Live From Seattle!

Summary

Podcast Summary: RISK! — Live From Seattle! (June 4, 2026)

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Episode Overview

Theme:
Recorded live in a "vegan heavy metal bar" in Seattle, this episode of RISK! features a series of true, uncensored, and emotionally wide-ranging stories from guests—ranging from the hilarious and outrageous to the deeply vulnerable and dark. Hosted by Kevin Allison, with stories by Summer Waldron, Colleen Conway Blanchard, Emmett Montgomery, and Dan Savage.

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Key Segments and Discussion Points

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1. Introduction & Setting the Tone

Kevin Allison sets the stage, both literally and thematically

• Venue: First time in Seattle, at a notably odd location—a vegan heavy metal bar.
• The show’s philosophy:

  “Nothing is inappropriate until something most definitely is.”
  — Kevin Allison [04:22]

• Contrast with other storytelling shows: RISK! welcomes stories “you can't hear on NPR,” often far wilder and more explicit.
• Anecdotes about early show pitches referencing sexual stories that NPR would never air, including the infamous “two vaginas” pitch from Ira Glass.
• Warns the audience: stories will traverse “the emotional spectrum”—from filthy to heartbreaking.

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2. Story #1: Summer Waldron

"Threesome Interrupted" (Starts at 06:41)

• Backstory: Summer's mother, a conservative woman from Colorado, has had secret affairs discovered via Facebook oversharing; this leads to her parents’ divorce and Summer’s own marital breakup.
• Post-divorce “super slutty phase”: Summer explores her sexuality, casual dating, and develops playful relationships—a “tall man” and a sexually adventurous 21-year-old woman.
• Planning a threesome:
  Summer’s HR background brings pragmatism (“negotiated terms and conditions”).
• Complicating factors:
  • Struggles with depression, starts Effexor (venlafaxine) with frustrating sexual side effects (“numb from the waist down,” “brain zaps”).
  • On the night of the planned threesome, her mother calls in emotional crisis, threatening self-harm.
  • Summer rushes to the event anyway, but is emotionally fried and physically numb.
• During the threesome:
  • The experience is awkward, poorly executed, and ultimately unsatisfying—“I was numb from the waist down. I couldn’t feel anything.”
  • Summer ends up leaving, overwhelmed:

    "I cried for my broken family, for my broken brain, for my broken vagina." [18:46]

  • Follows through on threat to call her aunt if mom doesn’t check in.
• Wrap-up & Reflection:
  • Breaks up with Effexor after “one glorious weekend just masturbating like some kind of sexual deviant. It was great. My orgasm was back.”
  • Leaves casual partners behind, recognizing her boundaries.
  • Poignant takeaway:

    “There’s always going to be that little five year old hiding in the closet with her book of nursery rhymes that just wants her mommy and daddy to be together. And I think that’s normal. And also in the future, if I ever find myself getting ready for a threesome, I’m turning my fucking phone off.” [19:20]

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3. Story #2: Colleen Conway Blanchard

"Pam" (Starts at 21:40)

• Colleen’s earliest memory: The death of her cousin Pam in 1977.
• Details learned by eavesdropping: Pam was murdered in her LA apartment—strangled, raped, left tied to a chair.
• Family aftermath: The trauma echoes:
  • Her uncle drinks himself into oblivion.
  • Pam’s sister flees out of fear the killer will follow.
• Colleen’s nightmares:

  "I dreamt of the bloody apartment rug...Pam on the ceiling looking down at herself." [23:16]

• Decades later: DNA evidence reveals the killer—“Harry”—was the apartment manager’s son and a serial murderer.
• Intergenerational trauma and unresolved grief:

  "Pam, she’s just out of reach, floating away into the California sun." [29:00]

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4. Story #3: Emmett Montgomery

"Black Dog" (Starts at 37:41)

• High school story: Part of an alternative, hands-on class in Utah. The final project is a survival test in the desert.
• Group struggles:
  • Lose the map, make rookie mistakes, dehydration sets in.
  • Due to a dangerous mix of medications, Emmett starts hallucinating (“the sheep were talking to me”).
• Near-death experience:
  • Suffers heat exhaustion, then hypothermia from sudden chilling winds and exhaustion.
  • Experiences dissociation and visions of the “black dog” — a literal and metaphorical brush with death:

    “…the shape was just right here. And if I were to just sit down, he would come and hang out with me and take care of me and it'd be okay. But if I were to sit down, I would never get up.” [47:22]

• Rescue and aftermath:
  • Peers warm him by a campfire using body heat—a “Fire of Embarrassed Mormon Teenagers.”
  • Recalls a beautiful nurse in the hospital (his mother later calls her “homely”).
  • First sandwich post-recovery (“the best ham sandwich I’ve ever had because I didn’t vomit it up”).
  • Enduring sense of gratitude:

    "I got a pass in the class because I survived." [52:56]

  • Later escapes Utah—a humorous nod that “there is no way I can die a virgin now.”

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5. Story #4: Dan Savage

"Sexual Discovery and Shame" (Starts at 54:18)

• Preface: Dan justifies sharing a taboo kink story involving a younger partner, emphasizing context and consent.
• Beginnings in Seattle:
  • Early days of “Savage Love” column; doing public appearances in drag to maintain anonymity.
  • Volunteering to type the paper’s personal ads; allows him the first pick of interesting ones.
• The encounter:
  • A beautiful half-Asian, half-Italian 18-year-old answers a personals ad.
  • Arrives in full California Highway Patrol uniform; soon requests Dan to handcuff him, undress him, call him names.
  • The young man transforms from “CHiPs officer” to “the prettiest girl” Dan’s ever seen after donning drag clothes and wig.
  • Explicit details of their consensual sexual encounter—including bondage, role play, elaborate costuming, and mutual discovery.
  • Moment of vulnerability:

    "And you have these experiences…you have this sort of incendiary, sort of explosive moment with them, and then they go careening off in some other direction. And so do you." [71:12]

• Aftermath:
  • Partner flees post-encounter, leaving behind a watch and panties.
  • Dan reflects on the powerful, sometimes shame-inducing, self-exposing nature of sexual exploration.
  • Offers a message to his former partner:

    “…if he listens to this podcast because he’s now a healthy, self-loving, non-shame wracked kinkster…let’s just have a convo.” [72:19]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kevin Allison, on Risk’s Range:

  “Sometimes it’s shocking, sometimes it’s very heart-wrenching. So we’re going to be all over the emotional spectrum tonight.” [05:15]

• Summer Waldron, on sexual self-discovery:

