With Amanda Knox

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A new sport came to Los Angeles on Friday reports KTLA, LA’s very own news station. An event that got kicked off with a literal bang, says the Daily Mail. Out Sports reports that the event, the first of its kind, came off well. And the teenage crypto kid who came up with this nutty new sport plans to keep it coming. We are talking about, we are punning about because

comes to a story like this, puns are mandatory. We are talking and punning about sperm races at the first ever sperm races, which took place in an arena in Los Angeles last Friday. Tickets ranged in price from 20 bucks to $2,500 for the VIP area. At the first ever sperm races, the sperm cells of two trash talking college students, 19 year old Ashton Proger from the University of California, Los Angeles,

and 20 year old Tristan Milker from the University of Southern California were collected backstage and then put under the microscope where they ran around a teeny tiny microscopic obstacle course that recreated the twists and turns sperm cells might encounter on their race to the egg in the female reproductive system. And the winner of the $10,000 cash prize, Tristan Milker from the University of Southern California.

I don’t know if that’s his real last name and I am not going to fact check it because I don’t want to find out it isn’t. Milker claims to be a social media content creator. So why does he have to go to college? Do you have to college for that? Also hopes to become a pro, a pro sperm racer. So sperm racing, how does it work? Milker offered this explainer on his Instagram account. Answering the most asked questions I get as a professional sperm racer. How does any of this work?

That’s a good question. First things first, we get the sample. You know how we get that. That’s how you do it. We’re gonna take that sample and we need to separate the sperm count from the motile sperm, which means the sperm that’s actually going to race. The motile sperm are the microfilps of the sperm academy. These ones are the ones that are formed right. have the correct head shape and tail to actually be able to get to the finish line. So to separate those two, we’re gonna spin those around for about 20 minutes in this cool little machine and it separates them and it also separates a bunch of other bacteria and other.

and we’ll only take the motile sperm and we’ll take those and put those on the microscopic racetrack. Once it’s on the racetrack, we have super high resolution cameras to be able to track each individual sperm cell. From there, we use a computer vision software called YOLO and that’s able to put a bounding box on each individual sperm cell. So how do the sperm know where to go? Well, sperm’s attracted by three things, hormones, heat, and opposite of the flow. And we use the latter. Think how a salmon swims in the river. We’re exploiting the sperm reotaxis to swim upstream towards an egg, AKA the finish line.

then take those bounding boxes and put it on a visually appealing UI system and there you go, it’s on the Jumbo John. That’s kind of the spark notes of how the whole race works. All right, that sounds legit. I have a theater degree, I don’t know, but a fertility specialist, a doctor who was watching online in Los Angeles, Dr. Steven Paltor, took one look at the video of what were supposed to be Milker and Proger sperm cells racing around that track.

and jumped onto his popular Instagram account to call bullshit on the sperm races. ⁓

Dr. Paltor goes on to point out that the sperm cells on the video that was shown in that arena in Los Angeles look nothing like actual sperm cells.

Dr. Paltor points out also that sperm don’t race off in one direction. Milker is wrong. Sperm do not swim upstream like salmon. Sperm cells blast out in all directions all at once. And Dr. Paltor shared an actual video clip of actual sperm cells under the actual microscope in his actual fertility clinic. You could say Dr. Paltor came with the he-seats and sperm cells.

do appear to blast off in all directions all at once, which would explain why it always seems to hit every taste bud in your mouth at the exact same time. So the founder of the sperm races, 17 year old crypto kid who raised millions of dollars from venture capitalists to stage this event, he jumped on Instagram to respond to Dr. Paltor. Eric Zhu admitted that the video shown to the audience in Los Angeles and around the world watching online was…

Yes, CGI generated animation and not a live video stream of Milker and Proger’s actual sperm cells swimming around a track. According to Zoo, the athlete’s fastest sperm cells were tracked under the microscope. Their individual times were fed into a supercomputer and that computer generated the video that was shown to the audience in LA and around the world, an audience that was being encouraged to place bets on the outcomes of the sperm races.

which the organizers of the event, Eric and his crew, knew about in advance as RiverPage reported in the Free Press and Austin Jeffs broke on Instagram. It wasn’t just a CGI video. It was a CGI video recorded well in advance of the race. So the race wasn’t live and the organizers, including the directors and video production crew, they knew who the winners were. They knew who the winner was in advance.

