She slept with a lad who didn't wear a condom when he said he would, came inside her and wouldn't help pay for Plan B. The hitch? He's great in bed, and she is hard up. Should she sleep with him again, if he promises to be a good boy? A caller challenges Dan on his personal dislike of massages. "How can this possibly be?" asks the caller. Our guest this week, is the brilliant psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel. Dan and Esther talk about infidelity, how monogamous relationships can turn into police states, and the difference between sex and eroticism- among many other things. We put a chunk of this conversation on the Micro, but there's a lot more on the Magnum. It's the classic bait n' switch. A queer man met his wife via Feeld where she claimed to be interested adventurous sex. Now that they're married, they are monogamous, vanilla and the caller is tearing his hair out. They are doing all the therapy. What they aren't doing is having amazing kinky sex. [email protected] 206-302-2064 Check out Esther Perel at EstherPerel.com. https://www.estherperel.com/course-bundles/the-desire-bundle Get 15% the desire courses until 12/13/24 with the code: SAVAGE15 This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Right now, Helix is offering 25% off all mattress orders AND two free pillows! Go to HelixSleep.com/Savage. With Helix, better sleep starts now. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. They make it easy to build a website or blog. Give it a whirl at Squarespace.com/Savage and if you want to buy it, use the code Savage for a 10% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Dipsea: an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women. Get an extended 30 day free trial when you go to dipseastories.com/savage.
You're listening to the micro version of the Savage Lovecast at savage.love.
Okay, gay men, I think it's time. I think we need to stage an intervention for all of our straight girlfriends. I came to that conclusion after reading about the affair of sorts between New York Magazine star political reporter, 31-year-old Olivia Nuzzi, and 70-year-old anti-vax brainworm sufferer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Now, most of the time, gay men and straight women are in agreement about who's hot. Chris Hemsworth, for example. Gay men and straight women all agree, hot. But there are guys out there that only straight women think are hot and they're usually not great guys. Guys like Vince Vaughn. I assume he's a lovely person.
Vince Vaughn starred in a string of hit comedies in the 90s and early 2000s and straight girls made him a sex symbol and they have never taken responsibility for that or apologized. Gay men, of course, we never thought Vince Vaughn was hot. We have nothing to apologize for on the Vince Vaughn front. 37 different straight women had sex with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
while he was married to his first wife, who sadly committed suicide after finding the list of other women who found her husband irresistible. And now Nuzzi has nuked her career for him. She was placed on leave from New York Magazine after the affair she was having with Kennedy, the affair of sorts, whose campaign she was covering at a time seemed to be boosting, was discovered. Look, I get it.
Lots of younger gay men, like lots of younger straight women, find older and more powerful men attractive. The whole daddy thing, I am not complaining about it. I have personally benefited from it. But not one gay man I know, young or old, would send whole pics to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That man is thoroughly resistible to gay men, but apparently not to straight women.
So what I'm thinking is that maybe a well-timed intervention, a room filled with newsies, gay besties, just looking at her and slowly shaking their heads and saying, girl, no, over and over again, might have saved her career. The Newsy scandal was just one sex scandal that broke last week. An anti-gay activist was discovered to have appeared in gay porn.
New court filings revealed that Matt Gaetz, not a drag queen, a MAGA congressman from Florida, attended drug-fueled sex parties with a 17-year-old girl. There's the Diddy stuff that I haven't even begun to dive into. And then there was the CNN scoop about Mark Robinson. I talked about him at the top of the show a couple of weeks ago.
He's the family values conservative who doesn't think there should be any exceptions for abortion except one for his wife and who thinks porn should be illegal but spends five nights a week in video booths at the back of porn stores for years and years. Remember that guy? Frank Bruni summed up CNN's report in the New York Times like this.
Turns out Robinson frequented a pornographic website where he called himself a black Nazi, praised slavery, and boasted of various sexual proclivities and quirks. About those quirks, Bret Stephens, also writing the New York Times, said, I don't even know if we're allowed to discuss them in a family newspaper.
Let's just say this is yet another case of self-declared morality being at variance with actual behavior. I'm not going to address at great length Robinson's comments about being a black Nazi, about how he would join the clan if the clan took black members, about how he wanted to see slavery come back. This is the man Donald Trump endorsed, calling him a modern day Martin Luther King.
Robinson, for his part, called Martin Luther King on that porn website, Martin Lucifer Kuhn. No, I'm going to leave that aside and drill down instead on the Barians. CNN, which broke the story, and the New York Times, and every other news outlet couldn't bring themselves to quote at length from Robinson's posts on that porn site because they're family newspapers and family news networks. Well...
This ain't no family podcast. If you are listening in the car with your kids, and I kind of wish you weren't, you might want to skip ahead. If you're eating lunch, you might want to put that sandwich down. And if you suffer from intrusive thoughts, you're going to want to skip ahead for your own sake. Here we go.
This is Mark Robinson, Family Values Conservative, GOP nominee for governor of North Carolina, born again, saved, evangelical Christian. This is Mark Robinson writing on the porn site Nude Africa. The piss thing is more common than most people think. I have a fuck buddy that loves to lay on her stomach, spread open her ass, and have me piss all over her asshole and pussy.
