I just saw Dan Savage, the sex advice columnist, speak. He gave a long lecture during which he answered questions that had been written on slips of paper, apparently, and given to him before the event. Many of them were very poorly-worded but run-of-the-mill questions about sex in college life, sexual experimentation with the same gender, and other such things. I have to say his voice was just like it is on the Savage Love podcast, and just as entertaining also. He could just as easily be a standup comedian as an advice columnist. I especially liked his views on monogamy: he said that instead of thinking of monogamy as virginity - i.e. you break it once, and you lose it forever - we should think of it as sobriety: someone who goes 30 years is only unfaithful to his wife once or twice is comparable to someone who goes 30 years and only gets falling-down drunk a few times. The latter person is pretty good at being sober; the former person is pretty good at being monogamous. Monogamy shouldn’t be some black and white, all or nothing thing; it should be a sliding scale. At least that’s how I feel, anyway, though others will of course disagree. I don’t think monogamy is “natural” for mankind, and neither does he. He said that the people who attack homosexuals as leading an “unnatural” lifestyle are idiots because they themselves are trying to force an unnatural concept of marriage and unattainable monogamy onto society. Most of what he said, I agreed with, though some of it was too homosexual-specific to resonate much with me.
At the end, he opened the floor for questions and comments. I raised my hand first and was called on. I told him that the King James Bible was commissioned and named after a gay king, which he found amusing, and referred to it as a “fag bible.” (Fred Phelps - are you listening?) Some other guy made a comment about Savage’s book “Skipping Towards Gomorrah” in which he mentions going to a shooting range and trying out handgun shooting for the first time; the overall experience was positive and he said that he wished 2nd amendment and 1st amendment activists could find more common ground instead of being on one side or the other (something which I agree with 100% and was glad to hear expressed.) This guy said that he was a “gun nut” and he hoped that more gay-rights advocates and gun-rights advocates could find common ground. Savage said that he wished the NRA was the “armed wing of the ACLU.” He said that if every gun rights activist cared as much about the first amendment as the second amendment, he would be happy if there were a billion guns in the country.
The only thing I objected to was when the guy in the audience suggested an “armed gay pride parade” (not a bad idea, actually,) Savage joked that they should shoot the counter-demonstrators “with the Jesus banners.” Really? You think that joking about shooting people who disagree with you is the best thing to help the cause of either gay rights or gun rights? That part was disconcerting to me because advocating the shooting of other people is no joke, and I can only imagine what Savage would think if anyone - even in jest - suggested that homosexuals be shot. That is bad, bad form.
Overall though I liked Savage, as I always have. I wish that views like his would become more mainstream.
I love Dan Savage and agree with pretty much everything he says. If you see me driving down the street gesturing wildly, it means I’m listening to the podcast on my iPod. DTMFA!!!
I think most people I know would be shocked that my values align with Dan Savage’s… One of these days I’m going to play the podcast at work juuuuuust loud enough that you can’t be sure you just heard the words “fuck your pussy”.
Well, I disagree that being monogamous is unnatural. I’m sure it is fore some people, and I’m sure it is for others. Trying to apply one standard to six billion people probably won’t work. Also I think you are conflating being monogamous with being faithful. Polyamorous people can cheat, monogamous people can have sex with other people. Faithfulness is about trust, not sex.
I saw Savage speak a couple of years ago and found him pretty entertaining. However, he was upstaged a couple of times by the small, grandmotherly looking woman doing simultaneous sign-language interpretation. Watching this little old lady signing the things that Savage was saying…well, it was definitely memorable. I don’t even know sign language, but you didn’t need to in order to recognize what some of the signs meant.
At one point Savage said “masturbate, masturbate, masturbate” (in a fairly serious context, IIRC something to do with reducing teen pregnancy rates) and got a HUGE laugh. He was surprised, and said “What?” Then he realized it was because of the sign language interpreter, who’d just finished three repetitions of a sign that was basically the “wanker” gesture.
Yeah, he’s a handsome dude. I was sure he was Jewish for the longest time, but as it turns out, he’s Irish Catholic (he talks about his upbringing in his books.) Funny, he looked Jewish to me.
I enjoy Dan Savage’s podcast, which I listen to regularly, and I usually agree with him. I am, however, tired of his ranting about monogamy. I don’t even necessary disagree with him, I just wish he’d stfu about it. We get it, Dan, you don’t think monogamy is natural. You can move on to the next topic now.