You can watch the full clip of Jeff’s report on his Instagram account linked in our show notes. And in that report, you can see Jeff confronts Zoo and Zoo admit that the game, well, wasn’t rigged, Zoo claims, just they knew as they were encouraging other people to place their bets on the supposedly unknown outcome. Zoo assures Jeff that despite leading the audience to believe the race was live and despite his crew knowing who won the race,

No one involved with the event placed any bets on the outcome. Yeah. And it’s not like we live in a golden age of scamming scammers and no one in a position of authority would ever abuse their power so we can rest assured that the 17 year old sperm race entrepreneur and his venture capitalist pals didn’t do anything shady or opaque or milky. Jeff admits to having been swept up in the hype like so many other journalists by the glitz and glamour and the men in lab coats and all the

Easy puns, my God, the puns, the headlines. But if you lost money betting on the first sperm races, yeah, turns out you may have been played for a sucker. All right, coming up on today’s show, are poppers for ladies? And someone has to be the least hot person at the threesome. And I say that as someone who’s been the least hot person at more than one threesome, but a caller isn’t sure she wants to be the least hot person at her first threesome.

And does someone who gave you an STI and then ghosted you, does that someone deserve a second chance? We tackle all those questions on the Micro Savage Love Cast. And our guest this week is the amazing, the resilient and surprisingly hilarious Amanda Knox. Some of my interview with Amanda is on the Micro Savage Love Cast. The whole thing is on the Magnum. If you want to hear the whole thing, including Amanda’s sex advice for a couple of my listeners, you’re to have to become a Magnum subscriber at savage.love.

Amanda’s here to talk with me about her new book, Free My Search for Meaning. I had a great time talking with Amanda, really enjoyed having her on the show, really excited for all of you to get to listen to our conversation. All right, Nancy, hit me with the first question. This episode is brought to you by Liberator. Liberator takes you beyond the bed with convertible sex furniture that can turn any bedroom into an erotic playscape for longer, deeper, more comfortable and more seductive adventures.

Go to liberator.com slash savage or type savage into the search bar for private VIP access to deals that are too good to announce on this or any podcast. Liberator, when your mission takes you beyond missionary. This episode of the Savage Love Cast is brought to you by Foria. Foria crafts 100 % all natural sexual wellness products so you can experience deeper intimacy and transcendent moments of sexual pleasure solo or with your partner.

or partners. Get 20 % off your first order by visiting foriawellness.com slash savage. That’s F-O-R-I-A wellness.com forward slash savage. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com slash savage and get on your way to being your best self. Hi, Dan. I’m a 32 year old single girl in

western part of the United States and I’m moving to a new city for a summer internship. And I decided before I make the move that ⁓ I will be taking a summer lover this summer. And so I basically put out the application on field and I met somebody really awesome who it’s been like immediate, really good, like sexual energy and intellectual energy and honestly, right. Exactly what I was looking for.

And linked to his profile, he does have a play partner. And so this person, the guy lives in one city on the West. I’ll be going to another one that he comes in too frequently to work. This gal is over on the East Coast. So they don’t see each other too much, but they do get together to play. And I went into it knowing this, and I think it’s like a hot component. I’ve done a little bit of that before. And she’s…

incredibly attractive and he’s incredibly attractive and it’s just seeming like a really good situation and so there’s the possibility that all three of us will meet up and maybe go to a club or just play together and I’m so excited. So this is a great situation but this is what I’m dealing with now. I am having some hang-ups I guess just about how I am physically and basically just like body image issues and

This situation of these two people are so hot, like, ⁓ intimidatingly hot. But the guy I’m talking to has totally blown my mind with just like how he expresses his interest and all of these things. And so, I don’t know, I’m wondering just if you and your listeners have any advice for like pre-play relationship jitters. Like, this girl is so gorgeous and quite a lot different from me.

And am excited that she’s in the picture, but I guess I’m just getting hung up on things of like self-worth, know, of like, well, if she’s here, there’s no way he can find me very attractive. Or if she’s this way, there’s no way he can feel the same, you know, intensity for both of us. And yeah, does anybody have any advice? Because this is basically my dream situation.

and I’m trying to make it better for myself to enjoy. Every threesome, every threesome becomes at a certain point, briefly, a twosome. Ideally, rolling twosomes where there three people together, they’re playing, two people catch a group, catch a vibe, they’re fucking, and then the other person gets brought in and then they become part of the little twosome that breaks out of the threesome. Almost all threesomes. A twosome happens.

Usually more than one twosome, potentially three different combinations, three twosomes happen. And my concern for you going into this three way is that even if you can, you know, even though I do the sex positive thing and I encourage you to take yes for an answer and you’re obviously more attractive than your anxieties and body image issues are letting you perceive, cause this hot guy is into you and that hot woman is into you and they’re into getting together with you together. And so take that yes for an answer. But my concern is

Sometimes we’d rather be right than fucked. Sometimes we would rather have our anxieties confirmed for us and we will scan the room for evidence that what we thought might be true is true. And that evidence is going to, or something is going to happen during that threesome that you could interpret as evidence that, yeah, he’s more into her than you. And you know what that thing is that’s likely to happen? Is the breaking into the twosome.

