men,
• 34:16
  yes, with mega men and, and, but then also with just men.
• 34:19
  You kind of clump them all into like, you know, not all men, but
• 34:23
  most men, right? Enough of them that you have to
• 34:25
  be worried about all of them, right?
• 34:28
  And you have to be careful about all of them.
• 34:30
  But if a guy tells you he's MAGA, he has that Red Hat on.
• 34:33
  Like from that you can infer that you're not safe with this
• 34:37
  guy. Correct.
• 34:37
  I mean, I don't have anybody in my life that is MAGA, and I'm OK
• 34:42
  with that. My dad is MAGA.
• 34:45
  Yeah. So I won't date my dad.
• 34:47
  Yeah. For all sorts of reasons that
• 34:49
  included. Sure, but how's your
• 34:51
  relationship? My dad is also very elderly and
• 34:55
  has dementia. Right?
• 34:57
  And it's not severe or anything, but we talked less about
• 35:01
  politics now, and it's a blessing.
• 35:03
  I guess the question that I have is like, you know, I think we
• 35:06
  used to be able to politically differ, right?
• 35:09
  Like even in the Obama or the Bush years or the Reagan years,
• 35:13
  you'd have these couples where it was liberal wife,
• 35:15
  conservative, you know, husband, and they'd make it work.
• 35:18
  James Carville and Mary Matlin, where he was the liberal and she
• 35:21
  was the conservative and they were on CNN doing the shtick.
• 35:24
  Right, but that doesn't I don't is that possible anymore?
• 35:29
  I don't think it is when the stakes are so existentially high
• 35:34
  because it's not just a debate about capital gains and it's not
• 35:37
  just a debate about free trade or international alliances.
• 35:43
  It's a debate about whether we're going to end democracy in
• 35:46
  America, right? Adopt authoritarianism, right?
• 35:50
  And who's going to be ground under the boot of fascism and
• 35:54
  who's could be wearing that boot.
• 35:56
  And when the stakes are that high, Yeah, I don't think, I
• 35:59
  don't think partisans fighting the Nazis occupying Germany or
• 36:04
  occupying France in the 40s could, like, set aside their
• 36:08
  political differences to fuck German boys who are hot.
• 36:10
  I just don't think you could. You could do that.
• 36:13
  I'm very much pro that one. Dutch resistance.
• 36:15
  I think she's a Dutch resistance fighter who would pick up German
• 36:18
  soldiers, make them think she was going to fuck them and take
• 36:21
  them out into the woods and kill them.
• 36:23
  Yeah. I think we're going to get there
• 36:25
  again, probably sooner than any of us would like to admit.
• 36:29
  Yeah, it's, I mean, it's scary, scary times in the United
• 36:32
  States. I just moved back from Canada
• 36:33
  and people were wondering like why?
• 36:35
  You know, and I think it's because I have a toxic
• 36:38
  relationship. I have like a trauma bond with
• 36:41
  the United States. It's a it's a weird country to
• 36:45
  to want to live in. But it also has, you know, a lot
• 36:48
  of my friends live here. There's a lot of beauty here.
• 36:50
  There's also a lot of opportunity.
• 36:52
  It's confusing. It's confusing time to to be
• 36:55
  living in the United States. Yeah, I'd like to get the fuck
• 36:58
  out of here. Where would you go?
• 37:01
  A small country in central Europe.
• 37:03
  I have a husband of many, many years and he has a boyfriend and
• 37:05
  I have a boyfriend and my boyfriend is an EU citizen.
• 37:09
  I could be an EU citizen if I could marry my boyfriend and I
• 37:11
  would be in a heartbeat. But I don't want to divorce my
• 37:13
  husband so I'm just kind of stuck.
• 37:15
  OK, we can't. We can't just marry.
• 37:17
  You can't have two husbands. I don't know about because it's
• 37:20
  always nobody ever catches A polygamist.
• 37:22
  It does seem like you could take that risk.
• 37:24
  Like people get away with being polygamist for decades and then
• 37:28
  they get caught. I've never heard of somebody
• 37:30
  like getting busted for polygamy at the wedding, the second
• 37:34
  wedding when they married that other person before without
• 37:36
  being so. Sometimes I joke with my
• 37:37
  boyfriend like we should just see what happens.
• 37:40
  A little like a civil ceremony. They're not going to look at the
• 37:44
  records wherever you got married.
• 37:46
  Somewhere in Seattle, maybe? We don't need no stinking badge.
• 37:49
  Unlikely. OK, here's a question for you.
• 37:52
  I have a listener question. I interviewed Jenny who wrote
• 37:58
  the burned haystack dating method.
• 38:00
  Does this ring a bell? No.
• 38:02
  Which is basically, you know, anybody that you meet online, if
• 38:05
  they're not, if they're not aligned with what you're looking
• 38:08
  for, you you block them. You don't X out, you block so
• 38:11
  that they so you basically are burning the haystack down so
• 38:13
  that you can find the needle. OK.
• 38:16
  Anyways, we're in a reserve judgement, but.
• 38:19
  This is my I'm judging this face.
• 38:21
  I know, I saw that. But she has a question for you.
• 38:23
  Are you ready? Yeah.
• 38:25
  OK, hold on. Let's see yes.
• 38:27
  OK, so Dan Savage, if you are listening, I would like you and
• 38:31
  and the members of my community would like you to know that
• 38:34
  there are far too many straight middle-aged Midwestern American
• 38:40
  men abusing your GGG acronym good giving and game because we
• 38:45
  keep. Finding out they only mean for
• 38:49
  that to apply to women. The other one.
• 38:53
  That is the same, that is a problem with the same contingent
• 38:55
  of middle-aged Midwestern men. They do not know what sex
• 38:59
  positive means. They think it means that like,
• 39:02
  yes, I positively want to have sex with you, Greg.
• 39:08
  OK, good giving in game. From the very second I started
• 39:12
  writing about it in my column, I described it as a two way St.
• 39:15
  It's what you should be for your lover and what your lover should
• 39:18
  be for you. Good and bad.
• 39:19
  Work on those skill sets. Giving of pleasure, which
• 39:23
  sometimes means giving a pleasure without immediate
• 39:25
  return. Like sometimes you go down on
• 39:27
  her and eat her pussy and get her off.
• 39:29
  And it's not about you or your Dick.
• 39:30
  You don't even take your Dick out and game for anything within
• 39:34
  reason. That means sort of like up for
• 39:36
  their kinks. If some guy, if you date some
• 39:38
  guy who's got a foot fetish and you like won't date him because
• 39:41
  he's got a foot fetish, I think that's really silly.
• 39:44
  Like, let him come on your feet. Like, how hard is that?
• 39:46
  And if you dig him. But it's got to be reciprocal.
• 39:50
  And yeah, there are people out there who say, who seem to think
• 39:54
  GGG is something that their partner needs to be for them,
• 39:57
  but not something they need to be for their partner.
• 39:59
  Don't fuck those guys. They don't understand the
• 40:03
  concept. It's not my problem or my fault
• 40:07
  that there are people out there weaponizing this in a way that
• 40:11
  you shouldn't tolerate their weapon.
• 40:13
  It's just like a guy who thinks oral is for him but not for you.
