Re: Dan Savage

[HSavinien]

Official queer person not down with Savage's shenanigans.  I do not consider his views on cheating to be at all ethical.  If you're unable to get your needs fulfilled in a relationship to the point where you're going to violate the agreements you made (whether monogamy or something else)...you leave that relationship.  

[eselle28]

Nooooooooooo...please, LW, don't ask your therapist out! 

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/03/14/23712454/savage-love-letter-of-the-day-off-the-couch-onto-the-sheets

[litterature]

Nooooooooooo...please, LW, don't ask your therapist out! 

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/03/14/23712454/savage-love-letter-of-the-day-off-the-couch-onto-the-sheets

i bet this is what dan savage has on his mind as he writes his column

[eselle28]

i bet this is what dan savage has on his mind as he writes his column

To be fair, it is an excellent source of motivational thought!

[eselle28]

So, this one. A year of menopause. Occasional blow jobs. Wife clearly dealing with some other uncomfortable side effects. Absolutely nothing mentioned forcing the couple to stay together besides the fact that they're middle-aged and the husband loves his wife. Advice? "Sex workers, discretion, compassion."

I'm the age these people were when they got together, and honestly, knowing that most of the compatible guys my age have been taking relationship advice from Dan Savage for a decade makes the thought of being single at 50 seem a million times more appealing.

[Werel]

Terrible shitty advice. Correct answer: masturbation, communication, an ounce of goddamn patience or consideration.

[Wondering]

So basically, Dan Savage is the guy you write to for advice if you want to be a dishonest cheater and want someone to give you the okay.

[reboot]

I swear he has an almost Catholic aversion to divorce. Why is breaking up never an option? Why does he think cheating is better and less painful than splitting?

[eselle28]

Terrible shitty advice. Correct answer: masturbation, communication, an ounce of goddamn patience or consideration.  

Also, possibly a second medical opinion, a counselor who could perhaps get to the bottom of the touch aversion and suggest to the couple other ways sex could have some mutuality, and yeah definitely some patience (all my experience with menopause is second-hand, but the women I know who've gone through it haven't had all the symptoms for the rest of their lives).

I swear he has an almost Catholic aversion to divorce. Why is breaking up never an option? Why does he think cheating is better and less painful than splitting?

Well, he was raised Catholic, but so were many other people his age who are at least willing to consider divorce! It seems like he only recommends it when the LW describes the relationship as completely awful in most non-sexual respects. In this case, it struck me as a little odd because 50 is not old and this letter makes no mention of children or financial dependency. Quite a few of my friends' parents divorced when they were around that age, and while it didn't seem ideal, it also didn't seem to be life ruining for either party.

[BiSian]

Speaking generally, I think Savage tends to give advice within the parameters of the the LWs ask for.
A LW says "I don't wanna divorce/break up"? He's not going to say "NO! YOU HAVE TO DUMP THEM!"

[Enail]

I feel like sometimes advice columnists need to challenge what the LW is looking for - not say "no, you have to dump them," but alert them to the fact that for a not-insubstantial number of partners, being dumped or being offered the option of a break-up, is a kinder and more respectful way to be treated than being cheated on with "compassion," and that the LW's assessment of whether divorce is a better option than cheating in their circumstance is a very biased one. If I write in saying I'm in a strictly monogamous relationship, want to have sex with many people, and don't want to cheat or divorce, I'd hope the advice columnist would tell me tough cookies.

Also, holy shit, if all you need to justify cheating on someone you love is a long but likely temporary period of blow jobs but no sex while one's partner is in a health situation that is causing great discomfort, I imagine that would be pretty much every couple that sticks together into their older years when severe health problems start cropping up that are bound to make sex difficult, painful or medically inadvisable for some time. Hip replacements? Heart attacks? I'm sure the recovery period to 'up for sexing again' is not a short time. Like, I know a pretty high number of people do land up cheating at some point in a relationship, but I really dislike this move towards treating it as always being the moral lesser of two evils.