There will be project yourself into this moment. There will be a time during that threesome when the two of them are vibing and part of what they’re vibing on is you’re in the room with them and they’re having the sexual adventure and you’re a part of it. But there will be a moment when it becomes the two of them, when he is fucking the shit out of her or she is pegging the shit out of him, where there’s something happening that really is just the two of them and you’re on the periphery. What’s going to happen at that moment?

Are you going to be like, I’m happy to be here. This is so awesome. Even if there’s a little like devil on my shoulder telling me I’m the least attractive person at this threesome, these two hot people want me here. That means I’m attractive to hot people, which must mean I’m a hot person. Or are you going to tell yourself, I guess that was kind of half devil, half angel, or are you going to tell yourself, yep, what I worried about is true. He’s more into her than he’s into me. And I’m, you’re going to have at that moment, the kind of

all too common three-way derailing meltdown that people sometimes have when they don’t game out in advance the likelihood that every threesome becomes a twosome every once in a while. And sometimes when we’re at the threesome and everybody wants us at the threesome, we’re not in the twosome briefly for a moment that breaks out. Will you go to pieces? Will your desire to be vindicated outweigh your desire to be desired or your thrill at

Just getting to watch these two people, these two hot people fuck each other. Look, just objectively by standard conventions of beauty, there’s always someone who’s the least attractive person at the threesome. It’s never a three-way tie. And I don’t know. There have been times I’ve been one of the top two most attractive persons at a threesome. There’ve been times when I’ve been just objectively at a threesome and looked at the other two guys and been like,

I am the least hot guy at this threesome, but there’s a part of my brain that’s like, and isn’t that great? Like these hot people want to fuck in front of me and want to fuck with me. That’s awesome. Like I like hot people. I like to get with hot people. And that’s a yes for an answer I am prepared to take. And when a twosome breaks out in front of me and during a threesome where I’m not the hottest person or I am the hottest person and still that twosome breaks out in front of me, I’m just psyched to be a part of it.

I’m psyched to be there for the show. I enjoy that too. If you couldn’t enjoy that, again, if you’re…

conscious or subconscious, if your ego is going to latch on to that and you’re going to be upset, don’t have threesomes. Not just with these two, just don’t have threesomes with anybody because you’re not in the right place. Or don’t have threesomes with people that you assess to be more conventionally attractive than you are. You want to have a threesome, if you want that experience, find some people that are by your

standards of beauty, not as hot as you are. And be the hottest person at the threesome. And hopefully they’ll be secure enough to be psyched to be the less hot people at the threesome with you. But I don’t think you’re in a good place to be in your own eyes. I haven’t seen pictures of any. This could just be like shitty self-critical thinking. This could not be the case at all, but don’t have a threesome with people that you think are hotter than you, because.

It’s not going to go well when the twosome that doesn’t involve you inevitably breaks out. Hi, Dan. I am a 49-year-old woman from San Francisco. And in October, after being single for about a year, I met a man about my age. He had told me that he wanted a relationship or a situationship with me, a very casual one. And was never really clear about what casual meant to him.

Early on, he would come over about three to four days a week and we would hang out and have sex. And it was really, really wonderful. I was being monogamous with him and I was okay with him potentially having other partners. I had just asked him that if he was having new partners that he didn’t have to tell me that in so many words, but we would just have to start using protection because we weren’t because I had.

thought we were being monogamous with each other at that time. And I knew that could potentially change. He started coming by less and less. And then I had beginning signs of some STI. So I went to the doctor. And in fact, I contracted an STI. When I had mentioned it to him, he said that he was coming over less and less because he felt really bad about his behavior towards me.

and he really wanted to maintain a friendship with me because he really valued our friendship. My question is, that after talking about it and he understands my perspective and I know where he was coming from, he’s been holding himself accountable for what had happened. My question is, is it worth maintaining a friendship with this person?

And by him telling me that he values my friendship, is that a clear indication that he is not any longer sexually attracted to me and that I shouldn’t ask him if we can have sex again? I’m really attracted to him. I really do have a really wonderful time when we are together. And I know he is currently seeing someone else pretty regularly. So I don’t want to get in the way of that either.

And I also like don’t want to be rejected again. So have I been friend zoned? All right. There’s three things that he said here that we’re going to pick apart. said he wanted to keep it casual, but he was over at your place three, four days and nights a week over in you three, four nights a week. That doesn’t seem casual to me. That seems like a kind of non-casual amount of romantic and sexual.