The longer and hotter the stream, the more she loves it. It goes on from there. It gets worse. I am not going to read the whole post. It's on Twitter. Easy to find if you want to read the whole thing. I want to move quickly on to the most telling thing Mark Robinson posted on that porn site. But first, and for the record,
I do not have a problem with people who want to piss on or in their sex partners so long as their sex partners want to get pissed on or in. I have a problem with people like Robinson who don't practice what they preach in public. Robinson condemns gay people and trans people. I'm not going to play another clip of Robinson shouting in front of a church filled with his Republican supporters.
I promised Nancy I wouldn't do that to you again. So I'm going to quote him. There's no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth. And yes, I call it filth, says the man who pisses on assholes.
In a shocking turn of events that anybody who was paying attention to sex scandals over the last 30 years could have seen coming, Mark Robinson loves himself some trans porn. quoting from a post of Mark Robinson's On That Porn site, I like watching tranny on girl porn. That's fucking hot. It takes the man out while leaving the man in. Yeah, the post concludes, I'm a perv.
Now, we still don't know exactly what Mark Robinson was doing at the back of those porn shops and those video booths where he spent five nights a week for years and years. And I will admit that when the news broke that there would be news breaking about a Mark Robinson sex scandal, that's what I expected to find out.
And I expected to find out that he was sucking dick back there because that's what people go into those video booths to do. We have no proof of that yet. But this detail, that Robinson loves trans porn because it takes the man out while leaving the man in, And by that he means leaving the dick in. Solid circumstantial evidence that Robinson likes dick.
Straight men, straight identified men watch trans porn for the dick. They like dick. They don't like men. Trans porn in a way trans washes dick. It gives them dick, girl dick, without giving them man attached to that dick. Similarly, straight identified men who sit in video booths at the back of porn shops They want dick. They don't want dude.
And the dicks that come through the holes in the walls? Glory hole wash dick? Not attached to a dude either. Disembodied floating dicks. Oh, and now we know that when Mark Robinson called Michelle Obama a man, he was rubbing one out. Michelle Obama a man? Mark Robinson wishes.
What we have here in Mark Robinson, besides another Trump endorsement designed to make Trump look like a sober statesman by comparison... is yet another case of a man externalizing internal conflicts.
When someone's professed morality, as Stevens put it, is in conflict with their behavior, they can either reassess their morality or they can loudly condemn others for enjoying the same moral transgressions. Like all those preachers out there that we've covered over the years who railed against the filth of homosexuality before they got caught with rent boys sitting on their faces.
Amazingly, Robinson's scandals, plural, aren't disqualifying for the GOP base. Biden was forced out for being too old, but Robinson was not forced out for being too much of a perv as he described himself. Indeed, all those family values conservatives, and I can't believe I still have to call them that, are rallying around Robinson.
The revelations were greeted with shrugs, reports the Washington Post by Republicans in North Carolina. The real winner in all this? Congressman Mark Green, Republican of Tennessee. You haven't heard of him.
He's the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and he's getting a divorce from his wife of 30 plus years because, sigh, the family values conservative, had an affair with a much younger woman in Washington, D.C. and fell in love with that woman and is leaving his wife for that woman.
His wife said to Politico, he pushed God out of his life, me out of his life, and developed friendships with other congressmen, having affairs and getting divorces, drinking parties, all while holding a weekly Bible study in the basement of our home. The green sex scandal, with its overlapping layers of hypocrisy, would have dominated the headlines for weeks.
He is a powerful Republican congressman and a towering hypocrite. But it just can't compete in the world Donald Trump has created. Trump has defined deviancy down, exiled decency from the Republican Party, and here we are. So congrats to you, Mark Green. You won the week.
All right, coming up on today's show in the free-for-all micro savage love cast, tons of your Qs, lots of my As, and joining me on the micro and the magnum, the great Esther Perel is in the house. She is the psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Mating in Captivity and State of Affairs. She hosts the hit podcast, Where Should We Begin?
And she's here to talk with me about a new online course she's launching this week to help couples get that spark back. Esther and I talked about a lot, the difference between sex and eroticism, infidelity, when relationships become police states, forgiveness, and whether some couples can get that spark back, and a lot more. A lot of my convo with Esther is on the micro.
You're going to get a lot of Esther on the micro this week, a lot of the guests. But to hear all of my conversation with Esther Perel, you're going to have to become one of my subs by subscribing today at savage.love. All right, let's get to that first call.
This episode of the Lovecast is brought to you by the good folks at Squarespace. They make it easy to build a beautiful website, blog, or online store. Head on over to squarespace.com slash savage for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code savage to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
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Hi, Dan and everyone. Here for this is head woman, Magnum Saab from Europe. I have a question about a guy that I dated for two months this year. I ended up things with him because one time we had sex. We had sex without a condom that I didn't really agree to and didn't give my consent. And the worst thing was that he came inside me. So I ended up having a plan B peel and my cycle is messed up.
And he seemed very nonchalant about it. Like he was even trying to convince me to have
one more time sex without condom because I'm going to take pill anyway after that he also didn't seem to take care much to take really care of me about how I feel about taking the pill I also had to pay about this video he didn't share the costs with me so it was very stressful situation and I decided to end things with him because I felt like okay this guy really showed me who he is
And we met, I broke up with him. I told him everything and he was genuinely sorry. And he apologized. It wasn't enough for me. I still said that's over. I don't really see this going anywhere because I don't think I can trust him. And then we, but we met a few times, but we didn't, there was no, nothing physical going on, but overall, I don't really enjoy him even as a friend, but I,
really enjoyed having sex with him and currently I don't have any fuck buddy no friends with benefits I've been really unlucky on the dating apps and I would like to reach out to this guy and meet up with him for sex I would set my boundaries very clear I don't have any feelings for him so I know for myself that it should not be emotionally draining I would just enjoy
the sexual part, but my friends, many of my friends thinks it's a horrible idea because this guy acted like an asshole. Yeah. And I'm curious, what do you think?
