A lesbian couple has been together for a couple years, and things are still hot between them. But they wonder if they should check out a sex club just to add a little spice. They are monogamous, and have no interest in contact with other women. Their friends say it's impossible to remain exclusive with each other at one of these spaces. Is that true? Would they be welcome? A man with "anxious attachment style" (hot!) has been seeing a woman for 6 weeks, and things are moving fast. She told him she was going to have a drink with a friend. He asked if she had ever slept with him. At first she denied it, but then called him back and admitted that she used to have a friends-with-benefits relationship with him, but that they were just platonic now. Should he believe her? Should he be upset? Should he cling as hard as he possibly can? On the Magnum, Dan chats with humor writer Eli McCann from the Salt Lake Tribune about "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," and what to do when the obnoxious gatekeeper in your life is your own damn son. And, a woman has freed herself from her abusive ex-boyfriend. But they still share one thing...the dog! Who gets custody? She had promised him that if they ever broke up, he could keep the dog. But he is in no position to care for it. Who gets the poor little pooch? [email protected] 206-302-2064 This episode is brought to you by Hims, providing affordable access to ED treatment, online. Start your free online visit today at Hims.com/Savage. 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.
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If you're stuck in a relationship quandary
Two things I wanted to quickly cover before we get to your questions and kick off this week's show. I logged back on to a certain social media platform after being mostly offline for the better part of a week. And the first post I saw was someone from one of my communities saying this, we need to talk about how giving people a plus one for events is low key polyphobic.
And my first thought as a person in a polyamorous relationship was, do we though? Do we really need to discuss this right now? There's a lot going on right now. I don't know if this is what we need to drop everything else and talk about right now. Look, I know the world is built for couples and that can create headaches for those of us who aren't coupled off, but rather tripled or quadrupled off.
Look, my fellow poly people, when you get that invitation to the wedding and it's almost always a wedding where there's A plus one where you are invited to invite someone or bring somebody along with you. It's not so you can bring every emotionally significant person in your life to the event. It's so that you can have someone at the event that you know. So you don't have to come alone.
So you're not at a wedding where you don't know anyone. You don't have anybody to talk to. You don't have anybody to dish with. That's what the plus one is for. It's why people who aren't in relationships at all, who have no significant, at least romantically significant others in their lives are given a plus one. So they have someone, one, someone singular at the event with them.
And to anyone out there who saw that tweet or sorry, that post to a certain social media platform and is currently pulling together a guest list for a wedding, which again is when the plus one thing comes up mostly. And there's someone you want to invite who's Polly and has more than one partner right now.
And you think they might be the sensitive type who would take to social media to complain about you after they got that invitation with a just plus one on it. Yeah.
Look, in my experience, in my lived experience, which is the best argument and most unimpeachable evidence in these subjective times in which we live, in my experience, in every poly triad, let's call it, there is one introvert in that relationship who would rather stay home. So even if you plus two someone in a poly triad, you send out that invitation technically for three hours,
Only two people are going to show up at your wedding. And if it's a destination wedding, not even the two people who came wanted to be there either. Second thing I wanted to say before we get to the calls, thank you.
Thank you to everyone who jumped into the comment thread on last week's show to share your FAFO stories, your fucked around and found out something good stories, reading about your sexual adventures and the risks you took and the good things you found out. after taking those risks, after fucking around. It was the best birthday present ever. It was just what I wanted. How did you know? Oh, right.
You knew because I asked. Like I'm always telling listeners, the best way to get what you want is to ask for it. And I asked for it and I got what I wanted. So many great stories, including so many great Met sleazy stories, as opposed to all those Met cute stories we hear all the time. Met sleazy stories. My favorite kind of meeting stories. Thank you for sharing them.
But there's one story I wanted to highlight, Randy's FAFO story. Randy said it was a tame one, but you know what? It was a great one with lessons in it for a lot of us. The risk Randy took was an ask, not an act. After a cancer scare, he went to the wife and asked about opening up their relationship.
And then she opened up during that conversation about opening up that she was feeling increasingly ace slash aero. And seven years later, still together, still married, Randy and the wife. Randy dates other people. His wife does not. And they are in what he describes as a companionate and very happy marriage still. That got me thinking. Like most open relationships were monogamous at the start.