  “Initiate super slutty phase. I’m gonna have sex with everybody… I was a good little Christian girl from Colorado, and it was awesome.” [07:31]

• Colleen Conway Blanchard, on family trauma:

  “And Justice will never come. And Pam, she's just out of reach, floating away into the California sun.” [29:00]

• Emmett Montgomery, near death in the desert:

  “There is a certain type of despair that you feel when you know that you are in the wrong, going in the wrong direction, but you have nowhere else to go.” [42:35] “The stink of stale beer and the sound of country music are the same sensation. They still are, actually.” [44:33]

• Dan Savage, on the layered complexity of sex and shame:

  “…when I fucked girls, I would fuck a girl and I would pretend that it was a guy. And I could do it. Then I moved to Seattle. …I wanted to go out and do these things, but I didn’t want anyone to know what I looked like because I was beating the fuck out of people on my column.” [54:45] “And you have these experiences in your life where you meet somebody at this point in their sexual development… and then they go careening off in some other direction. And so do you. And you just want to circle back… and say ‘What was going through your head? And if something was wrong, I apologize.’” [71:12]

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Segment Timestamps

• [04:22] — Risk’s ethos and the wild origin stories
• [06:41] — Summer Waldron: Threesome Interrupted
• [21:40] — Colleen Conway Blanchard: Pam
• [37:41] — Emmett Montgomery: Black Dog
• [54:18] — Dan Savage: Sexual Discovery and Shame
• [72:19] — Dan Savage’s closing message to his partner

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Episode Tone & Key Takeaways

• Tone: Bold, confessional, humorous, and devastatingly real; the stories oscillate between dark comedy, tragedy, and catharsis—models for radical honesty.
• Core message:

  RISK! provides a rare platform for stories—especially those about sexuality, trauma, mental health, and survival—that defy conventional boundaries and dispel shame.

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Closing

Kevin Allison emphasizes that RISK! stands apart for this uncensored honesty—his “great diminisher of shame.” The episode’s arc—sex, family trauma, near death, and sexual self-invention—ultimately celebrates the messy, complex, beautiful tapestry of human experience.

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For more: risk-show.com — #ListenToRisk

Transcript

[Kevin Allison]

Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try.

[Dan Savage]

Wish me luck.

[Kevin Allison]

Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer.

[Dan Savage]

Unbelievable.

[Kevin Allison]

Okay, I accepted the offer.

[Dan Savage]

They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway.

[Kevin Allison]

I haven't even left my chair.

[Dan Savage]

It's done. The car is gone.

[Kevin Allison]

I'm holding a check anyway.

[Dan Savage]

Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[Dan Savage]

Hi, I'm Gustavo Sorola, and if you love D and D style adventures full of humor and heart, you should check out Tales from the Stinky Dragon. Tales from the Stinky Dragon is a cinematic listening experience complete with guest performances from professional voice actors and comedians, immersive sound design and its own musical score. Go on a thrilling journey with four friends and me, Gus, their very patient dungeon master, as we stumble through disastrous dice rolls, questionable roleplay decisions, and even a few wholesome feel good moments along the way. You can binge our first two campaigns or join us every other week for our latest third campaign. No matter where you decide to start listening, you're guaranteed to have a side splitting journey that's fun for all ages and perfect for both D and D veterans and newcomer. Just search for Tales from the Stinky Dragon wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe. Today, when you listen to Nobody Listens

[Kevin Allison]

to Paula Poundstone, the comedy podcast, you learn stuff.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

I've been learning to throw a boomerang because this is the kind of thing that really gets the listeners engaged.

[Dan Savage]

You know, interviews with people who will make you smarter.

[Kevin Allison]

Does the amount that you learn protect you from cognitive decline? Paula, don't try to catch that.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

Can't people just listen to the show? Can't they just enjoy a delightful treehouse full of information? And I think I'm bleeding.

[Kevin Allison]

Join us and be a nobody.

[Emmett Montgomery]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this spring, Heavyweight revisits some favorite episodes.

[Dan Savage]

Yeah, I think I want to know why she made my life so difficult if she had some kind of thing against me.

[Emmett Montgomery]

Plus, we check back in with our guests to see what's changed in the years since.

[Dan Savage]

How long has it been?

[Kevin Allison]

Things have transpired?

[Dan Savage]

Yeah, the last 10 years, everything's changed.

[Emmett Montgomery]

New updates begin March 12th. Listen to heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kevin Allison]

Risk hey folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and every Thursday we Release these special episodes where we look back at content from our earlier years. This week, an episode that premiered In February of 2014, an episode we call Live from Seattle. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Hello, Seattle. This is the first time that Risk has been in this town, and it's also probably the strangest venue we've ever been in. There's not even something going up to this goddamn stage. I have been told that we are in a vegan heavy metal bar, folks. I'd come up with a punchline, but why? No, it is a thrill to be here. I feel like Seattle is just the perfect town for our show. How many people know the podc? Well, if you don't know, I have to give a little warning beforehand. If you've never heard it before. Risk is the show where people tell true stories they never thought they dare to share. So it's the kind of stuff you can't hear on npr. We always say nothing is inappropriate until something most definitely is. You know, with the very first week that we ever started doing the show, someone said to me, would it be inappropriate to tell a story about the time I threw up into my girlfriend's vagina? I said, no, that would be so appropriate. And then the next week, Sarah Silverman did the show and she said, would it be inappropriate to tell a story about the time that I gave a friend of mine who had a big goatee a big kiss, and when I pulled away, I realized I had a face full of vagina juice? I said, no, that would be so appropriate. And then the next week, Ira Glass from this American Life emailed me and he said, kevin, we've been pitched a story that I don't think we can

[Dan Savage]

use,

[Kevin Allison]

but maybe you can. A woman with two vaginas. Now, at that point, I started thinking maybe the show should just be called Vagina, Vagina, Vagina. Except that is something I know nothing about. So tonight I have to tell you, you know, Risk goes to very different places emotionally. It's not just filthy stories. Sometimes it's shocking, Sometimes it's very heart wrenching. So we're gonna be all over the emotional spectrum tonight. We have a lot of wonderful people from in town. Dan Savage. I just want to thank Les Sterling and the people at Seattle Gays team for bringing us in. And it's just been a wonderful time so far. Our first storyteller is a fan of the show who contacted us. She has a blog called Summer where the Sun Don't Shine. Please welcome to the stage Summer Waldron.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

