After Action Report #40

Summary

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Savage Lovecast: After Action Report #40 (July 31, 2026)

Main Theme & Purpose

In this episode of "After Action Report," Dan Savage welcomes guest Abe to discuss a new and adventurous sexual experience—diving into the world of "gunge" play (slime fetish). The format centers on listeners who try something new and then give a detailed report on their experience. Dan and Abe break down what gunge is, how it was explored, and delve into the interplay of kink, nostalgia, and personal acceptance within the queer community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Backstory ([00:27]–[01:51])

• Abe's Location & Experience

  • Abe, from Sydney, tried a new kink on a trip to Melbourne for "bear week."
  • The new experience stemmed from an international friend introducing him to gunge play.

• Kink Origin Story

  • Abe shares a "kink origin" moment: seeing the orcs emerge from mud in Lord of the Rings as a kid sparked the interest.
  • Dan reflects: “It’s amazing how many people have a kink origin story that’s some childhood exposure to something that just clicked into their erotic imagination, even pre-puberty and lodged there.” ([01:55], Dan Savage)

2. Defining "Gunge" ([03:14]–[04:14])

• Definition and Influences

  • Abe: “Gunge is… the use of slime during activities that can include sex, but just intimate activities in general. I’m not the Professor Gunge here, but I am just a newbie and slightly learning.”
  • Discussion of pop culture influences like Nickelodeon slime, Shrek, and childhood memories.

• Nostalgia as Erotic Seed

  • Dan jokes about how scenes like Nickelodeon slime or Shrek’s “swampiness” can unknowingly plant the seeds for adult kinks.

3. The Sensation and Appeal ([04:31]–[06:07])

• What Makes Gunge Arousing?
  • Abe describes: “It’s this feeling of just like being encased and enclosed... you dunk your head under and you go, oh, can I breathe? Is this… forever? And it’s like, no, pull up.”
  • Dan observes the “placental” quality and probes for deeper psychological roots: “It sounds so placental, which I don’t think is a word, but I’m gonna make it a word.” ([06:02], Dan Savage)
  • Abe relates it to rough-and-tumble childhood play, like rugby and getting muddy.

4. Logistics of the Experience ([06:24]–[08:24])

• Setting Up the Scene

  • The friend rented an Airbnb and set up a kiddie pool indoors.
  • Special food-safe gunge powder mixed with water used for safety and easy cleanup.
  • Abe: "You will have for the rest of the week just green boogers and stuff coming out of your ear. I’m a beardy gentleman. It took ages to get it out of my beard."

• Telltale Signs

  • At Melbourne’s bear week, others noticed traces of green slime: “I know where you’ve been or I’m going there soon.” ([07:59], Abe)

5. The Actual Gunge Play ([08:25]–[09:51])

• Experience in Detail

  • Scene set with ring light and camera for photos.
  • Abe describes kneeling in the kiddie pool, feeling the slime, and getting fully immersed.
  • Physical challenge: his height vs the kiddie pool’s size.

• Memorable Sensation

  • Abe: “I had that moment of like absolute silence. The world was just empty. … I’m not great with breathing, so I had to just pull my face out and come back.”

6. Sexual Aspect & Outcome ([09:51]–[11:53])

• Activities

  • Engaged in hand stuff, rubbing, frotting (with a humorous aside about triggering listeners), kissing, and moved to the shower for anal sex after cleaning up.
  • Abe shares that orgasm didn’t occur during the gunge scene but emphasized: “Although the orgasm didn’t happen during the kinky sex, it was a very excellent part of it and is like… would definitely do it again.” ([11:33], Abe)

• Leverage & Slipperiness

  • Dan (humorous): “There’s not really a place to stand when you’re covered in slippery slime, is there? You might have the lever... Leverage.” ([10:23], Dan)

7. Community, Sharing, and Aftercare ([12:11]–[14:09])

• The Work Behind the Play

  • The setup is substantial—logistics, cleaning, multiple users over time, and making the most of the experience.
  • Abe felt privileged to get first shot at the warm gunge in cold weather.