Out of curiosity: given his position on monogamy, what does he think of the “gay men are all promiscuous” stereotype, especially the role it plays in the gay marriage debate?
He is fairly honest about the promiscuity of gay men. As he puts it: what you have to understand is that they’re not gay men, they’re gay MEN. They have a lot of promiscuous sex because they can. “If there were straight bathhouses and straight women wanting to fuck guys in bushes in the park and in bathroom stalls everywhere, do you think straight guys wouldn’t be sluts?” he said. It’s not because they’re gay, it’s because they’re men. Someone here (Panache45?) once said that being a gay man is like being a straight rock star. You can get laid whenever you want - so a lot of men take advantage of that. Because they are men, not because they are gay.
Savage’s position is that straight men are just as horny and just as promiscuous as gay men, because they’re men. If some of them want to settle down and get married and raise kids, he thinks they should be able to. If others just want to have a lot of sex, he’s fine with that too.
His latest podcast addressed a caller who complained about it. He ended up essentially saying “hey, every other advice columnist is a flag-waver for monogamy, so let one person advocate something else!”
And of course, he doesn’t say ‘no one should be monogamous.’ He says that most people really suck at it, and if those couples who would otherwise struggle at having a monogamous relationship could be emotionally open enough to discuss it, they might be very happy allowing for some kind of flexibility in their relationship.
His non-Savage Love stuff is great too. Well thought out. I saw him in Seattle during a This American Life tour a year or so back. He talked about being a gay father. Here is the podcast: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=328
His part is called “Act Four. My Other Dog’s a German Shepherd” and is near the end. It’s worth a listen to hear his ‘other voice’.
Was just going to mention this. I didn’t like that he made it seem like (almost) everyone cheats, it’s only a matter of time or not getting caught. But he did concede that it can work, it just shouldn’t be held up as an ideal for every type of person to strive for – and that for most of history it’s been women, not men, who were expected to be monogamous.
Love his column, blog and podcasts. He says supremely stupid shit sometimes, but occasionally he does apologize or re-examine his views, and even when he’s dead wrong he’s still entertaining.
Savage has mentioned on several podcasts that men are promiscuous by nature, and that it’s generally the women who keep that men’s promiscuity in check (as much as they do). But when you two men together that check doesn’t exist, so you do the math.
And what role does “promiscuity” have in the gay marriage debate?
I guess I should’ve clarified that it’s just my personal opinion. I’ve always thought that a lot of anti-gay marriage opponents have the following opinion on some level: “Gays don’t deserve marriage because gay ‘love’ isn’t really love. There’s no emotion or attachment to it at all. It’s just a desire to screw as many partners as possible. Why should they marry if they can’t really love?” Since this is an attitude that can come into play even if the person is non-religious (though obviously it’s more likely in that case), I’ve always thought it did play a role in the gay marriage debate.
This is besides the obvious role such a belief plays in rejection of homosexuality in general, of course.
Wow. For all the arguments for and against, this is the first I’ve heard that there are people out there think that homosexuals don’t have the human capacity to love (nor for that matter that there aren’t heterosexuals who don’t want to screw anything that moves). Both assumptions are so false that it boggles the mind.
Have you encountered people who’ve said this aloud?
I have definitely heard people claim that homosexuals can’t love, that all they can do is lust after each other. Fred Phelps claims this, among others. Obviously you have to be pretty bigoted to think it, but the attitude does exist.
I like Dan Savage a lot too, but just a question: honestly, how would you feel if your girlfriend or wife was having sex with other men? Would that be OK with you? Or conversely, why would you want to have sex with other women if you had a girlfriend or wife whom you love? Just curious.
When I first started going out with my girlfriend (now of almost four years) we did have an “open relationship” but as we became closer, we both decided to make it an exclusive one. And it was my idea, not hers. But if the possibility of making it “open” again ever comes up in the future, then it’s something we’d both agree on. I think peoples’ attitude towards monogamy can change over time, and there’s no way I can say for certain how I am going to feel in 10 years from now. My father is a profligate womanizer so I think that attitude may run in my genes; I don’t know.
I don’t think sex and love are the same thing. I don’t even think they have to be connected at all. And I have no doubt that one can love another with all of his heart, and still have sex with other people. I think attitudes about love and sex are definitely products of social conditioning, and I think that when you get down to the biology of it, mankind is not meant to be monogamous.
He ended up essentially saying “hey, every other advice columnist is a flag-waver for monogamy, so let one person advocate something else!”