• 40:17
  That's insane. That's not oral sex's fault.
• 40:21
  It's not like the person who invented oral sex is to blame
• 40:24
  for the fact that some guys think that blowjobs are for them
• 40:27
  but eating pussy is optional or not something that they should
• 40:31
  be expected to do. Oral come, stay, I once wrote in
• 40:36
  my column. I got a question from a woman
• 40:39
  from a guy whose girlfriend wouldn't go down on him, and my
• 40:41
  answer was oral comes standard. Any model that arrives without
• 40:45
  oral should be immediately returned to the lot.
• 40:49
  And then I ran a question from a woman whose boyfriend wouldn't
• 40:51
  go down on her, and I repeated that answer.
• 40:54
  Oral comes standard. Any model that comes about oral
• 40:56
  should be immediately returned to the lot.
• 40:57
  What happened online was people took screenshots of the first
• 41:02
  response as if I was only saying to women, women have to suck
• 41:05
  Dick, right? And it's not true.
• 41:09
  You're not saying that you have to suck Dick or you have to go
• 41:12
  down on somebody. No, no, people can have
• 41:14
  preferences. Like some people just don't
• 41:17
  enjoy oral. Great.
• 41:18
  Find somebody who either doesn't enjoy oral because there are
• 41:21
  guys out there who I get letters from guys who like are
• 41:23
  embarrassed because they don't like, you know, getting your
• 41:25
  Dick sucked supposed to be like the ultimate.
• 41:27
  And they're guys out there who don't like it, who have
• 41:29
  girlfriends, who think they should or there's something
• 41:31
  wrong with them if they don't. Yeah, they're gay if they don't
• 41:34
  somehow. Yeah, they're gay.
• 41:36
  But so, yeah, find somebody who doesn't like it or find somebody
• 41:38
  who's like, you know what being with you, because it's not just
• 41:42
  GGGI have all these acronyms and catch phrases.
• 41:44
  But if the price of admission to be with you is that I don't get
• 41:48
  to have anal sex or get to have oral sex or get blowjobs or
• 41:51
  don't get to do this, or I don't get to have a non monogamous
• 41:54
  relationship because you insist on monogamy, the price of
• 41:56
  admission that I'm willing to pay to be with you is to go
• 41:59
  without anal or go without oral or be monogamous.
• 42:02
  I will do those things. I will pay that price of
• 42:04
  admission to be with you. So yeah, you don't.
• 42:07
  And nobody gets everything they want.
• 42:08
  Even people in open relationships who can have sex
• 42:10
  with tons of people don't necessarily.
• 42:12
  Other people, not tons, don't necessarily get everything they
• 42:14
  want. Nobody gets everything they
• 42:15
  want. And I'm sorry that there are
• 42:18
  people out there abusing GGGI. Don't know what to do.
• 42:21
  About that, nothing. Just the apology I think is good
• 42:24
  enough, you know? And fuck, those guys make me
• 42:26
  angry. I'm not angry at the author who
• 42:28
  asked the question. It's a legitimate point and it's
• 42:31
  one that she should make aggressively to guys who seem to
• 42:36
  think GGG is for their partners. They have to be in and they
• 42:41
  don't. I want to talk about her.
• 42:42
  I'm just going to give it a counter example.
• 42:45
  OK to the to the. Burn haystack dating method.
• 42:49
  Yeah, like discard anybody quickly if they're not exactly
• 42:51
  what you're looking for. And I'm just going to cite
• 42:54
  personal examples. So 31 years ago, 30 Oh my God 32
• 42:59
  years ago. Got out of a bad year long
• 43:01
  relationship, didn't leave the house all I wanted.
• 43:04
  The guy I wanted the needle I was looking for in the haystack.
• 43:06
  The guy who was older than me. The guy with a real job because
• 43:09
  I have a silly job. A guy with a better education
• 43:13
  than mine, like maybe an advanced degree, and who is
• 43:16
  kinkier than I was because I was tired of always being the freak
• 43:19
  in the relationship. And I go out the first night I
• 43:22
  go out after getting out of this awful relationship and I meet a
• 43:25
  guy who's seven years younger than me, works in a video store,
• 43:28
  did not go to college. Also, I wanted a guy who wasn't
• 43:30
  into monogamy. He's into monogamy and
• 43:33
  completely vanilla. That's my husband. 31 years
• 43:36
  later, that's a piece of hay I would have burned like 7
• 43:40
  different times for seven different reasons.
• 43:43
  And it was the like he was not the one I was looking for, but
• 43:47
  he was, I don't believe in the one.
• 43:48
  He was one of the ones that would do and he did.
• 43:51
  And he's still here. And the same thing with my I had
• 43:54
  a boyfriend for 13 years and like nothing about him was like,
• 43:59
  was the needle in the haystack. He was hay.
• 44:01
  And then I was like, oh shit, huh.
• 44:05
  You think you're going to be able to tell the hay from the
• 44:07
  needle, right? Especially if you burn the
• 44:09
  haystack, you'll be left with needles.
• 44:11
  And man, there's a lot of needles in disguise.
• 44:14
  There's a lot of needles that look like hay in there.
• 44:17
  That's really sweet. I'm like getting touched.
• 44:19
  Actually, there was like a tear forming there when you told me
• 44:21
  about, you know, how you met your husband the next day or
• 44:23
  something. And and despite all the things
• 44:25
  that you wanted, this is who you met.
• 44:27
  And he must have met enough needs or the connection must
• 44:31
  have been of a certain variety that you realized.
• 44:34
  Oh wow, this feels good. And I, I held him at arm's
• 44:38
  length for a long time. I was just like, OK, this is a
• 44:40
  summer fling. And then it turned into, OK,
• 44:42
  we're still fucking around in the fall.
• 44:44
  And then it turned into, well, he's moving.
• 44:48
  Is he going to move in with me? And I said no when he got an
• 44:50
  apartment that he was never in because he was always at mine.
• 44:54
  And then after a while, we're just like, OK, this is silly.
• 44:58
  And now we can say I love you to each other and you're not You're
• 45:02
  nothing I thought I wanted and everything I did.
• 45:05
  And I feel like people who go out into dating, you just
• 45:10
  sometimes can't predict you don't know what you want.
• 45:14
  Everyone pretends to know what they want, but you might meet
• 45:18
  somebody who just flips the table and makes you re evaluate
• 45:22
  what it is that you thought you wanted.
• 45:25
  Well, that's kind of and you. Need to be open to that, which
• 45:26
  is that doesn't mean don't have criteria, don't have standards,
• 45:30
  don't have standards like you can have all of that.
• 45:33
  Just be open to the chaos of desire and attraction and how it
• 45:39
  can break you apart. You know, my boyfriend is 22
• 45:42
  years younger than me. Like people who are giving grief
• 45:44
  to the guys from heated rivalry for the 15 year age gap.
• 45:46
  I look at that and I'm like, ha ha, ha, ha.
• 45:49
  And there was no universe in which we would ever even meet.
• 45:54
  And then we were at such different stages of life when we
• 45:56
  did meet that there was just like, didn't we're never.
• 45:59
  This is and we literally said to each other the same things my
• 46:01
  husband and I said at the beginning of the relationship.