• Afterglow, Photos, and Social Media

  • Abe admits to admiring the photos, posting them in close friends’ Instagram stories, and gaining more followers into the kink.
  • Dan highlights how acceptance has grown: “I’m old enough to remember when kink was so shameful that even gay people looked down their noses at people who were kinky… I love that you can share this, of course, not with family, but with friends on social media.” ([13:26], Dan Savage)

• Potential for Future Encounters

  • New connections formed: “New opportunities have arised and I’m very happy with it.” ([13:59], Abe)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dan Savage:
  “It’s amazing how many people have a kink origin story that’s some childhood exposure to something that just clicked into their erotic imagination, even pre-puberty and lodged there.” ([01:55])

• Abe:
  “I had that moment of like absolute silence. The world was just empty.” ([09:40])

• Dan Savage:
  “There’s not really a place to stand when you’re covered in slippery slime, is there? You might have the lever... Leverage.” ([10:23])

• Abe:
  “Although the orgasm didn’t happen during the kinky sex, it was a very excellent part of it... Would definitely do it again.” ([11:33])

• Dan Savage:
  “I’m old enough to remember when kink was so shameful that even gay people looked down their noses at people who were kinky… I love that you can share this, of course, not with family, but with friends on social media.” ([13:26])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:27 — Start of After Action Report, Abe introduced
• 01:23 — Kink origin story: Lord of the Rings
• 03:14 — Defining “gunge”
• 04:58 — Physical and psychological appeal of gunge
• 06:24 — Setting up for the gunge experience
• 08:25 — Step-by-step of gunge play session
• 10:01 — Sexual details: what worked, what was challenging
• 11:33 — Emphasizing the importance of enjoying kink for its own sake
• 12:11 — Logistics and group usage
• 13:11 — Sharing experience with friends and growing community

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains Dan’s signature candid, friendly, and slightly irreverent tone, with moments of humor, genuine curiosity, and respect for kink diversity. Abe's responses are open, enthusiastic, and grounded in both joy and self-acceptance, highlighting the communal and validating aspects of queer kink culture.

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Summary

This episode delivers a playful, engaging, and informative exploration of slime fetish ('gunge') through Abe's first-time experience. It shines a light on the origins of unusual kinks, the logistics and sensations of trying something new, and the growth of sex-positive community support among queer people. The conversation is warm, affirming, and celebratory of personal discovery and acceptance.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

You're listening to After Action Report at Savage Live.

[A]

After Action Report. Welcome to After Action Report, where my listeners take two big risks. First, they try something new. And then they come an After Action Report to tell me all about it this week. Meet Abe, who got in a hotel room somewhere good and slimy. Abe, welcome to the show.

[B]

Hey, how you going, Dan?

[A]

I'm roasting. It is really hot in Seattle today. I hope you're cooler and more comfortable right now than I am. All right, before we get to what you did, what you tried, tell us a little bit about who you are.

[B]

Well, we are cool here. I'm in Sydney, so, like, nice, cool southern winter. I work it. And, you know, I have tried something new. I went down to Melbourne for bears and an international friend of mine was there and he introduced me to a new kink.

[A]

A new kink, but a kink that you'd always been interested in but never gotten to act on before.

[B]

Yeah, it was always in the adjacent possible of where my kinks were. When we were setting up for this, he was asking me what got me into it. And apparently I was not the first person to say Lord of the Rings. There's this scene where the orcs get dragged out of the ground in Isengard, and this really big burly man just

[A]

covered in mud emerges from the slime?

[B]

Yes, emerges from the slime.

[A]

And you saw this at an impressionable age?

[B]

Yes, quite young. I am older than Lord of the Rings, but not much.

[A]

It's amazing how many people have a kink origin story that's some childhood exposure to something that just clicked into their erotic imagination, even pre puberty and lodged there. And millions of kids probably saw that same scene and their brain didn't click on it. It didn't get stored away in their erotic imagination like it got stored away in yours. And I love how that works, that there's just something about our big brains where we're not totally in conscious control of them at all times. And our brains will just grab something from the ether, from the universe, something from media or film. And for us as an individual, it becomes an erotic interest, a kink later in life. And it's kind of beautiful when you think about it because you got to do this finally you got to explore wet and messy with somebody, and if not for this kink, you wouldn't have connected with this person at that moment in this way.

[B]

We were already sort of gaming together, so we were already friends trying things out. And like, he posted some stuff. We connected via gaming. First he sent me his Instagram. His Instagram was very much related to Gunge and then gave that a go. And I'm like, you be. You're amazing.

[A]

And yeah, okay, define terms. What is Gunge?

[B]

Gunge is, from my understanding, the use of slime during activities that can include sex, but just intimate activities in general. I'm not the Professor Gunge here, but I am just a newbie and slightly learning.

