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- [00:00]
Dan Savage
You're listening to the Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage's sex and relationship show for grown ups. If you're under 18, get out of here youngin.
- [00:09]
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 Lovecast. Kind of a downer intro this week, but we live in downer times. If you like your intros light, if you come here to escape, you might want to skip ahead to the calls. So I feel like a broken record when I say this, but I am going to say it again. Husbands you can't leave. Pregnancies you can't prevent. Politicians you can't vote out of office. That's the evangelical rights agenda for American women. That's the GOP's agenda for American women. That is the manosphere's agenda for American women. Taking them out of order. Husbands you can't leave. They want to end no fault divorce. Imagine a woman having to get her abusive husband's permission to leave him. Appalling to imagine. Well, the religious right has imagined that scenario and they love it. And not just the religious right. The not so religious openly misogynistic manosphere is fapping about a future where women can't leave their abusive husbands. Most red pilled guys can't get a woman to datum. If a woman makes the mistake of marrying one of them, they don't want her to be able to escape. Politicians, you can't vote out of office. They don't just want to gerrymander their way to safe seats and Republican minority rule, which they are one step closer to thanks to the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights act last week. We are so close to being Rhodesia with nukes. They also want to repeal the 19th Amendment, the amendment that gave women the right to vote. We know this because they they keep telling us. The New York Times published a piece last month with the chilling headline, the Women who Believe that Women Should Lose the Right to Vote. It's an idea, the subhead reads, that is catching on with evangelical voters. Beth Allison Barr, a history professor at Baylor University, author of the Making of Biblical Womanhood and a supporter of women's rights, said this to New York Times reporter Vivian Yee. I used to teach this repealing the 19th amendment as this is a fringe thing that's out there. Now I teach it as this is no longer fringe. It's being made to sound more palatable and reasonable. It took religious conservatives a half a century to overturn Roe v. Wade. It might take them as long or longer to repeal the 19th amendment, but they are clearly willing to play the long game. Pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate. They told us for years they were coming for abortion, and they did. Roe was overturned in 2022. Abortion is now banned in 13 states, severely restricted in 27 others. Planned parenth has been defunded and women, some of whom were not seeking abortions but experiencing complications during wanted pregnancies, have died as a result of state abortion bans. One silver lining in this dark cloud safe and effective medication abortion was widely available via Telehealth. The two drug combo Mifepristone and Misoprostol M&MS, as I like to call them to keep it simple, were available to women in not just blue states, but in red states too. Until last week when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a three judge panel with two Trump appointees, blocked a Food and Drug Administration rule that allowed doctors to prescribe one of the M's mifepristone online. And it didn't just ban the online prescription of mifepristone in red states, it is now banned in all 50 states. If a woman wants a medication abortion, she has to see a doctor in person. More than 40% of women who have abortions in the United States live below the poverty line, jill Filipovich wrote in the New York Times this week. Most are already mothers. For many women, driving hundreds of miles to end a pregnancy means calling out of work and losing several days pay, spending money that they don't have on gas, food and hotels, scrambling to find childcare and then driving for hours back home, often while bleeding, cramping and exhausted. The situation is dire, and things seem to just go from dire to direr these days. But you should know that right now you can still access a a medication abortion through a telehealth appointment, because the 5th Circuit Court ruling only applies to mifepristone. Misoprostol, which can still be prescribed via a telehealth appointment and sent through the mail, can be used to terminate a pregnancy all by itself. Mifepristone by itself has a greater chance of complications still low, but greater. Which means this isn't just about protecting women's health, as the people who brought the lawsuit that resulted in this decision from the 5th Circuit claimed. Still, by itself, mipha Prestone is safer than Viagra, which is practically available in vending machines and airports. There is an important piece in Ms. Magazine this week that I want to draw your attention to we will put the link in our show Notes Abortion pills still widely available by mail in the US despite 5th Circuit ruling the Peace in Ms. Magazine by Carrie Baker highlights two international telehealth abortion care providers who still serve women in the United States, women on the web and abortion pills in private. M and Ms. Are more expensive through international providers and may take a day or two longer to get to you, but they can still be got okay, so zooming out. What can you do? Well, if you were a third party voter in 2016, 2020 or 2024, if you were one of those voters who refused to be manipulated by Democratic candidates who had the nerve to remind you that the President gets to appoint federal