First off, we hear from a neglected third in a poorly executed threeway hook-up. He failed to advocate for himself, and the other two guys weren't asking if he was ok, sitting on the couch, looking at his phone. How could this have gone better? And how can he get over the waves of insecurity he feels when he connects with these same guys again? A woman in an open relationship with a nine year-old daughter wonders how to explain daddy's frequent absences. Our guest this week is the soothing, clever and cussing Jeff Guenther a.k.a Therapy Jeff. Somehow Dan convinced him to come on the show and give him (and all of us really,) some free therapy around the grief we are all feeling. Self care? Sign us up! And of course Jeff sticks around to answer sex questions too. A little is on the Micro and the whole thing is on the Magnum. And, listen in as a woman goes over the details of why her friendship is coming to an end. It really must end. [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 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. This episode is brought to you by True Nutrition. Protein powders and supplements to match your fitness goals. Get 15% OFF your order at TrueNutrition.com with the promo code Savage.
You're listening to the micro version of the Savage Love Cast at Savage.Love.
If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harmony, well, there's nothing you can't ask on the Savage Love Cast.
Well, fuck. I'm going to open this week's Savage Lovecast, if it's okay with everybody, by reading the opening of this week's Savage Love.
Reading a sex advice column at a time like this to say nothing of writing a sex advice column at a time like this might seem a little pointless, but I've lived long enough to know that seemingly pointless distractions, small comforts, even guilty pleasures, have the power to sustain us in bad times.
Taking a moment to read or write a sex advice column or listen to or make music or watch or make porn doesn't mean you're complacent, doesn't mean you're complicit. Because those little things, the little joys, the small pleasures, even especially the guilty ones, they have the power to keep us sane, to keep us connected, and keep us going.
And to everyone who wrote in or called this week to talk about sex, literally going, leaving the country. You know, if somebody had told me 20 years ago, hell, if somebody had told me 10 years ago that a reality show host slash serial sexual predator with a golden toilet would one day appoint a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court, I might have immigrated then.
But leaving, whether we're talking about leaving a shitty spouse or a shitty country, is always easier said than done. So I think we're going to do, I know I'm going to do, what most people in shitty relationships wind up doing. Staying and fighting.
If you're looking for a little uplift, but not a distraction, Amanda Marcotte, senior political writer at Salon, past guest on the Savage Lovecast, wrote a great and surprisingly funny and moving piece for Salon this week, headlined, A Cat Lady's Survival Guide for the Second Trump Administration. Marcotte recommends divorcing your Republican husband.
Again, easier said than done, although some people... are doing it. She also recommends that women never date a Trump voter. She stopped short though, of telling women as some women are doing right now in the wake of this horrifying, especially for women election.
And my heart goes out to you, to everybody out there right now, particularly the women in my audience, Marcotte stopped short of telling women to refuse to date or fuck men at all. Because for those of us who are exclusively attracted to men, Marcotte writes, a life without sex is a punishment. And the point of this is to punish sexist men, not ourselves.
But refusing to date Trump voters, that's an easy one. Don't waste a single moment of your one precious life on such men. Gotta say, I agree with that. And I want to re-up some advice I gave earlier this year on the show that seems relevant now.
Consider sharing because right now, hopefully not forever, but right now, it sure seems like the supply of good and decent guys falls short of the demand for good and decent guys. There are millions of them out there, tens of millions of good and decent guys out there.
But right now, there are more liberal and progressive straight women than there are liberal and progressive non-sexist men to go around. And the polling data tells us that straight women who are liberal and progressive do not want to date Trumpers.
Which had me thinking this morning that maybe the work I've been doing and others have been doing for the last couple of decades to familiarize people with open relationships and polyamory, to normalize open relationships and polyamorous relationships,
Maybe we were, without even realizing it, kind of preparing women and good and decent men for this political and sexual moment we find ourselves in. Leaving aside right now the political fight that's ahead of us focusing on the personal struggles many of us are going to face, particularly straight women.
Straight women who don't want to settle for men who would vote to strip them of their rights, their bodily autonomy, or repost videos of incels chanting, your body, my choice. Maybe those women, maybe you, instead of punishing yourself by going without sex, might prefer to set up house together with other women, Golden Girls style. And...
Sharing a good and decent man who loves and respects women and whose vote reflects his love and respect for women. And passing that boy around like a bong. Guys, I'm not saying all men are bad. Indeed, I am proposing a fix here to a supply and demand problem that showers rewards on the good guys.
As Marcotte writes in her piece, men who regard women as equals and act accordingly in ways big and small, from respecting a woman's right to keep her last name to respecting her opinions to picking up after themselves, will clean up on the dating market because of it. Look, I know from personal experience that polyamory is a lot of work, a lot of effort, but you know what?
