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Struggle Session: Gay Volunteers, Sexy Asexuals, Book Clubs, Money Pits and More!

On Thursdays I respond to comments, emails, DMs, and tweets from readers and listeners. Struggle Session posts are exclusively for Magnum Subs. So, if you’re already a Magnum Sub, thank you and read on! If you’d like to become my sub — which gets you access to the Magnum Lovecast (more guests, more calls, no ads), the Maxi Savage Love column (more Qs, more As), special events like Savage Love Live, the Sex & Politics podcast, and Struggle Session — subscribe here!

Says Science Milk on Blue Sky…

Thanks for mentioning the positive community-building aspects and also the massive environmental impact of Burning Man in your intro this week. I hope in coming years burners can address this and seek a more sustainable way forward, while preserving what makes it so unique and transformative.

I urged inexperienced kinksters — male ones in particular — not to attach meaning to their sudden...

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... while preserving what makes it so unique and transformative. I urged inexperienced kinksters — male ones in particular — not to attach meaning to their sudden disinterest in their kinks immediately after orgasm. Author Thomas Carver, also on Blue Sky, wanted to second that… The stuff Dan says here about losing interest after coming is smart. Took me many, many years to realize that the feeling of disinterest after ejaculation wasn’t a sign that my kinks were wrong or bad, but just what happens to almost everyone. Meanwhile over at the bad place… the Pagan Sim offered this comment on the husband whose wife isn’t interested in sucking his dick anymore: This is why many straight men seek out gay men to get a decent blowjob. IMHO. The first draft of my response to THH included a short note about this… something along the lines of, “So, your wife doesn’t want to suck your dick and finding a woman who’ll suck your dick (for free) isn’t going to be easy. But if you ever heard someone say, ‘A mouth is a mouth,’ and thought, ‘That’s true,’ I have good news for you: there are tons of gay men out there who love sucking off straight dudes, no reciprocation required. Indeed, for most of them, reciprocation would ruin the experience — they live only to serve.” I deleted that note from my response at the last minute because it read like I was playing matchmaker for those gay guys — or, worse yet, like I was one of those guys. But Pagan Sim is right: If you’re a married or even an unmarried straight man who hasn’t gotten his cock sucked in a long time — or if you’re a straight guy who’s never received a truly enthusiastic blowjob, or if you’re a straight guy who got an enthusiastic blowjob from the wife last night — there are lots of gay men out there who will suck your dick for you. Truthlemonade read my response to the mom who was wondering if her asexual daughter wasn’t interested in sex — “Some asexuals aren’t getting any and don’t want any. Some asexuals get some but don’t want much. Some asexuals get lots and want more.” — and sent this followup question: Does Dan mean that some asexual people have a lot of sex and want more? What does that mean? Would such a person not want sex, see sex as a meaningless activity, but recognizes that it pleases their partners, which is very useful for getting and maintaining relationships? I mean there are literally people out there who identify as asexual and have a lot of sex and want to have more and who angrily insist that having a lot of sex and wanting to have more doesn’t disqualify them from identifying as asexual. Because asexuality is a vast spectrum and these days words mean whatever we want them to mean — even if the meaning someone attaches to a particular word renders that word meaningless, it’s not worth arguing about. And, hey, if we can wrap our heads around straight people who identify as queer, we should be able to wrap our heads around sluts who identify as asexual. A woman called into the Lovecast after her mother drunkenly came out as lesbian. What should she do? Tell her father? Demand her mother tell her father? Tell her siblings? Tell her sibling to demand their mother tell their father? My advice was clear: Don’t tell anyone — for fuck’s sake — and offer support to her mother. My followers on Facebook overwhelming agreed. Says Jenna… Seriously? What type of question is that? Is okay to betray & embarrass one’s mother? And cause trouble in your parents’ marriage? Definitely not. You don’t even know if it’s true. She was drunk when she told you this. Let it go. Kneenah even offered a script… “Thanks for confiding in me, Mum. Sounds like a big secret to keep for so long and I’m honored you told me. I’m here if you want to talk more or I can help you find someone else to talk to, if you like. Just know that I love you and support you no matter what.” I used the expression “genital preferences” in my response to a caller who was thinking about letting a naked weirdo serve drinks at the women’s book club she was about to start. Says M.E… Everybody is allowed to have genital “preference.” It is part of our sexuality. Otherwise you are promoting the entire of humanity to be bisexual and denying homosexuality and heterosexuality. People don’t like others interfering with their sex. You know this. I think we can all agree that no one wants others interfering with their sex — although I’m not sure what you mean by that exactly in this context — but for the record: I believe people have sexual orientations and that homosexuality and heterosexuality are valid sexual orientations (valid and common), as I said in this Quickies column back in December of 2022. (See my answer to Question 2.) That said, there are gay men out there who are attracted to trans men (there are gay men out there who are trans men) and straight men attracted to trans