[Wondering]

for a not-insubstantial number of partners, being dumped or being offered the option of a break-up, is a kinder and more respectful way to be treated than being cheated on with "compassion,"

I think it's also important to keep as part of the conversation that cheating is lying/dishonesty. And doing so means your partner's trust in you is misplaced. Relationships need trust. And "I cheated for your own good," which is what a lot of this seems to come down to, is condescending and paternalistic in the extreme.

Also, holy shit, if all you need to justify cheating on someone you love is a long but likely temporary period of blow jobs but no sex while one's partner is in a health situation that is causing great discomfort, I imagine that would be pretty much every couple that sticks together into their older years when severe health problems start cropping up that are bound to make sex difficult, painful or medically inadvisable for some time. Hip replacements? Heart attacks?

C-section recovery followed by debilitating sciatica and severe hip pain/displacement?

[ElizaJane]

I wonder if his advice to the other partner would always be "open the marriage."

I feel like we always hear from the person who wants to cheat. If someone wrote saying, "I'm going through medical issues that mean it's hard for me to maintain an erection, and I know my partner really likes penetrative sex. I'm doing what I can, but I feel constantly inadequate and uncomfortable -- what do I do?" would he say, "Let them get sex somewhere else while you deal with it on your own"?

[reboundstudent]

I feel like we always hear from the person who wants to cheat.  If someone wrote saying, "I'm going through medical issues that mean it's hard for me to maintain an erection, and I know my partner really likes penetrative sex.  I'm doing what I can, but I feel constantly inadequate and uncomfortable -- what do I do?" would he say, "Let them get sex somewhere else while you deal with it on your own"?

Probably. Dan seems to have a giant blind spot, where opening the marriage is ALWAYS good, and getting sex is ALWAYS preferable, regardless of how much it abandons or hurts the other partner. Dan seems to have gone round the bend on ethical non-monogamy, where who cares if you're lying, misleading or actively hurting your partner so long as you're getting some.

Also, god damn are the comments on that thread depressing. Yet more instances that men are just built to need constant access to sex and variety and any woman who doesn't satisfy those, even if she's freaking satisfying every other damn need of his (raising his children, cleaning his house, cooking his meals, working a job so he isn't the only income, subverting HER own needs for variety), then it's her own fault if he strays. Fucking damn. This kind of fucking attitude makes me want to sew myself closed, shut myself up in a shady cloister and chant faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon for the rest of my life.

[Werel]

Okay, yesterday's column gets a lot of points for blowing my mind with science facts. Seriously, I thought I was a reasonably well-informed lady about lady parts, but I had NO IDEA my own physiology worked that way.

When he's not giving advice and just letting doctors have the floor, the column can be pretty good.

[eselle28]

I wonder if his advice to the other partner would always be "open the marriage."

I feel like we always hear from the person who wants to cheat.  If someone wrote saying, "I'm going through medical issues that mean it's hard for me to maintain an erection, and I know my partner really likes penetrative sex.  I'm doing what I can, but I feel constantly inadequate and uncomfortable -- what do I do?" would he say, "Let them get sex somewhere else while you deal with it on your own"?

I think we've now had that letter, and the options offered are working on jealousy issues so that a more open relationship is possible, a brief acknowledgement of the LW's offered solution of finding someone with a similar libido (with the obligatory reference to those people's poor heartbroken partners), finding an asexual partner who just wants to watch Game of Thrones (which seems both flip and an odd suggestion given that there would presumably need to be compromise between a person who wants sex 2 to 4 times a month and someone who doesn't want it at all), and getting a different job. I can see the job advice being of some use, but this pretty much cements my feeling about Savage - that he doesn't really have much ability to empathize with someone who wants sex, but not as often as he wants to have sex. I sort of think he might be thinking in binary mode and classifying people into two groups - people who are asexual (who he doesn't seem to want to think much about) and people who want sex about as much as he does, with a temporary exemption for the parents of young children, since that's an experience he's had himself and understands.

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