So is monogamy, especially serial monogamy. And choosing monogamy? In our current political and sexual economy, in the dating market where, again, the demand for good and decent guys, at least now, seems to outstrip the supply of good and decent guys, that's going to require just as much or more effort than passing around that boy like a bong will.
But whatever you decide to do, and not everyone is going to want to go the golden girl's route or be a houseboy, whatever you decide to do, whatever else you decide to do to get through the next four years as we stay and fight, Let's not give the assholes what they want right now or ever. Don't give them liberal tears. They live for liberal tears. They love to drink liberal tears.
Don't give them the satisfaction. Let's not go to pieces online where they can see it and enjoy it and share it and repost it. Let's go to pieces. If and when we need to go to pieces, and I needed to go to pieces this week, and I certainly did, let's do it offline. with the people we love and trust, our logical families. But in public, online, especially, let's be stoic.
Let's hang tough as we fight the fight. And let the Trumpers, who live for liberal tears, let those motherfuckers die of thirst. All right? Coming up on today's show, tons of listener queue, lots of host A. And our guest this week, I tricked Jeff Gunther, better known as Therapy Jeff, into coming back on the show to promote his new book, which he was just on the show to promote a few months ago.
Why is Jeff back so soon? Well, you can find out listening to today's show. There's a little bit of Jeff on the micro and all of Jeff on the Magnum Savage Lovecast that you can subscribe to at savage.love. All right, let's get to that first call. This episode is brought to you by True Nutrition, protein powders and supplements to match your fitness goals.
Get 15% off your order at truenutrition.com with the promo code SAVAGE. This episode is sponsored by HIMS. Affordable access to ED treatment all online. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash SAVAGE. This episode of the Savage Lovecast is brought to you by Dipsy. Dipsy is 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 dipsystories.com slash savage.
So I've known this top for about 10 months. We've been casually hooking up like usually at least once a week and still seeing other people. And we decided we want to have a threesome and I knew a bottom. who was interested. So the three of us started hanging out and we were nervous and then we started hooking up. And at first it was pretty great.
But then when it came to topping time, the other bottom was in a cage. And when I went to top, I kept getting soft because I was nervous. And so the one top ended up topping both of us. And for the most part, it was like me kissing one of them while they fucked. which wasn't great. But then towards the end, it ended up just being the top topping the other bottom while I just laid in the bed.
And I was like, oh, wow, this is going on for a long time. And damn, they're really into it. He's moaning in ways that I've never heard him moan before. And then... They went to switch positions after a period of time and I was not in the position still. And so I decided to excuse myself and I just went in the other room and sat on my phone and, you know, tried not to wallow in my low self-esteem.
Then they like came out and I like tried to pretend like nothing was wrong. And I was like, that was fun. Let's do this again. Obviously it was pretty in my feelings, but like, I can't tell if this is like valid or Or if it's like a childish reaction to just not feeling, I don't know, not feeling like my ego satisfied. I didn't say anything during the sex. I didn't say it to include me.
We didn't talk about it beforehand. I just thought it was kind of obvious that we'd like... you know, that like we'd be included and I'd be fucked. And I guess I'm wondering like, how do I like process these feelings of inadequacy? The other bottom kind of told me right after like, hey, sorry, I got carried away.
And then when me and the top tried to hook up again, I like couldn't get into the moment because I was just having flashbacks. And I was just thinking like, damn, he'd be having so much fun fucking the other person. Like, like my mojo is just gone. And I'm wondering how I get it back. Do I need to do a therapy workbook? How do I get over feeling like a kid with hurt feelings? I'm not sure.
Every three-way becomes a two-way at some point during the three-way. Nobody should have a threesome with anybody, with a partner and a very special guest star, or with two randos or two fuck buddies if you can't handle... That moment in the three-way when the two people who aren't you suddenly start vibing or connecting or catch a groove and you're sort of on the outside.
That's a moment in a three-way when you hang back and stroke your dick and enjoy the live porn performance happening in front of you. Also, when you're having a three-way at those moments when it's not about you, you can't advocate for yourself in a moment like that. They were fucking. They were vibing. He was pounding away at the other bottom with the caged cock.
You could have if this was going to be a problem for you or you could have just to keep stirring the pot and – playing, and yes, anding, you could have stuck your ass in the air next to the other bottom's ass and just said two little words. My turn. And the top, who you vibed with for 10 months, you fucked around with for 10 months, obviously is into you, obviously enjoys fucking you.
Wouldn't have fucked you once a week for 10 months if he didn't like fucking you too. And you just needed to tap in. And I think we have a three-way. Everybody should have this conversation with like, when it becomes a two-way for a second, we're all going to be good with that. If somebody needs to take a break... we can all take a break together.
