I figured he knew what he was talking about.
September 24, 2021 6:39 PM Subscribe
Dan Savage Revolutionized Sex. Then the Revolution Came for Him. What does he believe now?
This is a Slate article. If you hit the paywall you may be able to read it with private browsing.
This is a Slate article. If you hit the paywall you may be able to read it with private browsing.
He's weathered the times a whole lot better than Dr. Drew, low bar that it is.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:00 PM on September 24, 2021 [35 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:00 PM on September 24, 2021 [35 favorites]
Then the Revolution Came for Him.
This is an extremely pearl-clutching and overblown description of "he received justified public criticism for bigoted positions that he stridently held, and continues to have a successful career".
Yes, yes, he apologised, he changed... etc. No one is obligated to forgive him, and so some people haven't. But he wasn't taken to the guillotine on a tumbrel, and making it sound like he was is pathetic.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:18 PM on September 24, 2021 [160 favorites]
This is an extremely pearl-clutching and overblown description of "he received justified public criticism for bigoted positions that he stridently held, and continues to have a successful career".
Yes, yes, he apologised, he changed... etc. No one is obligated to forgive him, and so some people haven't. But he wasn't taken to the guillotine on a tumbrel, and making it sound like he was is pathetic.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:18 PM on September 24, 2021 [160 favorites]
Solid response to the headline.
The article is far more nuanced and worth reading.
posted by wemayfreeze at 7:25 PM on September 24, 2021 [37 favorites]
The article is far more nuanced and worth reading.
posted by wemayfreeze at 7:25 PM on September 24, 2021 [37 favorites]
As somebody who read Dan Savage as a teen and was later turned off of him for some of the reasons mentioned in this article - this was a fascinating read and I'm glad you posted it. It seems clear that there's some stuff that he still doesn't get, but wouldn't the world be better if everyone with shitty opinions at least made an attempt at correcting them?
Don’t people have an obligation to try to be less oblivious, I replied?
“Agreed. Problem comes when it’s not a person’s own self-interest to age out of their obliviousness,” he wrote. “Which is where social sanction comes in, I guess.” I figured he knew what he was talking about.
What a great closer. Let's hear it for social sanction.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:28 PM on September 24, 2021 [22 favorites]
Don’t people have an obligation to try to be less oblivious, I replied?
“Agreed. Problem comes when it’s not a person’s own self-interest to age out of their obliviousness,” he wrote. “Which is where social sanction comes in, I guess.” I figured he knew what he was talking about.
What a great closer. Let's hear it for social sanction.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:28 PM on September 24, 2021 [22 favorites]
Given the public platform he has, it's good that he's talking openly about fixing his heart, but I'm not about to decorate him for finally managing to achieve a measure of empathy and perspective after excruciating effort on the part of a whole lot of people who took a whole mess of shit from him for years. How much yelling by how many people for how long through how many nasty counterattacks did it take to make Dan Savage “get to be better” according to Dan Savage? Congrats I guess and also you’re welcome but also shove it.
posted by babelfish at 7:49 PM on September 24, 2021 [33 favorites]
posted by babelfish at 7:49 PM on September 24, 2021 [33 favorites]
I remember him going on about the Breeders this and the Breeders that when he began. But then years later he was all about The Kid. Which is to his credit as far as I am concerned.
posted by y2karl at 8:33 PM on September 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 8:33 PM on September 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
I remember him as an advice columnist who was sex-positive, regardless of who was getting it on with whom. He seemed to be all about consent, and doing what you wanted to do. Then he became famous, got wider exposure, and then, people started calling him out for shit.
I think there are a lot worse people to castigate.
posted by Windopaene at 9:07 PM on September 24, 2021 [21 favorites]
I think there are a lot worse people to castigate.
posted by Windopaene at 9:07 PM on September 24, 2021 [21 favorites]
Man, in my eyes, he was canceled a long, long time ago.
posted by HunterFelt at 9:25 PM on September 24, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by HunterFelt at 9:25 PM on September 24, 2021 [24 favorites]
I more respect him than I am a fan of his. I appreciated reading this profile. The reporter reported really pushing him on some topics, and I appreciate both them doing that and Dan for going with it and maybe digging a bit deeper because of the interrogation.