• 46:03
  Well, could this make sense for a little while?
• 46:05
  And let's take enjoy this for what it is until it's over and
• 46:07
  then be friends. And that was 13 years ago that
• 46:10
  we had that conversation. How'd you meet?
• 46:13
  On the Internet. OK.
• 46:15
  I met my husband in a bar like gay people used to meet.
• 46:18
  And then I met my boyfriend on the Internet.
• 46:20
  And God bless the Internet, because my boyfriend is from a
• 46:23
  tiny village in the mountains in Central Europe and he's not
• 46:26
  somebody I would have like, run into on the street in Chicago or
• 46:29
  Seattle. Did you meet on a dating app or
• 46:32
  like? Using Instagram or we met on a
• 46:35
  dating app Yeah OK not a dating app, more like a.
• 46:38
  Like a site. Oh, a website for people with a
• 46:41
  certain niche interest. OK, OK.
• 46:44
  You. Share.
• 46:44
  OK, great enough. So wait, what's the can you
• 46:48
  share the niche or is it too, is it too personal?
• 46:51
  You can keep it private, I'm just curious.
• 46:53
  His friends sometimes track down my appearance as another
• 46:57
  podcast, hunting for dirt, OK? And he's a very private person.
• 47:00
  It's like. Model airplanes or something
• 47:02
  like. Let's call it that.
• 47:03
  It's model airplanes. OK it.
• 47:05
  Wasn't like a fetish website, it was like origami.
• 47:09
  Got it. Some sort of hobby or?
• 47:12
  Raising fighting goldfish. Look, you just never know where
• 47:15
  you're going to meet your person.
• 47:16
  It could be at an origami workshop, or it could be at a
• 47:19
  bird watching retreat or or anything.
• 47:22
  We met in a dungeon in Berlin. OK.
• 47:25
  Oh. For people interested in origami
• 47:27
  and raising fighting goldfish. I love it.
• 47:29
  Yeah. I didn't see that room at
• 47:30
  Bergheim last time I was. There, but you got to go to lab
• 47:34
  under Bergon. I yeah, I was invited to lab,
• 47:36
  actually. Labs.
• 47:38
  Not for straight people usually though.
• 47:39
  I know, I know, but they said that I was fruity enough that I
• 47:42
  could probably enjoy myself. I've had a couple I've given.
• 47:46
  I've given guys a call. You'll smell things that are
• 47:48
  worse than that mix of coconut butter.
• 47:51
  Or oil, and that's just Santorum and anal.
• 47:54
  Mucus and go early, right? Go early.
• 47:57
  If you go to lab, you don't want to be there 5:00 in the morning.
• 48:00
  Yeah, I think I've I've given guys a good old college try.
• 48:03
  It's it's not for me. I've given prostate play a good
• 48:05
  old college try. It's not for me.
• 48:06
  Wow, there's so many places we can go here.
• 48:08
  I do remember going to a sex party in Berkeley once and I had
• 48:11
  sex on a bus. There was a bus in in the party
• 48:15
  in the warehouse and the bus was not well ventilated.
• 48:18
  And there's a lot of people in there having sex.
• 48:21
  And I do remember that after we both came being overwhelmed with
• 48:26
  the smell of what could only be like fermented butt hole.
• 48:30
  Like that's how I like sort of describe the the bus.
• 48:33
  And that was one of the guys who that was one of the times you
• 48:35
  tried it with a guy. No, this is with a woman.
• 48:37
  But it was just the whole bus itself was that's what it was
• 48:40
  giving. And so, you know, I don't know,
• 48:42
  maybe I can imagine that the lab maybe smell a little bit like
• 48:45
  that. I have been to lab and I can
• 48:48
  tell you that it doesn't smell like that at 11:00 when it
• 48:51
  opens. But you want to be.
• 48:55
  I'm going to be in first and out first, unless you enjoy that.
• 48:59
  Like this universe smells like ass.
• 49:02
  And I like, I like how ass smells.
• 49:04
  If it's a guy I'm attracted to and his ass is clean, but just
• 49:07
  like general ass. Yeah, in the air like that
• 49:11
  doesn't work for me. Yeah, like mixed ass, you know.
• 49:14
  Yeah, that does not work for me. OK.
• 49:17
  So that's that's interesting. We can we can maybe switch here.
• 49:21
  Why all the hate for bisexuals? Oh for fuck's sake, I don't hate
• 49:26
  bisexuals. No, not you.
• 49:28
  I meant society's hate. Oh, yeah, Yeah.
• 49:31
  It's like, or why do we judge straight men who have explored
• 49:33
  sexually with other men? What?
• 49:34
  Where's the threat there? No, No, I wasn't.
• 49:37
  I wasn't saying like. I was being accused of being
• 49:39
  biphobic when all I was doing was like importuning by people
• 49:42
  to come the fuck out. No, no, it's like my.
• 49:44
  Problem is the closet and by people complaining the the deal
• 49:49
  that where I got accused of being biphobic included joking
• 49:52
  about like by guys but you know 30 years ago is an uninformed 26
• 49:56
  year old gay man. I started in my column, but
• 49:59
  yeah, there were. Bisexuals are saying they
• 50:02
  couldn't come out because gay people were mean to them.
• 50:05
  Straight people were. Mean to them?
• 50:07
  Yeah, everybody's mean to bisexuals.
• 50:09
  And I was like, do you think everybody was being nice to gay
• 50:11
  people? And then we decided to all come
• 50:13
  out. Do you think that's how that
• 50:14
  worked? That's not how that worked.
• 50:17
  Like we came out and then people were awful off in our own
• 50:20
  families were awful to us and we had to fight with them for a
• 50:24
  decent treatment. And eventually they would come
• 50:26
  around. And this idea that while I can't
• 50:28
  be out as by because somebody said something biphobic to me or
• 50:33
  in front of me in my friend group.
• 50:35
  And so now I can never come out as by because I'm not safe.
• 50:37
  But it's not safe. It's like that's just
• 50:41
  rationalization to stay closeted because you're a coward that
• 50:43
  you're not willing to do the work that a 15 year old gay kid
• 50:46
  who comes out in his high school in Wyoming is willing to do.
• 50:49
  And it's bullshit. And that's not biphobic.
• 50:52
  That's me like trying to get more by people to be out.
• 50:55
  Studies that show by people have worst mental health outcomes and
• 50:59
  everyone looked at them. Just the headline of like, Oh
• 51:01
  yeah, because everybody, all the mean monosexuals, the gays in
• 51:04
  the straits are mean to them. And then you read the study and
• 51:07
  the issue, the thing that contributes most significantly
• 51:11
  to worst mental health outcomes is the closet are by people who
• 51:15
  are married to people who think they're straight, that they have
• 51:17
  to hide from the closet is the is the problem.
• 51:21
  The closet is the problem. And you know, it's not like me
• 51:24
  being out as a gay person. And it makes me especially
• 51:27
  virtuous. If I had the option to live my
• 51:30
  life without having to tell my parents I was gay, you know, if
• 51:34
  I could have avoided coming out, I might have.
• 51:36
  And for a lot of bisexuals, you can't avoid coming out because
• 51:40
  if most bisexuals are going to end up with opposite sex
• 51:43
  partners and do their partners or families need to know them?