And if anybody at a certain moment wants to tap in, please, please, everybody should be empowered to, to tap in and say, Hey, I need a little attention to pay to me, my turn. And I think you'll feel better about hooking up with this top again. If you can just have a moment to process with him, like where this went wrong for you and that you had some hurt feelings and,
And you needed to advocate for yourself in the moment. And you probably, your feelings wouldn't have been as hurt as they are if you had, but you didn't. And so if this ever happens again, you have a three-way again, you want to make sure that he knows that if you're out of the action for too long, he needs to pull you in, or you're going to tap in at some point.
And then you want to be brought back in to what's happening. But if you have this kind of enormous, I don't want to say you're having a meltdown. You have these hurt feelings because the predictable thing that happens often at three ways, which is a two-way breaks out in front of a third person, happened. Maybe three ways aren't for you. I will say, though, like I want to apportion blame here.
Two thirds of it is theirs. They failed you. When you left the room, that was a sign for them to take a break and walk out to the room that you were in and take your phone out of your hand and one of them to start sucking your dick and the other to sit on your face. They needed to pull you back in. That was a sign that like you were way outside of it and it was on them.
at that moment to pull you in, but it was on you before that moment, before you felt so outside the action or irrelevant or inadequate, It was on you to say, hey, I'm still here. I want to tap back in. Here's my ass. Can we take turns? Fuck me. And you could have said that. And then if you'd said my turn and the top was like, yeah, no, I'm busy. Okay.
Then you have every right to feel as hurt and upset as you do. But do you really think this top is still into you? Still wants to fuck you? Would have reacted that way in that moment had you tried to tap in? I don't. I think they would have pulled you back in had you advocated for yourself before you left the room. So that's where you failed.
They failed by not following you out of that room once you left that room. One more thing that could have been going on here and it may have been an error on the tops part or the bottoms part. You said, you know, it began with you trying to fuck the bottom and you couldn't get hard. And they may have thought that you were feeling a little self-conscious about not being able to get hard.
And one piece of advice you give people when somebody's having a hard time getting hard is to take the focus off their dick or them. And they may have felt in the moment that shifting the focus away from you
was to ease your self-consciousness, to prevent you from feeling inadequate because everybody was still having fun whether you could get hard or not and they were still making out with you a little bit. And so it could have been an error on their part where they thought they were being sensitive to your feelings of inadequacy about not getting hard when you wanted to get hard.
And in the end, it just made you feel more inadequate because eventually you were so far outside the action that you felt excluded. Have a combo with that top. The next time he comes over to fuck you, if you could just put this all on the table, I'm sure the top would say exactly if he's a good, has any emotional intelligence at all, is worthy of your ass ever again.
He'll say the things that you need to hear from him so that you'll feel good fucking him again. And once these things are said out loud, you'll want to fuck him again. You'll want him back in your ass where this all started. Support for today's episode comes from True Nutrition. Many health supplements contain fillers. Some contain harmful chemicals.
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Hi, Dan and Nancy in the At Rescue. My partner and I have been in an evolving and open relationship for 20 years. He has a new partner now he sees often and they want to have regular sleepovers too. Our nine-year-old daughter is starting to ask where her dad is when he's not home in the mornings after staying with this special friend, though, and I'm struggling with how to handle this.
My partner wants to be upfront or honest with her, and I don't want to be deceptive or dishonest with her, in large part because I don't want her to feel ashamed about our relationship model. But I'm also worried she'll mention the sleepovers to my family, my mom, go. Or her friends, friends, parents, and I'm just really not ready for that kind of openness. I don't know if I ever will be.
I also feel like too much information might confuse her or just be unnecessary at this age. So far, I've just been saying, I don't know where he is when she asks. So what's the best balance here between honesty with your kids and protecting our privacy or maybe more so my needs for privacy or discretion?
Should I just finally get out of my closet and be more open or is it okay to keep things vague for now?
When I was coming out as gay, not the same thing as coming out as poly or coming out as non-monogamous. But when I was coming out as gay, I told my mom I was gay, but didn't tell my dad and told my mom she wasn't allowed to tell my dad. And I told one of my siblings I was gay, but told that sibling not to tell my other siblings and told some of my aunts, told them not to tell my uncles.
And eventually the stress of tracking who knew and who didn't know, uh, was so great that my mother came to me, my mother who originally didn't want me to come out to anybody at all, and told me I had to come out to everybody. I had to stop playing games. She told me, my mom was Amazingly insightful and articulate. She told me I wasn't coming out.
I was yanking people into the closet with me one at a time. And that inspired me or that lit a fire under me and I came out to everyone. And I remembered that phase of my life listening to your call because you say you don't want to be deceptive or dishonest about your relationship model. And yet you don't want to be out to your parents.