Everybody who heard your call, everyone who listened to your question wants me to say just one thing. Don't fuck this guy. Don't reward this bad actor with your pussy. Don't throw good pussy after bad dick. Yeah, you met up with him when you dumped him and confronted him. He seemed genuinely sorry.
It's not actually that hard to seem sorry when you're not and to offer somebody a bullshit half-assed apology for the sexual assault. Many jurisdictions now, stealthing is sexual assault now. And he didn't even offer to Venmo you money for half of whatever the plan B cost. So I doubt he's sorry. And so, yeah, you should not fuck this guy ever again. You should not fuck this guy.
His bad acts should not be rewarded. But you should probably go ahead and fuck this guy. If I were you, I would probably fuck this guy so long as his assholery could be contained. Part of why you felt so violated when he did this first time is you were exploring the possibility of a relationship. And you were hoping this person whose dick was in you cared about you.
And by removing the condom, he telegraphed that he cares way more about his dick than you do. And he won't even take responsibility for the horrible thing he did with his dick by paying for half the plan B or all the plan B or arriving with plan B in his backpack or whatever. The dick must be amazing. The sex must be really good.
If you want to use someone who used you and you want to contain that or you feel like you can contain that, your feelings aren't going to get involved forever. I can certainly see doing that. I have certainly done that myself. You're going to make sure that condom stays on. Okay, you're going to need a stapler to make sure that condom stays on.
And this person has, this again, now I'm arguing against fucking this guy. He telegraphed you in that moment that he doesn't care about you, cares way more about his dick, that he will prioritize his own pleasure, that he will commit an act, in many jurisdictions again, of sexual assault.
so that he can come inside someone who consented to sex in the condition that he wear a condom and not come inside them.
Even if you staple that condom to his dick and it doesn't come off, somebody who pulls that kind of move during sex has other moves that they will pull during sex to give themselves the pleasure of getting it over on someone, of feeling like they're in control, of using someone in the way that they would like to use them, even if this time while I'm using you, I have to keep that condom on.
There are lots of dick out there, but if this dick was great and you want to sit on it one more time and letting him feel like he got away with something because he got away with something, you can live with that. I'm not going to throw stones from my glass house at yours because I understand that kind of dick fever.
Been there, done that more than once, regretted it more than once, but more often than not, didn't regret it.
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Hi, Dan. I just want to call about something that I find very strange about you. By the way, I think you're one of the most insightful, logical, interesting people I've ever heard talk about these subjects, so I'm a great admirer. But there's one thing that's so weird, and that's what you said about massage, that you're so, as you would say, squigged out about a stranger touching your body.
And this is coming from a person who has had numerous one-night stands, someone who met his husband on a one-night stand. So those are virtual strangers and you let them touch you in every way. Whereas a massage is such a safe place with so many boundaries and all you have to do is relax and it's the most pleasurable thing in the world.
So I just find it really odd that you are creeped out by a stranger touching your body.
I have had one night stands. I have let people who were strangers to me touch me, but I'm Demi, but I'm Demi on speed a little bit. Like I can never really could never really mess around with somebody if they weren't someone I could see myself dating. And that is something that I got very good at determining quickly.
When I met Terry and we had that one night stand, we talked in the bar and then we made out in the bathroom and then we went up.
There was this progression and a lot of talking over the course of the night before he wound up back in my apartment where the next morning, I famously had to, while he was in the shower, get his wallet out of his pants and get his driver's license out of his wallet because I couldn't remember his name.
Anyway, that's different for me than like laying on some table in a dark room with some stranger putting their hands on me. And maybe there's a contradiction there, but we are all of us a mass of contradictions. We are allowed to have tiny little harmless hypocrisies. And you're trying to sell me on massage by saying it's a safe place with a lot of boundaries. I totally get it.
I've gotten a few massages. I wasn't No one cut my kidney out of my body during a massage. I wasn't violated in any way. But you say the whole point is to relax. All you have to do to enjoy that massage is relax. And there's the rub. I can't relax in that way. situation.
I can't relax laying on a table in front of a stranger with a towel covering my dick who is then going to run their hands all over my body. I can't relax. I can't relax. I have gotten a massage once or twice at Terry's urging because he thinks I'm too tense. He enjoys massages. And I left about a thousand times tenser than I arrived. So I don't see the point. I tipped really well.
It wasn't the fault of the masseuse in any way. But I didn't see the point of putting myself through that again. We are allowed to have preferences and dislikes and they don't all have to neatly align with other preferences and dislikes.
So yeah, I was 30 and I met this 23-year-old in a bar and I let him play jungle gym on me all night long after talking to him in that bar and feeling like I could date this guy. And you know what? Turned out to be right. My hunch was correct. I'm really good at figuring those things out on the fly. but some masseuse. Yeah, no, no.
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Go to helixsleep.com slash savage right now for 25% off your mattress and those two free but problematic pillows. Two. It's their best offer yet, won't last long. With Helix, better sleep starts now. We're going to take a quick break from your calls to speak with someone that if you're a regular listener of the Savage Lovecast, you are familiar with.