• 51:46
  I think your partner needs to know.
• 51:48
  I think your partner has a right to know.
• 51:50
  And I think you as a bisexual person should want to be with
• 51:55
  someone who knows you for who you are.
• 51:56
  You don't have to hide from. And I got a case for biphobia
• 52:00
  biphobic with that. But like, your question was
• 52:02
  about what? What did you want me to talk?
• 52:03
  About my question was about defensive.
• 52:05
  Well, I, I love that you went there, but also I have a story
• 52:09
  to share with you. That's, that's pretty funny.
• 52:10
  It's it's sort of about coming out, But my question is more
• 52:13
  like, why do we judge straight men who have explored sexually
• 52:18
  with other men and or would we be in a better place where like,
• 52:21
  you know, quote UN quote, straight men would feel more
• 52:23
  comfortable having homosexual experiences and not get judged
• 52:28
  by the opposite sex or by any sex.
• 52:30
  A woman can have a three-way with.
• 52:31
  A A man, a woman, oh so high. Go to eat pussy, roll around a
• 52:36
  little bit and nobody looks at her and says you have to be a
• 52:38
  lesbian or you couldn't have done that.
• 52:40
  I had sex with women when I was a teenager and I tell people
• 52:44
  that had I knocked up my girlfriend when I was 15, God
• 52:48
  bless the miscarriage a month later or what I was told was a
• 52:51
  miscarriage a month later. And nobody that I tell that
• 52:54
  story to is like, well, you're not gay then.
• 52:56
  You're straight. Yeah, you're pretty.
• 52:58
  Straight my gayness is titanium, my gayness is granite.
• 53:04
  But a straight guy is always under suspicion, like
• 53:09
  straightness is what all gay people before they came out
• 53:12
  claimed. Therefore you can trust us when
• 53:14
  we say we're gay. We're actually not straight, but
• 53:18
  straight guys. I feel bad for straight guys.
• 53:21
  You know the letters I get everyday from women.
• 53:23
  Is my boyfriend secretly gay because he likes?
• 53:26
  Because he liked prostate stimulation or he liked to have
• 53:29
  his nipples touched? It's not just straight guys
• 53:32
  doing this to each other policing straightness.
• 53:35
  It's gay men do it to straight guys like, oh, you had a
• 53:39
  three-way. You sucked the Dick for two
• 53:41
  minutes of the three-way because it turned your girlfriend on to
• 53:43
  see that and that was your motivation.
• 53:45
  But you couldn't put a Dick in your mouth even for a second if
• 53:47
  you weren't. You have to be gay.
• 53:50
  Have to. Be gay.
• 53:51
  Some you couldn't. Do that and that.
• 53:53
  I think that makes straight guys paranoid.
• 53:55
  And we should want fewer paranoid straight guys in the
• 53:59
  world because fearful paranoid straight guys are bad for each
• 54:02
  other, but they're really bad for women and men and women and
• 54:05
  gay men and other people who aren't just straight men.
• 54:09
  And we can't live in a world or we shouldn't live in a world
• 54:12
  where we tell straight men that their identity is straight.
• 54:17
  Is this bundle of two negatives. To be a straight guy is to not
• 54:20
  be a woman and to not be a faggot.
• 54:22
  And anything feminine or anything that's gay coded, that
• 54:26
  that's you is proof you're not or shatters and people will
• 54:33
  doubt you. And then you get straight guys
• 54:34
  overcompensating by being like, monosyllabic, boring, extra
• 54:40
  alpha, extra alpha, sexist, performatively sexist so that
• 54:44
  nobody doubts that they are actually straight guys, or
• 54:48
  obnoxiously homophobic, lest someone suspect, you know, if
• 54:51
  they're too nice to gay guys, that they're secretly gay.
• 54:54
  Yeah. And it's it's, it's not good.
• 54:58
  And it's not just straight guys faults.
• 55:00
  Women do this to their male partners.
• 55:01
  Gay men do this to their straight male friends.
• 55:04
  I know, I know a lot of women like I got I got this question
• 55:07
  recently that was like, hey, my boyfriend doesn't stay hard when
• 55:09
  he goes down on me. You know is he is he turned off
• 55:13
  and then a bunch of replies was like no, honey, he's gay right,
• 55:16
  because that I know it's terrible.
• 55:18
  It's. Terrible.
• 55:18
  He's concentrating. I know his Dick right now.
• 55:21
  He's. Busy.
• 55:22
  Also, why do you know you're he's he's on his stomach.
• 55:25
  Leave the guy alone. He's he's busy.
• 55:26
  How insecure can you be? I I think everybody needs to
• 55:31
  watch like a lot of gay porn. All straight people need to
• 55:34
  watch gay porn because women, you know, I can't come when he's
• 55:38
  fucking me or my girlfriend doesn't come when I'm fucking
• 55:41
  her. And I'm like, watch a gay guy
• 55:43
  get fucked and watch him cum. What's he doing?
• 55:45
  He's masturbating while he's getting fucked.
• 55:47
  That's what women need to do while they're getting fucked.
• 55:49
  I know, I know. Damn, you're preaching to the
• 55:51
  choir here. These women are like, I, you
• 55:53
  know, I've never been able to have an orgasm with my partner.
• 55:56
  And I'm like, are are you able to have one on your own?
• 55:59
  OK, so. Do that.
• 56:00
  Just wow. Just fucking Dick.
• 56:02
  Just. Exactly.
• 56:03
  Or just add your hand. Exactly or your vibrator.
• 56:06
  But then you get guys who are like who've they feel
• 56:10
  emasculated, faked orgasms, or they feel emasculated, but
• 56:14
  they've been with women who faked orgasms and they think
• 56:18
  their Magic Dick should do it or that the clit is actually a joy
• 56:22
  buzzer at the top of the vaginal canal.
• 56:23
  Another thing on the outside that's like the head of a penis
• 56:26
  staring you in the face. And that's why I think they
• 56:29
  should all watch gay porn, all straight people.
• 56:31
  It's part of their sex education.
• 56:32
  Have to watch gay porn because the gay guys and the gay tops
• 56:36
  and the gay bottoms are doing something right, which is the
• 56:39
  the top is taking his pleasure in that dude's butt fucking the
• 56:43
  shit out of him. Hopefully not, right?
• 56:46
  There's no shit at all. And as he's taking his pleasure
• 56:49
  on the bottom, the bottom is taking his pleasure from how
• 56:51
  that feels or whether physically or emotionally feels.
• 56:54
  And he's hard because he's playing with himself.
• 56:57
  Yeah, you want your boyfriend to be hard when he's going down on
• 57:00
  you encourage him to touch his Dick, but also like or just
• 57:03
  forget about his Dick. Like, take the pleasure.
• 57:06
  I keep telling women, mind your own business when you're getting
• 57:08
  head, like, just enjoy it like, you know.
• 57:11
  You're you're getting head. You should be happy.
• 57:14
  You should be happy. Well, there's also the thing
• 57:16
  that like, you know, erection doesn't equal arousal.
• 57:19
  Like they they don't have to be. Correlated, And sometimes you're
• 57:22
  focused on your partner's pleasure.
