STRUGGLE SESSION: “Strap-On” Spelled Backwards Is “No-Parts”

...tish. Ranging from a fetish is something you see and a kink is something you do to a kink is something you like and a fetish is something you need to cum. @fakedansavage: Have you ever written a definitive guide to this? I can’t find one… I’ve unpacked this a few times on the Lovecast, but the definitive short download — the one I’ve cited again and again — was written by Dr. Justin Lehmiller: To sum things up, kink is an umbrella term, and fetish falls under it. Thus, all fetishes are kinks. However, not all kinks are fetishes. For example, sadomasochism (deriving arousal from giving and/or receiving pain) would be an example of a kink that isn’t a fetish because it doesn’t involve fascination with a specific object or body part. Of course, you could be both a sadomasochist and a fetishist at the same time, depending on your specific erotic interests, but that sounds like a story for another post. So, a fetish is (usually) an inanimate object or a certain fabric or material — but not always, as sometimes it’s a foot. A kink is something broader, more like a theme or a dynamic. So, while a rubber guy is a rubber fetishist, a guy into the specific emotional/symbolic/dehumanizing charge of being turned into rubber drone has a kink. But there’s going to be a lot of overlap, as Dr. Lehmiller suggests: a guy can be into rubber — a guy can be a rubber fetishist — and also be into what certain kinds of rubber gear and/or rubber play symbolizes, e.g., dehumanization, submission, erasure, etc., and a guy like that — a pervert like that — has a rubber fetish and a rubber kink. People do tend to use the two words interchangeably these days, and since meaning follows use, “kink” and “fetish” are rapidly becoming synonymous. Says Thingamajig… Small disagree about a tangential point Dan made on the call with the girl with the snooping parents: Unless they have done something to suggest the are engaged in risky behavior, 12-year-olds are just as entitled to privacy as 17-year-olds. Snooping is an unforgivable violation of privacy… unless the snooper finds something they had a right to know, e.g., a secret second family, unprotected sex with outside partners, etc. In cases like these, snooping on a romantic partner is retroactively justified. So, while I agree that kids are entitled to privacy — while they have a right to privacy — I don’t believe that right is absolute; indeed, a kid’s right to privacy is a lot less absolute. When a parent has reason to be worried their kid might doing something dangerous, a parent is obligated to snoop. (Warning to people thinking about snooping: sometimes you find out something you didn’t need to know and can’t un-know. Snooper beware.) Says Jo in regards to my response CISMAN… I don’t think that men who are only interested in pussy must be straight anymore. Because men who have pussies aren’t culturally regarded as mentally ill women anymore but as valid men. And I don’t think men who have sex with men are straight, even if one of those men has a vagina. He did say he was interested in pussy owners of any gender. I may have read too much into this line in CISMAN’s letter: “I am attracted to lots of different kinds of people along the masc/femme continuum, but I know from personal experience that I’m not interested in D.” I read that as, “I’m into AFAB persons without dicks no matter how butch or femme,” but it didn’t sound — at least to me — like CISMAN was interested in actual men… and trans men are actually men, right? Basically, I don’t think “man” is point along the AFAB masc/femme continuum. Now, it’s possible I misinterpreted or over-interpreted that statement — in context with the other details CISMAN shared — and he is open to dating D-less trans men who haven’ t had bottom surgery. If CISMAN is out there reading this, please weigh in! Says BiDanFan… OK, so if CISMAN likes cis women and AFAB enbies, then sure, he’s straight. But if he likes cis women, AFAB enbies, and trans men, is he straight? At minimum I’d put that one down as heteroflexible. Or he could call himself a vaginophile, though that also seems a bit crude to put on a dating profile. Or maybe CISMAN… in the words of the great Kate Bornstein… exists on the queer het man continuum? Says JW… If what CISMAN is into is the absence of penis, AFAB isn’t the correct description, because trans women who’ve had bottom surgery should be a valid option, and trans men who’ve had bottom surgery would be out. CISMAN should be willing to be wordy to be accurate and safe for work, or be willing to reference body parts if he wants to be concise. “Gender is irrelevant for me but unfortunately penis is a turn-off” is probably the closest he can get if it’s truly about body parts. Says Mandy via email… On a recent episode you correctly stated that anyone can call herself a coach, but you also said that there’s