Q: Please stop using the
word “retarded” as an insult, Dan. I know it can be hard to break a
verbal habit, but please make an effort. Perhaps you should have a
“retard jar” on your desk that you put a dollar in every time you use
the word. When the jar is full, send the money to the Special
Olympics.
Whatever you do, though, try to remember that you have lots of
listeners and readers who have loved ones with mental disabilities, and
we don’t want to hear you misuse the word “retarded.” Please don’t tell
me to read or listen to other people if I don’t like what I hear. I
want to read your column and listen to your podcast, but without the
put-downs directed at people with mental disabilities. The Real Other
Sister
A: I’m going to turn over a
new leaf, TROS, and make a conscious, conscientious effort to break
myself of the bad habit of using the word “retard.” But I don’t think
the “retard jar” is for me. Instead, I’m going to use a substitution
for the word.
From now on, instead of saying “retard” or “that’s so retarded,” I’m
going to say “leotard” and “that’s so leotarded.” I won’t be mocking
the mentally challenged, just the physically gifted. I will pick on the
strong—and the limber—and not the weak.
Q: I’ve lived with my
boyfriend for a little less than a year, and we have awesome, frequent
sex and a loving relationship. I’m not naive, and I don’t expect my
boyfriend not to look at porn. However, I took the opportunity to make
it as clear as possible that porn makes me uncomfortable (I have a
weird, visceral distaste), and it makes me feel insecure (am I not
enough for him?). All I ask is that he clear his browser history if
we’re going to continue sharing computers and that he keep his
porno-viewing habits private.
We had a huge fight about this. He was raised in an oppressive,
religious household and feels my attitude is oppressively prudish. But
I don’t think he should feel ashamed for looking at pornography, I just
don’t want to see it. Why can’t he see my point of view? Is it
unreasonable to expect him to keep this part of his sexual private life
private?
On The Outs
A: It’s not at all
unreasonable to ask him to be discreet about his porn-viewing habits,
OTO, out of consideration for your feelings. And if he can’t see that,
well, then he’s just being willfully leotarded.
But there are other solutions: Get your own personal laptops, change
his settings so his browser history clears automatically, and if he
makes an effort and slips up now and then—if you come across a
porn-clogged browser history—clear it yourself and resist the urge to
bring it up.
And for the record: It never even occurs to me to look at the
browser history on the computer my boyfriend and I share. It wouldn’t
bother me if he was looking at porn—I’d be concerned if he wasn’t
looking at porn—but there’s no law that requires you to check out his
browser history. Scrutinizing browser histories is fourth-degree
snooping, and only a leotard scrolls through her boyfriend’s browser
history knowing that what’s she likely to find there is going to upset
her.
Q: I’m a 29-year-old hetero
male considering breaking up with my sweet GGG girlfriend of five
years. I can’t find a reason to do it, though. We never fight; she
loves to do all the chores I hate and vice versa; she’s accepting of
all my kinks, from anal to public sex; and we love each other. We’ve
been talking marriage and family all year.
But I miss falling in love, sex is becoming boring, and my heart
aches every time I hear about a girl who wishes I were single. I told
my girlfriend about these things, and she (while crying) gave me
permission to sleep around so long as it’s on her terms, though her
terms are pretty strict. I’m not happy with the restrictions, but I
can’t ask for more because she gets so depressed talking about it.
Am I being self-destructive in wanting to throw away the love of my
life? Let Me Have It
A: You’re being a
self-destructive leotard, LMHI, and your cliche male fear-of-intimacy
issues are totally leotarded. Perhaps the marriage conversation is
making you jittery—as marriage, in theory at least, means that you’ll
never again experience the heady rush of new love. But your odds of
ever finding another girl—for a long- or short-term
relationship—who loves you, you enjoy living with, and is willing to
give you permission to sleep around, even with conditions, are
infinitesimally small. If you weren’t such a leotard, you would be able
to see that you’re not going to do better than this girl.
And make an effort to kick your sex life with the girlfriend into
gear before you sleep with someone else. If she was sobbing her eyes
out when she gave you permission to sleep with other people, LMHI,
that’s not a good sign. Successful and healthy open relationships
rarely get their start when one partner has consented under duress.
Boring can be fixed, and fixing it may involve opening this
relationship up, but she’s not really ready to go there.
Q: I’m a big fan of
something called the Instead cup, which might help AFTER and her
hemo-phobic boyfriend who doesn’t want to have sex with her at any time
during her period. You can buy them at the big drugstores like CVS here
in California. When I have my period, the Instead cup sits up against
my cervix. It captures all the menstrual blood and keeps it away from
my loving boyfriend’s enormous yet fastidious cock. He often doesn’t
even realize I have it in. It’s a little messy to take out and dispose
of, but it’s totally worth it. Here’s the website: www.softcup.com.
And if AFTER’s boyfriend still won’t fuck her with one of these
handy numbers in, then she should definitely DTMFA. Cup Up Pussy
A: I’m familiar—not
intimately so—with the Instead cup. But, like a total leotard, I
spaced it. Thanks for writing, CUP.
Q: Longtime fan, Dan, but I
don’t see you on Twitter. It would be a blast! Thanks in advance. Need
More Savage Love
A: Writing a column and
doing a weekly podcast and blogging aren’t enough? Now I have to
Twitter? Sorry, NMSL, but no. The tech-savvy, at-risk youth who pull
the Savage Lovecast together every week may have dragged my skinny gay
ass into the early years of the 21st century—they created a YouTube
site for me (youtube.com/user/dansavage) and
a Facebook page (facebook.com/pages/Dan-Savage/50670281251?ref=ts)—but I’m going to draw the line at Twittering, at least for the time being,
as it would cut into my drinking time.
Download Dan’s Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast)
every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
Email Dan at mail@savagelove.net.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
That cup is sick!
Now you’re going to get angry emails from people who have mentally disabled relatives named “Leo”.
haha, Leotard. Love it.
Being retarded by others.
—Hey, Dan.
—Just an idea, but maybe the people insulted by the word ‘retard’ might want to look at and use the word in a different way. A way that can be used against people who think that it is an insult, which is to be used to hurt others.
—The definition of ‘retard’, from Mirriam-Webster and other dictionaries, includes the concept, 1 : to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment : impede.
—So, in a way, if someone is ‘being retarded’, they are being slowed down or hindered by other individuals around them and not being slower because of their own fault.
—Everyone is stupid and smart at the same time, because to be smart is to know something that others don’t and to be stupid is to have others know things that you don’t. We also, all of us, have limits on what we can/can’t learn and the speed of the learning, as compared to other individuals, which is relative to others around us. These things are what most people can’t be self-honest about and would rather lie to themselves and others, than admit to such a seeming weakness.
—So, as the Jewish people took their name as their own, from the Nazis, to weaken its insulting power, why don’t people with certain slower areas of learning than others, take the insulting words, ‘being a retard’ and ‘being retarded’ by the local retardants around them and turn it back on the emotionally/mentally/spiritually/socially (pick one) slower evolving people.
—Later,
—futrethink.