judges, you can get in a time machine and go vote for Clinton, Biden and Harris. If you're a person who gives a shit right now, you can vote for democratic candidates in 2026 and 2028. And you can donate like Terry and I do every month to an abortion fund that helps low income women who can't use abortion medications get abortion care. Please donate if you can spare it. And you can make sure everyone you know knows that they can still access medication abortion through plancpills.org and women on web and abortion pills in private. We will put links to all three organizations in our show notes and to the abortion fund that Terry and I donate to husbands you can't leave pregnancies, you can't prevent politicians you can't vote out of office. If we don't want this, we have to turn out and vote in Hungary numbers this November. And to make sure our votes count, we have to be prepared to take to the streets. Okay, coming up on this week's show, a married woman is upset about being ghosted not by her husband, but by the couple she and her husband were swinging with for more than a year. Where did they go? Another couple celebrated an important birthday by inviting a half a dozen friends over for an orgy, as one does. Two shocking developments. It wasn't a gay couple and no one made sure the birthday boy had had an orgasm. And we have something special for our Magnum subs this week on both Today's show and our new Sex and Politics podcast coming out on Thursday. I am delighted to welcome back to the Lovecast and S and P superstar journalist and lawyer Jill Filipovich, whose piece in the New York Times I just read from. Jill and I talked about this week on the Lovecast the awful story about the online rape academy that CNN broke last week and on Sex and Politics, my occasional long form interview show for Magnum subscribers. Jill and I talk about dick pics, why women hate them, why gay men love them, and what the fuck Eric Swalwell was thinking to become one of my subs to get more calls and more guests on an ad free Lovecast to get more Q and A in the column, to get invites to Savage Love Live and to get more Jill Filipovich this week. Subscribe now over at Savage Love, where you can also give a Magnum subscription as a gift. Savage Love. Subscribe and before we get to the first question this week, I can only answer your questions if you send them to us. Record your question or comment on your phone. Send it to us right now at Qavage Love or leave us a voicemail at 206-30-2064. All right, now let's get to this week's first question. Actually, let's not get to that first call. Not yet. A little breaking news. After recording the intro this week, the supreme court put the 5th Circuit Court's decision on on hold, temporarily restoring access to both drugs needed for medication abortion. The stay is temporary. It's in effect until May 11 while the Supreme Court considers whether to take up the issue. Which means this is not over. Not by a long shot. All right, now let's get to the first call.
- [08:51]
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- [09:10]
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- [09:40]
Caller 1 (West Coast Bisexual Woman)
hey Dan, Nancy and the use 41 year old female living on the west coast just sitting here being a classic west coaster and drinking a 100 milligram THC seltzer to get my my mind off of the constant thoughts and racing thoughts have been running through my head just over a year ago and my husband's always known that I'm a bisexual woman and I've dated women the last 10 years. It's not really brought my husband and I closer. Rather drawn us apart. So just over a year ago, I proposed the idea of swinging with another couple. Initially, he was really, really mad and, you know, threatened divorce. Not really threatened because he's not that kind of man. But essentially he said he needed to think about whether he wanted to continue the relationship with me because he was not going to be poly or, you know, a swinger under duress. But I happened to find a nearly perfect couple, and honestly, in my eyes, and later in his eyes, a perfectly matched couple that felt safe and shared our similar values. They live away, so we're not living in the same town and always encountering each other so we can live our private, separate lives and still have our independence, which is really great because we were consistently getting together once to one, one to two times a month for over a year. And it was. It was great. The biggest difference is while we're childless, they have three kids. But, you know, it really worked to have that consistent nature and, you know, meeting up on a regular basis. And we were essentially their escape from the everyday grind of being a parent, which is a hard job. So really grew close as lovers and as honestly as friends. But in the last month, the consistency has dwindled. And, you know, last time we saw them was a great, you know, get together. We had heard about a week later that we love, we miss you guys, can't wait to see you again. So all of a sudden, in the last month, we've been kind of ghosted by these two. So these two individuals who I, in the past, I've said have improved my marriage to the degree that I would say it saved my marriage. Now I've disappeared. My husband's not an anxious man the way I am anxious about ghosting and, like, what that means. But not hearing anything in two weeks even made him concerned, and he has questions and is worried. So I want to be sensitive because I know that they have a very busy life with three children and jobs and all the. All the things. And I want to come off as crazy, but what do I do, Dan, to maintain my sanity and. And also respect boundaries in this relationship?