Most sexless marriages were sexual at the start. A lot of people have a hard time addressing the disappearance of sex from a long-term relationship, addressing it directly. And Randy's story is really a great example of a couple that successfully managed the pivot from sexual to companionate in an open and honest way.
A pivot, most of us, if our relationships last decades and decades and decades, will eventually, if not for sexual reasons, maybe for reasons of physical limitation or disease or infirmity, have to make. We default into monogamy, many of us, when we get into relationships, not an active choice. A lot of couples out there slide into companionate without it feeling like an active or honest choice.
Sometimes it's scary to address that disappearance of sex from a long-term relationship directly. It's scary to talk about it. Because it's a risky conversation. One person might be bitter or angry and suppressing a lot of anger and hurt, and the convo could surface all of that anger and hurt.
But Randy's story shows that sometimes risking having that conversation can recenter the relationship in a healthy way. And that companionate stage you're in that you slid into can become a choice you've both made and can become a joyful new phase of your long-term relationship as it did for Randy and his wife.
Again, like I said, so many great stories, but Randy was the one that kind of touched me and I thought everybody should take a moment to read and think about. All right, quickly, before we get to the show, save the date, savage the date, our next Savage Love Live for Magnum subs this Thursday, October 17th, noon Pacific, 3 Eastern.
Savage Love Live, of course, is a special Zoom hangout exclusively for our Magnum subscribers. Not one of my subs yet and want to come to Savage Love Live, become one of my subs now at savage.love slash subscribe. And you too will get an invite to join us for Savage Love Live in your email inbox on Thursday morning.
Coming up on today's show, tons of your Qs, lots of my As, and joining me on the Magnum, lawyer, dad, author, and humor columnist for the Salt Lake City Tribune, Eli McCann is here. Eli helps me answer that age-old question, what do you do when your kid comes out as queer and you want to be supportive, but your queer kid is being a huge dick? What then?
And then I tell Eli the real reason why I invited him on the show. Eli was raised Mormon, lives and writes in Salt Lake City, often writes about the Mormon church. Who better to talk to about everyone's current reality TV obsession, the secret lives of Mormon wives than Eli. That's all coming up on today's show. Now let's get to that first call. This episode is sponsored by HIMSS.
Affordable access to ED treatment all online. Start your free online visit today at himss.com slash savage.
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. I'm a 36-year-old lesbian in a relationship with my girlfriend. We've been together for two years and are monogamous. We have a wonderful relationship, very, very deeply fulfilled, have amazing sex and just very, very deeply in love. We've been thinking about when we're older, you know, maybe things when –
they get stale or a bit boring in our sex life we will attend a lesbian sex club together with the intention of you know spicing things up in our sex life a little bit just for each other getting turned on by each other hooking up with each other there but not involving anyone else just something to do that might be a bit different and erotic for us that we're not sort of used to.
But the more we've been talking, we thought, hey, why wait? We should just do this while they're young and hot and still having amazing sex. Because when we're older, we may not even be interested in something like this. So we're going to be attending a bigger city next year where we know that these type of events happen. And
we're really looking forward to attending but I was talking to my good friend about this and she had some concerns I guess that my expectations about this kind of events were not perhaps correct she sort of caution me a little bit that people who go to these events don't usually just stay with their partner.
Usually other people are involved and the expectation is there that, you know, you will sort of involve other people and other people will expect whoever is there. that they would be involved with other people as well. Obviously, my partner and I don't have any intention of involving other people.
We want to just do it for ourselves, make each other feel hot and turned on and have some amazing sex there or afterwards. and just add something to our lives that we find very erotic and exciting. But I guess my question is, is it unrealistic to go to this kind of event thinking that nothing will happen with other people?
Is it unrealistic to think that our minds won't be changed when we're in the moment and we might involve other people even though we don't really want to and we might regret it later? Yeah, and do monogamous couples go to sex clubs just to play with each other or does stuff always happen with other people?
Lots of people go to sex parties, sex clubs, public sex environments to look for people that they've never met before who might want to have sex with them and to approach people in these environments that they're attracted to and hit on them. But you can go to a public sex environment. You can go to a sex party. You can go to a sex club. And you can bring a date.