You don't want to be out to the parents of your daughter's friends. You just don't want to be out about being in an open relationship. And so if you told your kid that, Exactly what was going on. In a way, you would be yanking your kid into the closet with you and your husband. And the closet, as my mom told me at that moment when she said, you're not coming out.
You're just pulling us into the closet with you. My mom said in that moment, like, I get it now. Being closeted sucks. I don't like it. And I feel like you... may be burdening your child with keeping your secret. If you confide in your child or you come out to your child about where exactly her father is, rather than telling your child the vague little white lies that are easily told.
Daddy's away on a business trip. Daddy had to go home to help grandma with something. Daddy had to be at work super early today. There are kick the can down the road things you can say to a nine-year-old. Eventually, you will not be able to play these sorts of games with your kid. Eventually, your kid is going to figure this out.
And this is a difficult place, a difficult thing to navigate for parents in open or non-monogamous relationships who are invested in in being perceived to be monogamous by friends, neighbors, other family members. You may be sexually not monogamous, even poly, but wish to be perceived as monogamous. You wish to function socially as monogamous. Socially monogamous is what you want to be.
And you reach a point where your kids are going to figure it the fuck out because kids aren't idiots and They live with you and they'll overhear things or they'll pick up on things. Usually that happens when the kid is an adolescent and that can be volatile because if the kid just gathers enough information to think dad is cheating on mom,
Then the kid faces this existential crisis where they either have to keep that secret for dad and they become complicit in what they perceive to be an adulterous affair. Or they have to go to mom and tell mom something mom might not want to know and something mom knowing could imperil dad. Their home life could blow up their parents' marriage.
And so that's – it's just a really perilous time for folks in open relationships, for parents in open relationships who aren't out about being open or poly. That adolescence where – You know, you worry about your kid figuring it out or figuring out part of it and feeling terrible and conflicted. Or you tell your kid and you say you can't tell grandma.
And if you have a contentious or high conflict relationship or stage with your kid, coming out to your kid when they're 15 and telling them these are the people you can't tell, sometimes kids... can be vindictive. Sometimes kids can be shitty. Sometimes kids will weaponize a family secret to retaliate against their parents for parenting them. And so it's a difficult stage to navigate right now.
You're not at 12, 13. You're not at 14, 15. You're at nine, nine year olds are fucking gullible. Nine year olds. You can tell daddy's on a work trip. Daddy had to work late. Daddy had to go to grandma's house this morning. Daddy had to be into work really early.
And that's what I would do if I were you, particularly if you are not ready to come out to your parents or anybody else about being in an open relationship. Don't burden your child with keeping that secret for you. Don't make the mistake I made. Don't yank that family member into the open closet or the polycloset with you. This episode is brought to you by HIMSS.
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That's H-I-M-S dot com slash savage for your personalized ED treatment options. Let them know the Lovecast sent you hymns.com slash savage. The products mentioned are chewable compounded products which are not approved by or verified for safety or effectiveness by the FDA. Prescriptions require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply.
See website for details and important safety information. Subscription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. We're going to take a quick break from your calls to speak with Jeff Gunther. You may know him as Therapy Jeff on TikTok and Instagram. He hosts the Big Dating Energy podcast and Problem Solved. His new book, Big Dating Energy, is out now.
Jeff, welcome back to the show.
Yeah, I'm happy to see you.
So we had you on pretty recently to talk about your book and your back and sooner than somebody who was just on the show might be. And I'm just going to lay my cards on the table. I don't have a therapist and I feel like I need one this week. So I invited you back on the show just to con a free therapy session out of you. I hope that's okay.
I respect that. Do what you got to do to get through this very difficult time.
It is a difficult time. I'm reeling. People out there who are trying to drink liberal tears, I want them to die of thirst. I don't want to give them anything. I'm not being sad on Instagram or Twitter or threads or blue sky. I'm going to be sad here for a second. I have cried in public. I haven't cried in public since my mother's death. This has really gutted me.
How do I get through the next four years and change, Jeff? Please give me the secret.
I think the problem might be you asking yourself how you're going to get through the next four years. Because the answer is, I have no fucking idea. We don't know what the next four years are going to be. It could be total chaos and destruction and horrible shit. Or it could be some of the Democrats holding strong and being able to affect some sort of change. I have no idea.
So the question probably is... How do you get through today? And how do you process your grief and your upset? I think that there's like, for me personally, I'm still in the like shock and denial part of the grief where I sometimes go into like the pain and guilt and the anger and bargaining. There's still a part of me that's just like, no, this didn't happen.
Like somehow like Russia got us again. Right. Like this, this makes absolutely no sense. So first just honor the grief and the sadness and feel your feelings. I know I sound like a total fucking cliche of a therapist right now, but we all say that for.