Someone who, if you are a regular listener of the Savage Lovecast, you probably already got her books on my recommendation and you've heard me quote her a million times. New York Times bestselling author and psychotherapist, Esther Perel, recognized her. Here on this episode of Lovecast and everywhere else is one of the most insightful and original voices on modern relationships.
In addition to writing her bestselling books, Esther hosts the hit podcast, Where Should We Begin? And is about to wrap up her sold out national tour evening with Esther Perel. Esther, how are you?
I am good. It's so nice to see you.
Tied to what you're here today to talk about, which is your new online course, which launches in September. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But really quickly, maybe I have a brand new listener today who hasn't heard me talk about You, about your books, Mating in Captivity, The State of Affairs.
There's something that you said once that just struck me, and it's one of the things I repeat all the time to listeners and callers. I just wanted to unpack it with you really quickly, if we could, before we talk about The Art of Desire. And that is, the victim of the affair is not always the victim of the marriage.
I don't think there's anything that you've said that landed with quite the boom that that did. Because the way we have been socialized to understand somebody touching somebody else with their genitals is that guy or that woman is the bad guy. And if everything we need to know about the problem in this marriage... That tells us everything that we need to know.
And that simple statement of yours, recognizing your years of experience, couples counseling, working with couples in crisis about infidelity, that the victim of the affair is not always the victim of the marriage. How did you come to that? And when you first said it, I think during your TED talk, did you feel like you were going to blow people's minds?
That is an amazing question. I could have guessed 10 different other things I've said. I didn't think you would come up with that. But no, I did not. When I began the TED Talk, I was so much into this challenging certain perceived notions that people kind of took as truths, but they were only truisms.
That, you know, by definition, you look at infidelity from the point of view of a victim and a perpetrator. And that it is a symptom of a flawed relationship. That the transgression is way more serious than any other relational betrayal that may have existed in the relationship before. And I remember thinking to myself, but relational betrayals come in many forms.
Indifference, neglect, abuse, years of sexual rejection. Why are we not integrating that? Why do we single out the sexual infidelity as the ultimate betrayal, as the queen of all betrayals? And that is not to justify, and that is certainly not to promote, but that is to add layers of complexity here. That people would say, why didn't you talk about it? Why didn't you bring it up?
Seriously, people talk and people bring things up for years and can't get their partner's attention until, you know, nothing can compare to this. And I'm not sure these are helpful statements. And so I wanted to make a point, which was to say an affair takes place in the context of a relationship.
The relationship lives at the center of the affair and the affair lives in the shadow of the relationship or the other way around. But it's a triad. And to just think that it's a dyadic thing, me and what I did to you, rather than, of course, I chose it. I carry the responsibility. I didn't absolve anybody. But I wanted to make a point that it's easy sometimes for the person
who is betrayed, who feels violated, who feels lied to, who feels deceived, to enter the role as if nothing before that proceeded and to say, you did this to me, when the story is often 20, 30 years earlier, of so many things that have happened between us that give context. They don't justify, they don't condone, but they give context, layers, complexity, nuance.
And we need all of this if we want to help the thousands of people. that are living with the experience of infidelity and affairs.
One of the things I love about your work is how nuanced and complex you can allow relationships to be. And when there is an affair, there is this impulse to look to, if people are willing to look past the affair and look at the relationship, to pathologize the relationship. If everything was going great, if these people loved each other, if this was a healthy, functional relationship...
An affair would not happen. You wrote a terrific piece, cover piece for the Atlantic Magazine, why happy people cheat, I think was the headline. And one of the things you addressed was the existence of people who are happily married, love their partners. They're not the victims of contempt or neglect or betrayal in other forms besides sexual ones. And yet they had affairs.
They cheated on partners, that they had monogamous commitments, that they didn't want to hurt and don't want to leave and do love. which seems an almost impossible thing for people to wrap their heads around, except if people sit down and read your work.
But it was the most important finding. There are egregious situations where, you know, it's quite black and white. I'm not always thinking it's nuanced. Sometimes it's just like you lift your heads and your eyes and you just say, wow, you know, no context will add up to this. But
The line I kept hearing from people is, I love, you know how in mating in captivity, people would say to me, we love each other very much. We have no sex. And I began to hear a parallel line in the state of affairs. I love my partner. I'm having an affair. And I feel torn about it. And I don't know what to make of it, et cetera. But what they would say to me is, I feel alive.
More than sex or anything, the experience globally, worldwide, the one word that kept repeating, I haven't felt so alive. The aliveness had to do with a lot of other dimensions of relationships. But what they would say and what I got from it is this. Sometimes it's not that you want to leave your partner. but you want to leave the person that you have yourself become.
And it's not that you're looking for another person, but you're looking for another self or to reconnect with parts of yourself that have gone dormant for decades. And those lines made it so. No, affairs are not always symptoms of troubled relationships. They actually are more existential sometimes. They're a quest for something. They're an antidote to deadness.
And they are not to blame on the relationship and certainly not on the partner. There's nothing wrong with you. It's not about anything having to do with you not being enough. And that sometimes is even more difficult for people. is to think it has, you know, if at least it had to do with the relationship, we could fix something.
But if it has nothing to do, then I am really at a loss here, completely helpless. So it was a complicated statement, but it is probably the most important statement in the book because the other affairs have been written about. I mean, it's not that they're not there.
The narcissists and the serial adulterers and the like scalding unforgivable betrayal that can't... All of that. It can't be anything but an attack and a desire to destroy your spouse. But this, I think, is something I wrestle with and what I do all the time is that people have this impulse to have an affair for their own reason, to assert their individuality, to feel alive.