And you can go in there and just have sex with each other in this erotically charged environment where you're just showing off, maybe taking in some other people, where you're being the voyeur and the exhibitionist. And still... not having sex with anybody else, plowing all of that sexual energy and arousal and eroticism right into your monogamous partner.
That is definitely a thing that people do. That is not an unrealistic expectation to have. What is going to happen in this environment is once you enter this environment, this is a place where you are – by entering this environment, you are signaling to others that you may – because most people in that environment are open to fucking around with other people that they don't know or just met.
So you and your partner may have to – say no to people who have expectations or hopes. They saw you, you're hot. They think, ah, I hope I can get with them. And they may approach you and you'll have to tell them that they can't get with you. And you're not violating a social obligation.
You are violating, and not violating, you are swimming against the current of the social norm in that environment where most of the people in that environment are open to play with others, with strangers, with people they didn't arrive with. But no one in a public sex environment, no one in a sex club, no one at a sex party is obligated to sleep with anyone that they don't want to sleep with.
And if you and your girlfriend don't want to fuck around with anybody else, you don't have to. All that said, who knows? You might be inspired to the potential danger here, potential conflict is that one of you will want to, and the other won't.
And one will be angry that the other was tempted or wanted to, or wanted to renegotiate the terms of what you guys were interested in doing or available to do while you were in the sex club. So before you go, if you're going in only to play with each other, you have to swear to each other that even if tempted while you're in the space in the moment that night,
If one of you is tempted or Yahtzee, both of you are tempted, you're not going to bring it up. You're not going to renegotiate your terms, the agreement that you two made entering that space.
If after you've been there, you have your little after action report, you tell each other how it felt, what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy, what you liked, what you might want to do next time, one of you or both of you want to bring that up, then you can think about it. But just, it's really dangerous.
For a couple who've gone into a sex club or a sex party and sworn they're only going to play with each other, really dangerous to try to upgrade to playing with others in the moment. Because one person might really want to and the other person might feel pressured to. And that can have catastrophic consequences after the fact. When that post-nut clarity swamps you and the one who was sort of
ambivalent about it or a little reluctant but went along could wind up feeling tricked or violated. So just don't fucking do that. You go to that first sex party and I agree you shouldn't wait until you're bored or old or tired of each other or your sex life is falling apart to go.
When you go to this party, young and hot lesbians, when you go to this party, if you're only going in to have sex with each other, only have sex with each other. And if other people approach you, they're not doing anything wrong.
Unless after you say no, where if it's kind of touchy environment, after you gently remove their hand, if one of them, somebody reaches out and starts touching you, if it's that kind of sex club or sex party, if they keep asking or keep putting that hand back, then they've done something wrong. But nobody's done anything wrong if while you're at the lesbian sex rave, somebody approaches you.
Somebody wants to fuck you. That's what everybody's there for. But if you're only there for each other, you only have to fuck each other. You don't have to fuck anybody else. Have fun.
Hi, Deanne. I'm a 45-year-old cishet married woman living in the Pacific Northwest, and my question is about my husband. I was out of town this last weekend, and when I got back, he admitted to me that the night before, he had been drinking and watching porn and felt inspired to open his old Tinder account and
And this time create a profile with the intention of meeting another straight guy to masturbate with. He says he doesn't want any physical contact. He just finds the idea of being in close proximity to another guy while watching porn hot because it's taboo. I try to respond in a supportive way, but...
I have to admit that I had a little bit of a sinking feeling in my stomach and I'm trying to figure out how to process this. I've never dated anybody who's expressed a desire like that. I've never dated knowingly a bi guy. I've always considered myself progressive and that I would never have a problem with that. And I've even told him, you know, hey, do you think you might be bi?
because it's okay if you are and he says no he doesn't think that he is but he does find this idea hot he's also told me that the idea of like a male male female threesome and maybe having some incidental touching with a guy in the context of both of them touching the woman is also hot to him but he doesn't really have any desire to have one-on-one physical contact with the guy
So I'm just wondering if I should take this at face value and encourage him to pursue it. We do have, you know, ourselves a good adventurous sex life. We're very much in love. But I'm also wondering if perhaps. This could be an indication that he has stronger desires for physical contact with another guy that either he's unaware of or just not comfortable telling me.