- [12:01]
Dan Savage
So let's not slap the G word on this yet. Let's not call this a ghosting. Let's not assume this couple, after so many great experiences with you guys and the connection that you made or you felt with them has ghosted you. Let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. Their parents with three children, maybe one of their kids is sick. Maybe one of them or both of them lost their jobs. Maybe someone's mother or father or a sibling had to move in because they're desperately sick. Maybe they're middle aged people who are taking care of a elderly relative or parent, as many middle aged people find themselves doing at some point. And give them the benefit of the doubt and calm the fuck down. Don't send an angry text. If you send any message to them at all, it should be another compliment about the last time you got together and then say, hey, it seems like you guys are busy or preoccupied right now and we don't want to be a burden. We know you have a lot on your plate. Just know that we're out here when you want to reach out and we'd be happy to see you again anytime. Send that message and then forget about it. Forget about them, put them to one side. Because the last thing that you want to do if you want to keep getting with this couple, you don't want them to suddenly begin to see you as another responsibility in their already busy, pressured lives. Somebody else that they might let down if they, you know, they probably have to bring cupcakes to kids things. And they have to, they have a lot of responsibilities and there's a lot of people in their lives that they worry about letting down. And you don't want them to feel that way about you. You don't want them to feel like you are one more thing that they have got to get done this month. In addition to remembering to pay the mortgage and whatever else it is that they need to get done this month, they got to get you done this month. You want to be an escape that makes you attractive. You being needy, you being a burden is going to make you less appealing and less attractive. So you want to send them a message. You want to remind them that you exist and you want to release them for any sense of obligation that they owe you anything. Hey, that was great last time. Seems like you guys are a little busy right now. Totally respect that. We know you have three kids. You have so much on your plate. We're here for you. When you want to hook up again, when you want to hang out again, always enjoy your time, your company, your genitals. We're here for you. And then go fuck your husband for a while.
- [14:52]
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- [16:22]
Caller 2 (Trans Woman in Chastity)
code Savage hi Dan, so I'm a trans woman who's in chastity. Chastity cage. To be card specific, you put your dick in a cage and you can't really do much of it because in a cage the thing is that I've also had an orchiectomy and that means that I don't have any balls anymore. So what am I not supposed to do? Because most cages rely upon your balls to be secured on the body. Is it like a practical alternative for me or should I just give up and, I don't know, try a belt or something?
- [16:57]
Dan Savage
I feel like I'm going to commit a transphobia here by talking about male chastity devices with a trans woman. A trans woman who had an orchiectomy still has a penis would like to wear a cock cage. So for the record, chastity devices, they don't have genders, but chastity devices that are used to cage a penis are usually referred to as male chastity devices. Yeah, most are anchored to the body and contain the cock by there's a ring that goes around the base of the cock behind the balls and a ring or the device itself that's in front of the balls and you can't get it off because you can't squeeze your balls through the space between the ring that anchors the cock cage to the body and the chastity device. There's a little case there that the scrotum can be and the balls can be pulled through. But once the device is locked together, while there's movement for the scrotum, ideally you don't want to get bed sores down there. Can't pull your balls back through. That said, almost everyone I know who's into chastity will admit when pressed that they can get their cock out of the device. Even if they can't get their balls out of it, they can usually slip their cock out of it. Which means chastity play when it involves a cock cage is really on the honor system in the end. And most people who wear male chastity devices can also come while wearing them by using a vibrator on the cage itself, by vibrating their dick inside the cage. So male chastity devices are really elaborate, endlessly accessorizable honor system, symbolic thingamajigs that people with penises can wear. But most people with penises can get them out. Even if they haven't had archiectomies, most people with penises can still climax in them. So not necessarily chased while wearing one. You can be chased without wearing a male chastity device. You can be chased without locking your penis in a cock cage. You can just keep your hands off it. You can just only come with permission from your dom. If you're wearing the cage on the orders of a dom, you could look up carrera belts. There are literal chastity belts that look more like the chastity belts that used to spring to mind when we would think of chastity devices. We used to think just of ones designed for female bodies until cock caging became this craze 20 years ago. And these carrera cock cages look like more like traditional medieval iron chastity devices that basically locked up, locked down the whole crotch. And yet carrera devices are designed for male bodies. For people with penises, they cost