And the way we've structured marriage and relationships and commitment, those things are in conflict.
Right. It becomes ultimately betrayal, selfish.
But how do we build marriages so you can have commitment, intimacy, but also have those adventures that make you feel alive? And of course, people in open relationships that are functional and some open relationships aren't, they seem to be straddling that divide or have resolved that tension. Right.
that people who've made monogamous commitments and can't conceive of outside sex as anything but illicit or a betrayal can't quite do or get to.
It's sometimes not even, it's like when you, you know, you hear the stories and sometimes there has been sex once or twice in the course of two years because people are in different places. It's the plot. It's not even, I mean, I remember when you and I talk about this, I think it's different in a heterosexual context than among men. But in many straight stories, the sex is the sexual energy.
It's the possibility. It's the erotic charge that comes from even discussing movies and music. It doesn't come from touching anything. Mm-hmm. And that's what this alive thing was about. It's different parts of me are talking here that I haven't been in touch with.
I've been the responsible, caretaking, caregiving citizen of my drunken brother and my sick and demented father and my partners and my children. And for the first time, I'm thinking about me. You bet it's selfish. You bet. Yeah. And I don't want to hurt and I don't want to lie. And it has nothing to do with my marriage.
And you listen to these things and it's like you scratch your head a little bit. And you know that devastation can follow and the kind of accumulated hurt that is going to happen. My God, the day this thing ends. And you sometimes even hope that, you know, let the thing die a natural death.
When people died younger and they didn't have devices, you know, you only found all of this after grandma was gone, you know?
Yeah, yeah. Well, when I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about something else that you've written, which is to desire is to want, and in the context of a long-term committed sexually inclusive relationship, the paradox or the problem is how do you want what you have? It's hard to want what you have. And I think there's this need in all of us
to be wanted by someone who didn't promise to want us all their lives, to have our desirability, our independence, our individuality affirmed, even if there's no acting on it, which is why you recommend, I recommend, For people in monogamous relationships, good flirting, good jealousy, to see your – you describe it in Mating Activity.
When you see your partner through the eyes of another who is desiring your partner, who may be hitting on your partner because they didn't look for the wedding ring or they don't care about the wedding ring, but you know your partner is going home with you, that that can revive – your ability to see what's to want your partner again, to want them back.
And I do think that that's a powerful drive that we don't, we don't know what to do with, in committed monogamous, successfully exclusive relationships. Like how do you allow for your partner to want to be wanted by someone whose job it isn't to want them and make space for that and trust that you're not going to get cheated on.
I think there are two different questions here. If you want an insurance policy, I can't give you.
There's no fair proof in your relationship, despite all the books you may have seen in the self-help sections.
No, I don't. I think that ultimately what you hope is that when there is any temptation, I see your face approach from behind the screen and it kind of captures my eye in front of me and I just say, I would love to, but no, it's not worth it. It's not, you know, I won't do this to you. And suddenly you experience the conflict between your desires and your conscience, basically.
But you acknowledge your desires. And if you have a relationship that can be open enough to make space for those desires, then you even have a partner to whom you can say that and you can talk about this. And that in itself brings air. Fire needs air. If you try to choke it down, you will get a flicker. You won't get a flame.
And so when I wrote about the eyes of the other, it goes a step further because if another can want your partner, then you never have your partner. This tale that you actually have a challenge to want what you already have presumes that you have. And any affair tells you that you don't. This notion is a contrived illusion of safety. We don't have our partner. They are forever.
Free agents, they can die, they can get sick, they can fall in love with someone else. As a result, invest the most and the best of you in your relationship so that you have more of them. But no, there is no guarantee. And that is an existential dread with which free love lives with. If you don't want that, go to traditional societies in which... There is no choice.
You have been married to someone. You are in it for life. And it's a different conception of marriage. But if we want a marriage or a committed relationship that is rooted in free choice, then we have to live with the anxiety that that choice can be at times changed.
The gift of embracing that anxiety and living with it and living with the existential howling void of it is it really does solve for something else that threatens relationships, which is being taken for granted. That's right.
If you know your partner can leave at any time, could fuck anybody else at any time, then you know that you kind of, and I say this to people and sometimes it makes people mad at me, you have to earn your partner every day.
That's right.
I think there's something fundamentally transactional about all relationships and you pay in in an intimate, loving, committed relationship with time, attention, affection, prioritization, sex, you pay in. And to earn all of that back from that person, you can't take them for granted or take what they're bringing to you for granted either.
And so if you just embrace it, like, yeah, they're free to go at any time. And so I don't want them to go. And so I'm going to show up for them.
That's right. That's right. I say this so many times. You know, if you want to curse, if you want to put them down, if you want to be dismissive, if you want to talk to them with your face glued to your screen, don't think that there won't be somebody else out there who says, no, you're not. I can't understand how your partner treats you like this. I think you are a wonderful person.
You know, no, you're not at all a mess. I think you are so inspiring. No, I don't think you're a fuck up at all. I think you have really deep values. I mean, you know.
I think your band is going to get signed. We've been talking for such a long time. We haven't talked about what you're here to talk about today, which is your new online course, where I actually think we may have a point of difference or contention here that we could unpack a little bit.
Two courses, one that is bringing back desire for people who are really stuck in a sexual rut, in an impasse, can't talk about it or have really poor conversations about it, experience a massive discrepancy of desire with the pursuer and a distancer, and they just don't know where to get the flicker back.