And I guess part of why this is giving me a little bit of pause is because... When I was 15, my dad came out as gay. And we've got a great relationship now. But at the time, it was really hard on my family and particularly devastating for my mother. It took her years to recover. And maybe on some level, there's a fear that that will happen to me.
I did an intro top of the show a couple of weeks ago about Mark Robinson, the odious piece of shit who the GOP nominated for governor in North Carolina, who is hanging out at the back of video, you know, in video booths and porn shops for years and years and years, five nights a week, video booths and porn shops have glory holes. Dicks pop through those holes.
People don't spend all night long, five nights a week in a video booth in the back of a dirty bookstore. Uh, Unless they want that dick to pop through that hole. Also, Mark Robinson obsessed with trans porn and said that he liked trans porn because he got the dick basically without the dude.
And I got this really kind of moving email from a straight male listener who heard me say that there are some straight identified guys out there who aren't into men, but they are into dick. So they like trans women who have dicks and they like glory holes in video booths because the dick comes through the hole and it's not attached to a dude. It's just this floating disembodied dick.
Dick, no dude. And that guy wrote me to say how affirmed he felt because no one had ever affirmed his identity. His identity as a straight identified male until he heard me talking about the particular kind of straight identified male he is at the top of that show. Your husband could be one of those guys, straight but aroused by the sight of dick.
Most straight guys who watch porn, they're looking at dick when they watch porn. Now, there are some straight guys out there who don't watch porn that have any men in it. They just watch... women's solo or lesbian porn, like seeing other dicks ruins it for them. But most straight porn has guys in it with dicks because dick isn't a deal breaker in porn as a visual for most straight guys.
And your husband could be one of those guys. And he wants to like, he's excited by the thought of jacking off with another guy while they watch porn together. And They're being dick around other men's dicks around. Okay. Worst case scenario. And my heart goes out to your mom.
That can be really traumatic to be married to somebody for years and years and find out this woman that the man that pretended he loved you and married you was gay. Heart goes out to your mom. Is your husband gay? Well, you say your sex life is pretty great. really good. You guys have a good adventurous sex life.
When you talk to women who are married to closeted gay men, you rarely hear we had a great sex life. Usually the sex was lousy and the woman for years couldn't figure out why it was lousy, thought maybe the problem was her, may have been encouraged to believe the problem was her by her lying closeted husband.
I can't imagine in the wake of your parents' divorce and with how traumatized your mother was, you didn't end up having deep, dark, night of the soul conversations with your mom about what her marriage to your dad was like. What data do you have there? I'm imagining that if your mom shared anything with you, Odds are what you heard from your mom was she and your dad had not a great sex life.
So the fact that you and your husband have a great sex life, I think that argues against your husband being a closeted gay man. The things your husband telling you right now. interested in jerking off with another dude. Okay, maybe he's just into dick, disembodied dick.
But also that he says he's curious about an MFM three-way and perhaps during that MFM three-way, some incidental contact between him and the other man. Well, that kind of points toward possibly bi. And since you're okay with him being bi, bi is the ultimate answer to the question here.
then I would encourage you to do what you're doing, to tell your husband to go get out there, find a guy who wants to hang out with him and be his jerk-off buddy and watch straight porn and be bros and blow loads.
And maybe if you are interested, you didn't say whether you were interested or not, but if you're interested and the right other M comes along, having that MFM three-way with your husband, and then see. Maybe your husband is coming to the realization or will come to the realization that he's had a reflexible or straight identified, but into dick or bi.
And according to you, all three of those options are acceptable to you. Just the gay thing. It's not acceptable to you. And I totally understand that. And again, if you guys have a great sex life, odds are really good. He's not gay. But all signs at this moment in your marriage point to not a hundred percent straight either.
This could be the beginning of a whole new era in your marital sex life with hot, sexy adventures that you and your husband go on together that revitalize your sex life, revitalize your sexual connection, you're going to have to sit with the uncertainty right now. You're not going to have an answer to the question that you'd like to have. Is my husband bi?
Because we can't cut his head open and read the entrails. You're going to have to wait and see. As you know, ED is a topic that comes up a lot on this show. Your sex life is important. That's why I recommend HIMSS so you can feel confident knowing you can get hard and stay hard whenever you're in the mood. HIMSS is changing men's health care. Bye-bye.