I think that's what I need though. That's why I had you on like. I needed you to give me permission to feel my feelings and not be too embarrassed about it. Because I'm shocked and gutted too. You know, I'm the main character in the universe, which is why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Because I thought she would win and God hates me.
And so he flipped a switch and she lost at the Electoral College. And I was being so careful not to let myself think Kamala Harris was going to win. But part of the mental gymnastics of not letting myself think she would win is I was thinking she would win. And so I was... doubly gutted, because again, this is all my fault.
It could be all your fault, and I would love to blame you for this.
If I am the main character of the universe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started to think that somehow this is my fault, and I'm on the wrong timeline. I tripped up into the wrong parallel universe, because there is a universe where Kamala... Harris did win, and why aren't I there? What the fuck is going on? I allowed myself to 100% believe that Harris was going to win this.
I fell down that deep, specific TikTok rabbit hole where there was a bunch of creators who were just like, these are the reasons she's going to win. It's going to be okay. And I allowed myself to hope that And I think that's something else that you and maybe other people need to do is admit that there was a part of you that was hopeful that you thought she was going to win.
Allow yourself to like, you know, hope is life changing. Hope is what gives us fuel to get through the day. But a lot of people that felt hopeful are looking back and they're just like, why would I have done this to myself? I should have known better. I should have prepared for the worst case scenario. But it reminds me of people that are in relationships and they're like, you know what?
I pre-grieved this relationship. So when we break up, I'm going to be totally fucking fine. Like, no, babe. You can't grieve the relationship until it's actually over. You can't prepare for this moment until it actually happens.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I not only let myself think she was going to win like secretly in my heart of hearts, I thought it might be a landslide and the Dems would take the house to now the day we're talking, it looks like they might have the trifecta, which means project 20. I'm going to make myself cry. Project 2025 is going to happen soon.
This is going to be, you know, we're a couple of cis white men, although I'm a faggot and you are not, which I don't hold against you, which is why I'm having you back on the show because you're a really good therapist. And I needed a really good therapist today. There are ways in which our whiteness and our maleness and all that identitarian stuff is going to protect us.
There are other people who might be more vulnerable, but it feels perilous for all of us on the left. And I don't feel safe. And if I don't feel safe, I can't imagine how, you know, trans people I know and people with immigrant family members who are not documented must feel right now. And I just, you know, I heard from a porn star today or a porn content creator as we call them now.
So we don't have to call them all stars, but a porn content creator who like read project 2025 after the election and saw that they plan to arrest porn content creators like who is just distraught. So give them hope, Jeff. Your advice is to don't feel duped by having felt hope, but also don't think about the next four and a half years or four years and some months.
Think about the next four and a half minutes. How do we get through that?
Yes. And also be with community. Be with people that you love and that you trust and that are feeling the same feelings that you're feeling. Go ahead and also like check out fucking AOC's Instagram and TikTok where she talks to you for 52 minutes. Go ahead and watch all the late-night shows and have Jon Stewart or Seth Meyers or Colbert soothe you as you fall asleep.
Do whatever you can to take care of yourself. Self-care and community care is the most important thing right now. Know that you're going to have to fight the good fight and get out there and organize and march and do all the things. But right now, I just want you to think of what's the next – right thing for you to do. And it might be staying in bed and being on your phone all day.
They have not taken away staying in bed and being on your phone all day, which I love, which is my number one coping device. But really, think about the next thing, just getting through today. That's sort of also what people learn when they go into rehabilitation. We're focusing on the next thing, whether it's the next minute, the next hour, or the next 24 hours. That's all we're doing.
The next choice. I was reading something today about the next choice you get to make. You have power. We feel very powerless right now. You actually do have power, including if what you need to do right now is not listen to AOC for 52 minutes or not watch Colbert or the political chat shows.
I unfollowed a couple political podcasts today because I think I need to diet, go on a little politics diet. Although I'm a politics junkie, I'm going to keep listening to a lot of them. And people should do what feels right to recharge to get in the fight. Cause there's going to be a fight.
I don't know if there's going to be pussy hats at a women's March, but there's going to be a fight and we have to recharge for it because it's going to be big. And it's not, I'm not saying this to like people weren't already in the fight. Like it feels like we fought so hard.
Yeah, we did. It's a real slap in the face when Donald Trump wins with these margins in all seven swing states. There was something that was like, oh, okay, this is clarity for me. I am pissed and sad and upset because And this is the country I live in. And this is fucking crazy. I didn't think it was. I thought that she was going to win by a landslide.
I was making bets on those stupid fucking betting sites of Kamala's going to win. I was so excited. And I was crushed. So just feel your feelings. Feel the grief. Think on the next choice.
Yeah, I thought it would be a landslide too. And this time, you know, in 2016, one of the comforts was, well, he lost the popular vote by 3.5 million to Hillary. And if we didn't have an electoral college, he wouldn't be president. this remnant of appeasing slave owners in the South from the 18th century, he wouldn't have won in 2016.