Well, to set the scene I was laying on the floor of the apartment of this tall, beautiful, African American man, and I was sandwiched between him and this tall, gorgeous, Christina Hendricks esque woman. And all I could think about was my mother. Now, flash forward A few years before this, I had just found out that my mother had been having multiple affairs. My mother, being Ms. Right Wing Conservative America, had been having multiple affairs with men that she met on Facebook. I found this out because she didn't realize all the nasty things she was posting on her Facebook wall could be seen by everybody. So that was awkward. And I called her out on it. And about two months later, a few months later, she text messaged my father on Valentine's Day and said, I'm filing for divorce after 31 years of marriage. About a month after that, my own marriage ended and my ex and I had been together for about four years. We had pretty vanilla sex. So post divorce, I was like, initiate super slutty phase. I'm gonna have sex with everybody. So I started dabbling in, like, casual encounter dating sites, and I just was having the time of my life. I was fucking whoever I met, and that was not me because I was a good little Christian girl from Colorado, and it was awesome. So I met two people that kind of became a regular part of my roster. I called them the Tall man and the 21 year old. Now, the Tall man was just. He was just a dude. He was great. He was great in bed, he slept, and he didn't mind that I hated to swallow. So he was Perfect. And the 21 year old, when I met her online, I was actually on a dating site and I didn't see her age. And we got out for drinks and we were talking and she's like, oh, I just turned 21. I was like, Whoa, you were born in the 90s? I didn't know there was people alive born in the 90s, but it worked for me. So we had sex, and she was way more sexually advanced than I was when I was 21. And it was fantastic because she, like, she would call me daddy and she liked spankings, and it was wonderfully experimental, and I was having the time of my life. And so I told the Tall man about the 21 year old, and he's like, can we have a threesome? Yes. And I was like, why didn't I think about that? That's genius. So I told her about it, and we talked and we laid out some parameters, negotiated terms and conditions, and we planned it about three weeks out. I work in hr, so I'm very pragmatic. So around that time I was also struggling with depression. Between divorces and unemployment and working in a job that just made life hard living. I needed to go on antidepressants. So I started taking Effexor. Now, Effexor has a lot of side effects. One of them is sexual dysfunction. In my case, sexual dysfunction is spending three hours on a Saturday with my vibrator in every position imaginable, watching porn ranging from vanilla to just deplorable and not having an orgasm. And then at some point, I think I had an orgasm, but it might have just been like a muscle spasm from being like a self wheelbarrow position. It ended in tears either way. And then another one of the side effects was something I call brain zaps, where basically it felt as if someone reached into my skull with a taser and would zap the center of my brain. So I would just be walking down the street and then zap, you know, and it felt like I was having mini seizures. And so it was a great drug and I wasn't depressed, but I was miserable in other ways. So around the time of these side effects started showing up, it was around the time of the threesome. And I was excited. And that day I said, I'm not going to take my medication. Was a. It was a bad idea foreshadowing. And I was in the shower getting ready, and I could hear my phone ringing off the hook. And I was like, what the hell? So I got out and I saw my mother call me five times. I'm thinking, oh, God, someone died. I called her back, like no sooner had she said hello. She just started crying. Prissy. Oh God, she calls me prissy. Prissy. Oh God, my life is terrible. I'm so unhappy. My boyfriend doesn't love me anymore. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what's the problem? And then she says the thing that makes me feel five years old again. She said, well, I feel like Tony doesn't love me anymore. And honestly, I feel like my life has been terrible ever since I left home. I was like, left home, like when you were 18 and married my dad and had children. Like me being one of them. Like, no, no, no. I feel like my life has been terrible ever since I left your father. And I still love him now. My parents, honestly, it was a miracle that they made it as far as they did. You know, they fought passionately and they were completely different from one another. My father was like left wing atheist. My mother's right wing Baptist. You know, they got married really young and kind of pregnant and they just shouldn't have made it as far as they did. And when I was five years old, when they would have their normal Saturday fight, I would hide in my bedroom closet with my book of nursery rhymes. And I would sit there and hide and wait for the storm to blow over. And this one Saturday, they were having their usual like, ah, screaming match. I was reading my book and then all of a sudden the closet door yanks open and it's my mother. And she's looking at me like, what the hell are you doing in the closet? And the irony is not lost on me that I would not eventually come out of the closet 20 years later. She was holding like a small leather suitcase and she just drops it on my floor at my feet and she slams the door and she's gone. I was like, whatever, keep reading. And then the door yanks open again a few minutes later, and this time it's my dad. And he grabs the suitcase, he just quietly closes the door and leaves. And I hear the car leave. My daddy left. And there I was, five years old with my book of nursery rhymes. I just wanted my mommy and daddy to be together. And I'm sitting there in my 30s talking to my mom. And again, I want my mommy and daddy to be together and I'm gonna be late for my threesome. So I was like, mama, listen, you know, I'm sorry, sorry that you're feeling this way, like, can we talk about it later? And she says, wait, I just want you to know that no matter what happens to me, I will always love you and your father. I was like, whoa, whoa, you're not gonna hurt yourself. And she's silent. And I was like, mom, I need you to promise me you're not gonna do anything stupid or I'm gonna tell on you to your sister. Now that's a big threat because my aunt is very overbearing. So she promised, okay, okay, I'll call you in the morning. I was like, ok, good, fine. I gotta go to something completely normal. So I leave very quickly and I'm driving on my way to my threesome and I start getting my first brain zaps of the night. And I'm just feeling all sorts of like painful family misery and physical misery. And I pick up the 21 year old and she could tell I've been crying and I'm miserable. And she said, no, we can cancel it, we can reschedule it. I was like, no, no, no, No, I am committed to this. I work in hr. Unless there's a policy violation, we are staying on task. So we go to his house, and just to start out, he is really shitty at threesome planning. Like, his place is a wreck. There's laundry in the corner. There's basketball blasting. And the place smelled like, dude, you know that dude smell. It smells like feet and sweat and Axe Body spray and feet. It wasn't very sexy. And he forgot his condoms in his car, which was, like, way down the street. So we're sitting there, and he finally comes back, and we sit on the couch. We're just like, how do we start this? And I was like, I've seen movies. So I just start making out with her. And it's very sexy. Just like how it is in the movies, right? And then just like in the movies, he jumps up and just sticks his penis right in our faces. And we're just like, that's how it's done, okay? And it's just not feeling. It's not feeling right. So we get down on the floor and we're wrestling around. And I just. It doesn't feel good. Not only like, when they touch me or, like, go down on me or something, I don't feel anything. Like, the effects are just made me numb from the waist down. And I'm also thinking about my family and these brain zaps, and I'm being electrocuted and thinking about my mom committed suicide. And I just want to go. So I get up and I go into the bathroom and I get dressed, and I come out, and I'm just like, listen, you guys, this has been swell. You keep enjoying each other. We'll reschedule. And I left, and I just cried all the way home. I cried for my broken family, for my broken brain, for my broken vagina. And I couldn't get ahold of my mother, and I made good on my threat and called my aunt. And she finally got ahold of her the following morning. And my mother said, well, I was really upset because my boyfriend's dog died, and he wasn't paying a lot of attention to me. So I got really drunk. I don't even remember what happened. I don't remember saying any of that. I don't know what she's talking about. So in the sober light of day, me and my father and my family were just kind of vanished back into the margins of her life. We were forgotten again. So that's. And after that, I decided to break up with Effexor. And after Going through some pretty serious withdrawals. I spent like one glorious weekend just masturbating like some kind of sexual deviant. It was great. My orgasm was back and I never rescheduled the threesome. I kind of stopped seeing the tall man because he kept phoning it in and if you're going to be a fuck buddy, you have to put some effort in. And the 21 year old, I kind of ended it with her because she wanted to start introducing hitting me in the face while we were having sex. I was neither emotionally or physically prepared to take them. So I sent her away with my blessing to find somebody who loved erotic face pummeling. And I'd like to say that I recognize reconciled my parents, divorce. You know, they've made it 31 years, that's not a failure. But there's always going to be that little five year old hiding in the closet with her book of nursery rhymes that just wants her mommy and daddy to be together. And I think that's normal. And also in the future, if I ever find myself getting ready for a threesome, I'm turning my fucking phone off.