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Hey, Dan. So I've been seeing this girl for about six weeks and we've kind of hit it off fast and it's become very feelings oriented very, very quickly. I got divorced a few years ago and this is kind of the first time that I have felt something deeper for somebody. She's super attractive, but she also does little things that reveal a good and kind character to me at this early stage.
And suggest kind of a generous and good soul that I can trust. But I guess I struggle with the trust part. And tonight, after I told her I couldn't hang out, she texted me and said she was going to go meet up with a male friend of hers for a drink. This male friend had reportedly recently broken up and she felt he needed a shoulder to cry on.
I asked her if they had ever dated or fucked before and she said no. But about 10 minutes later, she texted me back and said she had, in fact, fucked him for some time more than a year ago. She insisted that wasn't the reason she was going to meet up with him, but I guess I'm not sure.
There was also another episode a few weeks back where she was going to go meet up with another male friend who she initially said was not someone she had been with, but then she turned around and said, I'm sorry, but yes, I was with him. I'm just trying to figure out whether I am overreacting in this situation.
Post-divorce, I've done a little bit of research into my attachment style, and I do seem to have an anxious attachment style. But I guess I dislike your take on the situation. I'm very torn about whether I'm overreacting about her spending time with these dudes, whether I should be fine with it, or whether I have reason to be concerned, and whether I should view this as a red flag.
This is one of those adorable straight people problems because if you're gay and you're dating someone and he says, oh, I'm going to go, we can't hang out tonight for whatever reason. We've just met. I'm going to go hang out with my friend, Mark.
You automatically assume that he's hooked up with Mark because most gay guys, most friends of gay guys are people that they briefly dated or hooked up with once and realized that they were better as friends. than as fuck buddies or potential romantic partners.
So the default assumption in gay land when you're this guy you just met and you started to have a bit of a crush on and you've been seeing for a few weeks is hanging out with friends. Yeah, he's hanging out with a bunch of guys who've railed him or that he's railed. They're hearing from you like, oh, this is adorable that you –
You have to worry about this, that you can't just assume that when your girlfriend says she's seeing a male friend that she's seeing somebody that she's hooked up with in the past the way a gay guy would assume that when his new boyfriend is seeing somebody he's friends with that it's probably somebody he's hooked up with in the past. You don't even need to drill down or address it. All right.
Look. there is this interesting stage in a relationship in between that first meeting and first few weeks and the D T R defined the relationship conversation where when you have that defined the relationship conversation, you may decide you're seeing each other exclusively, but until you have that DTR conversation, um, you're not in a committed exclusive relationship with this woman.
You've only known her for six weeks. I don't want to put this in your head, but if she's going to fuck this guy tonight, that's within her right. Because as much as she may like you, as much as you may like her, as much as you both may hope that there's something here, there's no, uh, commitment. This isn't a sexually or romantically or anything exclusively relationship yet. It might be.
And it always seems to me that when people define the relationship and commit and say, we're only having sex with each other, this is a sexually exclusive relationship. that they have to kind of leave that time period alone. Those six weeks, that liminal stage in between that first meeting, your first hookup, and the DTR conversation,
Whatever happened during those 10 weeks stays in those 10 weeks.
You don't put each other under oath and start asking each other a bunch of questions about where you were and what you did and who you did in that stage because you don't have a claim on that person yet because it's not a committed relationship yet because you have not defined it as sexually exclusive yet and you are both right now free actors and it is fine that you have a
Anxious attachment style. It's a fine thing to have. Many people have that. It's not a trump card that doesn't allow you to control other people just because you have an anxious attachment style, but also you aren't attached yet. Not officially. You're hoping that you may attach at some point and then you could ask your girlfriend to
to be a little bit more sensitive and considerate about the fact that you get a little anxious about this shit. But right now your anxieties about where she is, what she's doing, who she's with, I'm sorry, they don't have force of law because you have not had the DTR conversation. You are not yet with this woman in a sexually exclusive relationship.
So you're just going to have to be Zen about this. If you like her and you feel that you can trust her and she's assured you that although she's fucked these guys in the past, maybe she's one of those people whose friends are all people that she's hooked up with in the past. Not just gay guys who roll that way. Some straight women roll that way too.