And if that didn't happen in 2016, this wouldn't be happening in 2024. But this time we don't have that security blanket or that comfort, that binky, because it looks like he did win the popular vote and the electoral college election. And there was a landslide in this election, but it wasn't Harris's.
No, it wasn't Harris. But, you know, and maybe you've heard this, like every government leader around the world that was in power during COVID was voted out. Right. Not COVID, but inflation. So every person in power. And so that's what happened to Kamala, that the price of fucking eggs and milk was too much for everyone to take, and they think that Trump is going to make it actually go lower.
I'm going to be paying attention to those fucking prices of eggs and milk and posting about that shit every goddamn day. I can't wait to fucking do that. Eggs are so expensive that I want fascism. Yeah, I don't think there was anything we could have done. Well, yeah, in hindsight, it doesn't look like there was anything we could have done.
No. I mean, I was listening to the Ezra Klein show today, and he's a genius, and so I'm always believing whatever Ezra tells me after I listen to the Ezra Klein show. Yes, you should.
The trap for Kamala was she couldn't run as the incumbent because she wasn't, but she couldn't run as the change candidate because she was of the administration that was in office, again, during the fallout from COVID, which is one of the things that drive me crazy about the discourse. Yeah.
When you talk to Trumpers, right wingers, everything that happened during COVID under Trump's watch was not his fault. It was a meteor strike. But everything that happened at the beginning of the Biden administration that was the fallout from COVID, well, that's Biden's fault. Trump gets this pass for the meteor strike of COVID that Biden doesn't get and Harris didn't get. And here we are.
And we should just cope, right? There's nothing wrong with coping or checking out or checking in.
Whatever you need to do right now is the right thing to do, right? Do radical self-care. However you want to self-care yourself, it's totally fine.
Suck a million dicks. binge a million shows. Exactly. But the takeaway from this conversation is Jeff Gunther endorses sucking a million dicks if that's what you need to do to get through the next four years.
I 100% endorse that. And understand that you're in grief right now. And grief, as a therapist, when I treat a client that's going through grief, whether it's breakup grief or your parent died grief or The election was a total clusterfuck grief. It is one of the most complicated emotions to treat.
And every therapist will say this, that it's a top three, very difficult one to treat because there's like a ton of different feelings that are attached to grief. And you're going like from feeling to different feeling to different feeling all day long. And it changes. Sometimes it's like acceptance and hope. Sometimes it's the upward turn. Sometimes it's reconstruction.
Sometimes it's pain and guilt. Anger and bargaining. And that shit changes all the fucking time. So you have to allow a bunch of space in your heart, in your head, in your mind for you to go through all of these feelings and these emotions. You will get through it emotionally. There's another fight to fight. Get ready for that when that starts.
Jeff Gunther, LPC Therapy Jeff on TikTok and Instagram. He hosts the Big Dating Energy podcast and Problem Solved. His new book, Big Dating Energy, out now. Jeff, thank you so much for coming back on the show. And I will send you my address so you can bill me for this appearance and this session. That sounds good. Yeah. All right. Thanks for having me.
That was just a little taste of my conversation with Therapy Jeff. He continued to psychoanalyze me and then took a couple of sex questions with me. That's on the Magnum version of the show, which you can subscribe to or send as a gift at savage.love.
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Hey Dan, 33-year-old woman calling from Pennsylvania about a friendship question. So my maid of honor, who I've known since we were 14, so about two decades, and I have been fighting a lot lately. It seems like every six months or so, there is something that comes up that she says, She had her feelings hurt. I upset her. We need to talk about it in person.
And it seems like the main thing is that there's just like a disconnect between what she expects out of me from our friendship and the type of friend that I am. So this last situation... She put together a film festival and invited me to it. And I assumed it was just one weekend that I'd already made plans for. So I told her, I'm really sorry. I don't think I'm going to be able to swing it.
You know, can I make a donation instead to support you? And it kind of spiraled into...
her telling me a few days later that she has been crying multiple times this week because she was so hurt by the fact that i didn't actually open the link and look at the schedule before saying i couldn't go and i explained you know i just made an assumption i'm sorry but it sort of spiraled from there and i had a lot of feelings about
How I feel like this is an ongoing theme where every six months or so she gets really upset with me over something that I don't personally see as a huge deal. And I do try to make it up to her in my own way. I try to make compromises, but that doesn't really seem like it's good enough for her, which is like... really frustrating and just seems really, really tumultuous for a friendship.