two, three, four grand. They're expensive. There are also shaft only male chastity devices, but they require the head of the penis to be pierced. They require a PA in most cases to lock into place. And even then you can still not be chased by vibrating the device that's just locked onto the head and shaft of the penis or just the glands of the penis with a cock ring through the titanium device. If you go to somewhere like Steelworks Extreme to get your malchastity devices. So I guess what I'm telling you is you have options. They're very expensive options. A carrera belt, a Steelworks Extreme Glanz prison. Or you can just be on the honor system, which is really what everybody who's wearing a cock cage, a male chastity device is doing. They're all on the honor system. Not that there's anything wrong with that, that the device itself can be thwarted, overcome, defeated because some people like the physical reminder. They like the visual of the device and it reminds them that their cock is not theirs, that their cock is locked up, that somebody else is in control of it. So even if they could get it out, the device itself reminds them not to. And it turns them on to wear it. It could turn you on to wear it. And so even if it's on the honor system, like I'm not saying it's ridiculous and you shouldn't where it's a waste of money, but let's not pretend, let's not pretend that you can't get at that cock even if it's locked away. Good luck. Sleep it doesn't exactly come easy these days, but it helps. It helps a lot to have the most cozy, comfortable mattress. And that is my comforting, comfortable Helix Sleep mattress. The helix lineup offers 20 unique mattresses, including the award winning Luxe collection that is ours. Of course, Terry will accept nothing less than Luxe, the Helix Elite collection, a mat designed for big and tall sleepers and even a mattress made just for kids. To figure out which mattress is right for you, take the Helix Sleep Quiz to find your perfect mattress in under two minutes and your personalized mattress will be shipped straight to your door free of charge. And with Helix's 100 Night Sleep trial, you can try out your new mattress, see how your body adjusts and if you decide it's not the best fit, you are welcome to return it for a full refund. They offer models with memory foam layers to provide optimal pressure relief if you sleep on your side like I do, or models with a more responsive foam to cradle your body for essential support in stomach and back sleeping positions and other stomach and back positions too. Plus enhanced cooling features to keep you from overheating at night. Right now my listeners get 27% off site wide. Now is the time to invest in your coziness again. Go to helixsleep.com savage for 27% off sitewide. Make sure you enter Savage Lovecast into the post purchase survey so they know the Lovecast sent you. That's helixsleep.com Savage Hey Dan, I'm in
- [22:53]
Caller 2 (Trans Woman in Chastity)
my 30s, I'm in a long term poly relationship with a nesting partner and about six months ago I started dating this new guy, he said on his field profile that he was single and poly. And we had a lot of sexual chemistry, a lot of things in common. We talked every single day, and we went on dates once a week. On our first date, this new guy told me that he had been engaged a couple of years ago and it had ended badly. On our second date, he told me that he and his ex fiance had had a baby together who was born prematurely and died in the nicu. As our relationship went on, it became clear that he has a family history of addiction and he struggled with substance abuse in the past. He also revealed that his ex had been cheating on him and had been doing drugs and drinking while she was price pregnant. And he had brought up having an abortion, but she had refused. And he made it seem like all this stuff with the baby had happened a couple of years ago. But I found an Instagram post his ex made that said that it had actually all happened much more recently than that. Right before he and I started dating, there were other things he said in conversation that didn't really add up. So I asked him about it, and he admitted that it had actually happened more recently. And the timeline was really that the baby died last July. He moved to my city in August. The baby's original due date was in October. And then he and I started dating in November. I didn't really like that he lied, but I didn't really know how to call him out about it. And I also knew that, like, he was grieving and trauma probably makes you do weird things. So a few weeks ago, this guy went out of town, and then I went out of town, and we didn't see each other for two and a half weeks. And then when I got back from my vacation, he broke up with me. He told me that he hadn't been dating anyone else for most of our relationship, but while I was away, he'd met someone on Hinge. They'd been hanging out a lot, and he wanted to date her seriously. And she wasn't cool with polyamory, so he would have to stop having sex with me, but he still wanted to be friends. I was blindsided. I didn't really know how he could have changed his mind about me so quickly. I didn't know that he was even interested in monogamy. And I. I don't really know how he could have known that he wanted to be serious with this person after just a few days. So, Dan, I'm wondering if you think this guy's recent trauma maybe had an impact on his decision to change his mind about me. Like maybe jumping from relationship to relationship is some kind of coping mechanism for him. And I'm wondering if you think it's worth it for me to reach out and tell him he should stop because he might hurt himself or hurt other people like he hurt me.