The second part, playing with desire, and some people just go directly to playing with desire, is for people who feel like they've kept the flicker, but the flame is gone. And they would like to experience something more robust, more intense, more exciting. They feel like they're kind of slouched in complacency and laziness, and they don't know how to jolt themselves out of it.
And to give a tool that is not just a book, but that is actually a one-hour set of short videos with a great workbook. It's the workbook that never actually accompanied mating in some way. And that gives you practices, tools, ideas, conversations, interesting conversations, not conversations about the fact that we never have sex.
And that's supposed to make us want to have sex by talking about how we never have sex. No, how do you actually have rich sexual conversations that make you kind of curious about each other to the point of even being turned on to each other, even if it starts from the mind and not from your genitals.
But, you know, it's that course for anybody, any age, any stage, any orientation, the whole thing, but who say... It's hard to sit on the couch at night for the umpteenth time where each of us is watching TV, scrolling on the phone at the same time, answering with that classic lag of uh-huh, uh-huh, while somebody's trying to say something interesting, and suddenly say, I'd love to talk about sex.
You know, I'd love to talk about where we are at or I'd love to discuss something that's been really a part of my fantasy life. So, you know, how do you do that? So I have the card game that really promotes a lot of conversations between people and partners. But then I thought something more targeted that isn't therapy.
That you do amongst you, that you can come back to that workbook for years and you pick one question out of it or one thing that says, I could use exploring that for myself, not just with my partner alone. I need to understand this thing about me. Then maybe I can go and have a chat with you.
So when you do couples counseling, you're a psychotherapist, you work with couples, there have to be couples who come and sit down in front of you where you know, you can tell instantly, one of them doesn't really want to be there, but it feels like they have to be there, that they have to go through the motions, that this is what is required of them, expected of them.
It makes them a good person, that at least they're willing to show up and try to do the work, but they're not doing the work. Is that not also...
version of that couple is going to come to this course where one person is done with sex doesn't want to have sex or doesn't want to fuck the person that they married anymore after 20 years and what they're told by the sex and relationship industrial advice complex is that you can get that spark back if you just communicate but what you can't communicate if you're the person who just doesn't want to fuck that person that you married 30 years ago anymore you can't say that
You can't go through the motions of pretending.
You're saying it daily to your behavior. You don't have to put words to it.
No, you don't. Yes. You're saying it through your behavior and saying, I don't know why this is a problem. Like the sparks gone out, but there's not going to be in some cases on the part of both parties, a good faith effort to, to do this work. There's going to be the going through the motions on one person's part because we've been together 25 years. It's terrible. We're not fucking.
We should be fucking. And we can get the spark back. There's a million books in the relationship self-help section about getting the spark back. And where I've come to lately is like, I think what we need to say in addition to like, here's how you can get the spark back is for some of you motherfuckers, it's not coming back. Now what?
Companionate marriage, open marriage, divorce, and everything that entails. Everything you are as a married couple after 25, 30 years is not just we fuck and we got married. We fuck with rings on. That's not what a marriage is after decades and decades and children and mixed finances. It's all those other things.
And so if it's going to be a sexless marriage, how do we in the sex and relationship industrial advice complex who really do –
elevate this idea hold up as a goal like getting you two fucking again how do we identify those couples where that's not just going to happen ever especially help the one who still wants to fuck their spouse who doesn't want to fuck them get to a place where that marriage feels healthy and functional and loving and intimate again even if the sex is never coming back because the spark is out permanently i actually am completely aligned with you but i have done this
For many years, I say to people, you know, your relationship is primarily a scaffolding. It's what it gives you access to. But it's not necessarily what exists between the two of you. And that is a model. I say, you are an affectionate, companionate couple. You are deep friends. You are no longer romantically involved. What do you want to do with that?
If both people say that I'm good with this at this stage, there's not much that we need to talk about. If one person said, I still want to feel this thing, will I ever get this back? Will I never be touched again? I mean, I can't live like this. I'm drying on the vine. Then you say to the other person, this is a power trip.
If you say no, but you can't have it anywhere else either, you're in a power struggle here. And the question is, what are you afraid of? You can't trap your partner into the desert to protect you from your fear of abandonment. Or you may not want to reach out anywhere else because you are afraid of the consequences of this.
And we don't need to make a decision, but we do need to have a conversation about any of this.
This comes up all the time in Savage Love, where one person wants to not be a cheating piece of shit, wants to be ethically non-monogamous. A sexless marriage, like haven't had sex for a decade, and goes to their partner and says, obviously I'm committed, I'm not going anywhere.
I'd like to have permission to discreetly seek sex outside the relationship because our relationship isn't sexual anymore. And they get, no, you made a monogamous commitment. You signed a, I guess, sex life mutual.
But I did make a chastity commitment. A monogamy commitment is not a chastity vow.
A monogamy commitment imposes on both sides. The assumption is I will meet your sexual needs and only I will meet them, but I will meet them. But when you're done meeting them, people do have it in their head that monogamy in a sexless marriage means that you don't get to fuck anybody else or get to fuck ever again if I don't want to fuck you.
That you have this power to unilaterally declare someone else's sex life over if they were fool enough to make a monogamous commitment to you. And these are where I get in trouble sometimes with my readers because my catchphrase is do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane. in that context.
Like if you go to them and try to do the right thing and get the okay and you don't get the okay and it's still sexless and it's not something they want to work on, they don't want to take Esther Perel's Art of Desire course with you. I think you're freed from that commitment and you're allowed to take care of your needs.