So you don’t think he was being straight with you when he said he wanted to keep it casual. You told him because you weren’t using condoms that if he started having sex with other people, which he was allowed to do, that he didn’t need to tell you, didn’t need your permission, didn’t need to share the details. But because you weren’t using protection with him, if he was having sex with other people, you wanted him to start using protection with you. That might’ve put him in an awkward position where he felt that…

you know, telling you there was somebody else might upset you and he didn’t want to upset you. So he defaulted to still going bare with you to avoid an awkward conversation, probably with his fingers crossed, hoping nothing terrible would happen. But then the terrible thing happened. mean, terrible relative to other much more terrible things. You contracted a sexually transmitted infection from a non-exclusive sexual partner that you were having unprotected sex with. That is a risk.

that everybody with casual sex partners that they have unprotected sex with are running. You tried to control for that risk by telling this guy, you start fucking somebody else, just start using condoms with me. That’s all I ask. Not asking you not to fuck anybody else. And he prioritized, well, probably his own dick and his own pleasure, but also prioritized dodging an awkward and uncomfortable conversation in a cowardly way that put your health at risk.

So when he said, I’ll start using Convos with you per your request, if I start fucking other people, that wasn’t true either. You couldn’t take that to the bank either. And now he says, I value your friendship. What does he mean by that? Does he mean he likes you as a friend? Maybe I value your friendship is like, I’m a little too busy right now or I’m not in the right place emotionally or I just got out of a long-term relationship. It is often the thing that somebody says to be kind to someone.

that they’re disengaging from romantically and sexually. The only way you’re going to find out whether he meant that when he didn’t mean, I want to keep things casual, when he didn’t mean I’ll use condoms with you again if there’s somebody else. The only way you’re going to find out if third time’s the charm and he actually meant that he wants to be your friend is that he keeps showing up for you as a friend. But is he going to show up for you as a friend with benefits?

You feel his remorse is sincere. I haven’t had those conversations with him. I’m not in a position to assess that. You need to interrogate your motives in that moment and whether you’re being a little delulu as the kids say, whether you’re engaged in twatful thinking because the dick is so good and he’s playing you, which is a possibility considering he’s played you a couple of times already and it wouldn’t be safe for you to continue to have sex with him. But right now you don’t even know if he wants to continue having sex.

with him or he wants to continue having sex with you or he’s doing the fade out here and saying, hey, I really value you as a friend, which means not, you know, the not as a lover anymore is silent when somebody says that usually we have to fill that in. And it sounds like you’re afraid to ask the dread direct question because the answer might be no. You’re afraid to ask him whether he wants to keep having sex with you now with condoms, whether he wants to keep having sex with you and

For fear of that, no. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do to yourself? You’re going to float around in limbo wondering for however long whether the rejection you fear came, actually came, whether it is over. Seems to me that, you know, just like he kind of wanted to avoid that awkward.

conversation around using condoms, you’re wanting to avoid an awkward conversation now too, because you might not like what you’re going to hear, which is highly likely like, no, no, I don’t want to keep seeing you in that way, but I do want to keep being your friend. then often when people say that you get text messages every once in while for a little while, and then they go silent, I would ask the dread direct question. The longer you wait to ask the dread direct question, the longer, if this is a rejection, the rejection is going to play out and

the slow drip of that rejection of you having to gradually put the pieces together is going to be more painful in the aggregate, more painful drawn out over time than just getting the no from him if it is a no, because you asked the dread direct question, which in this case is you say you want to be friends, you say you want, you value me as a friend. Are we going to keep fucking? Are you still

into the two of us being sexual because that’s the kind of friend I would like you to be to me even after everything you put me through. Yes or no? Yes or no question, I need a yes or no answer. That’s what you need to risk saying to him. This episode is brought to you by Liberator, the best thing to happen to sex since the bed came along. Whether you want to have sex on the mattress or on the floor or some other surface, Liberator wedges and pillows.

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just go to liberator.com slash savage or type savage into the search bar at liberator.com for VIP access to deals that are too good to announce on this podcast. Let them know the love cast sent you liberator.com slash savage. Hey Dan, I just finished listening to episode nine 63 and I enjoyed your discussion about poppers, but it led to a question. I’ve heard lots of women call you and ask for advice.

about like how to start anal sex, how to enjoy anal sex with them on the receiving end. And I’ve heard you give a lot of great advice, but I’ve never heard you mention poppers. Is there a reason that these are reserved for gay males rather than anybody who’s going to be bottoming? Well, according to WebMD about his mainstream medical resource, as there is straight people, straight women can, some do use poppers.

Quoting from WebMD, some people simply use them for the quick high, but it’s more commonly used to stimulate arousal. Straight people do use them, though again, not as commonly as gay men. The drugs not only give you a brief high feeling, but can also relax the muscles in your anus, as we discussed with our guest on that show, Adam Smith, and your vagina, which can make penetrative sex more comfortable and more pleasurable. So.