[Kevin Allison]

I love that her mother did not know that everyone could can see Facebook. JC Cassis is the producer of the show. She couldn't make it here. She's kind of my best friend and she's really the brains behind the operation. I always tell people, if you really want a business to be running, just get a dominant woman behind the scenes. I remember the marches on Washington in the 90s when you would show up and it was just a bunch of gay men milling around in circles until the lesbians arrived, saying, no walk down the street. But one morning JC called me. She said, I want to have a little meeting with you on Skype. And at that point I was just making a little Twitter and Facebook update and I was like, oh, okay, what do you want to talk about? And she was like, because you're starting this school, the story studio, and you want to be teaching storytelling in a corporate environment, maybe you should tone down some of the Twitter and Facebook updates just a little bit. And I said, oh, you're probably not gonna like the one I just sent. Before we started the meeting, it was, I just drank pee. In my defense though, it was very good pee. And really I have not, I have not succeeded at toning that stuff down at all. Our next storyteller, we're thrilled to have made her acquaintance. She is a very talented writer in town. She has a show going up at the Annex in the fall. Please welcome to the stage. Colleen Conway Blanch.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

My cousin Pam died in 1977. I was 6. It's my first memory. I remember the shag carpet. I remember my shiny black shoes. I remember people walking back and forth, forth between the wood paneled walls, crying. I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral. I was too young. I wasn't too young. I understood. I understood death. I understood what had happened to Pam. I understood because I was a sneak. I was an eavesdropper. And I knew what had happened. I knew that she'd been living in a crappy apartment outside of LA with her cousin as a roommate. And she was going to move out because the apartment manager's son was giving her the creeps. He was creepy. The things he said, the way he looked at her. I knew that it was my cousin, her roommate, who found her strapped to a chair, strangled with a telephone cord, raped. I knew that my pretty cousin Pam had been murdered.

Growing up in.

The things that I found out about Pam were not things that I remember anyone telling me. They were things I heard while I was supposed to be doing something else. Coloring in my Holly Hobby coloring book. Playing with my Cookie Monster. I knew that I shouldn't be listening to this nightmare material. And the nightmares came. I dreamt of the bloody apartment rug. I dreamt of the telephone cord. Of Pam on the ceiling looking down at herself. My father said that it was the apartment manager's son who did it. He had the keys from his parents wall, the hook thing. And he'd opened up her apartment, walked in, killed her. But there were no fingerprints, no witnesses. So he walked away. And she stayed there in that death room. My father said if it had been his daughter, he would have found that guy, that apartment manager's son, and shot him in the face with that gun that he kept in the hallway. The one with the American eagle on it. And my father, barrel chested, Korean war vet. He probably would have. But my uncle was a dapper man with white shoes and a white Cadillac. He didn't shoot anyone, he just got smaller, drank more. That whole family imploded on themselves. My cousin who had found her, took a lot of coke, went to rehab, took some more coke. Her brother went to jail. I don't know why Pam's sister left town. She thought maybe he would find her. The apartment manager's son. I don't remember what Pam looked like. Except for one picture that we had of her right before she died. She was 1977. Beautiful. Long dark hair, big brown eyes. She looked Like Charlie's Angels. My mom would say, you look just like Pam. Twenty years later, my mother calls me after telling me about the really good shoe sale at Macy's and the thing on her back that might be cancer, but probably isn't cancer, but it might be cancer, but probably not. Probably not cancer. She says, you know, they found the guy, that guy who killed your cousin, the apartment manager's son. They did the DNA and they found him. He's. He's caught. And she made a noise because this was her brother's daughter. She brushed her hair and bought her toys, I guess. She said, he's killed at least four other girls. Strangled them, raped them, set them on fire. And, you know, oh, she said, I think those girls, they looked a lot like Pam. She said not to tell anybody. She said, I wasn't really supposed to talk about it, but I googled Pam. It's right there. I mean, not all of it. Not the part where they found her Christmas presents wrapped up in the back

[Emmett Montgomery]

of her car,

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

but his name is there. That was something I didn't know. Harry. It feels scary to say it. Like, if I say it three times, will he come murder me too? I wish I didn't know that. Like I opened some door and now he's closer and she's closer to Pam. Like she wants something from me. Some answer, some understanding. When I was little, Pam's death almost didn't seem real. It was too long ago. I was too young. It was like a scary fairy tale. The bad men will come because you

[Emmett Montgomery]

pretty

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

they'll come and no one will

save you

and your justice will never come. And Pam, she's just out of reach, floating away into the California sun. Thank you. You.

[Dan Savage]

I can't use it anymore. It's getting dark Much too dark to see. Feel I'm knocking on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door.