He's a flawed person who has more insight than I typically have about relationships but who also has some bullshit mixed in, and he's trying to grow. I think he'll be allowed to continue to play out his own growth in public, which I can only think is for the collective good.
I guess the thing to cheer the most for is that he grows a bit more quickly. But I think that's a thing to cheer for, like, for basically everyone (including myself).
posted by hippybear at 9:35 PM on September 24, 2021 [11 favorites]
He's a flawed person who has more insight than I typically have about relationships but who also has some bullshit mixed in, and he's trying to grow. I think he'll be allowed to continue to play out his own growth in public, which I can only think is for the collective good.
I guess the thing to cheer the most for is that he grows a bit more quickly. But I think that's a thing to cheer for, like, for basically everyone (including myself).
posted by hippybear at 9:35 PM on September 24, 2021 [11 favorites]
I had read his column and all his books up until he wrote something deeply misogynistic likening a vulva to a smashed meatloaf or spam back in the early 2000's. I'm not going to look it up.
I wish I hadn't read his column because the GGG did the same number on me it did on the author of this piece. I know a few gay men who also have this habit of applying their dating techniques onto both genders, just very blind to the differences in both biology and culture. Having no idea of the misogyny women can face in relationships, and when it's brought up being dismissive like Dan is, even in these interviews.
There are way worse advice columnists (Emily Yoffe), but Savage Love is the only one I've had brought up to me as one I should read, so it's the only one I push back on. It's not good advice, it's just entertainment, don't recommend it to teenagers as an actual advice column. If someone had pointed out his advice is often slightly and occasionally very toxic I would have seen it earlier.
posted by Dynex at 9:40 PM on September 24, 2021 [16 favorites]
I wish I hadn't read his column because the GGG did the same number on me it did on the author of this piece. I know a few gay men who also have this habit of applying their dating techniques onto both genders, just very blind to the differences in both biology and culture. Having no idea of the misogyny women can face in relationships, and when it's brought up being dismissive like Dan is, even in these interviews.
There are way worse advice columnists (Emily Yoffe), but Savage Love is the only one I've had brought up to me as one I should read, so it's the only one I push back on. It's not good advice, it's just entertainment, don't recommend it to teenagers as an actual advice column. If someone had pointed out his advice is often slightly and occasionally very toxic I would have seen it earlier.
posted by Dynex at 9:40 PM on September 24, 2021 [16 favorites]
HunterFelt - huh, I actually didn't know he had ever walked back his position on the Iraq war so the video stuck to the top of that awful piece where he says "I was wrong and also an asshole" actually improved my opinion of Savage.
posted by Wretch729 at 9:49 PM on September 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 9:49 PM on September 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
Congrats I guess and also you’re welcome but also shove it.
Our own @babelfish has the broad strokes right.
I will confess I didn't make it all the way through the interview. I will not apologize for that. The interview is disgusting. It turned my stomach and I could not finish. Life is too short.
If others have the patience to parse a narrow apology from a long-form interview with this wretch, they are a sturdier bunch than I am. I will not judge those onlookers, but also, I can not, and will not, suspend judgement of Mr. Savage. The man is, at best, an advocate for monsters.
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 9:51 PM on September 24, 2021 [6 favorites]
Our own @babelfish has the broad strokes right.
I will confess I didn't make it all the way through the interview. I will not apologize for that. The interview is disgusting. It turned my stomach and I could not finish. Life is too short.
If others have the patience to parse a narrow apology from a long-form interview with this wretch, they are a sturdier bunch than I am. I will not judge those onlookers, but also, I can not, and will not, suspend judgement of Mr. Savage. The man is, at best, an advocate for monsters.
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 9:51 PM on September 24, 2021 [6 favorites]
Wow, there are several terms listed in this piece that I was surprised to read have only been around since the nineties.
Fun fact: I lived on his block for a while, and at the same time I was working with a different guy named Dan Savage.
posted by chaiyai at 10:26 PM on September 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
Fun fact: I lived on his block for a while, and at the same time I was working with a different guy named Dan Savage.
posted by chaiyai at 10:26 PM on September 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
huh, I actually didn't know he had ever walked back his position on the Iraq war so the video stuck to the top of that awful piece where he says "I was wrong and also an asshole" actually improved my opinion of Savage.