When we did the course, this was a question that came up all the time. Who is it for, right? And who will benefit from this? And what do we say to the person who says, I've tried to get my partner to engage in this. Is it still worth it for me to take the course? And I say, you will learn a ton about yourself and you will learn about
your limits, and you will learn about how important is sex to you. And I'm not talking actually just the fucking. It's being seen by someone. It's someone who looks at you and still notices that you have a body. Somebody who touches you. Somebody who... It's a sensuality. I actually broaden it.
Because people can sometimes live even with the no fucking, but it's the entire erotic realm that disappears. And that... gives people a real sense of grief. What you're dealing with is not horniness. You're dealing with loss. You're dealing with grief. You're dealing with, you know, I am a cherished spouse or partner, but I am a famished lover. And... That's the experience.
It's like it is an experience of deadness. They can feel really loved. And that's why it's so tormenting, because they do feel deeply loved. They feel cared for. They know that there's no one who would be there for them the way that their partner will show up. But there is something about that sensual, sensuous touch, gaze, smile, lick, flicker, you know?
Can you get that from someone you've been married to for 30 years?
Yes, yes, you can.
Esther, thank you so much for coming, for demeaning yourself by coming on my dumb podcast. I really appreciate it.
Oh, come on. It's a pleasure to be here.
I loved chatting with Esther Perel and we went on for a lot longer on the Magnum version of the show. She took a call with me. We talked about when relationships become police states, the difference between sex and eroticism and so much more. Subscribe to the Magnum for one month and you can listen to my entire interview. with Esther Perel.
You can also binge as many magnums as we've ever made, including, of course, this one with Esther, for just eight bucks. And if you like it, you can keep subscribing or upgrade to a year-long subscription for cheaper at savage.love. Check out all Esther Perel has to offer, including her courses on Desire, her fabulous podcast, and her books at estherperel.com.
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Hey Dan, 32 year old bi curious man. Not sure if we still use that word anymore, but whatever. It feels like it suits me the best because I've actually never done anything other than a couple of kisses with men. Yeah, I've been fantasizing about being with a man for probably a good
at least a decade, and I've told partners that I've been with that it's something that I want them to do, and I've just never really got around to doing it, mainly because I've mostly been in relationships with women my whole life, and it's just never really happened that way. I was at a Pride event maybe a few weeks ago, and there was this guy, and I was really attracted to him.
And I asked if he was bisexual or something, and he said yes. And I said, oh, cool, like I am too. And then it kind of just fizzled out from there. I don't think he was as attractive to me as I was him, which is totally fine. Yeah, so that's kind of how I've always pictured it going down. You know, organically, I was kind of hoping that
I'd be able to meet someone like that, and then we'd just go back to their place, you know, maybe make out, maybe do something more. That's kind of how I've always wanted to have them. But I've kind of realized it's not going to happen that way. So I've hopped on Grindr and holy shit, it is just like a meat market. I've just been bombarded by men throwing themselves at me.
I feel like this is what it's like for women to be on dating apps that are dating men. It's very overwhelming and it's a little much to be honest. I've talked to one guy who's You know, I'm pretty attracted to, and I told them my whole situation, how I'm, like, nervous. And they said, well, there's nothing to be nervous about. Like, it's all good. So that's nice.
There definitely are people out there that are pretty chill with my whole situation. But, yeah, I'm just a little nervous about the whole thing. Part of me worries that I'm just not going to like it and that I'm like kind of treating the other person as like my guinea pig. And if I don't like it, I'm going to like let them down or that I'm going to suck at it.
You know, I've also thought that, you know, I might like it. I could actually see myself dating a man, you know? But yeah, I just, I just don't know. I just feel like with women, like it's very, like I know how to talk to them. I know what I like. It's very familiar. Whereas men, I'm just like completely like a fish out of water.
I don't know, part of it might just be conditioning, like social conditioning growing up. I don't have very many friends that are like cool with this sort of thing and my family definitely isn't. So it might be some like deep-seated mental blocks.
No gay man, off-grinder particularly, goes into a first-time same-sex experience for a bicarious guy with an expectation that there's going to be a ring on his finger a week later. Most gay men who would be up for that, and they're your situation. There's not just gay guys out there who would be chill about that.
There are gay guys out there who would be psyched to be your first dude, the first dick in your mouth, the first dick in your ass, or the first ass you buried your dick in. There are gay men who... live for that.
And so you need to disinhibit around your marketability, your desirability, and be as honest with anybody that you might wanna hook up with as you were with that one guy who reacted so positively. And yeah, you're probably gonna have to do this on Grindr. I have a friend who went to a big party this weekend where he observed that nobody picked anybody up at the party
But the next morning he talked to a bunch of his friends who all went home and then got on Grindr where they recognized people from the party that then they hooked up with later. Yeah, that is kind of how the dick is had for a lot of younger people these days. You don't walk up to people in person and talk to them.
Everyone should read Leo Herrera's book on analog cruising and get better at this again. Even if you met them in public, you get on Grindr later and then you send them your dick pics and talk about what you'd like to have happen. you might suck at it. You'll definitely suck at it. Give yourself permission to not be great at it the first time and you'll feel less anxiety.
And no guy is going to expect you to be the best cocksucker that they've ever had their cock sucked by when it's the first cock you've ever had in your mouth. The fact that it's the first cock you've ever had in your mouth is some compensation for the possibility that the blow job won't be as good as the blow job that guy's gotten from other guys who've had a million dicks in their mouth.