- [25:45]
Dan Savage
This is hurt that you signed up for. You got dumped. You're poly, you have a nesting partner. You date other men. Dating, you meet somebody, you have great chemistry, you experience new relationship energy. You're seeing them once a week, or you were seeing this guy once a week, you were fucking and the fucking was great. You were texting every day. You really enjoyed him. And then he broke the fuck up with you. And now you're angry, you're hurt, and that's understandable. But this is the kind of routine dating, mating, hurt that as a poly person, if you're going to date other people, not just an open relationship, not just occasionally fucking other people, but seeking out and establishing emotional connections, concurrent romantic relationships on a kind of relationship escalator toward a kind of commitment. If getting dumped by someone like him, someone you had great sexual chemistry with, somebody that you're texting with every day, if that's not hurt that you can absorb, you should not be poly. You should not be in an open relationship. You should be in a closed relationship with your nesting partner. You have to be able, if you're poly, to roll with this kind of punch. You sound a little bit like that person who goes to orgies every weekend and has sex with a hundred people who then calls me to complain about HPV being exposed to it. If you're going to go to orgies every weekend and have sex with a hundred people, 200 people, you are signing up for HPV. If you're going to be poly in an open relationship, you are signing up for this kind, this exact kind of, of hurt. So he didn't do you any wrong here. He went away, he thought about your relationship. You say that he lied to you, he told you that he was engaged to somebody else, that they'd had a baby, the baby died in a neonatal intensive care unit. Tragic. He told you about his past substance abuse issues. Tragic family history. He just was a little vague about the timeline, which you busted him for by you say he moved to your town, so not in your social circle. You busted him about when exactly this tragedy this happened. This baby died because you had done a deep dive into his ex partners, his ex fiance's Instagram, which that sounds a little I don't know. That sounds a little crazy stalker to me. Not that I'm not calling you a crazy stalker. Just sounds a little crazy stalker sounds a little like an invasion of privacy. And maybe he went away for a weekend and didn't feel great, didn't feel safe with you because you couldn't let him be vague. You couldn't let him continue as he got to know you. Better be a little bit more transparent about the timeline of the tragedy that he had absorbed. You confronted him and accused him of lying to you. And then he met somebody else. Maybe he met somebody else and she insisted on monogamy and he wants to see her and so you gotta go. Or maybe that's a little white lie and he just wanted to get the out of this relationship. Sometimes when people are dumping people that they like, that they cared about, they tell them a little white face saving lie. It's not you, it's me. It's not. I'm not ready for a relationship. I have a lot on my plate. There's somebody else I'm interested in as a potential nesting partner, and right now they insist on monogamy. And so I am not going to be able to see you anymore. That is a little more elaborate than it's not me, it's you or I have a lot on my plate right now. But it is something that a person might say to spare the feelings of somebody that they liked but didn't want to continue to see for whatever the fuck reason. And you just have to be able to hear that and take it. I don't want to say you can't complain. You can complain about it. You can even complain to him about it if you want to. Not going to get you anywhere. You're allowed to be hurt. You're allowed to be disappointed, but you're not allowed to complain too much, too bitterly about being hurt like this. Because again, you signed up for this kind of hurt. If you can't handle this kind of hurt, rejection like this. If you can't take it, can't hack it. You should date until you find somebody who wants to be your nesting partner and then not be poly, maybe not even be open. And I'm sorry, it sometimes happens that people are open to polyamory, open to dating someone who has a partner. That doesn't mean that they aren't allowed. If they meet somebody who wants a monogamous relationship to date that person, he's allowed to experiment. He's allowed to go find a nesting partner of his own. And you know, as a fellow poly person, an open relationship, your other partners, just as they're not your first priority, your nesting partner is your first priority. Your primary partner is your first priority. You're not going to be their first priority either necessarily or the long run. And they might, because they are free and autonomous individuals, they might change their mind about your relationship and break the fuck up with you, which is what happened here. You got broken the fuck up with you signed up for that, allowed to complain, but not this bitterly. I'm trying to reduce plastic in my home. It's not always obvious how to do this. Blueland is one way. Blueland is on a mission to make it easy for everyone to make sustainable choices. 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- [32:54]