Yeah, I mean good for him for recognizing this (albeit like mad-late) but at the same time, the original columns he wrote about the war (and more often about his anger at the anti-war movement) made it 100% obvious who Dan Savage was and how his opinion-making process went. There's always been a knee-jerk "I am a danger to liberal orthodoxy" contrarianism element to his schtick that pretty much set the stage for what was to come.
posted by HunterFelt at 10:44 PM on September 24, 2021 [11 favorites]
Yeah, I mean good for him for recognizing this (albeit like mad-late) but at the same time, the original columns he wrote about the war (and more often about his anger at the anti-war movement) made it 100% obvious who Dan Savage was and how his opinion-making process went. There's always been a knee-jerk "I am a danger to liberal orthodoxy" contrarianism element to his schtick that pretty much set the stage for what was to come.
posted by HunterFelt at 10:44 PM on September 24, 2021 [11 favorites]
Man, in my eyes, he was canceled a long, long time ago.
God, what a fucking era. Dan Savage vs. Terrorism!
posted by atoxyl at 10:47 PM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
God, what a fucking era. Dan Savage vs. Terrorism!
posted by atoxyl at 10:47 PM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's a pretty solid article, but I'd push back against the author's statement that Savage "made millions of readers and listeners more sex positive." They know no such thing. I do think that he's intended to do so, and probably some people have taken his better advice to heart. But I also think that his attentive readership and listenership are there in no small part because his shoot-from-the-hip style was entertaining. Which may be less so now; I just looked at one of his newer columns, concerning someone who was hurt that their former massage therapist admitted to a crush on them, and it's a nuanced discussion about the subject. But I don't think that that's how he made his bones in the advice business.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:49 PM on September 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:49 PM on September 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I do think he's been astonishingly good at creating useful phrases. Any oasis in the desert of talking about sex in the USA. Santorum was a particularly beautiful way to mess up a shitty, foamy politician's life up. "GGG" did mess me up personally. But "invite the 'no'" seems simultaneously soooooo depressing as a thing to have to ask straight men to do and something that is the clearest way to get through to those same people.
I've disagreed with him over and over, but I did get a lot of useful sex advice from guests on his podcast. It's nice to reconsider Dan Savage. I'm glad he's been around enough to get bored with giving advice on any variety of sex he's gonna bother to have, such that he can make sex he doesn't actually care about much less scary for people. Seems like a good mission. He corrects himself when he's been wrong. Sometimes he's petulant about it. I am, too. I think I also learned some about correcting your former wrong loud opinions from him. He's been so brassy for so long about being okay with having sexual feelings at all that I feel like he's been a real force for good. Thanks for posting this.
posted by lauranesson at 10:58 PM on September 24, 2021 [18 favorites]
I've disagreed with him over and over, but I did get a lot of useful sex advice from guests on his podcast. It's nice to reconsider Dan Savage. I'm glad he's been around enough to get bored with giving advice on any variety of sex he's gonna bother to have, such that he can make sex he doesn't actually care about much less scary for people. Seems like a good mission. He corrects himself when he's been wrong. Sometimes he's petulant about it. I am, too. I think I also learned some about correcting your former wrong loud opinions from him. He's been so brassy for so long about being okay with having sexual feelings at all that I feel like he's been a real force for good. Thanks for posting this.
posted by lauranesson at 10:58 PM on September 24, 2021 [18 favorites]
For those not familiar with the santorum coinage campaign.
posted by bartleby at 11:04 PM on September 24, 2021
posted by bartleby at 11:04 PM on September 24, 2021
I don't have it in me to be permanently angry with everything anyone has ever done. So saying he's learned and grown while hosting Jesse Singal this year puts the lie to his self image.
posted by Braeburn at 12:38 AM on September 25, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Braeburn at 12:38 AM on September 25, 2021 [14 favorites]
Slightly off topic, I vaguely remember reading around 2000-2001 Dan Savage bragging about going undercover for the Gary Bauer campaign. I looked up Savage's Wikipedia entry and the story is there. If it's not true it's not true, but from the perspective of COVID-haunted 2021, what a wild reminder of the Before Times:
Instead, he volunteered for the Gary Bauer campaign with he intent to infect the candidate with his flu. He wrote that he licked doorknobs and other objects in the campaign office, and handed Bauer a saliva-coated pen, hoping to pass the virus on to Bauer and his supporters (later he said that much of his article had been fictitious).