• 57:24
  And I'm happy I don't. I don't need to be turned on
• 57:26
  right now. I don't need to be rock hard.
• 57:28
  I love to give a blowjob and all I'm doing when I'm giving a
• 57:32
  blowjob is concentrating on him. But they're they're like, he
• 57:35
  must not like it if he's not turned on.
• 57:37
  So now he's now they're actively worried that he's turned off
• 57:40
  giving her. Head, which is understandable
• 57:43
  considering you know the shit that's hot peeped up on women
• 57:46
  about their genitals being dirty or disgusting and needing to be
• 57:48
  clean and maybe sometimes the grief they've gotten from male
• 57:52
  partners who are like yuck, no, I don't want to eat pussy,
• 57:54
  that's disgusting. And so a woman being sensitive
• 57:58
  to whether there's something in this for him, but then use your
• 58:02
  fucking words. Talk about, talk about it.
• 58:04
  I know, I know. That's my whole thing.
• 58:06
  My whole thing is like, have you asked, have you had like an
• 58:09
  adult conversation about this stuff?
• 58:11
  And a lot of people, they don't have their words, they don't
• 58:13
  they, they don't feel comfortable doing it.
• 58:15
  They don't have the language. How enthusiastic is he?
• 58:18
  Is another judge, another assessment that doesn't require
• 58:21
  using your words or whether he's a hard Dick like somebody who
• 58:23
  doesn't want to eat your pussy, but is eating it out of
• 58:26
  obligation, that can eat your pussy very differently from
• 58:29
  somebody who loves fucking eating pussy.
• 58:32
  And there are some sex acts that we engage in and perform and and
• 58:36
  love and that we're not going to be aroused, not going to have an
• 58:40
  erection in the moment, but we're going to Jack off about
• 58:42
  later. We're going to think about then
• 58:45
  while we're fucking you in like 10 minutes or after you're gone
• 58:48
  or next week and be like, Oh my God, I ate her pussy for two
• 58:51
  hours and she came six times all over my face.
• 58:53
  The same guy who wasn't hard while he was giving you those
• 58:55
  six orgasms is going to be jacking off about the memory of
• 58:58
  having given you those six orgasms when you are not there.
• 59:01
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 59:02
  And can you be enthusiastic? Can you moan?
• 59:04
  Can you show your enthusiasm in other ways than maintaining your
• 59:07
  erection? Yeah.
• 59:10
  All right, Dan, I have to, I have to admit something.
• 59:13
  I have to, I have to come clean about something in Montreal a
• 59:17
  few months ago. I, I like live between Montreal
• 59:19
  and now San Francisco because I, I love both these cities.
• 59:22
  I downloaded Grinder because I have some gay friends that were
• 59:25
  like, hey, if you like, you might, if you like trans women,
• 59:29
  there might be some on Grinder, right?
• 59:30
  They're going to be on field, not so much on Hinge.
• 59:33
  You might find some on Grinder. And so I downloaded Grinder not
• 59:36
  knowing that my, I guess I have like my Apple ID was connected
• 59:44
  to my dad's account, but also my mom's account.
• 59:48
  And so that we were sharing apps and so my mom texted me and
• 59:52
  asked me if she wanted if I wanted to chat because we hadn't
• 59:55
  chatted in a while. And I go, sure, that that sounds
• 59:59
  sweet. And so I called her and she
• 1:00:00
  goes, hey, I just got this notification.
• 1:00:03
  It says grinder gay dating. And I go, uh huh.
• 1:00:07
  And she goes, I just want to know, are you OK?
• 1:00:11
  And I go, yeah, mom, I'm OK. Are you really wanting to have a
• 1:00:14
  conversation about my sexuality right now?
• 1:00:17
  And she goes, no, just want to know that you're OK.
• 1:00:18
  And I go, Yep, I'm fine. Everything's fine.
• 1:00:21
  And then and then that's how I found out that my account was
• 1:00:23
  connected to her account. You need to disconnect your
• 1:00:26
  account. Immediately disconnected right
• 1:00:29
  after that. Then that's how my mom found out
• 1:00:32
  that I I downloaded a grinder. But you're not gay.
• 1:00:35
  But I'm not gay. Did you tell her that?
• 1:00:38
  I didn't tell her that I didn't think it was important.
• 1:00:41
  Stepping into the role of your mom, yes, it may be important to
• 1:00:45
  her, not she may not be seeking reassurance you're not gay, but
• 1:00:50
  reassurance that if you were, you would feel comfortable
• 1:00:52
  telling her that you're not afraid of telling her if you
• 1:00:55
  are. And I'm sorry, a Grinder account
• 1:00:57
  like my thumbs on Grinder, that's like that.
• 1:01:01
  That means he's gay or bi. Well, I think telling telling my
• 1:01:05
  mom that I was into dating trans women would be even more
• 1:01:08
  confusing, I think. Yeah.
• 1:01:11
  So I just, I just said, you know, if you, I just said
• 1:01:14
  everything's fine, mom. But a fun experience Download
• 1:01:19
  grinder. I I have never been on grinder.
• 1:01:21
  You have done a gayer thing than I have.
• 1:01:26
  I've had two Dicks in my mouth, but I have never been on
• 1:01:28
  grinder. I bet if we started comparing
• 1:01:29
  and contrasting we could find lots of gayer things I've done.
• 1:01:32
  But at least getting the apps you've downloaded you've I'm
• 1:01:36
  gayer than you and in the apps that I've downloaded.
• 1:01:40
  It was a fun experiment and and what I did did.
• 1:01:42
  You find a trans woman that you were.
• 1:01:43
  Interested. I did, absolutely.
• 1:01:45
  Yeah. And it was fun.
• 1:01:46
  It was super fun. Trans women, I think I was
• 1:01:48
  comparing my experience going on dates with trans women to my gay
• 1:01:51
  friends experience going on gay dates on The Grinder.
• 1:01:54
  And we found that trans women have way higher standards than
• 1:01:57
  gay men do in the way they communicate the kind of behavior
• 1:02:01
  they're willing to tolerate. Like the courtship is is very
• 1:02:06
  much like a standard heterosexual.
• 1:02:09
  Trans women have to control for violence in the same way that
• 1:02:12
  straight women do. Also, what I've been excited to
• 1:02:15
  see the the transformation is more people are out in trans is
• 1:02:20
  this subconscious collective awareness that's taken root
• 1:02:23
  among trans people that they don't live in a scarcity
• 1:02:27
  environment anymore when it comes to potential sex partners.
• 1:02:29
  They live in an environment of abundance.
• 1:02:32
  It used to be that my friends who were trans women would take
• 1:02:35
  what they could get because they didn't feel like they get much
• 1:02:38
  interest or many offers. Now trans women are very much in
• 1:02:44
  demand and they can be choosy in ways that the trans women I knew
• 1:02:49
  30 years ago felt they couldn't, and I love that for them.
• 1:02:52
  Yeah, good for them. But they also, I think they have
• 1:02:55
  to now differentiate between like what are their, what are
• 1:02:57
  they called? Chasers?
• 1:02:58
  Chasers. Chasers which are what?
• 1:03:01
  Men who who are only into them because they're trans.