[Kevin Allison]

This is Risk with Antony and the Johnsons behind me. Now, we say that Risk is true tales boldly told. And that right there, that we just heard from Kellene Conway Blanchard, is a way that people often do go bold on the show by sharing stories that are particularly emotionally loaded. Hey, folks, It's Kevin in 2026. Again. This episode is such a great example of what we offer to the world. So much life experience from so many different backgrounds and points of view. So much more uncensored than what you might be used to hearing on similar shows. In this episode, for example, Dan Savage, who is kind of one of my heroes, shared about how gay hookup experiences can actually be rather profound and about how older guy with younger guy experiences can be profoundly valuable to both people. In terms of mentoring both ways. That has so much been my own personal experience and so much Not a thing you're supposed to talk about. It ain't inside the box. You wouldn't hear it on the Moth. Emmett Montgomery shares a story about that liminal space between conscious and unconscious. So messy, so not talked about and so real. Folks, there's no corporation behind all this. There's no big foundation, no big philanthropist. Good Lord, have I learned something about how philanthropy works in the past 16 and a half years. Which is to say, it's not too keen on people telling the raw truth. If you have thoughts or feelings or memories triggered by any of the stories on today's episode, share today's episode with friends. Use the hashtag listentorisk and check us out on our socials riskshow. Give us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or podchaser. Get the word out because this this podcast series of the people, by the people, for the people, needs the people to spread the word. So remember that hashtag Listen to Risk folks in my 40s and 50s, one of my biggest disappointments has been that no one ever really taught me about skincare. I just come from a generation of Midwestern men who were really out of the loop for decades. So in recent years I have experimented with a gazillion skincare products. But I found it's just so overwhelming. There's so many different things I've tried that left me saying, okay, is this doing anything? You know, there's a lot of wrinkles now and the dullness and looseness and the dark circles and bags under the eyes. It stresses me out. So I have to say I'm also genuinely grateful that our sponsor, One Skin, sent me their OS1 peptide products for the vase and under eye treatment. I'm actually seeing and feeling an unmistakable difference. My skin is brighter and it's tighter, it's softer, it's not greasy and even the under eye, the tired, dark, baggy stuff, is fading away. The thing is, as we age, some skin cells stop functioning the way they they should. Longevity scientists call them zombie cells, and One Skin's OS1 peptide was specifically engineered to address those doing something most skin care was never built to do. Their results are backed by four peer reviewed clinical studies over 10,000 five star reviews and it was all born from over a decade of longevity research. One Skin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now. And as you age, for a limited time, try One Skin with 15% off using the code RISK at One Skin Doctor Risk. That's 15 off. OneSkin Co with the code risk. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

[Emmett Montgomery]

Hey, do you have trouble sleeping? Then maybe you should check out the Sleepy podcast. It's a show where I read old books in the public domain to help you get to sleep. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. Classic stories like A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, Winnie the Pooh. Stories that are great for kids and adults alike. So whether you have a tough time snoozing or just like a good bedtime

[Dan Savage]

story, fluff up the cool side of

[Emmett Montgomery]

your pillow and tune into Sleepy. Unless you're driving, then please don't listen to Sleepy. Find Sleepy wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Sunday. Sweet dreams.

[Kevin Allison]

And now back to Risk live from Seattle with a remarkable local storyteller, just a wonderful man and a great talent, Mr. Emmett Montgomery with a story we call Black Dog.

[Emmett Montgomery]

When I was in my junior year of high school, I had a lot of high school problems. I had acne and attention deficit disorder and depression and a problem with authority and an inability to want to be in school. So I was put in a special class for kids who also didn't want to be in school, who wanted to do different things. It was a class that thought outside the box. So they still taught us, but by bringing experts in. And we kind of created our own curriculum. It was kind of like the evergreen of a Utah high school. So I had this class and it had a lot of great experiences. Our big final, our big year end project that we spent three months learning was we had a day, a survival day, where they took a bunch of Mormon teenagers and put them in central Utah. And I almost didn't pass that class. We spent months learning about orientation, first aid, how to read a map, how to use a compass, and just generally how not to die in the desert was really the point of this class. And they put us in groups of about five or six. They dropped us at various places in central Utah and we had a meeting point. And my group was kind of like the Breakfast Club. We had a jock, we Had a pretty popular girl. We had two stoners, and I was sort of a combination of Anthony Michael hall and Ally Sheedy. Things were going pretty okay. And what they gave us was a map, a compass, empty canteens, and water purification tablets. Because on the map was marked where these springs would be. And the point is, we'd find that and we'd hydrate as we go. That would have been a great plan if we hadn't promptly lost our map. And then we started a series of stupid teenage decisions. One, instead of just staying there, we're like. Like, oh, we got our compass. We know which direction we should go. Let's check it out. And we kind of had different opinions, which we just did it anyway. And I remember as we were walking through the desert, me thinking, even though I had been in the desert before, because that's what Utah is, it's wilderness that will kill you, how uncomfortable I was. It was hot, and we were thirsty, and it stopped being fun really quick. By the time we actually came across some Mexican sheep herders, some guys on horses with a flock of sheep, we thought, okay, this is great. We can get directions and we can go home and end this. There were two problems. One, I was the only person that spoke any Spanish at all. Two, the sheep were talking to me. Because it turns out, because of my teenage problems, I was on some medication. The combination of the acne medication and the antidepressants and the attention deficit disorder created a synergistic effect, an unknown photosensitivity that caused me to quickly get well, extreme heat exhaustion, or not so extreme, sunstroke, depending what sort of asshole you want to be about it, Which caused my body to quickly dehydrate drink, which put me in the state of exhaustion and disorientation. And I was able to communicate with the Mexican sheepherders. And it gave us. I remember they gave us a bucket and they poured water in it, and we just drank like animals because we were just so thirsty. And then. Donde el autobus escula? I was hooked up hallucinating at the time and not very good at school. And they gave us directions and we filled up our canteens. At that point, though, my body was so tired that the water wasn't necessarily a good idea. So I had a belly full of cold water and a body that was always being like, ah, maybe that's too much for us. So it just stayed there. We walked in the direction to where the school bus was, and we saw it in the distance, and we were like, this is Great. This is the end of this stupid adventure. We're going to get in trouble, but this will be fine. There is a certain type of despair that you feel when you know that you are in the wrong going in the wrong direction, but you have nowhere else to go. And that is the type of despair we felt when we noticed that that was a school bus. But it had been there for a very long time. It was abandoned and empty. That's kind of how I was feeling then. What was happening, and I didn't know it was that my sweat drenched clothes and my belly full of cold water. When the afternoon wind came through me, I started to get hypothermia. If you don't know what hypothermia is, I don't recommend it. It is when your blood gets cold and it goes through your body and it starts to shut things down. I'm thirsty. Sorry. I don't know how long we stayed at the school bus. We figured we should hang out here. But then we also realized that this wasn't on our map. We were off map, which is one of the things you weren't supposed to do. Later on, I found out that another group actually came to the school bus later on, and that's where they were found. So if we would have stayed there, we probably would have been okay. So we just started walking to what we thought was a road. And I don't know how long we walked, but we got there and our truck came by and picked us up. That was another one of the things you weren't supposed to do is get in a strange car because then they could take you even farther. But we were so desperate, we did that. I remember sitting back in the truck. Sit in the back of the truck. And the stink of stale beer and the sound of country music are the same sensation. They still are. Actually. They dropped us off. They dropped us off. It just. He said, this is the main road. Just keep walking, someone's gonna pick you up. I gotta go do something, you know. And I thought it was weird why he would put us in such this terrible place. As we were walking down this road, I remember it's so high. Like it's so steep going up and down. And there were insects. Like there were these giant people. And I saw a lizard, but instead of a tail, it had another. Another head. And it was pretty weird. We keep walking and I'm sure everyone was miserable, but I don't quite know. Eventually, though, I stopped being cold. I started being kind of warm, sort of comfortable. I kept Walking, my body hurt, but I felt looser, you know? And as I started to get warm, things were kind of okay. This is what happens when your body starts to shut down. It starts to try new things, you know? And I knew that whatever happened was going to be okay. I probably wasn't going to make it out that valley, but that's fine. Because following us for a long time, there was a dog, a big black dog, this shape that was just right here. And if I were to just sit down, he would come and hang out with me and take care of me and it'd be okay. But if I were to sit down, I would never get up. And I must have said this out loud because that's when the kids I was with was like, hey, Emmett's not okay. So we stopped and we had been taught first aid, and they pretty much figured out I had hypothermia. And everyone kind of knows how to treat hypothermia. What you do is you strip the person down, you strip yourself down and you guys cuddle, and the body warmth will slowly warm up the blood, and everybody will be okay, if not a little embarrassed. This group of Mormon teenagers I was with built a fire. The jock was on the right wrestling team. The stoners didn't care about anything. The pretty girl had probably swooned with the boy before. But we all sat around this fire alone and miserable with our teenage problems. As I started to die and I knew I was dying, and I thought it was weird that I didn't care about dying a virgin or how disappointed my family would be or flunking out of school, which is a weird thing to think about. I just was tired and I was okay. Then our teachers pulled up and they had a big pot of stew and they fed it to us and it was really delicious. Except for at that point, they should have just put sand in me because my body didn't want anything. And I went into spasms and vomiting. And they threw me in the back of that truck. And they drove what I thought was the 20 minutes to my house, but was the two and a half hours. And they brought me to my mother and said, here he is, Take care of him. He had a bad day. And she looked at me and she's like, take him to the hospital. We go to the emergency room and. And I walk in and they take my temperature and I was too cold. They didn't even know how well I was walking because my organs had started to shut down. I thought I was in there for 45 minutes. I was in the hospital in that ER for eight hours as they filled me full of fluid, heating blanket. I remember my father and church officials coming in and praying over me. I also remember Brigham Young and Abraham Lincoln being there. And I thought it was really nice that they showed up. And it was very interesting. The age Abraham Lincoln was a secret Mormon. What I remember is they had this nurse, this beautiful nurse, the most beautiful woman in the world hold my hand. I'm sorry. Just talk to me. Just try to find out who I am, keep me awake, because if I go to sleep, I'm done. I'm just not waking up. And she was really kind and she apologized about how uncomfortable the catheter was. And I was really embarrassed because that's not how you want your penis touched