posted by fortitude25 at 4:15 AM on September 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Instead, he volunteered for the Gary Bauer campaign with he intent to infect the candidate with his flu. He wrote that he licked doorknobs and other objects in the campaign office, and handed Bauer a saliva-coated pen, hoping to pass the virus on to Bauer and his supporters (later he said that much of his article had been fictitious).
posted by fortitude25 at 4:15 AM on September 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think the most legit criticism of Dan Savage is that he doesn't learn at the meta level. He learns that it's cruel and misogynist to describe women's bodies as disgusting, but he doesn't learn the principle that describing bodies as disgusting is bad; he learns that power imbalances exist in certain circumstances but not that you need to scrutinize all circumstances; he learns that he was bigoted against bisexuals and asexuals but it never occurs to him that hey, maybe if Jesse Singal is widely called out for being a froth-at-the-mouth transphobe perhaps platforming him is in fact a way of being bigoted against trans people.
I think if the issue were solely that in the nineties he'd been a freewheelin' insult comic actually people wouldn't be cataloguing his failings on tumblr.
~~
Admittedly, I think that it's a bit difficult to get your start as a foundational insult-comic sex columnist in 1991 and still be mostly relevant and artistically acceptable 30 years later - the type of person who was able to start that column in that environment probably wasn't going to be a very mild and flexible person.
You can imagine a different sort of nationally popular sex column by a gay man in the early nineties but it's difficult to imagine Danny Lavery avant la lettre. The possibilities were more than just DS but they were not infinite - because whoever wrote that column was from the same deeply anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-consent, etc culture as Dan Savage. While not everyone was a freewheeling insult comic type, it was much harder for other people to get traction because of the shape of the dominant culture - all you have to do is read, eg, Susie Bright's work from the time to see how radically different underlying assumptions were.
~~
Also, also: Slate's current sex columnists are not, IMO, always that great in terms of not saying creepy and/or slightly bigoted stuff. It would be interesting to have a sex advice column from an average person - not a porn star, not someone unusually good-looking and confident who finds it incredibly easy to establish sexual relationships, not someone who always feels that the opportunity to hook up outweighs the drawbacks, etc. I feel like a lot of sex advice is given by people whose experience is considerably more "hooray sex! based on my experience as a confident and normatively hot person this is going to be fantastic!!" than most people and a lot of bias stems therefrom.
posted by Frowner at 4:45 AM on September 25, 2021 [100 favorites]
I think if the issue were solely that in the nineties he'd been a freewheelin' insult comic actually people wouldn't be cataloguing his failings on tumblr.
~~
Admittedly, I think that it's a bit difficult to get your start as a foundational insult-comic sex columnist in 1991 and still be mostly relevant and artistically acceptable 30 years later - the type of person who was able to start that column in that environment probably wasn't going to be a very mild and flexible person.
You can imagine a different sort of nationally popular sex column by a gay man in the early nineties but it's difficult to imagine Danny Lavery avant la lettre. The possibilities were more than just DS but they were not infinite - because whoever wrote that column was from the same deeply anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-consent, etc culture as Dan Savage. While not everyone was a freewheeling insult comic type, it was much harder for other people to get traction because of the shape of the dominant culture - all you have to do is read, eg, Susie Bright's work from the time to see how radically different underlying assumptions were.