• 1:03:06
  OK, I date men who are only into me because I'm a man, right?
• 1:03:10
  Right. You can't like this the problems
• 1:03:13
  people have with fetishization or objectification.
• 1:03:15
  We are objects. We are material things that can
• 1:03:18
  be seen and felt. The OED definition of objects.
• 1:03:21
  We are objects. You want to be with somebody
• 1:03:23
  who's attracted to you as the object you are, but also sees
• 1:03:26
  your hopeful humanity. And I hear a lot of people like,
• 1:03:30
  you know, dismiss people as fetishists or chasers after
• 1:03:33
  they've been rejected by that person for reasons that might
• 1:03:35
  have nothing to do with them being chasers or fakes.
• 1:03:39
  Like sometimes people get to know you a little bit and then
• 1:03:41
  aren't into you anymore. Right.
• 1:03:43
  Not because you are that thing, yeah.
• 1:03:45
  But would you rather be with somebody who's attracted to you
• 1:03:48
  because And not despite? Yeah, I would rather be with
• 1:03:52
  somebody who's attracted me because I'm not despite.
• 1:03:54
  Yeah. You know, I'm 61, though.
• 1:03:56
  I don't want to sleep with guys who are like, you're really old,
• 1:04:01
  but I like you, but you're really old.
• 1:04:03
  Like, there's just too many like younger guys who are into older
• 1:04:06
  guys for me to waste my time on the younger guy who's like, all
• 1:04:09
  right, despite the fact that you are really old, maybe like, no,
• 1:04:14
  fuck, I don't have time for that.
• 1:04:15
  Yeah, either don't talk about my old or be turned on by it.
• 1:04:19
  Exactly. I want because, not despite, and
• 1:04:21
  there's plenty of because out there.
• 1:04:23
  I will say I've gone on dates with younger women who love to
• 1:04:25
  make fun of my age, but in not in a like, I wish you weren't so
• 1:04:29
  old. But like, you know, they kind of
• 1:04:30
  embrace the thing and they make jokes about it and like, oh, do
• 1:04:33
  you need a nap, Grampy? Like, it's OK, take a nap.
• 1:04:35
  And then and then we'll go out, you know, and.
• 1:04:38
  That's. Fine, That's fine.
• 1:04:40
  It's fine. It's one way of processing the.
• 1:04:43
  You know, joking about The thing is a way of acknowledging a
• 1:04:47
  power imbalance, a way of acknowledging what could be
• 1:04:50
  problematic. Like you don't want to be with
• 1:04:53
  somebody who pretend there isn't a large age gap if there's a
• 1:04:56
  large and significant age gap. I think you want that in the
• 1:04:59
  forefront a little bit now and then in a serious discussion
• 1:05:03
  word. And sometimes it just did a
• 1:05:05
  playful way of acknowledging the facts on the ground or the facts
• 1:05:10
  in the bed. I mean, I think we should talk
• 1:05:11
  about this because one of the, the questions that they get the
• 1:05:14
  most is like, you know, he's it's, it's actually, well, my
• 1:05:17
  audience is mainly women. It's like 87% women and then a
• 1:05:21
  gay men and then a few straight men.
• 1:05:24
  And it seems like women are older women are dating younger
• 1:05:28
  men, right? Like that's a thing.
• 1:05:30
  We know that's a thing, but women are really concerned about
• 1:05:32
  it. You know, he's 10 years younger,
• 1:05:35
  he's 15 years younger. These are women in their 40s and
• 1:05:37
  50s. It's like, girl, it's not that
• 1:05:38
  big a deal. The guy's 35 or 40, like who
• 1:05:41
  cares? But they really want to know
• 1:05:44
  what is my blind spot here? How could this not work out?
• 1:05:47
  Or is this OK? Is this socially appropriate?
• 1:05:50
  The age gap question like comes up all the time and.
• 1:05:53
  Every relationship is not going to work out in the end because
• 1:05:55
  somebody if it goes on forever, somebody's going to die.
• 1:05:58
  Like all relationships fail in the end because none of us are
• 1:06:03
  immortal. Well, and when people say they
• 1:06:06
  wanted to work out like I was like, what do you mean by that?
• 1:06:08
  Like you want to have an open-ended relationship, OK, you
• 1:06:13
  want an LTR, you want a forever relationship.
• 1:06:17
  But mostly what you're going to have over the course of your
• 1:06:19
  life are a lot of STRS, short term relationships.
• 1:06:22
  And we have defined short term relationships in our head as
• 1:06:25
  failures because if it was a successful relationship, it
• 1:06:28
  wouldn't have ended. And what we, our attitude should
• 1:06:30
  be like, let's make the most of every relationship we have and
• 1:06:33
  then we'll be surprised by the one that goes on for decades.
• 1:06:36
  As I was by my relationship with my husband, I was surprised by
• 1:06:39
  it. But most of you're going to have
• 1:06:41
  a short term relationship. So like you're 45 and he's
• 1:06:44
  thirty. Maybe it doesn't make sense for
• 1:06:47
  you guys to be together when you're 60 and he's 45, but it
• 1:06:50
  makes sense right the fuck now. And you don't, you can't predict
• 1:06:53
  what it'll be like when you're 60 and he's 45.
• 1:06:56
  Maybe it'll make sense then or take a different form then.
• 1:06:59
  That was the issue with my boyfriend.
• 1:07:01
  Like when I met my boyfriend, I was 48 and he was 25 and we were
• 1:07:05
  like, OK, this I'm a young 48 and you're hot 25.
• 1:07:09
  And this makes sense right now for a little bit.
• 1:07:11
  But you know, surely by the time I'm 60, this is like or before,
• 1:07:15
  if I'm I'm 55, this is going to be over.
• 1:07:18
  I'm like just not over. You have no idea.
• 1:07:21
  Yeah, I would say this to people like when there's this nick of
• 1:07:23
  an age, that relationship should come in for a higher degree of
• 1:07:27
  scrutiny because there could be somebody naivete being
• 1:07:31
  exploited. There could be a power imbalance
• 1:07:35
  that's being leveraged intentionally by the older
• 1:07:37
  person or subconsciously by the older person.
• 1:07:40
  Setting aside the fact that youth and beauty is also are
• 1:07:43
  also forms of power that can be leveraged.
• 1:07:45
  Yeah, yeah. And we've all seen relationships
• 1:07:46
  where the younger person is like riding heard on the older person
• 1:07:51
  calling the shots and in charge. But like significant age gap,
• 1:07:56
  that relationship should come in for a higher degree of scrutiny
• 1:07:58
  and the older partner should welcome the scrutiny.
• 1:08:01
  If the older partner is defensive about it, that's a red
• 1:08:04
  flag, not that there's an age gap.
• 1:08:06
  How does the older partner deal with the fact of the age gap?
• 1:08:10
  Like, you know, I keep talking to my boyfriend.
• 1:08:14
  My husband also has a boyfriend who's 22 years younger than he
• 1:08:16
  is. We met his family and they had
• 1:08:20
  like, I had this great conversation with my husband's
• 1:08:23
  boyfriend's mom because the first time she came to town, my
• 1:08:27
  husband was away. Boyfriend in law, his mom.