[Dan Savage]

for the first time,

[Kevin Allison]

you know?

[Emmett Montgomery]

Later on my mother referred to her as the hard working, diligent, homely woman. But in my mind, she's still the most beautiful woman. And, you know, it's great. I'm glad that such a gorgeous person touched my penis for the first time. I survived. It sucked my body. Every muscle in my body had spasmed and there was lactic acid build up and it was rough couple days. And I remember the first ham sandwich I ever had was. It was a shitty gas station ham sandwich and it was the best ham sandwich I've ever had because I didn't vomit it up. I also remember answering the door because I was home and there were three cheerleaders and they brought me balloons and a sign that said, get better soon. And they gave me the balloons and the sign. And one of them said, this beautiful girl who I had had a crush on, like all high school, she goes, I'm glad you didn't die. That's the only thing she ever said to me, ever. And then they went away. I got a pass in the class because I survived. The next year, I found a loophole and got an adult diploma. Eventually, I got the hell out of Utah and there is no way I can die a virgin now. Thank you,

[Kevin Allison]

Emmett montgomery. We're all very glad he didn't die. And now we know. Now we know that the smell of stale beer and the sound of country music are the same sensation. The things you learn. Well, our final storyteller for tonight. I wanted him on the show from day one. It's the perfect fit. I think it's such an honor, a hero of ours. Someone recently said to me that risk is a great diminisher of shame. And I found that, like, just the most wonderful compliment. And it reminded me of our final storyteller tonight, because he, too, is a great diminisher of shame. Please welcome to the stage, Mr. Dan Savage.

[Dan Savage]