~~
Also, also: Slate's current sex columnists are not, IMO, always that great in terms of not saying creepy and/or slightly bigoted stuff. It would be interesting to have a sex advice column from an average person - not a porn star, not someone unusually good-looking and confident who finds it incredibly easy to establish sexual relationships, not someone who always feels that the opportunity to hook up outweighs the drawbacks, etc. I feel like a lot of sex advice is given by people whose experience is considerably more "hooray sex! based on my experience as a confident and normatively hot person this is going to be fantastic!!" than most people and a lot of bias stems therefrom.
posted by Frowner at 4:45 AM on September 25, 2021 [100 favorites]
Also, remember that part where Dan Savage said he'd dump his partner if his partner got fat (because he, Dan, could not be sexually attracted to a fat person)? This was IIRC after they had the baby, too. I think explaining to your child that you kicked their other parent out because they got older and weren't able to stay thin and athletic anymore would be really fun and healthy for everyone, don't you?
posted by Frowner at 5:03 AM on September 25, 2021 [33 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 5:03 AM on September 25, 2021 [33 favorites]
People are all deeply complex and flawed. All one can legitimately hope is they live their lives, on balance, trying grow and to do good by people.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:06 AM on September 25, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 6:06 AM on September 25, 2021 [15 favorites]
FTA:
As far as I know, Savage has never even bothered to emphatically retract his support for Singal's transphobia or the use of it to justify the use of state power to torture and murder trans kids, and I don't really see him doing it here.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:10 AM on September 25, 2021 [26 favorites]
When I asked Savage about his defense of Singal, he said he was objecting to Singal’s inclusion on a list put together by GLAAD intended to catalog proponents of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. “It just felt unfair for him to be on that list with Tony Perkins and exterminationist, eliminationist homophobes, and transphobes,” Savage said.I didn't see it mentioned, but Singal's work was, at the time, being directly cited by at least one US state as support for exterminationist and eliminationist policies against trans children. Just a couple weeks later Singal then went on to claim that teachers that were among the Jan 6 coup were being unfairly "cancelled" for their actions.
As far as I know, Savage has never even bothered to emphatically retract his support for Singal's transphobia or the use of it to justify the use of state power to torture and murder trans kids, and I don't really see him doing it here.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:10 AM on September 25, 2021 [26 favorites]
I think the most legit criticism of Dan Savage is that he doesn't learn at the meta level. He learns that it's cruel and misogynist to describe women's bodies as disgusting, but he doesn't learn the principle that describing bodies as disgusting is bad; he learns that power imbalances exist in certain circumstances but not that you need to scrutinize all circumstances; he learns that he was bigoted against bisexuals and asexuals but it never occurs to him that hey, maybe if Jesse Singal is widely called out for being a froth-at-the-mouth transphobe perhaps platforming him is in fact a way of being bigoted against trans people.
This says it really well. I remember reading and enjoying his columns in the early to mid 90's and liking them; that was a legitimately different voice from what I had seen before. But since then, his pattern has been to express gross and problematic things, then, after resisting a lot of pushback, finally very narrowly walk back some of that. Rinse and repeat -- from bi to fat to trans to whatever, with a lot of blindness to gender and more than a bit of misogyny along the way.
He sounds like a legitimately smart and caring person in the interview, but having that pattern stay the same over the decades means that there isn't real learning going on, just buffing off the rough edges.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:34 AM on September 25, 2021 [28 favorites]
This says it really well. I remember reading and enjoying his columns in the early to mid 90's and liking them; that was a legitimately different voice from what I had seen before. But since then, his pattern has been to express gross and problematic things, then, after resisting a lot of pushback, finally very narrowly walk back some of that. Rinse and repeat -- from bi to fat to trans to whatever, with a lot of blindness to gender and more than a bit of misogyny along the way.
He sounds like a legitimately smart and caring person in the interview, but having that pattern stay the same over the decades means that there isn't real learning going on, just buffing off the rough edges.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:34 AM on September 25, 2021 [28 favorites]
people who have a large platform and wield considerable influence over a large number of people should always be held to a higher scrutiny for the things they place onto their platform, particularly if those things lead to harm. comparing them to a normal person, though they might be human, is a fun little empathy game but ignores a discussion of power and accountability
there are certainly worse people in the world than Dan Savage but it'd be nice if we could set our standards higher than the scummy bottom inch of a waterlogged trashbin (which, to be clear, is not where Dan is in my view, but he's certainly still in the bin)
posted by paimapi at 7:54 AM on September 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
there are certainly worse people in the world than Dan Savage but it'd be nice if we could set our standards higher than the scummy bottom inch of a waterlogged trashbin (which, to be clear, is not where Dan is in my view, but he's certainly still in the bin)
posted by paimapi at 7:54 AM on September 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
He tries to be learn and be better. You have to decide for yourself if trying is enough.
posted by tommasz at 8:16 AM on September 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 8:16 AM on September 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
He tries to be learn and be better. You have to decide for yourself if trying is enough.