Caller 3 (Poly Woman in Southern US)
38 year old cis woman from the Southern United States. My husband and I are poly and we live together in a house with my other partner and the other two couples are couples that we played together with separately of each other. But this last weekend we all played together as a group of six. It was a lot of fun. The guys were exploring Each other. Two of the guys. My husband was exploring kind of his hero flex side. And that was super hot to watch him enjoy a guy sucking his cock and sucking another guy's cock. The ladies all had a great time. We strapped each other, we ate each other out. Like it was just a great time with hands and mouth and cocks and toys everywhere and everybody was ggg. And it's kind of one of those things where it's like this is everything that somebody should want it to be. But at the end of the experience, I left feeling unsatisfied because I didn't get off and neither did my husband. We've played with these couples before and we've gotten off with these couples before. But this whole group experience was kind of a different beast. The other part of it was it was my husband's birthday and kind of nobody paid attention to like special attention to him. Even though that was kind of the stated intention of all getting together and playing as a group. I think the other couples were just more excited about like exploring each other than remembering that it was his birthday. Which is kind of unfortunate. But for me, I had a great time. But I am unfortunately not one of those women who is multiply orgasmic. So I get one, maybe two orgasms and I'm done. Now they're earth shattering orgasms and they're fucking great. But I have to sort of hold back on having an orgasm unless I want to potentially be done. Because sometimes I get overstimulated. So I don't know what to do in situations like this when there's group play where I want to get off, but if I get off, I might be done. How do I have fun in a group situation without making it not fun for everybody else potentially or making it all about me? I don't know. I'm just, I'm really in my head and maybe that's the problem. But I'm comfortable with all these people. They're all sexy and fun and I enjoy them. But Dan, I need help figuring out how to have group sex with this group of people without being a person. That gets off a whole lot.
- [35:27]
Dan Savage
In Japan there's a cultural practice where if you're offered a gift, if someone wants to give you something, maybe like an orgasm, you're supposed to refuse it three times before accepting. To show humility and restraint at an orgy, you're allowed to say, hey, I'd like to come now, I'd like to get off. So you and your husband leaving an orgy with six, eight People I couldn't keep track of exactly how many people were at this orgy with neither of you having climaxed. Yeah, that seems like something. You know, if you're having sex with one person, they're going to be able to track whether you've climaxed or not. But if you're having sex with six people or eight people or 10 people, the ability of any one person in that group to keep track of who climaxed and who didn't is really diluted to a great extent. So it's on you at an orgy to advocate for yourself when you're ready to come and if you haven't come. And other people might think that when you broke out into little groups with other people at the orgy, you might have come. And if that's not true, if you haven't come, you should say at some point, whether it's your birthday or not, at the orgy where you haven't had an orgasm yet, hey, gang, I'd like to get off now. You don't even have to say it to everybody. Some people don't like public speaking. You only have to say it to one or two people. Maybe somebody that you helped get off, you can circle back to that person and say, hey, I'd kind of like to get off now, and they'll jump in and help you. But, yeah, I don't know why I brought up that Japanese tradition at the start, just like your call made me think of that Japanese tradition. And I imagined you and your husband were offered orgasms two times, three times, and you refused. Oh, I couldn't possibly. But it doesn't sound like you were offered orgasms at all, because again, at an orgy, who knows who came in what, in who and when. Nobody. At an orgy, nobody can hear you scream. Now, I'm working alien references in. So, yeah, I don't necessarily fault others at that orgy for the value of you and your husband and on his special day, too, on his birthday, too, not coming at his birthday orgy. That was your responsibility in the moment to advocate for your pleasure. If you're going to keep fucking these people, and you fucked these people before, and I'm assuming you haven't had this problem in the past. So maybe it's just you reached a critical mass of orgy participants where people in the past who were looking out for who came when and making sure everybody got theirs, everybody got off, didn't get off. But there's a point at which there are so many people in the room that Regular play partners who would normally know whether you've come or not and be diligent about making sure you got yours are capable of doing that. You should just have a conversation before the orgy, when you set the game plan, when you lay out the rules of engagement, that people need to check