It would appear that I was remiss in not bringing women into the discussion of poppers, especially the women I’ve heard from recently that I’m thinking of with well-endowed, aka hung male partners whose dicks they were having a hard time fully enjoying, not just anally, or not anally at all, but vaginally. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Like poppers are so well embedded in gay male cultures that of course you think of poppers. And I mentioned on the show that my first boyfriend basically

trained me to have anal sex using poppers or he brought in poppers as an assist. We used them more as training wheels. That’s why I say train me. My boyfriend then wasn’t training me, but we used them as training wheels to get me over the hump and to a place where I was associating anal sex with positive sexual experiences, with pleasure and not discomfort or shame. And they worked and then we pretty much stopped using them and I stopped using them.

So I don’t, my brain doesn’t go there when I think of populations or communities where they’re not already in wide use or as normalized as they are in gay male communities or men having sex with men communities. But apparently I should have and could have recommended poppers to women exploring anal. Thing is, looking back at a couple of columns where I wrote to gay boys who were just beginning to explore anal and having some difficulties.

and challenges, I didn’t recommend poppers to them. I think my generation of gay men, because of the strong association of poppers with the HIV AIDS crisis at the start, kind of got off poppers, stopped using poppers. They really roared back in a huge way in last 10 or 15 years with younger gay men. And my feeling, even though I guess this makes me a terrible hypocrite, is if you can get to a place where you’re enjoying anal penetration without

Using poppers, fingers crossed, as training wheels or, I think, problematically for some, using poppers in such a way where the association between the use of the poppers and the enjoyment of anal penetration is so strong that a person can’t enjoy anal penetration without poppers. They can carve a really deep groove into somebody. Somebody can become, man or woman, as we now know, really psychologically dependent on poppers in a way that…

may not be sustainable or healthy, but yes, yes, caller, to answer your questions, we shouldn’t just talk about poppers only for men when it comes to anal penetration or as WebMD let me know just now, vaginal penetration, poppers are if women can still get their hands on them, which is a question that gay men are facing all over the country as the FDA shuts down the hopper supply. If you can get your hands on them, yeah, you might want to

Give them a shot. Gotta say though, I’ve been with some gay guys who basically can’t have sex without poppers. And I think if that’s your relationship with poppers, it’s a drug, it’s a recreational drug and it has a price, it has an impact. You can drink too much, you can smoke too much pot, you can use too many party drugs. And I think if every single time you have sex, you have to have poppers, you may be hitting the poppers a little too hard. So, enjoy responsibly.

Use in moderation, all things in moderation, including moderation, which means go nuts every once in a while. But if you’re going bring paupers into your sex life, beware of paupers taking over your sex life, whether you’re a man or a woman. This episode is sponsored by Foria, makers of awakened arousal oil, intimacy melts and sex oil. Sex oil, it’s fun to say, it’s even more fun.

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early thirties, non-binary person calling in. I had a fling with someone that I was really into about two years ago. They did not reciprocate those feelings and I was really heartbroken by it. And I, for the most part, I feel like I’ve really moved on. I’ve taken it in stride, but you know, we’re going to be at a birthday party, the same birthday party here coming up in a few weeks and

I’m little nervous about it. This will be the first time that I’ve seen this person since they rejected me basically. And yeah, I’m a little nervous about that, but I’m also like now they’re just kind of popping back in my head a little bit more. Do you ever really get over somebody or is it just kind of always like a little bit of weirdness in the back of your mind? Something about the unrequited nature of this one just really stong in a different and deeper way than I typically.

And used to, what can I do to get the prison out of my head? Joining me to help tackle this question, Amanda Knox, an exoneree journalist, public speaker, bestselling author who spent four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder. She did not commit. Amanda, welcome to the Savage Love cast. I’m so excited to be here. I’m such a huge fan. well, thank you. I’m just finished reading your new book, Free My Search for Meaning and

I was tremendously moved by it. Huge fan right back at you. Just so people understand what we’re doing here, I sometimes like to invite people onto the show who are only ever allowed to talk about one thing. Like when we had Stormy Daniels on, so she could talk about something else. To give that person, a person like you, a chance to talk about other people’s sex problems, that’s a pretty good something else for someone who’s only allowed to ever talk about one thing, like you.

Yes, yes. And I should probably mention what that one thing is. Yeah. Right? So. I was going to ask you if it’s not too insulting to give us the elevator pitch, the Amanda Knox elevator pitch for the Amanda Knox story. If you can imagine a circumstance under which you would be giving that pitch for anybody out there who’s been living under a rock for nearly 20 years now. Yeah. Who are you? What the hell happened to you? And how did you survive it?

