Please stop using the word “retarded” as an insult, Dan. I know
it can be hard to break a verbal habit, but please make an effort.
Perhaps you should have a “retard jar” on your desk that you put a
dollar in every time you use the word. When the jar is full, send the
money to the Special Olympics.
Whatever you do, though, try to remember that you have lots of
listeners and readers who have loved ones with mental disabilities, and
we don’t want to hear you misuse the word “retarded.” Please don’t tell
me to read or listen to other people if I don’t like what I hear. I
want to read your column and listen to your podcast, but without the
put-downs directed at people with mental disabilities.
The Real Other Sister
I’m going to turn over a new leaf, TROS, and make a conscious,
conscientious effort to break myself of the bad habit of using the word
“retard.” But I don’t think the “retard jar” is for me. Instead, I’m
going to use a substitution for the word. From now on, instead of
saying “retard” or “that’s so retarded,” I’m going to say “leotard” and
“that’s so leotarded.” I won’t be mocking the mentally challenged, just
the physically gifted. I will pick on the strong — and the limber
— and not the weak.
I’ve lived with my boyfriend for a little less than a year, and
we have awesome, frequent sex and a loving relationship. I’m not naive,
and I don’t expect my boyfriend not to look at porn. However, I took
the opportunity to make it as clear as possible that porn makes me
uncomfortable (I have a weird, visceral distaste), and it makes me feel
insecure (am I not enough for him?). All I ask is that he clear his
browser history if we’re going to continue sharing computers and that
he keep his porno-viewing habits private.
We had a huge fight about this. He was raised in an oppressive,
religious household and feels my attitude is oppressively prudish. But
I don’t think he should feel ashamed for looking at pornography, I just
don’t want to see it. Why can’t he see my point of view? Is it
unreasonable to expect him to keep this part of his private life
private?
On The Outs
It’s not at all unreasonable to ask him to be discreet about his
porn-viewing habits, OTO, out of consideration for your feelings. And
if he can’t see that, well, then he’s just being willfully
leotarded.
But there are other solutions: Get your own personal laptop, change
his settings so his browser history clears automatically, and if he
makes an effort and slips up now and then — if you come across a
porn-clogged browser history — clear it yourself and resist the
urge to bring it up.
And for the record: It never even occurs to me to look at the
browser history on the computer my boyfriend and I share. It wouldn’t
bother me if he was looking at porn — I’d be concerned if he
wasn’t looking at porn — but there’s no law that requires you to
check out his browser history. Scrutinizing browser histories is
fourth-degree snooping, and only a leotard scrolls through her
boyfriend’s browser history knowing that what she’s likely to find
there is going to upset her.
I’m a 29-year-old hetero male considering breaking up with my
sweet GGG girlfriend of five years. I can’t find a reason to do it,
though. We never fight; she loves to do all the chores I hate and vice
versa; she’s accepting of all my kinks, from anal to public sex; and we
love each other. We’ve been talking marriage and family all
year.
But I miss falling in love, sex is becoming boring, and my heart
aches every time I hear about a girl who wishes I were single. I told
my girlfriend about these things, and she (while crying) gave me
permission to sleep around so long as it’s on her terms, though her
terms are pretty strict. I’m not happy with the restrictions, but I
can’t ask for more because she gets so depressed talking about
it.
Am I being self-destructive in wanting to throw away the love of
my life?
Let Me Have It
You’re being a self-destructive leotard, LMHI, and your
cliché male fear-of-intimacy issues are totally leotarded.
Perhaps the marriage conversation is making you jittery — as
marriage, in theory at least, means that you’ll never again experience
the heady rush of new love. But your odds of ever finding another girl
— for a long- or short-term relationship — who loves you,
you enjoy living with, and is willing to give you permission to sleep
around, even with conditions, are infinitesimally small. If you weren’t
such a leotard, you would be able to see that you’re not going to do
better than this girl.
And make an effort to kick your sex life with the girlfriend into
gear before you sleep with someone else. If she was sobbing her eyes
out when she gave you permission to sleep with other people, LMHI,
that’s not a good sign. Successful and healthy open relationships
rarely get their start when one partner has consented under duress.
Boring can be fixed, and fixing it may involve opening this
relationship up, but she’s not really ready to go there.
I’m a big fan of something called the Instead cup, which might
help AFTER and her hemo-phobic boyfriend who doesn’t want to have sex
with her at any time during her period. You can buy them at the big
drugstores like CVS here in California. When I have my period, the
Instead cup sits up against my cervix. It captures all the menstrual
blood and keeps it away from my loving boyfriend’s enormous yet
fastidious cock. He often doesn’t even realize I have it in. It’s a
little messy to take out and dispose of, but it’s totally worth it.
Here’s the website: www.softcup.com.
And if AFTER’s boyfriend still won’t fuck her with one of these
handy numbers in, then she should definitely DTMFA.
Cup Up Pussy
I’m familiar — not intimately so — with the Instead cup.
But, like a total leotard, I spaced it. Thanks for writing, CUP.
Longtime fan, Dan, but I don’t see you on Twitter. It would be a
blast! Thanks in advance.
Need More Savage Love
Writing a column and doing a weekly podcast and blogging aren’t
enough? Now I have to Twitter?
Sorry, NMSL, but no. The tech-savvy, at-risk youth who pull the
Savage Lovecast together every week may have dragged my gay ass into
the early years of the 21st century — they created a YouTube site
for me (www.youtube.com/user/dansavage)
and a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/pages/Dan-Savage/50670281251?ref=ts)
— but I’m going to draw the line at Twittering, at least for the
time being, as it would cut into my drinking time.