in, but also that people should be courteous and check in, make sure everybody got off. But also people should feel empowered to advocate for themselves in the moment. And if they haven't gotten off to ask to be gotten off. That's the mistake you and your husband made. As for your you can only have one you being one and done. Not multi orgasmic. Not all women are. I don't think a majority of women are multi orgasmic. So a woman at an orgy is a little bit like a gay man at a gay orgy. You kind of have to hold back. I've seen people at orgies. I've talked to people who go to orgies. I have a hard time being naked in front of one person. Being naked in front of a hundred people is not something that I'm capable of doing. But I know people who go to big sex parties who I hope are vaccinated against monkeypox and hepatitis and are on prep and are taking their doxy and are aware of the new fungal infection that's going around and being diligent about testing and making sure they don't have a rash before they go to the orgy. But I know people who go to big orgies, big gay orgies, and they have sex with many, many people, but they don't come until they're having sex sex for the last time, till they're ready to be done. And they might have a lot of hot sexual encounters with people. They might have their best sexual encounters with people at the orgy before they have their orgasm with somebody else toward the end of the night when they're getting ready to leave. And it sounds like that is your burden too. You're like a gay dude at a big gay orgy and you have to be selective about who you reward with your one precious orgasm, the one orgasm you're going to have at that orgy before you crash out. But you don't have to crash out after you come. You can help other people get off. You can take a quick break, have a Coke, have a Diet Coke and then jump back in and be there for others and help other people get off even after you've gotten off yourself. All right, have fun. I hope your husband's next birthday orgy is more of a success. All right, time for listener feedback. First up, a few comments Savage Lovecast listeners left in the comment thread about last week's show at Savage Love, says Jesse about the opening of last week's show, where I shared my affection for Chicago Pope and blamed my hay fever on cities planting male trees that spew pollen into the air. As far as I understand from the tree nerds I've talked to, Jesse writes, the belief that male trees being the reason for so much pollen and the increase of hay fever is a contested theory without much backing, says Stephanie about the tree part of that intro. Love you Dan, but you have faulty info on the male tree versus Female tree story. Please check out Black Forager on this topic here. Stephanie shared a link to Black Forager, AKA Alexis Nelson, to her Instagram I absolutely love Black Forager. She's a chef and a writer who creates highly entertaining content about all the edible plants that surround us all the time when we move through the world. And she has a video about this myth. The myth that city planners 100 years ago stopped planting female trees and only planting male trees which spew tree cum in the form of pollen into the air in the spring. It's a myth I propagated, repeated, reinforced at the top of last week's show. I wished I'd seen Black Foragers recording about it her her Instagram post about it her reel about it before I recorded that intro. But I didn't see it until too late. Thank you to everyone in the comment thread and to Black Forager for setting me straight. I now know better. Spoke to Dr. Jenny Young on last week's show about women navigating dating apps, and one of her red flags is a man posting a picture of him with a fish as his profile pic on a dating app. Michael in the comments comes out in defense of the fish photo. I've always found the fishing photo hatred to be a little odd. Presumably, a photo where a guy is showing off a fish he caught is a moment when he felt proud and accomplished in a hobby of his, which is a moment he'd like to share. No cute name jumped into the comment thread to dispute the premise of Dr. Young's book. Dr. Young's theory is premised on the idea that any every woman on a dating app or site is drowning in messages from men. Yes, some women are. Many are not. If a woman is not conventionally attractive, or if she is disabled, or once she's past a certain age, that reaction isn't applicable. I have been Dating via Internet since summer 2008. And back then, yes, I was inundated with messages from men, but they fell away as I got older, significantly at 50, 55, and at 60 when the flood turned into a veritable trickle, I no longer need techniques to help keep the amount of messages in my inbox manageable. All right, if you've got something to say about something I said on this week's show, you can jump into the comment thread to be sure your comment is seen and heard. Or you can call us at 206-302-2064 or email us a voice memo at qavage Love. But while every comment that goes up on the website gets seen and gets read, we can only play a few of your comments that you phone in on the show. Which we are about to do. Because this week, like every week, Savage Lovecast listeners who left voicemails on our answering machine about last week's show get to have the last word on this week's show.