So we landed on, I need space. And I told her that. She said that is the opposite of what she needs. She wants to talk about it, but okay. I really just don't know what to do to prevent this from happening in the future. I do try really hard to listen to her, but I kind of feel like I am tiptoeing around her all the time and
There's a lot of situations where her feelings get hurt and the way she approaches it is just... feels very, very guilt-trippy whenever she's been telling me she's been crying all week and I need to apologize differently than I did before and that I should have known how much this meant to her, etc, etc.
You know, I'm not a mind reader and I genuinely didn't know how much this event meant to her and... I don't think being a busy adult is personal. You know, like I'm married, I've got a dog, and my husband's been really busy with work, so I've been kind of having to pick up the slack at home.
And she didn't really seem to consider that at all, especially, like I said, I did try to compromise and I did apologize, but my apology wasn't good enough. And that was frustrating. And, you know, we are going to talk at some point whenever I feel ready, but I don't really know how to approach the situation to prevent this from happening again.
I don't want to break up with this friend because again, she was my maid of honor. We're really close. We've known each other for 20 years, but I also feel like we're trapped in a pattern where every six months I upset her to the point of her crying multiple times. And the only way to reconcile the situation is to give her exactly what she wants.
And that just doesn't really seem fair to me because I don't think life is that black and white. I think it's more nuanced than that. And yeah, I just don't really know how to approach this situation.
I was crying all week after listening to your call because I was just so bored. I felt so violated by how bored I was by this question. I'm not saying that to shame you. I'm just joking. Kind of. Look, I think it's obvious what your friend is doing here, what's going on here.
You got married, you got a dog, you have a husband, you have a busy young adult life, and you don't have as much time for your friend as you did 20 years ago when you guys were sophomores in high school and juniors in high school. And that's not anything you've done wrong. That's just...
Adult life and what your friend is doing by having all these fucking meltdowns is trying to control you, demand your attention, demand that you dance attendance on her precious feelings and keep you on the back foot at all times and keep you apologizing to her and having to make it up to her. And it's a kind of.
I don't want to say negative attention-seeking behavior, but it's exhausting what your friend is doing. It was exhausting to listen to you recount what your friend is doing.
And so rather than have a conversation about this film festival and the link that you failed to open, that terrible, terrible crime, I think you say to your friend, maybe in a letter, if she's just going to burst out crying every time you get on the fucking phone, you identify... every single time that you can recall in the last year or two, this happening and ask her what this is about.
Cause it's not about the film festival. It's about something else. And maybe your friend will have the ability to admit what's going on or getting that letter from you will help her see what's going on, which is just, she wants more time and attention and consideration from you. then you're able to give her at this moment in your lives for understandable reasons.
Also, if you're really concerned about her, if you have mutual friends, you might want to reach out to a couple of them and see if she's pulling this same shit with them. Is she lonely? Is she sad? Nobody, I pull a film festival together. Nobody does that on their own. Your friend must have a social network. She must have other people in her life. Is she pulling this shit on them or is it just you?
And then have that conversation. Refuse to get dragged into a conversation about your failure to click the link to find out the film festival was not just this one weekend, but this pattern of behavior and what it means and what she actually wants and what she's actually trying to accomplish with these meltdowns and these tantrums.
And if it's not going to get her anywhere, if, because you have a husband and a dog and a busy young adult life, you can't give her any more attention than you're able to give her. you might have to, if not break up with your friend or end this friendship, you might have to just get her to reset her expectations by having boundaries and enforcing them.
And one of those boundaries can be, oh, you're turning on the waterworks, you're crying, we're going to get off the phone now and you're going to give me a buzz when you're feeling better. Time for some listener feedback. First up, some of the comments left on last week's show in the very lively comment threads at savage.love.
Says the funny Dom, a past Lovecast guest, regarding the call from a new dominant looking for humiliating tasks for a long-distance sub. Dan said a book featuring rules, tasks, protocols for doms and subs... doesn't exist. Good news. It does. The funny Dom's guide to kink volume two features a whole chapter of 50 rules and protocols to try in your DS dynamic.
My bad, funny Dom, sir, and feel free to assign me a task to make it up to you. Former Catholic kid here. So have a thing even still for penance says Catherine regarding the call from the woman with the sub cat that suddenly wanted to be roughed up. There are lots of cats that like to be drummed on and petted roughly and There's even a whole subreddit for them, rcatbongos. It's not sexual.
Says Polly about the same call, my cat did the same thing where suddenly she wanted really vigorous back scratches and would yowl and bite and get mad if we stopped scratching. Turns out she had fleas. No wonder she was all itchy and pissed off. Medicine cleared it up and she was back to her normal self in no time.
Finally, says ByDanFan, one concern suggests itself regarding the 24-hour boob jobs through saline infusions. Using saline infusions to stretch the breasts, you will stretch the skin and that could lead to sagging or stretch marks once the breasts return to their usual size. Scrotums, last time we talked about saline infusions to blow something up, it was ball sacks.