And it's not nothing as compensations go for a lot of guys, that would be pretty exciting. So yeah, you're how old are you? It's in here in my 32 years old. You've been bi curious for a decade. I get it. I remember first time I saw it, I was 16 years old.
I was a nervous wreck right before, during, right after I probably wasn't that great at, well, actually I was told I was pretty good at it anyway. Yeah. Give yourself permission to be bad at it. Be honest with the guy that you want to get with about how inexperienced you are. Any guy who doesn't want to be your first. is going to decline to be your first.
If they know they're your first guy, then you're going to have to pick through the guys who would be psyched to be your first or your second and meet up with them. And you know,
One thing you might have to let go from all of your previous sexual encounters, relationships, being with women, is this idea that you've gotten into your head that what women want to see if there's going to be a sexual encounter is that there's a possibility for a relationship there. That even that first sexual encounter is a step toward that relationship escalator.
That's not what guys are looking for on Grindr. You don't have to worry about getting into bed with some guy who's secretly hoping that you will marry him. No guy off Grindr meeting up with a 32-year-old bi guy who's never fucked a guy is thinking about the wedding. They're just thinking about the dick. Time for listener feedback.
First up, some of the comments left on last week's show in the very lively comment threads at savage.love. Says Compass, I so enjoyed listening to John and Maria. My husband and I are not into BDSM, but we do like to share each other with others. Not a frequent experience. Once every two or three years. That works for us. Cheers, though, to a lovely couple.
Please, Dan, more interviews with those who have made their shared desires work for them. I really like what are you doing? Well, Compass, you'll be glad to hear then that we are planning to do more what are you doing's in the future. Says Jonathan, I've got to say I'm not convinced that a vasectomy wouldn't change the look slash taste of cum.
I understand the argument from low percentage by mass or volume, sure, but salt or hot sauce are low percentages of a dish and omitting them changes things recognizably. But, says Applescruff909, as somebody who has ingested both pre- and post-vasectomy ejaculate, I submit that in my experience, the flavor did not change.
And finally, ByDanFan, after listening to last week's intro where I mentioned that Christian conservatives used to fear that boys with long hair would turn other boys gay, ByDanFan said long-haired boys had the opposite effect on her. We could remind the Christians that boys with long hair have stopped me from being a lesbian. All right.
For more listener feedback of The Print Variety, check out Struggle Session every Thursday where I respond to listener and reader comments and post a letter that isn't going to make it into Savage Love, the column, and let my subs give advice. And now, drumroll please, everyone's favorite part of the show, the part where I shut my big gay mouth and let my listeners have the last word.
Hi, Dan. This is for the caller from episode 933 that they opened their marriage and the husband can't find anyone to play with. I'm a single gal in the lifestyle. When I talk to a man that is married and I don't see the wife, I ask to meet or talk to the wife. If the husband says that I can't talk or meet the wife, I walk away. Lifestyle 101, always include the spouse.
So as a couple, you need to be in the lifestyle for both of you and not one.
Hi, Dan. This is a comment on the ABDL sex room. You had commented on having someone just tell them it's a sex room and that they can't go in there. might want to also suggest that they put a proper lock on it at minimum. I think the secret room idea is a good one is perhaps a bit expensive, but a simple lock might be all that's additionally required.
I know I'm dating myself here, but in the 90s, people used to worry about folks going through their medicine closet when they would go into a bathroom in their house and learn information about them that they shouldn't. And I similarly worry that without any kind of barrier, once people know that it's a sex room, they may find some sort of like
illicit throughout going in there and seeing what is in that space. And for these particular callers, that might be a lot more impactful and consequential on their social circle than even BDSM might be. Just wanted to throw that out there. Good luck with the sex room.
Dan, this is a comment on 933 about the 22-year-old dude who wants to be a sub. I feel like you even tiptoed up to this earlier in your conversation, and then you didn't apply it, but he needs to be looking at older women. You talked about women growing into kink versus men arriving with them fully formed. That guy needs to be hitting the cougars up.
I think a lot of them would love to have a great time with him.
we're gonna leave it there we've got three ways for you to get us your questions or comments for future shows you can record your question or comment directly onto our website at savage.love slash ask dan or you can make a voice memo on your very own phone and email your question or comment to q at savage.love or you can call our landline and leave us a message at 206-302-2064
Hump is halfway through its fall tour. This weekend, you can catch Hump 2024 Part 2, 25, brand new, never seen before, amazing, hilarious, sexy, shocking Hump films. You can catch the show in Seattle, Albuquerque, LA, Missoula, Madison, and Toronto. If you can't make it to a theater or Hump isn't coming to a theater near you... You can stream Hump online at home.
Go to humpfilmfest.com for tickets to a screening or to get streaming passives. And while you're there, click on Submit a Film to find out how you can get your dirty little movie with my Dirty Little Movie Film Festival Hump. Follow me on Instagram and threads at Dan Savage. Follow me at Blue Sky at Dan Savage. Follow Esther Perel on threads and Instagram at Esther Perel Official.
Check out her website, EstherPerel.com, where you can find her books and her podcast, Where Shall We Begin? Also on all podcast platforms and learn more about her new online courses by clicking on courses. The Savage Lovecast is produced every week by Nancy Hartunian and me and the tech savvy at Risk Youth and Nancy. We will all be back at you next week with an installment of the Savage Lovecast.
Thank you for watching.