women (there are straight men out there who are trans men) and straight women attracted to trans men (there are straight women out there who are trans women) and lesbians attracted to trans women (you get the point), etc., etc., etc. Followers on Facebook had some thoughts on this proposed bookclub. Says Margaret… I would be more concerned for the other book club members who don’t care to be included in participating in his kink. Seems to me it’s the same old patriarchy calling the shots. Some followers got hung up on the “book club” part of this question. Says Webb… Sorry thought a book club was about books and reading and not indulging some dude’s naked service kink? I’m a gay man and I’d be uncomfortable with a naked dude handling all the services for a BOOK CLUB. And Miles… I obviously have an outdated impression of how book clubs operate. In fairness to the patriarchy, the caller — who is a cis woman — liked the idea of having a naked male waiter at her book club. The man in question offered to serve (or offered to self-serve), but he didn’t impose. The women who attend the meetings — or will attend once the club starts to meet — aren’t obligated to allow this man to come. He’ll only be there if they want him there because they find the idea titillating. Basically, if his desire to be a naked waiter overlaps with their desires (their desire to be titillated, their desire to be naughty, their desire to be scandalous), then he’s in. If their desires don’t overlap, he’s out. I frankly don’t see patriarchy at work here. Sometimes a man wants something sexual that the woman (or women) in his life also want — and that’s not oppression, that’s consensual sexual activity. It can be confusing when CBT comes up on the show — sometimes we’re talking about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with a guest like Sheva Rajaee, and sometimes we’re talking about cock-and-ball torture (CBT) with a pervert who enjoys cock and ball torture. Well, Julia, an American expat, didn’t think that was complicated and confusing enough, so she reached out on Instagram to say… Here CBT stands for “citizen-based taxation!” Gotcha! To learn more about this other kind of CBT — which amounts to taxation-without-representation for expats like Julia — and its alternative (RBT, or “residence-based taxation”), go to American Expatriates for Residency Based Taxation. Question #16 in this week’s Quickies was from a sub whose Dom was rushing impact play — the blows were coming too hard and too fast — and she was seeking “resources” that could help her broach the subject. (I directed her to the resource under her nose and above her chin.) Says Vennominon… Could it not be that the questioner is (also?) a bad sub? Sure. But a bad sub — a sub who can’t articulate her desires — is only a danger to herself. A sub who can’t use her words, e.g., a sub who can’t share her likes, dislikes, limits, hard limits, desires, interests, etc., is going to attract one of two kinds of Dom: an inexperienced and incompetent Dom who’s willing to play with a sub who expects him to guess at her limits and boundaries (and might hurt her by accident) or a shitty Dom who wants to do whatever he wants and doesn’t care about her limits or boundaries (and wants to hurt her on purpose). Samantha asks via email… I’m a new subscriber to your website and would like to know if there is a way to do a search of your column archives for answers to specific questions I have? I bet you get many of the same questions over and over again, and would also bet that you’ve answered most of mine over the course of the 30+ years you’ve been writing. Fifteen years ago it occurred to me that there was no “Savage Love” index — no way to search the columns by topic — and I thought, “Huh, I should get on that.” But I didn’t get on that because, well, that was going to be a lot of work and I had a lot of other work to do. I told myself I would get on that sometime. Well, it’s fifteen years later and I have yet to get on that… and the chances of me getting on that at this point are pretty slim. So, if you wanna find an old column and/or a column on a particular subject, you’ll have to do what I do: search “savage love dan savage” along with relevant words and/or phrases and hope Google spits it up. Sometimes it works! Last week, for example, I was able to find an old column featuring medical advice about cock cages using that method. But it doesn’t always work! A month ago I wanted find an old column where a woman wrote in after giving her husband permission to see a professional Dominant — something she hesitated to do for a long time for fear that it would destroy their marriage (the opposite happened!) — and couldn’t find it. (Hey, if anyone out there recalls that column and can send me the link, I would appreciate it!) Want to stop my heart? Send me an email like this right after my new column gets posted: I recently submitted a question that I would like to withdraw. The other parties involved might see my question and realize it was about them and it would destroy my relationships and what happiness I have left. Please, please, PLEASE do not use my question in your column. The seconds that pass between reading an email like that — sometimes days after it came in — and figuring out whether the LW’s question has already been publicly posted… take years off my life. In the case of this particular letter writer/letter-taker-backer, the letter hadn’t been published. Thank God. But a couple of times the letter in question had already appeared in the column and there was no taking it back. And finally… If like writer and substacker Phoebe Maltz Bovy, you were fascinated by the recent Lovecast who makes a living off his sexy, sexy voice, you’re gonna love the the sexy, sexy guy who makes a living off his sexy, sexy armpits: Oh, brave new world, that has such careers in it!

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