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Caller 4 (Commenter on Fish Picture Phenomenon)
Hi Dan, this is a simple addition to your conversation with Jenny Young specifically regarding the fish picture phenomenon in straight dating app culture. I think we're all thinking about this a little too hard about straight men's motivations behind posting their fish pictures. You know, aside from pride, my theory around fish pics is that men simply don't have any other photos of themselves on their phone that aren't fish pics. Pictures that their mom took of them at a party in like 2019 or dick pics. It's really those three. So you know they only have the other two options to put on their dating profiles. So I, I think it's really that simple. Like we are overestimating the average straight man on these apps. They are not thinking that hard about this.
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Caller 3 (Poly Woman in Southern US)
Hi, this is a response call for the woman who wants to have more sexual adventures with her boyfriend and was looking for suggestions. This is old school, but there are a lot of online quizzes that you both take and the cool part is it identifies the sexual interests and experiences that you want to have, but it only reveals the answers to each other if you have a match. If you both want the same thing. So you can take the risk of admitting something really crazy and your partner will only hear about it if they want the same thing too. It's a win win. There's loads of loads of these all over the place. Find one you like the look of and that's a good starting place.
- [45:36]
Caller 5 (CNC Scene Experience)
Hi Dan, I'm calling in response to episode 1016 where the man was wondering whether he should talk to his partner about a CNC scene ahead of time. I thought your comments were spot on, but one thing that you touched on that I really, really want to emphasize, is how much anticipation that builds. About a year ago, my partner and I, we went on the yearly kink retreat that we go to with a bunch of our friends and we rent a lodge in the middle of the woods and for like a long weekend. And I had told him that I wanted to try a CNC scene, but I did want to know when it was going to happen. We let all our friends know as well too, so that they wouldn't be freaked out when when it actually went down. The scene itself, it was, it was fun. I I definitely would do it again. But what I remember most was the anticipation all weekend of not knowing when it was going to happen. Anytime I got up by myself to like go use the restroom or change clothes or get in the shower, it was like when you watch a horror movie and there's a jump scare about to happen, you get all that adrenaline. That was me the entire weekend and it was amazing. Highly recommend it. I definitely would tell her and I would not tell her when it's going to happen. And you can ride that for a long time
- [46:47]
Dan Savage
and we are going to leave it there. Got a sex problem? Got a relationship quandary? Got a comment? Go to Savage Love Askdan to record and upload your question or comment directly onto our website. Or you can record a voice memo and email it to us at Qavage Dove Love. Or you can call us on our landline at 206-302-2064 and leave us a message. And hey, if you tried something new and you want to share the dirty details with me and all of my listeners, send an email to Qavage Love and you might be my next guest on After Action Report. Come see me in person at Sessions Live in New York City with Esther Perel and so many other amazing people May 15th and 17 16th. For tickets and info on all the speakers for The Sessions Live 2026 estherparell.com Milwaukee, Ithaca, Durham the best Dirty little film festival in the world, the Hump Film Festival is in you this weekend. To watch the trailer and get tickets to a screening, go to humpdomfest.com and while you are there, be sure to click on Submit to find out how you can get your dirty little masterpiece into our dirty little film festival. There is no charge to enter Hump and even better, if your film makes it into the Hump Film Festival. We send you a check. Follow me at blueskyansavage. Follow me on Instagram ansavage. Follow Jill Filipovich on Twitter ilphilipovich. That's J I L L F I L I P O V I C and subscribe to her newsletter@jill.substack.com the Savage Lovecast is produced every week by Nancy Hartunian and me and Nancy and the tech savvy at risk youth. We will all be back at you next week for installment of the Savage Lovecast. Thank you for telling me. This episode of the Savage Lovecast is brought to you by Load Boost by VB Health. Load Boost is a supplement designed to improve the taste, the volume and the overall health of your semen. If you're already putting in the work, why not make your performance unforgettable? Made in the usa, NSF certified and produced in an FDA registered facility. Thousands of guys across 50 states and 45 countries swear by Load Boost. If you want bigger finishes and better reviews from your audiences. If you want better taste, better mouthfeel, go to loadboost.com today and use code savage for 10% off. Or click the link in this week's episode description. That's loadboost.com and use offer Code Savage.