Right, okay, so in a nutshell, when I was 20 years old, I’m a Pacific Northwest Seattle girl, so I grew up reading your column in The Stranger, like on my way home from high school on the bus. that’s how deep of a fandom we have going on here. But yeah, so 20 years old, I go abroad to study in Perugia, Italy. I’m there for a few weeks before one of my roommates is raped and murdered in her own bedroom. Someone broke into our house.

and raped and murdered her when she was the only one home. But before that is realized by the detectives, the detectives assume that I had something to do with it. And so they put me through 53 hours of interrogation. They have me make self implicating statements. They throw me in prison and they put me on trial. And I was eventually convicted.

of my roommate’s murder, despite the fact that I had absolutely nothing to do with it. And I spent four years in prison before I was acquitted of the charges in an appeals trial. But then I went and spent another four years on trial because in the Italian justice system, you can appeal acquittals. And so the prosecution appealed the acquittal. My acquittal was overturned. I was retried. I was reconvicted and eventually definitively exonerated by the highest court in Italy.

And so it was a very big case in the media, especially locally, but honestly just internationally. It was really a well-known case. And I became one of the most vilified women on the planet there for a good second as a 20 year old. So I write about that in my new book, but it’s less the story of this crazy trial, which I already wrote about in my first memoir, Waiting to Be Heard. The second memoir, Free, My Search for Meaning is about how do you come out of a

really overwhelming and life-defining traumatic situation like that and have a life and rediscover freedom and your place in the world and your role in the world. And I feel like I talk about a lot of my misadventures along the way, which is why I’m super excited to give advice to people when they’re in the midst of their own misadventures because, yeah, like, I mean, one of the stories that I write about in the book is how

I started hooking up with this guy that I thought was wrongly convicted. And then it turned out that he was actually a criminal and I had to escape him and he broke into my home. Like it was horrifying. So of all the people who should be giving love advice, maybe it’s not me, but, or one can say I have learned from experience. So. Well, you know, the only, I get this all the time. People saying to me, well, what qualifies you to give advice? And if you look up advice in the dictionary,

It defines the word as an opinion about what could or should be done, which means anybody and everybody is qualified to give advice. somebody asks you for it, this person asked me for it. I’m kicking the question to you. So you are qualified to give advice to this person. Well, first of all, I want to really empathize with this person because I love how they’re just being really honest with themselves about how awkward they’re going to feel. And

I think that that’s so human because in a way that rejection stung them to the pit of their identity and now they’re approaching a social interaction where they have to be confronted with the rejection of themselves. And I don’t know, I mean, I’m really drawn to that kind of awkwardness and I feel like the person should just own it.

If it were me, if it were me in this situation, I would walk into that room, hopefully with a friend, not just alone, like, you know, like you’re there with friends. You’re not just rejected by the world and like infiltrating someone else’s party. But I would like go up to them and be like, my God, I am like so nervous to be around you right now. Is that ridiculous? And just sort of like confront it. I’m always like a confront the thing that scares you and just kind of like put it out there and be like, you know,

I’m sorry if this is so awkward, but I just feel so awkward and like, can we just be awkward together? I’ve said forever that nothing makes something that’s awkward feel less awkward than just saying out loud, this is awkward. I feel awkward. like 80 % of the awkwardness immediately disappears because often what makes something awkward 10 times more awkward is everyone pretending it doesn’t feel awkward.

Exactly. It’s a weird elephant in the room then. So just treat your awkwardness like a guest at the party and introduce it to everyone is basically. But then also, but then also buy it a drink and then leave it alone. All right. Sorry to be a tease, but you know, you like it and hey, if you don’t like it, if you don’t want to be teased, if you want to hear my entire conversation with the amazing Amanda Knox and hear all of Amanda’s advice for this caller and another caller,

You’ll have to subscribe to the Magnum version of the show at savage.love. When you become a Magnum sub, you get access to every Magnum love cast we’ve ever recorded since 2013 and access to every single Savage love cast starting with the dreadful first episode back in 2006. You’ll also get invites to Savage Love Live, our monthly zoom hangout for our subs, bonus Savage love letters every week in Savage Love, early bird discounted hump tickets and more.

It’s just $49 to become a Magnum sub for a year or eight bucks. If you just want to try it out for a month, you’re also free to kick in a little extra if you care to either way, Micro listener or Magnum sub. We really appreciate you and we are glad you’re here. But if you want more Savage Lovecast and more Amanda Knox, become a sub now at savage.love slash subscribe. All right, on with the Micro. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Mental health and sexual health are intertwined. So when people hesitate to get help, it doesn’t just affect them. It impacts families, spouses, workplaces, lovers, friends, polycules, entire communities. That’s why I’ve been an advocate of therapy for decades now. I’ve seen how beneficial it can be. The world is better when people are healthy and happy and therapy can help you be better, help you get better, help you with learning positive coping skills.

how to set boundaries and how to truly understand and act safely and responsibly and consensually on your authentic sexual desires. That’s why I recommend BetterHelp. BetterHelp is over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapist from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. BetterHelp is fully online, which makes therapy affordable and convenient for you.

and BetterHelp right now is serving over 5 million people worldwide. You can easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. We’re all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com slash savage to get 10 % off your first month. That’s betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash savage. Hi Dan, I appreciated your conversation with Dr. Jen Gunter.