• 1:08:30
  Yeah, my outlaws used to. We used to joke before Tara and
• 1:08:34
  I could get married that like his family, his mom and dad were
• 1:08:37
  my outlaws because they couldn't be in laws, because we couldn't
• 1:08:39
  marry, right. And now we have outlaws because
• 1:08:41
  we're Poly, because I have actual in laws.
• 1:08:43
  But like the parents of my husband's boyfriend are outlaws.
• 1:08:47
  There are outlaws now. And his mom came to me and said,
• 1:08:51
  you know, came over and looked at me and said, I have concerns.
• 1:08:55
  And what was I supposed to say? Like, oh, how dare you?
• 1:08:57
  And that's judge mental and like, it's beautiful.
• 1:09:00
  And I looked at her and I said I would have concerns if you did
• 1:09:03
  not. This would concern me.
• 1:09:06
  And so let's talk about your concerns.
• 1:09:08
  And, like, on paper, yeah, this is not what anyone wants for
• 1:09:12
  their son. Yeah, at that time, 23 and gay.
• 1:09:16
  Not what anyone wants for their son.
• 1:09:17
  And so let's talk about it. And now they come to Christmas
• 1:09:21
  dinner, and now they're in our house all the time.
• 1:09:22
  And they see how good my husband is for their son and how good
• 1:09:26
  they are together. And that was 10 years ago, that
• 1:09:29
  conversation on the. Wow.
• 1:09:31
  And. And so as the older, I wasn't
• 1:09:33
  even the older partner, the older partner's husband, the
• 1:09:35
  older partner's partner. Yeah.
• 1:09:37
  Like, if I had been, if my reaction had been how dare you,
• 1:09:41
  huge. How dare you judge us?
• 1:09:45
  And this is homophobic. It's like it's ageist and
• 1:09:47
  homophobic. Like, no, my, that would have
• 1:09:50
  been a sign that we were doing something wrong.
• 1:09:54
  So to your female listeners who are with younger guys, you're
• 1:09:58
  going to meet his friends and they're going to be like maybe a
• 1:10:01
  little like wary. I've met all my boyfriend's
• 1:10:03
  friends because I go live with him half the year and like, I
• 1:10:07
  was on probation. Like I met his like oldest
• 1:10:11
  friends and they were like, we don't like the idea of you
• 1:10:16
  literally said that to me. And I was like, you know, I get
• 1:10:18
  that like. Maybe you'll like me.
• 1:10:21
  Maybe you'll like Yeah. And us.
• 1:10:24
  Here's the reality of me and the reality of me and him together.
• 1:10:27
  Yeah. And you get to, you get to see
• 1:10:29
  it now and not just see numbers. Yeah.
• 1:10:33
  And now they love us and they're some of my best friends.
• 1:10:35
  Well, that's really sweet. Yeah, sweet.
• 1:10:38
  So how does this there's you have a campsite rule.
• 1:10:41
  It's like, leave them. Leave them better than you found
• 1:10:43
  them. Yeah, that's a rule of camping,
• 1:10:46
  is you're supposed to leave the campsite in better shape than
• 1:10:48
  you found it, not trash the campsite.
• 1:10:50
  Right. I originally came up with this
• 1:10:52
  for age gap relationships. The older person should leave
• 1:10:55
  the younger person in better shape than they found them.
• 1:10:57
  You know, a little wiser. No sexually transmitted
• 1:11:01
  infections if possible. No unplanned pregnancies, no
• 1:11:04
  bullshitting, no, like, love bombing, no promises you can't
• 1:11:07
  deliver on. You know, again, at the
• 1:11:09
  beginning of my relationship with my boyfriend, it was very
• 1:11:11
  much like this is not forever. Yeah, Because it just.
• 1:11:15
  It didn't make sense that it could be.
• 1:11:17
  And then we were both pleasantly surprised that it went on and
• 1:11:19
  on. I know.
• 1:11:19
  Maybe he's writing me a breakup letter right now.
• 1:11:22
  You can't never. You never know, right?
• 1:11:24
  He should do it in person. He should do it in person, you
• 1:11:26
  know, after this many years, I think.
• 1:11:28
  He can break up with me if he does it in person and sits on my
• 1:11:30
  face while he does it and does not get up and just like
• 1:11:34
  smothers me to death. Forever.
• 1:11:35
  I want to go. Yeah, I like the campsite rule.
• 1:11:41
  Leave it better than you found. I mean, I feel like we should,
• 1:11:43
  we should do that in all relationships.
• 1:11:44
  But yeah, that's what people quickly said, like, why?
• 1:11:47
  Why isn't this a standard reapply to all relationships?
• 1:11:49
  And I think that we can and should, but it's particularly,
• 1:11:53
  you know, when I was gay and came out and had an
• 1:11:55
  inappropriately older partner and the choice for a lot of gay
• 1:11:58
  kids when I was a teenager and a rare out gay teenager, my
• 1:12:02
  generation of gay men didn't come out till after college.
• 1:12:04
  For the most part, it was my choice was like an inappropriate
• 1:12:08
  partner or nobody. And of course I chose an
• 1:12:10
  inappropriate partner. Like it was a boyfriend who was
• 1:12:14
  10 years older than I was, who's like almost 30, so 12 years
• 1:12:18
  older than I was or no boyfriend at all.
• 1:12:21
  And of course, I chose the older guy who, you know, was probably
• 1:12:26
  not great. But anyway, like his, his
• 1:12:30
  attitude was like, OK, we can keep fucking and we can date,
• 1:12:33
  but I need you to read these books.
• 1:12:36
  And it was before the Internet, before Google, before I could
• 1:12:38
  like all I knew was the definition of homosexuality in
• 1:12:40
  the dictionary and would have been taught by the Catholic
• 1:12:42
  Church. What were the books like?
• 1:12:44
  I don't want like I'm enjoying fucking around with you and like
• 1:12:47
  hanging out, but I don't like the self loathing and the so you
• 1:12:51
  got to work on that. So you want to keep sucking my
• 1:12:54
  Dick here. You have to read Society and the
• 1:12:56
  Healthy Homosexual, which was kind of a groundbreaking study
• 1:13:00
  done in the 70s of gay men who weren't in mental institutions.
• 1:13:04
  They used to only prisons and mental institutions where they
• 1:13:07
  found gay men to do mental health assessments.
• 1:13:09
  Right. Because gay men who were like,
• 1:13:10
  functional weren't out because it was too risky to be out.
• 1:13:14
  Yeah. But gay men who were in psych
• 1:13:16
  wards or locked up in mental institutions or in prisons were
• 1:13:19
  the ones where they were like, Oh, yeah, look, they're all
• 1:13:21
  crazy and sick and prone to violence and mental breakdowns.
• 1:13:26
  Like, yeah. Because that's the sample that
• 1:13:29
  you have. Yeah.
• 1:13:30
  Yeah. And so he, like, was like, yeah,
• 1:13:31
  you can keep sucking my Dick. You have to read a chapter of
• 1:13:33
  this book right now on my couch, and then you can come suck my
• 1:13:36
  Dick. Like highly motivated to get
• 1:13:39
  through that chapter. Yeah, 100%.