If he was a blowhard friend with big dumb opinions who was a good person when the chips are down, then yes. I have friends like that; I appreciate them as they are. But as an advice columnist? I mean, I'm not going to say he shouldn't be doing it or anything, but I'm not going to recommend him in this day and age, unless it's for a specific column where he happens to do a good job.
His advice reflects the fact that, in the context of sexuality, he's a hard man who grew up in hard times. He approaches sex and love as basically transactional. This is the reason that he can give good advice about standing up in an abusive situation -- they're a bad deal. And he's also big on getting what you deserve, what you're owed. That's applicable sometimes.
But not everybody wants to live a market-driven sex life, and even if they do, not everybody has the same ability to compete safely and fairly, as he says he now knows from listening to women. I rejected GGG out of hand when I heard it, because what I heard was "boundaries are dumb." And, for better or for worse, I am a big fan of boundaries. Women need to be, especially when they have histories of trauma. He says he's worked on the concept since, but you can't work on a slogan when it's already out there.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:40 AM on September 25, 2021 [56 favorites]
If he was a blowhard friend with big dumb opinions who was a good person when the chips are down, then yes. I have friends like that; I appreciate them as they are. But as an advice columnist? I mean, I'm not going to say he shouldn't be doing it or anything, but I'm not going to recommend him in this day and age, unless it's for a specific column where he happens to do a good job.
His advice reflects the fact that, in the context of sexuality, he's a hard man who grew up in hard times. He approaches sex and love as basically transactional. This is the reason that he can give good advice about standing up in an abusive situation -- they're a bad deal. And he's also big on getting what you deserve, what you're owed. That's applicable sometimes.
But not everybody wants to live a market-driven sex life, and even if they do, not everybody has the same ability to compete safely and fairly, as he says he now knows from listening to women. I rejected GGG out of hand when I heard it, because what I heard was "boundaries are dumb." And, for better or for worse, I am a big fan of boundaries. Women need to be, especially when they have histories of trauma. He says he's worked on the concept since, but you can't work on a slogan when it's already out there.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:40 AM on September 25, 2021 [56 favorites]
He tries to be learn and be better.
Does he, though?
Serious question, seeing as how the Singal stuff was just a couple months ago, and not only does he not apologize for it here (or anywhere else as far as I know), he defaults back to his normal standoffishness and pouts about people being "unfair." Sure, he's saying he's trying to learn and be better, but at least on this issue he doesn't seem to be putting a lot of effort into actually doing it.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:31 AM on September 25, 2021 [15 favorites]
Does he, though?
Serious question, seeing as how the Singal stuff was just a couple months ago, and not only does he not apologize for it here (or anywhere else as far as I know), he defaults back to his normal standoffishness and pouts about people being "unfair." Sure, he's saying he's trying to learn and be better, but at least on this issue he doesn't seem to be putting a lot of effort into actually doing it.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:31 AM on September 25, 2021 [15 favorites]
Ah, man, I didn't realize he was still being a jackass about so much stuff. That sucks. Sorry if I hurt anyone with my faint praise of him.
posted by lauranesson at 12:05 PM on September 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by lauranesson at 12:05 PM on September 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Younger me really liked DS's columns, initially I found his blunt style refreshing. Over time I started seeing evidence of his weird bigotry but the nail in the coffin was when he started praising and promoting the hell out of Sex At Dawn. Or, as Emily Nagoski called it: Sex At Yawn.
So many "liberal" misogynists used a combo of GGG and S@D to shame women for having reasonable boundaries. Seriously, how can a book presenting a grand theory of human sexuality not consider the dangers of pregnancy? And how can a sex positive relationship mantra not consider very serious power imbalances? Big meh energy.
posted by JaneTheGood at 12:26 PM on September 25, 2021 [27 favorites]
So many "liberal" misogynists used a combo of GGG and S@D to shame women for having reasonable boundaries. Seriously, how can a book presenting a grand theory of human sexuality not consider the dangers of pregnancy? And how can a sex positive relationship mantra not consider very serious power imbalances? Big meh energy.
posted by JaneTheGood at 12:26 PM on September 25, 2021 [27 favorites]
Dan Savage Revolutionized Sex.