[A]

I remember watching Nickelodeon as an adult. I'm too old for Nickelodeon as a child. And there was this thing they did where they would dump green stuff slime on contestants or cast members or something or other. I saw some of the clips rattling around and I thought, oh, that's going to leave a mark on this generation of kids. Some kids are going to be exposed to that. It'll be something they thought was funny or weird, but some kids are going to be exposed to that and on their honeymoons going to be dumping green slime on each other.

[B]

Yes. There were a lot of references when we were talking to each other during about either Nickelodeon or Shrek and all the different Shrek.

[A]

Yeah, there are Gunge moments in Shrek.

[B]

There was a lot of green tomato sauce and stuff like that. Everything was green for Shrek. I'm not necessarily sure if there was Gunge within Shrek, but it just became a, oh, this is all wet. This is messy. This is like our swamp. Yeah.

[A]

We don't ask people who have vanilla interests to explain them or justify them. Like, what is it about vanilla sex that turns you on? It's like vanilla sex turns people on. But when it comes to kink, we're always asked, or I always ask, what is it about it? And of course, the thing is, it makes your dick hard to think about it. It excites you. It turns you on, period, the end. But is there a tactile thing? Did you want to be one of those orcs? What is it about it?

[B]

It's a sort of feeling of during it, you're just sort of encased by it and you have to move it. And again, if you've ever had sex in a pool, it's fairly similar, but, like, it's something that you actually have. It's more viscous, so you have to move it back and forward and like physically be wrenching it. And it's this feeling of just like being encased and enclosed and that. And you know, you dunk your head under and you go, oh, can I breathe? Is this going to be. Is this forever? And it's like, no, pull up.

[A]

Okay. When we talk about kink, often people point to something in childhood, pre. Any sexual awareness pre puberty. Like you watching Lord of the Rings as a child and seeing the orcs being born out of the goo. When I hear you describe what's physically arousing about, almost sounds like, is this a pre conscious exposure? Is this some in utero kind of physical experience?

[B]

I don't know. I don't think that is how I would describe it.

[A]

But like, it sounds so placental, which I don't think is a word, but I'm gonna make it a word.

[B]

I used to play as a kid, I played rugby. So like I was always the, you know, get in there, get tackled, get cover in mud. Enjoy that. My play partner was saying his first memory was sticking his hand into a big jar of like golden syrup. So like honey. And getting caught by his parents doing that.

[A]

Okay, so you're gonna do it. You haven't done it before. You've always wanted to do it. What's the. What is it? Where do you do something like this? What do you do something like this with?

[B]

So he rented an Airbnb and got a. We had a kiddie pool set up by the time we were there, and we had to make the slime ourselves. So it's an additive to water. You mix it up with cold water and then add hot to thicken it.

[A]

What is it? What is it that you're mixing up with?

[B]

It's a powder. It's a powder. It's food grade safe, so you can get it in your mouth and ears and nose. You will have for the rest of the week just green boogers and stuff coming out of your ear. I'm a beardy gentleman. It took ages to get it out of my beard. So you mix that up and then you fill up a kiddie pool. You have a lot of plastics down so that you can just clean it up nice and easy. And the cleanup is just. You're adding water to it so it's flushable and marine safe.

[A]

So it's a courtesy to our hosts, the Airbnb hosts. You lay down a tarp so that if something sloshes out of the kiddie pool, you're not getting it in the carpet, which Would probably be as difficult to get it out of the carpet as it was to get it out of your beard.

[B]

Yes, very much so. And I'm not risking my five star rating.

[A]

So when you were walking around, we'll talk about like the moment, the first time, what it was like. But I want to ask, when you're walking around and there was still some of it in your beard for days and days and days, did anybody look at you and go, hey, did anybody clock you? Did you run into anybody else into gunge that you didn't know were in the guns, but they like knew that that was a telltale sign?

[B]

Yeah, I had. I was down in Melbourne for a bear week. So there were a couple people who noticed the green slime and they're like, I know where you've been or I'm going there soon. And I'm like, okay.

[A]

It's funny. It's like the gunge equivalent of the rope marks on somebody in the safari. That somebody across a football field sized room will spot the rope marks on somebody else on the other end of that football field.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. So you're going to finally get to do this thing. The kiddie pool is there. You mix up the slime. Describe the scene, what happened.