And I had a question that came up out of that. I’ve heard you say before that you and Terry had gotten yourselves the abortion pills just to have on hand in case anybody you know needed them. And I did the same thing after Roe v. was overturned. I got myself the ⁓ &Ms, as you refer to them. And I don’t need them myself. I’m not fertile anymore. But I have adult children. And I let them know. And I let their friends know.

that I would make them available to anybody who needs them, no questions asked and free of charge. And nobody has needed them, which is great. I’m not complaining about that. But I feel like it’s a little bit wasteful to just let them sit on my shelf and not be used. And also, eventually, they’re going to expire. And I’m wondering if anybody happens to know of a way to make them more widely available. Is there a network or something where I could just give them to somebody?

I think the best place for those medications is where they are right now. You see them sitting on the shelf. No one in your informal network has had cause to need them. And that’s good. That’s great. Hopefully everybody is using birth control and outer course and managing their fertility and their risks in such a way, whereas they don’t need an abortion medication, abortion or otherwise. But the best place for those meds to sit is right where you’ve got them.

You haven’t failed or they haven’t failed because you haven’t had to share them with anybody yet. And if there were some informal online network where you could get them to somebody who needed them, somebody who could just as easily get them from one of the existing abortion medication providers online. But if there was some informal network, I wouldn’t advise you to trust it. We live in a world where Texas is

finding and threatening to prosecute and imprison doctors in other states who have prescribed abortion medications. The possibility of a malicious actor or some anti-choice asshole worming their way into some online informal network where people are sharing their abortion medications, their &Ms, before they expire and then suing or bringing charges or taking it to some rogue prosecutor in a red state.

seem to me, maybe low probability, but high consequence event. And yeah, these aren’t hypothetical risks anymore of rogue prosecutors or not rogue, mainstream for Texas prosecutors going after people who prescribed abortion medications. And that’s them going after a doctor who prescribed them. I could certainly see them going after some nice woman who shared them.

So leave them there and if they expire, can dispose of them and get more. And they serve their purpose even if they expired on your shelf because their purpose was for them to be there for you to share with someone that you knew personally if they should need them. And they can’t serve that purpose if they’re not there anymore because you gave them away. Of course you can share them or give them away and replace them with a fresh round that isn’t.

near expiration date anymore, but I wouldn’t advise you to do that if the kind of sharing you’re talking about is sharing them with someone that you have no idea who they are or what their motives are. Yeah, we live in a world where they’re trying to throw people in prison, where they’re actually throwing people in prison, people have been thrown in prison for obtaining, sharing,

⁓ &Ms, medication abortion, pills with people who actually needed them. so let them sit on the shelf. That’s what I plan to do. Let them sit on the shelf when they expire, dispose of them, get more, put them on the shelf and let them sit there. And hopefully it’ll just be an endless cycle of you remaining stocked up on these &Ms that no one in your life ever needs, but you’re still

doing the right thing by having them at hand in case someone in your life that you know personally, that you can trust, or that one of your kids has vouched for to you, in case one of those people should need them. You’re doing a good thing, you’re fighting the good fight. All right, time for a little listener feedback. First up, a few comments about last week’s show from the very lively comment threads at savage.love.

I took a call last week from a woman wondering if it was a good idea to tell the guy she’s seeing now how much she misses her ex boyfriend. I told her to keep her mouth shut. Says by Dan fan, hang on a minute there, Dan, aren’t you polyamorous? Doesn’t being polyamorous mean not just accepting, but embracing that your partner may have feelings for other people besides you? I am poly. It’s true, but most people are not. And for most people, not being over your ex is kind of a deal breaker.

No person interested in an exclusive relationship wants to hear that. And I’m going to climb out on a limb here and say most people open to non-monogamy, even polyamory, don’t really want to hear that either. Miss your ex, tell your friend, don’t tell your date. Also took a call last week from a Canadian woman living it up in Europe, who has a little miffed that her sexy European pals sometimes spoke to each other in their native tongues, a language she doesn’t understand during group sex sessions. And to be clear,

The complaint wasn’t that people were speaking the language she didn’t understand while having sex with her, but that they would sometimes speak to each other in a language she didn’t understand when they were having sex with each other in front of her. Says Joni to my fellow Canadian living overseas, having group sex. You are living the dream girl. We’ll trade places, chill the fuck out. Think of it as a really great way to learn another language. Says Dutch lady. Great answer, Dan, to the language barrier question. No notes.