Scrotums, ByDanFan points out, are wrinkly anyway, which makes those saline infusions less potentially problematic. down the road. Perhaps the caller's baby girl could invest in a breastplate like some drag queens wear if she wants to rock a buxom look now and again. Thanks by Dan Fan, and you are right. Those breastplates as seen on Drag Race are amazing and very realistic.
And while not cheap, they're cheaper than seeing a cosmetic surgeon for a saline infusion. And even better, you get to use them more than once. All right, for more listener feedback, check out Struggle Session every Thursday at savage.love. And now, everyone's favorite part of the show, mine included, the part where I shut my big gay mouth and let my listeners have the last word.
Hi, Dan, Nancy and the tech savvy at risk youth. This is in response to the person who was on the vacuum bed at the kink party. One of the things that came to mind was that, especially if there's a cutout only for your mouth, that the assumption is that the air gets sucked out and a vacuum gets created inside, including your ears and your ears have a lot to do with your balance.
It's called your vestibular system. especially if you get motion sickness or are really sensitive to air pressure changes. It could be that your vestibular system was thrown off, similar to going on a really twisty ride or, you know, as your ears pop in a really fast elevator.
Hi, Dan. I just listened to episode 940 about the daddy and the baby that is considering pumping up her breasts with saline. I'm a nurse. I work in a hospital. and there is a saline shortage right now. Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina, and it damaged the Baxter medical fluid plant there. So they are very backed up. Thankfully, all of their employees have been accounted for.
Everybody seems to be okay, but production facility is very limited. So Daddy might want to think about either postponing this or thinking about a different way to accomplish Cool.
Hi, Dan. This is a response to the woman in episode 940 who was concerned that her cat was into BDSM after the death of her dog. I'm a small animal veterinarian, and while I agree with Dan that you are anthropomorphizing your cat's behavior, to me this actually does sound like the cat is demonstrating signs of being in heat, which can be either a medical or behavioral issue.
If she's not spayed, get that done. If she is spayed, it is still possible that a remnant of the ovarian tissue may have been left behind, and there's actually a blood test that your veterinarian can perform to rule this out.
If that's not the culprit, this type of behavior can also be exhibited when a cat is stressed or anxious, and there's just been a big change in the social structure of the house for your cat after the loss of your dog. Your vet can also talk to you about over-the-counter or prescription calming therapies, environmental enrichment, and other strategies to
to make her feel more secure and redirect this unwanted behavior. But for goodness sake, your job is not to be a surrogate sexual partner for your cat. And stop biting her. As Janine Garofalo once said in that quirky 90s rom-com, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, love your pet. Don't love your pet.
we're gonna leave it there we've got three ways for you to get us your questions are actually nancy can we stop the outro music for just a second here because there's one last thing i wanted to get off my chest before we wrap up this week's show this show of all shows and that's we're not going anywhere
We're staying, we're fighting, and we here at the Lovecast, we will be back at you next week with another installment.
We will be here for the good and decent straights and the good and decent gays and lesbians and enbies and dykes and faggots and the good and decent trans men and women out there and the good and decent non-binary folks and other gender refuseniks and the sex workers and the monogamous and monogamish and poly and tolly and ace and allo.
We will be here for anyone and everyone who believes in choice and bodily autonomy and freedom and self-determination and the pursuit of happiness, whatever that looks like for each of us as an individual. And for everyone who believes that our politics should look more like our kinks, safe, sane, and consensual. All right, Nancy, crank that outro music back.
There are three ways for you to get us your questions or comments for future shows. You can record and upload your question directly onto our website at savage.love.com. 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.com. Or you can call our landline like it's 1999 and leave us a message at 206-302-2064.
This is the final weekend of Hump 2024. We're closing with a screening in Philadelphia, one night only, November 16th. Get tickets to the show in Philly or get streaming passes to stream Hump at Home at HumpFilmFest.com. And everything you need to know about being one of the stars of Hump 2025. Yes, we do have something we can actually look forward to in 2025. All that info is at HumpFilmFest.com.
Follow me on Instagram and threads at Dan Savage. Follow me at Blue Sky at Dan Savage. Follow Jeff Gunther on Instagram and TikTok at Therapy Jeff. His podcasts, Big Dating Energy and Problem Solved can be found wherever you get your podcasts. And his latest book, Big Dating Energy is out now. And hey, holidays are coming. Jeff's book makes a great gift.
The Savage Lovecast is produced every week by Nancy Hartunian. The Savage Lovecast would not exist if it were not for Nancy Hartunian. Nancy, thank you for your love. Thank you for your support. And me and Nancy, the tech savvy at-risk youth, we will all be back at you next week with an installment of the Savage Lovecast. Thank you. Good job, man.