Talk amongst yourselves. I don't know if any of you follow me on Instagram, but I'm Dan Savage. I'm Instagram. It's the only app or social media thing I ever got to early enough to get my own fucking name. So you could go there right now and look up the picture of me in drag. It's like six photographs back. Because it's slightly relevant. I fucked a couple of girls in high school. That's shocking and inappropriate at all sorts of levels. One of them, the girl to whom I lost my virginity, was my older brother Billy's girlfriend. Because if you're fucking girls just to convince your Irish Catholic family you're straight, you might as well fuck a girl that it's gonna get back to your Irish family. But this story isn't about the girls I fucked. This is about a teenage boy I fucked. And that's not something adult gay men are allowed to talk about. Fucking teenage boys. Boys. It plays right into all the horry stereotypes about gay men being predators and preying on teenage boys. But what's interesting about this teenage boy that I fucked is that he looked like a girl. Now, when I fucked girls, I would fuck a girl and I would pretend that it was a guy. And I could do it. I could fuck a girl in cub. It was just pretending that, you know, it's Keanu Reeves. It's Keanu Reeves. It's Keanu Reeves with his head screwed on backwards and his shoulder blades are dislocated. But I could do it. Then I moved to Seattle. You know, I'm tell this story about fucking a teenage boy, and it's terrible because I am now the parent, the father of a teenage boy. And my position now is no one should ever fuck teenage boys, ever. But that was not my position position. When I was 27, I moved to Seattle. There were two things I did not know how to do when I arrived in Seattle. One of them was drag and the other was type. Which was really weird because I was moving to Seattle to work at a newspaper where I had to type a lot of things. And when I started my column, Savage Love, I was living in Madison, Wisconsin, but the newspaper I was writing for was in Seattle. So it didn't occur to me to take a pseudonym. I would just be Dan Savage. Savage Love. And then I moved here, which I hadn't been expecting to do. And the column was this huge hit in Seattle. I was only running in Seattle. Just this huge thing. It was a sensation. And nobody knew what Dan Savage looked like. Somebody in Pike Place Market was selling T shirts that said, I am Dan Savage. And people were wearing them around when I got here. And then after I got here, people started asking me to show up places, to do public events, to host political fundraisers, to hostgate bingo. And. And I wanted to go out and do these things, but I didn't want anyone to know what I looked like because I was beating the fuck out of people on my column. Someone would write me and they'd be dumb, and I would mock them and just pound the shit out of them. And I didn't want that person to know what I looked like if I didn't know what they looked like. So when I started doing public appearances, I did them in drag. And I don't know how to do drag. I had a friend, Zora, she would put me in drag, paint my face, put a wig on my head, and shove me on stage. Stage. But I started doing a lot of drag. I did a lot of events. I had tons of drag, an apartment full of drag, seven or eight wig heads with huge Zora wigs on them and all this drag on shelves. And then to learn how to type, which is something I had to learn how to do, I became the guy of the stranger that entered all the personals. And I would sit there and I would just force myself to do this and type the personals all night long. But that meant I got to read every personality before it went into the paper. I got to see them first. And one of them came in, and it was a UW student who was into uniforms. And he said he had uniforms of his own and domination. And I thought, well, that sounds kind of sexy. And he sounded kind of sexy in his description of himself. So I jumped on him first, because I had his phone number, because everybody. Somebody then had to include their phone number so we could confirm their ad. So I called him and said, I'm entering your ad right now, but I'd rather be entering you. I'm sure I wasn't anywhere near that Disgustingly slick. And I just said, I'm gonna turn your ad, but I'd be up for this. And so we made a date. And he came over to my apartment. And this is where it gets really, really fucking weird. So this guy comes over to my apartment, and he enters carrying this big green duffel bag. And I open the door and this is, you know, pre Internet. This is 22 years ago, 23 years ago. There's no Internet. There's no, like, Craigslist hookups. There's no grinder. There's no people arriving at your door you haven't ever seen before. This is a new thing that I'm doing, and I've never really done this before or since. And the door. I open the door, and he is stunningly gorgeous. He is half Asian, half Italian. He is fucking beautiful. This gorgeous pretty face, this shock of black hair. Just beautiful, slight, pretty. Like, I like my men. And he comes in, he's got a duffel bag, and he excuses himself to go into the bathroom and put his uniform on. And 10 minutes later, I'm like, what the fuck is hanging alarm? Ten minutes later, he comes out of the bathroom full Erik Estrada chips for Gallio boots up to here. The California Highway Patrol. Tan pants with the stripes. The shirt, everything. Handcuffs, everything. The helmet. He's wearing the helmet everything. And one of the things he said he wanted to do was for me to take his handcuffs from him and handcuff him. Like, all right, I'll do that. So I take his handcuffs from him, I handcuff him, and we start making out. And roughly, like, pushing against the wall, we're making out. And I open his shirt, and he has a bra on. I thought, hmm, what do I do with this? And I have a degree in theater. We're all theater fags at the Stranger. That's why we have a whole sort of cadre of theater facts at the Stranger. We've always treated the Stranger as sort of kind of a performance art. And what I learned in improv is you never say no, right? You just go with it. You say, yes. And, like, oh, a bra, sure.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

Of course.

[Dan Savage]

Don't they all have bras on? And so, you know, I popped the helmet off his head because we'd been making out through the visor, which was giving me bruises on my bridge of my nose and my chin. And we're making out and, like, got this bra on, and I'm like, so you've got a bra on? That's awesome. He's like, call me a bitch. You're a bitch with a bra, and that's awesome. And you're still really, really fucking pretty. And we're making out, and we're making out, and, you know, he's super hard, and we're rolling around, and then, you know, he's in my living room handcuffed. We're making out. He's got his shirt open and his bra. And he sees all the drag on the shelves on the other side of the room. This is where it starts to get really up. He asks me to put one of the wigs on him and improv everywhere. Yes, of course. I pop the wig on his head. And what happens is he ends up getting completely out of his California Highway Patrol uniform. Boots off, pants off. He's got panties on that match his bra. When the pants come down and into my drag. So he's now got this giant, beautiful Zorro wig on. He's wearing his bra. I put a little camisole top of mine on, this tube top that I've been wearing as a skirt I put on him. And these big high heeled patent leather boots that I still have. I wear them on Christmas morning every year. And suddenly this person who when he arrived had been this very picture of sort of architecture, typical masculinity, is now a girl. And because he is Amerasian, because he's slight, because he's little and pretty, he's the prettiest girl I've ever made out with. Much prettier than my brother's girlfriend that I fucked when I was 15 and she was 22. Now all a sudden of all of this happened three blocks from here at the Dublin apartments. I had the basement apartment on the corner. Does anybody know anybody who lives in the Dublin or the basement apartment on the corner? Here's the thing about the Dublin. The basement apartment on the corner. That's so awesome and amazing. The stairs. You can all like walk over there after and confirm this. Just around the corner on Thomas. The apartment's here, around the corner. And there are stairs up to the first floor. The other apartment's over here. And that one bedroom apartment had a living room, a bedroom. And then when you opened what looked like the closet door in the bedroom, it was a secret cave that was just under the stairs. This cement arch cave under the stairs. And the guy who'd had that apartment before me had put mirrors against one wall in this cave and a hook in the ceiling, right? And so that was fine with me. It was the early 90s in Seattle. Everybody was into S and M then, as everyone is now. And so I had some rope and shit. And this kid is there and he wants to be tied up. So I tie him up in hawk time for a second. And then I think, God, oh, he's so beautiful. And I go into the bathroom and there's all his shit in his bag. And I think, I'm going to take out his wallet and find out what his real name is. I take out his wallet and I find out he's 18. So a freshman at the UW. 18 and a half officer, almost 19, according to the ID. I'm famous for fishing the ID out of the pocket. My husband Terry is right over there glaring at me for telling the story. And the night we met, we met at Rebar, we fucked around. We back to my apartment, fucked and kissed and done stuff all night long. And in the morning he was taking a shower and I had to get his ID out of his wallet because I didn't remember his name. So anyway, I'm in the bathroom with this kid's idea. I'm like, oh, my God, he's 18, he's a teenager. And I was 27, so I was within a decade, but still, I never fucked a teenager before. And I go back out there and there's this hog tied beautiful girl on the floor of my apartment. So I untie him and we're going around making out. And then he wants to go in the little room, because you saw the little room and went in the little room. And then like five minutes later, he's got his hands over his head, just sort of tied up, staring at himself in the mirror. And he is transfixed by this image of himself as this beautiful girl. And he is stunningly gorgeous. He looks like a girl. He's the prettiest girl I've ever had sex with. And so we ended up, and this is where, fucking weird. I fucked him in his ass, which was fine with him. It's what he wanted. Condoms on till early 90s. The way you're supposed to do it, we should do it now. But I'm fucking him and I'd fucked girls before. And he's staring at himself in the mirror, right? And he's. I just like lift his. His little pretty skirt and revealed his insanely pretty butt. Pulled down his panties and then took his panties off and I'm fucking him in the ass. I pitched this to Ira at this American Life, and he rejected it. And I'm fucking him in the ass, and I'm fucking him in the ass and I'm holding onto his tits and his hands are tied over his head and he's looking in the mirror and he's saying, call me a bitch. Call me a whore.