[B]

So he set up a ring light camera and did all that so that we can have some nice photos of it for later. And I knelt down, got in it. Like as we were mixing it, I was just rubbing it over my chest to feel how it is. And I just knelt down, went back. I'm a fairly tall guy. I'm about 6:1. So I had a bit of trouble getting in and under in the kiddie pool. You're not a kid in the kiddie pool? I'm not a kid. I'm. I'm quite tall. He's a fair bit shorter than me. So throughout the scene he got in and we both played around. So there was some difficulty with my height and me trying to manage my body volume with the negative space of the gunge to not get it all over their kitchen. And yeah, it went well. I got to put my face under and I had that moment of like absolute silence. The world was just empty. And then, I don't know, I'm not great with breathing, so I had to just pull my face out and come back. And then, then we did buckets, which was even nicer because like, I could have the. Yeah. Had the coverage of my face without necessarily having to think about breathing. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. I want to ask about the sex part. Were you aroused? Did you get off? Did you fuck in the gunge, or was it just a purely tactile, sensual experience?

[B]

We did get aroused. We did do hand stuff and rub each other off and throtting just to trigger that one listener of yours. We did do that and we attempted more, but just the logistics of basically a big pool of lube you're in and trying to do more than that can make it rather difficult to.

[A]

Yeah. What is it Archimedes said about having a lever and a place to stand? There's not really a place to stand when you're covered in slippery slime, is there? You might have the lever, but you know what I mean? Leverage.

[B]

Yes. And so we did that and then, you know, had a great time, did all the handies, face stuff, all that sort of kissing, and then cleaned ourselves off a bit, went into the shower. Wait, wait, wait. Continued into the shower.

[A]

I'm a prurient person and a nosy person. Did you come?

[B]

Did he come afterwards? It's always the second period.

[A]

You cleaned it all up. You looked at the pictures and had a wank.

[B]

It was like we'd been prepared to have that and to do full anal, but I just couldn't do it in there. So we cleaned up in the shower and did it there.

[A]

I love that for you. I love that for everybody that you like. We're sometimes with kinky sex, people can be in such a hurry to get to the payoff or the vanilla sex that they rush through the kink or the kink becomes just a little bit of foreplay. I think it's great that it was the focus while you were there.

[B]

Yeah, I feel that. Yeah. Although it didn't. The orgasm didn't happen during the kinky sex. It was a very excellent part of it and is like. Would definitely do it again. Would definitely do it again with his partner because he is amazing and like, very much did the before care, the aftercare and all that.

[A]

So you haven't been able to do this again. I mean, it sounds like a lot of work. Like get a place, get a kiddie pool, get this powder, which you'll have to let us know what that powder is in case anybody out there is curious and wants to try this. Mix it all up and then there's all the cleanup. This is a lot of work.

[B]

Yes, it does take a lot of logistics. He was in the area for a week and there were going to be a lot of a fair few people using it, apparently. The lucky thing that I had was that because of the warm water. I got it warm in winter. Everyone else got it sort of as it was slowly becoming more and more room temperature.

[A]

Oh, this is like a Victorian bath. More than one person bathed in this.

[B]

Yeah. At the point I was in it, it was just me. So don't think about it too much or think about it if it's your thing.

[A]

I'm not thinking about it at all.

[B]

Yes. And then there are logistics about who does what and when is the how do we clean it over the time and that sort of thing.

[A]

So you haven't had a chance to do it again, but you would do it again?

[B]

I would do it again, yes. I would do it again. I would definitely do it again with this gentleman.

[A]

And how many times since you had this experience have you opened and looked at the photos?

[B]

More than I care to say. They've been on my close friends stories on Instagram, so I have been doing a bit of filtering out family, but letting my. The queer friends see them. And I've gotten a lot of interest through them too.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

That is great.

[A]

That's great. I'm glad that it's not something that you feel like you have to hide from your other queer friends. I'm old enough to remember when kink was so shameful that even gay people looked down their noses at people who were kinky or people who are honest about having a kink. I mean, almost everybody has at least one, but everybody was judgy and weird about it. And I love that you can share this, of course, not with family, but with friends on social media.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. And I've. From his side, I've gotten a lot of followers who are now into gunge.

[A]

So more potential play partners.

[B]

Yes, definitely. New opportunities have arised and I'm very happy with it.

[A]

Abe, thank you so much for coming on After Action Report.

[B]

Thank you for having me, Dan.

[A]

Thank you, Abe. And thanks to Lord of the Rings. And thanks to Shrek for turning a statistically significant percentage of us into total slimy perverts. If you have a tale something new you tried, you want to talk about something that would make your normie friends shudder, write me about it. Send it in to Qavage love, and you might be my next guest on After Action Report. After Action Report.