No he really did not. There were so many progressive, incusive, feminist and queer women doing the hard work, bubbling up to a level of bookable recognition at the same time Dan was. But it was the white guy who got the pivotal gig -- not based on merit or credentials, but literally because he knew another white guy. In unrelated news, Dan has been problematic about women since the start.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:59 PM on September 25, 2021 [32 favorites]
No he really did not. There were so many progressive, incusive, feminist and queer women doing the hard work, bubbling up to a level of bookable recognition at the same time Dan was. But it was the white guy who got the pivotal gig -- not based on merit or credentials, but literally because he knew another white guy. In unrelated news, Dan has been problematic about women since the start.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:59 PM on September 25, 2021 [32 favorites]
I think this is relevant: "If he was a blowhard friend with big dumb opinions who was a good person when the chips are down, then yes. I have friends like that; I appreciate them as they are. But as an advice columnist? I mean, I'm not going to say he shouldn't be doing it or anything, but I'm not going to recommend him in this day and age, unless it's for a specific column where he happens to do a good job.
His advice reflects the fact that, in the context of sexuality, he's a hard man who grew up in hard times. He approaches sex and love as basically transactional. This is the reason that he can give good advice about standing up in an abusive situation -- they're a bad deal. And he's also big on getting what you deserve, what you're owed. That's applicable sometimes.
But not everybody wants to live a market-driven sex life, and even if they do, not everybody has the same ability to compete safely and fairly, as he says he now knows from listening to women. I rejected GGG out of hand when I heard it, because what I heard was "boundaries are dumb."
I can basically entirely agree, down to the ggg recommendation. I appreciated his work as he's a decent writer with real world experiences, but he fits a certain era or time. I don't think it's worth it to lambast the person. It's probably best to say, "hey, some of this is true, thanks! Let's let someone else talk, now."
Offhandish: I don't think it's necessary to be anti Sex at Dawn, but it's not like it's a hyper objective piece. It's mostly a think piece to encourage often vanilla perspectives some excitement in relation to sex. It could be a gateway book.
posted by firstdaffodils at 1:52 PM on September 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
His advice reflects the fact that, in the context of sexuality, he's a hard man who grew up in hard times. He approaches sex and love as basically transactional. This is the reason that he can give good advice about standing up in an abusive situation -- they're a bad deal. And he's also big on getting what you deserve, what you're owed. That's applicable sometimes.
But not everybody wants to live a market-driven sex life, and even if they do, not everybody has the same ability to compete safely and fairly, as he says he now knows from listening to women. I rejected GGG out of hand when I heard it, because what I heard was "boundaries are dumb."
I can basically entirely agree, down to the ggg recommendation. I appreciated his work as he's a decent writer with real world experiences, but he fits a certain era or time. I don't think it's worth it to lambast the person. It's probably best to say, "hey, some of this is true, thanks! Let's let someone else talk, now."
Offhandish: I don't think it's necessary to be anti Sex at Dawn, but it's not like it's a hyper objective piece. It's mostly a think piece to encourage often vanilla perspectives some excitement in relation to sex. It could be a gateway book.
posted by firstdaffodils at 1:52 PM on September 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
I also recall how he gave up half a column to the movie Independence Day after seeing the trailer. Add that to the list of things for which he owes an apology
posted by y2karl at 2:39 PM on September 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 2:39 PM on September 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
The thing about Savage in the 90s and early 00s is that he did a lot of, ok, this is a weird way to put it, but sort of outreach and harm reduction to total asshole meatheads. And a lot of us ended up being impressed by him and grateful to him for that even though we didn't in any was respect his values.
Like, I think he took a bunch of people from "If a guy came out to me, I'd beat him up so he didn't get the wrong idea" to "I still make homophobic jokes but I'll stand up for my gay brother." That's a shitty attitude, but it's a big improvement, especially if you're that guy's gay brother. I also think he was a lot of people's introduction to the idea that there isn't a global right way to fuck — that figuring out what kind of sex to have is a conversation about what you personally want and not an argument about whose preferences are universally correct — which, again, isn't rocket science, and doesn't make you any kind of feminist, but I'd rather date someone with the one attitude than the other. And these were real South Park alt culture types who would not have been reachable through social justice language: their whole situation was "Special treatment for anyone is hypocrisy" and "If you're offended then you're the real asshole" and all that shit. He reached them because he spoke their language instead, and because ultimately he appealed to their interests.