[Kevin Allison]

I'm like, all right, you're a bitch.

[Dan Savage]

You're a whore. Improv. Go with it. Yes. Never say no. No, you are not a bitch. You can't say that in improv. You have to be, yes, yes, you're a bitch. So I'm calling him a bitch, and I'm fucking him in the ass, and he looks like a girl. And I'm staring at him and his legs were together. He was like this. And he had had me tuck his penis back, so now it looked like he had a vagina. It looked like he had a nice pussy. I'm fucking him in the ass. I'm holding his tits, which are actually my tits that I would wear when I was in drag and fucking him in the ass. And he is staring at himself, and I am staring at him and I am fucking him in the ass, thinking, I can't believe my dick is hard. Because when I fucked girls, I had to clamp my eyes shut and think, Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves. Although I wasn't thinking Keanu Reeves. It's just if I tell you who I was thinking, it really dates me because it was so fucking long ago. So this is for the old timers. When I fucked actual girls when I was 15, I was thinking, it's Laith Garrett. It's Laith Garrett. And that just struck me as so fucked up. I'm like, fucking. This is like so perverse, because when I fucked girls, I had to picture a guy, and here I am fucking a guy who is the picture of a girl. And it's so hot. It's so sexy. And I felt so straight for like five whole minutes. And I didn't feel straight at all when I was fucking actual girls. I felt even gayer fucking actual girls than I had before I fucking actual girl. But fucking girls is like confirmation to me that I was totally gay. Like, oh, I can do this. But I am so gay. Even when I'm doing this thing. Vaginal intercourse, penis and vagina. I am the gayest p iver ever. But at this moment, I'm in a boy's ass, but I am thinking, this is the hottest straight sex I've ever had. And then the inevitable. I came, and then he came. And boy, did he come. I hadn't seen someone shoot that far since the Challenger exploded. And anybody who's ever had sex with somebody who is just beginning to explore their kinks, although he had invested at least $500 in his gear, knows what happened next. You could just see him shutting down the shame and the wash over where he sees you seeing him. And you know him in a way and on a level that nobody in his life knows him. And he Feels so exposed and not horny anymore. So he's not having the horny override. There isn't a hard dick that's canceling out all those shame feelings. And so I get him out of drag and he just packs up his shit and bolts, right? Like, alright, bye. Don't see him. Bye. Right. And he forgot he left behind in the bathroom his watch, which was an expensive watch, and his panties. Apparently he dropped stuffing everything into his bag and I waited a couple of days and then I called his phone number. And this is of course pre Internet. So it's pre. Everybody has their own fucking phone that they carry everywhere. So his phone is a group phone at his apartment or his frat, I have no idea. So I call his phone number and I get somebody who goes and gets him and he comes to the phone and I say, I just, I'm calling, you know, because you left your. And before I can say very expensive watch and very cheap and not very nice panties, I have to say, he says, please don't call me again. I'm never gonna do that again. And I felt so terrible, right, because I just felt like I was the instrument of. Of his sort of shame that maybe we'd gone too fast, too far. But everything, every stop because I'm just so like process y. I am, as a lesbian friend recently told me, I am half a lesbian. Tara and I together are one lesbian. So I want to reassure you that everything was sort of discussed and nothing went out of control. And he had consented to every step of everything we did. But he was obviously still like really from being known the way I now knew him in a way no one else did. And he just told me, no, don't call me. And I couldn't tell him that I had this very expensive watch, which I still have because I'm a pack rat. And this. These very cheap threadbare panties which I still have because I am a pack rat. And I got them out and I meant to bring them here tonight and I forgot. So forgive me because I wanted to, to like produce them here at the end, but trust me, they're at home. And I think about this kid to this day that was 22ish years ago. He is 40 now. He could be in this room with us. And I would love nothing more than to meet him again. Not to have heterosexual intercourse with him again, but just say you have these experiences in your life where you meet somebody at this point in their sexual development or their social development or political anything, and you have this sort of like incendiary, sort of explosive moment with them and then they go careening off in some other direction. And so do you. And you just want to circle back at some point later in life and say what was going through your head and if something was wrong, I apologize. But I would really love to know who you were at that moment and who you are now, because I think I was, I played some important part in your sexual self discovery and I hope it was a positive thing ultimately, even if it wasn't two days later when I tried to return your panties and your Rolex. And so if he's out there, if he listens to this podcast because he's now a healthy, self loving, non shame wracked Kinkster. [e-mail] Give me a buzz, send me an email. Let's just have a convo. Thanks so much.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

I'm a man. That's what you raise. May it be I'm not an identity crisis. This was a plan.

[Emmett Montgomery]

I'm a man.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

This inner citizen of mankind, it's what

[Dan Savage]

kind of animal I am is that simple.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

I'm a man. And not just casually.

I pull this barge full time treehouse

and map to support me. I'm not the run of the litter fat feet the bullies were no match for me tasting in my teeth. I'm a man.

[Kevin Allison]

That is all for this episode, folks. This is Nico Case behind me now. And I just want to give a big shout out to Larae Lobdell, wonderful photographer. She let us use one of her gorgeous photos of Dan Savage in order to promote this episode. You can find [e-mail], folks, today's the day. Take a risk.

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

And if a dipshit drunk on pink perfume, then I am the man in the fucking moon.

[Dan Savage]

Cause you didn't know what a man

[Colleen Conway Blanchard]

was until I showed you.

[Emmett Montgomery]

You getting hot?

[Dan Savage]

Yeah. You getting thirsty?

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, I just drank pee.

[Dan Savage]

Oh, yeah, that.