If you feel like you can trust her and she says, I'm not going to fuck this guy, believe her. After you have that DTR conversation and you do become sexually exclusive, don't ask her a lot of questions about whether or not she fucked that guy that night when she was still within her rights to fuck that guy that night if she wanted to fuck that guy that night. Just leave it alone.
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Hey Dan, my wife and I are relatively new to having an open relationship, you know, five or six months ago. So far, everything's been tons of fun. We really enjoyed it. It's been great. We started seeing this one woman and it first started as like a, you know, friend of benefits, super good time, all enjoy each other company. Now three months into that relationship,
We've all mutually caught in feelings for each other, which is just wonderful. It's been a ton of fun. We're really happy with how our relationship is growing. But seeing as how my wife and I are already in an established relationship, we've been together for nine years, married for three, we own a house together. I really want to be careful not to let that couple privilege create
some negative hierarchy in all three of our relationships. I guess what I'm looking for is, do you have any advice or things to look out for that you can pass on to us, seeing as this is the first time any one of us has really experienced this throuple dynamic when all three of us are dating each other?
Couple privilege. It's real. It exists. And I don't think as the married couple, as the couple that's been together longer and has invested more in your relationship, I don't think you should pretend that couple privilege isn't something you enjoy, but also isn't something that you're entitled to. You guys have been together for a long time. You have just recently opened your relationship.
And along comes this third person who knows you're married, who knows that you've been together a long time, who knows it would be much easier for the two of you to walk away from her than it would be for either of you to walk away from each other. And those are just –
prices of admission that a third has to be willing to pay has to be realistic about recognizing that power differential to date a couple at all. And yeah, maybe that sucks. Maybe that's hierarchical in a way that's insidious, but it's just reality. And I think it's more insidious when people in established long-term couples who are married and own houses and have kids are
lie to a third person that they're dating together about being an equal partner in the relationship. That's just not true because that's just not possible.
I think it's much better for a couple to be on the same page about what it is they want, what is it they're open to, what space exists in their relationship for a third person, and then to communicate all of that to some third person that they like and they're dating. And I'm sorry, it does come down to a take it or leave it sort of situation. This is who we are.
This is what we mean to each other. This is... how we've structured our open relationships so that our relationship doesn't fall apart, so that we're both comfortable and consenting to this open relationship. And there is this room and space in our relationship and our marriage for a third person. And if you'd like to be that third person, at least for now, this is the space available.
And if that's not enough space for you, or you feel constrained or secondary, then you're free to go over time. You know, when you're in a couple and you're with a third person and you've been together for years and years and years, and you're much more invested in the relationship, it's much harder to walk away from that relationship.
Over time, that three-way throuple relationship can become more egalitarian. Certain decisions that two months in may have been the couples alone could five years in become the throuples together. Things like where to go on vacation, things like where to live or move depending on whose career requires a move or how to navigate that if it should come to that.
Or, you know, if we're going to sell this house and buy a new one, you know, two months in, the third doesn't get a say. Five years in, 10 years in, we're going to sell this house and buy a new one that's where we're all going to live as we've been living in this house that we originally bought for two of us. The third gets a say.
But what becomes for the couple instantaneous when they commit to each other, when they marry, that this is a partnership, it's just a reality, just a fact on the ground that if it's a committed throuple and a third is brought into an ongoing committed relationship, joins a going concern,
That that equal say is something that over time the third person earns or grows into, but it takes, it takes time. So it was my advice to you as the couple and Terry and I have been that couple is to not fucking lie, to not tell somebody two months in three months in even a year or two in you are an equal partner with an equal say in the sorts of decisions a couple would typically make together.
You are a junior partner with a say. but a junior partner, say. And I think that honesty, so that people's expectations are realistic, can make that relationship resilient, strong, and make everybody in it feel safe and comfortable. And my advice to a third who's dating a couple, you're not dating two individuals. You are dating a couple, singular. And you can't rush that process.
But you have to get there in time, whether you're dating one person or whether you're dating one couple. It takes time. This episode is brought to you by one of my favorite websites, Dipsy. Listen to this description for one of their all-American stories. Harper steps into the intensity of Logan's world when she attends her first ever... Cowboys game.