Just in addition, learning the language of the place you live is not as magical as expats sometimes make it out to be, especially English monolinguals. If one takes the twice a week class and spends 30 to 60 minutes on homework and practice every day, one will be fluent within a year. Dutch lady, shh. I finally managed to convince my boyfriend that I’m too old and too stupid and too American to learn another language. Don’t ruin it for me. And finally says Julia to the Canadian caller in Europe.

You’re not excluded sometimes, you’re included most of the time. Try to practice gratefulness. Also, your friends speaking a language that is not their native one is in a way exclusion of themselves, at least parts of themselves. They’re doing this most of the time with you and for you. Give them a break, allow them to reenter their full selves sometimes. They deserve it. Also,

Speaking in second language, I hear from people who actually speak second languages, including someone very important to me who speaks a second language with me all the time, requires sustained mental effort and it can be a little tiring after a while. And yeah, sometimes you just gotta let your person or in the case of that caller, your persons relax and speak their native languages in front of you.

All right, to read more listener comments, go to savage.love, click on the latest LoveCaster column or struggle session, scroll down to the bottom where my readers and listeners share their thoughtful comments. And sometimes every once in a while, even have better advice for a caller or a reader than I do. Check out the comments, join the convo now at savage.love. And now some of the voicemails, some of the comments Savage Love listeners left on our answering machine this

Hey Dan, I’m just calling up to respond to the caller in 965 with the harem issue. I just wanted to say that I had a similar situation in my mid-twenties with a man who the sexual attraction was very high, but I knew he was a bit of a man about town and he clearly kind of said to me that I was the matriarch of his harem. So that’s kind of concerning when I think about it now, but

I entered into it knowing that we had some fricking hot sex, but I started to get a little emotional and I also started seeing maybe the side of him that wasn’t that great. But I did have lots of fun. So I say go for it. I say get it done, but just check yourself.

If I had known then what I know now about my sexual being and what I, the power I possess and all these things, then maybe I would have handled the situation slightly differently and gotten less emotionally entangled. But I had some fun and I definitely have little in the spank bank from it. Dan and everybody. Calling with a response to episode 965 when the mom mentioned her 11 year old son looking through her phone and seeing a bunch of pictures that made him upset. I noticed

One thing that you and Dr. Herbenik missed, and mom also didn’t seem to flag when she was talking about what happened, is that this kid, this 11 year old is the child of divorce. And, you know, I don’t presume to understand everybody’s situation at all, but as somebody who’s provided counseling to a lot of young people, especially in the like, sort of delicate 11 to 17 age range, a lot of those folks are

quietly harboring a big, big, big, big, big hope that their parents will reunite. And so I just, you know, posit that that might be part of what’s going on for this kid too, is it some sadness over mom having a relationship that is, you know, demarcated in this way as pretty serious with this other person. So it’s just, you know, something to consider too when talking to your son, you know, it was this part of what’s upsetting you, not just seeing mom and not just seeing her in a sexual…

way in this moment, but also, you know, knowing that this means something about our relationship with his bio parent. Hi, Dan. I’m commenting about episode 965, the woman who participated in group sex activities with folks who were from another country where she was staying and she didn’t speak the language. Obviously, it’s very difficult in the throes of passion to start speaking in a language that isn’t your native language. And I’m just thinking that for all of us,

Maybe we should take the time to learn a sentence such as, fuck me harder, baby, in at least three different languages. All right, before we leave it this week, I just want to tell a certain listener of 15 years that we are so sorry for your loss and we are really glad and we’re really touched to hear that some of the things we’ve talked about on the show over the years have come back to you and been a comfort to you at this time. You are very much in our thoughts. All right, we’re going to leave it.

There. Got a question for me? Go to savage.love slash ask Dan to record and upload your question directly onto our website. Or you can make a voice memo on your very own phone and email us your question or your comment at q at savage.love. Or you can call our landline 206 302 2064 and leave us a message on our answering machine. 2025, our spring tour is showing in New York City, New Orleans, Eugene, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Fort Collins and Baltimore this week.

For New York City listeners, your tickets to Hump also get you into the official Hump after party at the Museum of Sex. For dates, venues, showtimes, tickets, and to watch the trailer to get a taste of the 23 amazing new films that make up the Hump 2025 Spring lineup, go to humpfilmfest.com right now. Follow me at bluesky at Dan Savage. Follow me on Instagram and threads at Dan Savage. Follow the amazing Amanda Knox on bluesky and Twitter at Amanda Knox.

and on Instagram and threads at amamanox. You can order a signed copy of her new book free, My Search for Meaning at amananox.com and her podcast Labyrinths, which she co-hosts with her husband Christopher Robinson, is available on all podcasting platforms. The Savage Love Cast is produced every week by Nancy Hartounian and me and the tech savvy At Risk Youth and Nancy. We will all be back at you next week for an installment of the Savage Love Cast. Thank you for joining