• 1:13:41
  So good for, like, he left me in better shape than he found me.
• 1:13:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm grateful to him and we
• 1:13:45
  should strive to do that in all of our relationships.
• 1:13:48
  Always make them read a chapter a day, yeah.
• 1:13:51
  And then you can come suck my Dick.
• 1:13:53
  That's right. I'm going to try that one.
• 1:13:55
  Try that one. A little homework.
• 1:13:58
  A little. Homework.
• 1:14:01
  I think that's all I got. It was great chatting.
• 1:14:04
  Yeah, where can we? Where can we find you?
• 1:14:06
  Savage dot Love is home to all Savage Love stuff right now.
• 1:14:10
  You can find the Savage Love Cast, my weekly podcast.
• 1:14:13
  You can find After Action Report which is a new weekly podcast
• 1:14:15
  that I'm doing, and Savage Love, my long running sex advice
• 1:14:18
  column goes up every Tuesday. New love cast every Tuesday.
• 1:14:22
  New After Action Report every Friday.
• 1:14:24
  Just really quickly, like what's exciting in your world these
• 1:14:27
  days? Personally, this is just a
• 1:14:28
  curiosity question for me. Like, I don't want to leave not
• 1:14:32
  knowing what the hell Dan's up to or what Dan's pumped about.
• 1:14:36
  That's not his work A. Heated rivalry?
• 1:14:41
  I don't know. Season 2 of heated rivalry.
• 1:14:43
  Yeah, I'm enjoying. Would you have like a home
• 1:14:47
  renovation? Do you have like a trip coming
• 1:14:49
  up? You have like.
• 1:14:50
  Recently went snowboarding for a week with the Outlaws which was
• 1:14:54
  fun. In Europe.
• 1:14:56
  No no here in in Canada in Hustler.
• 1:14:58
  OK cool BC I got to spend a couple weeks with.
• 1:15:03
  This is like gay Poly alt universe stuff for normies.
• 1:15:08
  I went away with my husband's boyfriend's sister's husband's
• 1:15:12
  parents. OK.
• 1:15:14
  All of us together in a house at Whistler, snowboarding and
• 1:15:17
  making meals together and it felt like the most normal thing
• 1:15:19
  in the world as we, you know, played with the nieces and just
• 1:15:24
  had the most spectacular time and that was so much fun.
• 1:15:26
  Yeah, board games and snow sports.
• 1:15:29
  I'm going to Tahoe next week. I haven't skied all season and
• 1:15:31
  I've got a whole week. And so don't go back country
• 1:15:34
  skiing I. Know, I know, I know.
• 1:15:37
  Rest in peace to all the skiers and guides and.
• 1:15:39
  And that one, yeah, I know. It's terrible.
• 1:15:42
  Well, wait. And nobody.
• 1:15:44
  Says nobody. And just circling back to a
• 1:15:46
  playmator, nobody says there's no such thing as safe
• 1:15:50
  snowboarding, therefore nobody should do it.
• 1:15:53
  Like we think about the people, they died doing something they
• 1:15:57
  love, pursuing a pleasure in an extreme sport, and they paid the
• 1:16:01
  the ultimate price. And we're like, and that's a
• 1:16:02
  legitimate risk for somebody to assume in pursuit of this
• 1:16:06
  particular thing that made them happy.
• 1:16:08
  Yeah. And we should apply that same
• 1:16:09
  standard to sex that we apply to snowboarding and everything
• 1:16:12
  else. What a beautiful way to wrap
• 1:16:13
  that up, man. A call back.
• 1:16:16
  Thank you so much Dad. I really appreciate you.
• 1:16:18
  It was really fun chatting with you.
• 1:16:19
  Thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks for your all your
• 1:16:22
  wisdom. OK Cuties, how fun was that?
• 1:16:27
  Thank you so much for listening. OK, a few pieces of
• 1:16:30
  administrative details for you #1 leave any comments that you
• 1:16:34
  have. I really want to know what you
• 1:16:36
  learned, what you disagreed with, what gave you food for
• 1:16:40
  thought. So leave any comments.
• 1:16:43
  I think you could leave comments on YouTube and Spotify.
• 1:16:45
  Those are the two places that I can read them and reply to.
• 1:16:47
  So please do that. Also, do me a favor and leave a
• 1:16:49
  review either on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen
• 1:16:54
  or watch. If there's a way to leave a
• 1:16:55
  review, go ahead and do it. Every single one of them helps.
• 1:16:59
  OK, here's here's my real ask for you.
• 1:17:02
  If you think this is a great podcast or you think it's got
• 1:17:06
  the potential to be a great podcast as I find my sea legs,
• 1:17:11
  share it with somebody, right? Like this is my podcast, baby,
• 1:17:15
  and I need help birthing it into the world.
• 1:17:17
  I know that's kind of gross, but every little bit helps.
• 1:17:20
  Word of mouth helps. Sharing about it on social
• 1:17:23
  media, that helps. I'm really asking for support
• 1:17:26
  here and if it touched you in some way or you found it
• 1:17:29
  entertaining when you want this to continue, then that's the
• 1:17:32
  best thing that you can do right now.
• 1:17:33
  Also, I need your questions. I need your comments, your
• 1:17:36
  feedback, your hate mail. Leave a voicemail at
• 1:17:38
  415-494-9559. You can also e-mail me at
• 1:17:44
  podcast@thelovedrive.com. You can even record a voice note
• 1:17:49
  and send it to that same e-mail. OK, so comments, reviews,
• 1:17:53
  voicemails, questions, whatever you want, leave it all.
• 1:17:57
  I have an upcoming retreat in Western Massachusetts at
• 1:18:01
  Kropalu. It's called Love Camp June 5th
• 1:18:04
  to 7th this summer. It's an adult summer camp on
• 1:18:08
  Love. That's all I'm going to say.
• 1:18:09
  You're going to hear more about it along the way.
• 1:18:11
  I've hosted the Street 6 Times Now.
• 1:18:13
  Every single one of them was a gangbusters success.
• 1:18:17
  Really, really, really fun. Super touching, super playful.
• 1:18:20
  So go to the show notes for the link to that.
• 1:18:22
  That's Love Camp. June 5th through 7th at Kropalu
• 1:18:25
  in Western Mass. And as always, thank you for
• 1:18:28
  being here. Have a beautiful week.
• 1:18:30
  Oh wait, before I go next week we've got 2 episodes.
• 1:18:35
  We've got another double drop week.
• 1:18:36
  So we're going to have a solo episode on Tuesday about how to
• 1:18:41
  live when life falls apart. Basically is what I'm going to
• 1:18:46
  talk about. The self doubt that I've
• 1:18:48
  experienced, how to live with grief, how to move through
• 1:18:50
  transition. So that's that episode.
• 1:18:53
  And then on Thursday we're going to have Jenny Young, who is the
• 1:18:58
  creator of the Burned Haystacks Dating Method.
• 1:19:01
  So it's going to be an episode about dating, how to find your
• 1:19:03
  partner, how to go on dates. You know, if online dating isn't
• 1:19:07
  working for you, here's another strategy.
• 1:19:09
  How to meet people in the wild. OK, now you can have a beautiful
• 1:19:14
  week.