no credentialing agency which is 100 percent untrue. It’s called the ICF or International Coaching Federation. Becoming a certified coach requires hours of training, mentoring, and practicums. It also involves written and — your favorite — oral exams. Okay, there’s an credentialing organization for life coaches — but it’s not exactly the bar association. You have to pass the bar to call yourself a lawyer, but you don’t have to be credentialed by the ICF to call yourself a life coach. (From Rachel Moore’s 2021 piece on the life coach industry in The Guardian: “In 1995, the nonprofit International Coaching Federation (ICF), an independent credentialing body, attempted to impose a set of standards and a code of ethics on the industry, and met with middling success. Although tens of thousands of coaches belong to the ICF, many more – including Castillo, who has dismissed the ICF as clubby and ineffective – do not.”) Says Cameron on Twitter… Listening to this week’s Magnum Savage Lovecast (Highly recommended). I want to congratulate @fakedansavage, who, after 23 years, has gotten the definition his readers came up with for “pegging” added to the Oxford English Dictionary. That deserves applause! Says Dr. Jamie on BlueSky… Your delight — your exuberant sheer delight — at “pegging” getting into the OED at the top of today’s show had me beaming with vicarious happiness at the end of a very stressful day. Thank you, and congratulations! Thank you, Cameron and Dr. Jamie! And thanks to everyone who jumped into comment thread on this week’s show to congratulate me on “pegging” making it into the Oxford English Dictionary. (Finally!) And thanks to SloMoPoMo for asking this great followup question: So, do we know who, exactly, gets credit for coming up with the term? I should’ve looked this up — all of this — before I recorded the opening to this week’s podcast: Here’s the column from April 19, 2001, where “Straight Boys Have Prostates Too” asked me to come up with a catchy name for his favorite sex act: a woman fucking a man in the ass with a strap-on dildo. Here’s the column from May 24, 2001, where I shared the best and worst suggestions from readers before narrowing the candidates down to three: “bob,” “punt,” and “peg.” And here’s the column from June 21, 2001, where I shared the results of the online vote. The winning term — “pegging” — was submitted by a reader who used “Paris P” as their sign-off. Wherever you are now, Paris P, thank you and congrats on making it into the OED! I loved re-reading these old columns and I was shocked — shocked — to discover I wasn’t fully on board with pegging at first. It was obviously the best choice, as its adoption by the English-speaking world proved. (As you’ll see if you go back and re-read those old columns, it was the fear of my Aunt Peg’s wrath that made me hesitate to endorse “peg.” And I was delighted to stumble over this in the final column in the series… Hey, Dan, have you ever notice that the word “Strap-On,” spelled backwards, is “No-Parts”? Kind of ironically perfect, isn’t it? — DB in Vancouver I had never noticed that and told DB — after reading his letter — that I would never forget it. And then promptly forgot it. This time, though, it’s going to be different. This time I’m going to remember “strap-on” spelled backwards is “no-parts.” Says Robert G via email… Longtime sub here! Santorum has finally hit the big time. The Boys, one of Hulu’s highly rated and most popular shows, has used santorum (the noun not the froth) properly. Save you the whole plot details. Basically a bad guy traps a good in his slave dungeon. Early in the scene the bad guy berates his helper for not properly cleaning the santorum off of his gibbet cage. Attached is a short clip of the whole scene. Forgive the bad recording caught it in my phone cam. Thank you for the heads up, Robert, and for being one of my subs. (No gibbet cages for my subs, just lots of great bonus content!) The website Comic Book Club has a long explainer about the scene here — and they credit me for coining the term. But just like “pegging,” the credit goes to my readers: a reader suggested we have a contest to redefine Rick Santorum’s last name, readers submitted possible definitions, and readers voted overwhelmingly for “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” I don’t wanna be greedy after such an amazing week — the OED and The Boys — but I’m hoping santorum makes it into the OED one day along with two terms I came up with all by my lonesome: monogamish and tolyamorous! Now that I know how good a citation in the OED feels I want more! Okay, that’s it for this week’s Struggle Session. One last order of business: Our Muppet-Faced Man of the Week is the profane and pretty and problematic content creator Horsemeet, who recently branched out into the advice racket. Please note: MFMOTW is an honor — among the highest — but is is not an endorsement.