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Hi, Dan. I'm a 34 year old queer person on the East coast. And I recently ended an 11 year relationship and I'm wondering basically how to handle a breakup after realizing the relationship was emotionally abusive and
The relationship ended really messily while we were visiting my family with him yelling at me and members of my family and me pretty much having to kick him out and send him home to the apartment we used to share.
A few family members had raised red flags after overhearing the way he talked to and yelled at me, but I didn't really consider emotional abuse until our former couples counselor called me and told me that that was her rate of the situation. And after doing a lot of reading and thinking and therapy, I've come to accept the fact that the relationship was abusive.
And it's been just over a month since the breakup and I've pretty much gone no contact and started proceedings to a victim from my apartment. But the one sticking point is our dog. I know you're not a dog lover, but stick with me. We got this dog together and he's insisting he should get to keep her because years ago we verbally agreed that he would get her if we broke up.
But other than that verbal agreement, there's no reason he should have her. He can't afford to take care of her. I pay for 100% of her care. I'm the one that takes her to the vet. I'm the one that walks her. Plus, he doesn't know where he's going to be living, and he's probably going to live with roommates. The dog is really anxious, and it would just be miserable for her.
He even acknowledged that, you know, in the days after the breakup that... you know, it would be really hard for him to take her away from the only family she's ever known and the only place she's ever known. And honestly, I just don't trust him anymore. And I don't think he can take care of her.
He seems to think I'm using the dog as leverage, but I really just want what's best for her and for me, and that's to not see him again. I told him that he was emotionally abusive, but he ignored that. I don't know how to get him to see how much he hurt me and how to convince him to just cut his losses and accept the fact that he lost me and the dog.
I did three seconds worth of research and found this on Google. Most courts, yes, this could wind up in court if you have a custody dispute about this dog. Most courts see an animal as property. As such, the person who paid for the animal is the one who is entitled to keep them.
Though this is not always set in stone, there are other considerations that may be taken into account, such as the non-purchaser's provision of other necessities. That would, I think, cover you since you're the one who's paid for animals. that and care of the dog and grooming and whatever else you may win a custody dispute with your ex-boyfriend and wind up with the dog.
But if what you want is your ex-boyfriend the fuck out of your life, that winning of the custody dispute could be a Pyrrhic victory because it could come down a court. If this winds up in court, then sometimes these disputes do the court could grant you shared custody of the dog. And then he remains in your life because you're having to come to agreements about grooming and care.
And when the dog needs to go to the vet and splitting the bills and him dropping the dog off at your place and you dropping the dog off at his place, um, Fighting with him for the dog could wind up keeping him in your life, which you say you don't want. You say you want him out of your life, which means if that's your primary objective, you may have to let him have...
his dog, the dog that you both agreed when you adopted it was his and he would get and get to keep if you two broke up as you now have. I understand why this is a torment for you. I have dogs, sort of. They're my husband's dog and his boyfriend's dog, but I am now a dog lover of sorts, a reluctant dog lover. I just love our dogs. I don't love your dogs.
Anybody out there listening, I don't like your dog. I like our dogs. And I understand what it's like to be attached to a dog. But you have to put yourself first here. And if this is an abusive relationship and the only way to get him all the way the fuck out of your life is So let him have the dog. For your own sake, you might want to let him have the dog.
And who knows, right now, if you two are fighting over the dog, the dog has become a symbol of power, control, retribution, vengeance. Whoever gets the dog wins, gets something over on the other person. And it may be that if you tell him he can have the dog and also tell him you don't think that's in the best interest of the dog,
Once you stop fighting over the dog, once it's no longer tug of war, once he's free to go with the dog, he may be able to see that it is in the best interest of the dog to let him stay with you, to let you have possession of the dog. But it's a risk. You may tell him he can take the dog and he may take the dog. But what are you going to do? Are you going to fight him? Are you going to go to court?
Are you going to wind up with a shared custody agreement of the dog that keeps him in your life? Until the dog dies. I don't think that's in your best interests considering that this was an emotionally abusive relationship. Keep your word as painful as it may be to lose the dog, to not have the dog in your life anymore. Let him take the fucking dog. All right, 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. Tons of advice, so much great advice for the guy with the pregnancy fetish. Maybe Randy and I weren't the perfect people to answer that question. That's why it's great that so many Savage Love commenters stepped up.
Says Elm Syrup, I don't see why the pregnancy fetish was considered so weird by Dan and Randy compared to other types of fetishes. And if the caller puts his ask on a hookup app, somebody who's pregnant and willing to be objectified might respond. Says Marsh LC, setting things up so a pregnant woman would feel safe would be the hardest part, I think.
Women are vulnerable already and being pregnant on top of it, I would maybe... If I were that woman, want to bring a friend along, says Slam Ross. The pregnancy fetishist can look for pregnant sex workers. I have a friend who does sex work who did this. She was very busy during her pregnancy. And finally, says Pentatonic, I wonder if finding a woman with a curvy belly would work.
He mentioned rubbing her belly as a part of his kink and fake bellies didn't work for him, but maybe a curvy woman with a belly that he could imagine was pregnant would do the trick. A woman with a belly who's open to indulging his kink would be a lot easier to find, would avoid the complications that actual pregnancy can cause, and best of all, says Pentatonic, wouldn't have an expiration date.
All right, for more listener-to-listener advice action, be sure to read the comment threads and comment in the comment threads on every week's show at savage.love.
And for more listener feedback and my responses to listener feedback, check out Struggle Session every Thursday where I respond to listener and reader comments and post a letter I got at Savage Love that isn't going to make it into the column and let you guys give the advice.
And now everybody's favorite part of the show, the part where I shut my big gay mouth and my listeners get to have the last word.
Hi, Dan, calling in response to episode 936, where you were giving advice to a listener with a pregnancy fetish. Just wanted to send a reminder that there are many of us who have kids or are currently pregnant and are also sluts. In fact, you can find a lot of us on Reddit. So just wanted to make sure this guy knows that we do exist. We have crazy hormones.
And whether we are poly or single or ethically non-monogamous, et cetera, there is definitely a market for what he is seeking.
Hi, Dan. This is for the man from episode 936 whose straight wife said she's interested in threesomes with another woman, but she doesn't want to know the other woman, but she does want to be attracted to them. So this couple needs to understand that their requirements, coupled with the supply and demand for so-called unicorns, is not going to set them up for success.
Most unicorns are bisexual women who want to fuck a man and a woman at the same time, and they're called unicorns for a reason. They are rare, and they have their pick of couples. So an inexperienced couple where the wife isn't interested in fucking her or is only interested in being a pillow princess, they need to ask themselves, what is in it for that other woman?
It's a hard sell, and most unicorns are going to say no thanks. So instead of trying to plan a threesome, they should plan a foursome. This couple should find another straight couple to swing with. Male-female couples who want to try group sex need to understand foursomes are actually way, way easier to arrange than MFF threesomes.
Straight couples seeking other couples are just much more common than unicorns. And within a foursome, some of that time can be spent in a threesome configuration with the fourth person watching for a bit. Do the math. You can have four different threesome configurations in one night.
Dan Savage, I love you and I love Randy Rainbow, but I have to tell you, as somebody who's been to plenty of nudist camps and has played plenty of different sports at nudist camps, I can assure you, No one is having erections. That is not a thing. I've played volleyball. I've played pickleball. It is not a thing that you're going to get a heart on while trying to play sports. I promise you that.
You know, I love you both, but it was kind of a little shamey there. I'm just going to have to say it. I didn't really feel that we were really putting nudist people in a positive light. So I'm just going to throw it out there. Love you, but sometimes I have to disagree.
And we're going to leave it there. We've got three ways for you to get us your questions and comments for future shows. You can record your question or your comment on our website at savage.love slash askdan. Or you can make a voice memo on your very own phone and email us your question or your comment to q at savage.love. Or you can call our landline and leave us a message at 206-302-2064.
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Tickets, streaming passes, and everything you need to know about getting your film into Hump 2025 can be found at humpfilmfest.com. And again, we're having a Savage Love Live this Thursday, noon West Coast, 3 East Coast. Check your email in the morning, Thursday morning, for the link subs, and we will see you there. Follow me on Instagram and Threads, at Dan Savage.
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