Shit sucked hard enough in the 90s that we were really grateful, a lot of us, to see people making those changes. Grateful and astonished — I can't overstate how shocking it was seeing some of these people read an openly gay writer week after week, digest his ideas, and actually adopt some of them.
Now, with perspective, I don't know how I feel about it. I know how I feel about him: he's a disgusting transphobe who's been spreading his disgusting transphobia since I was young enough for puberty blockers and would start again in a heartbeat if he thought his audience would let him. I don't respect him or admire him in any way. I guess it's "his legacy" I don't know how to feel about, because he made the world better in some solid incremental ways, and someone with my values absolutely would not have reached the people he reached, and that's a weird thing to sit with.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:16 PM on September 25, 2021 [63 favorites]
Like, I think he took a bunch of people from "If a guy came out to me, I'd beat him up so he didn't get the wrong idea" to "I still make homophobic jokes but I'll stand up for my gay brother." That's a shitty attitude, but it's a big improvement, especially if you're that guy's gay brother. I also think he was a lot of people's introduction to the idea that there isn't a global right way to fuck — that figuring out what kind of sex to have is a conversation about what you personally want and not an argument about whose preferences are universally correct — which, again, isn't rocket science, and doesn't make you any kind of feminist, but I'd rather date someone with the one attitude than the other. And these were real South Park alt culture types who would not have been reachable through social justice language: their whole situation was "Special treatment for anyone is hypocrisy" and "If you're offended then you're the real asshole" and all that shit. He reached them because he spoke their language instead, and because ultimately he appealed to their interests.
Shit sucked hard enough in the 90s that we were really grateful, a lot of us, to see people making those changes. Grateful and astonished — I can't overstate how shocking it was seeing some of these people read an openly gay writer week after week, digest his ideas, and actually adopt some of them.
Now, with perspective, I don't know how I feel about it. I know how I feel about him: he's a disgusting transphobe who's been spreading his disgusting transphobia since I was young enough for puberty blockers and would start again in a heartbeat if he thought his audience would let him. I don't respect him or admire him in any way. I guess it's "his legacy" I don't know how to feel about, because he made the world better in some solid incremental ways, and someone with my values absolutely would not have reached the people he reached, and that's a weird thing to sit with.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:16 PM on September 25, 2021 [63 favorites]
He’s a transphobe and as a trans person I can’t support him, and usually try to ignore him.
posted by mephron at 4:30 PM on September 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by mephron at 4:30 PM on September 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
.. I didn't realize he was flatly transphobic. ..that definitely dates the work. Weird.
posted by firstdaffodils at 7:09 PM on September 25, 2021
posted by firstdaffodils at 7:09 PM on September 25, 2021
Yeah, I commented earlier based on the Dan Savage of long ago it seems...
Didn't realized he'd milkshaked ducked himself.
Apologies
posted by Windopaene at 7:55 PM on September 25, 2021
Didn't realized he'd milkshaked ducked himself.
Apologies
posted by Windopaene at 7:55 PM on September 25, 2021
Not to excuse his shortcomings, but I am reminded of people’s various social media relationship statuses that are set to “It’s complicated,” because it is. Sex is complicated. And Savage is, at best, despite his grudging attempts to improve, complicated.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:21 PM on September 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:21 PM on September 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure it is complicated- his body of work was an improvement on other available options at the time of it being published. However, it was bigoted, and the person who wrote it continues to fundamentally not understand what bigotry against other people looks like.
Some of this reflects growing up as a gay man in the era of the AIDS crisis, but that's an explanation, not an excuse. He remains unable to support other marginalised groups in a wholehearted manner, especially trans people.
posted by Braeburn at 12:47 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Some of this reflects growing up as a gay man in the era of the AIDS crisis, but that's an explanation, not an excuse. He remains unable to support other marginalised groups in a wholehearted manner, especially trans people.
posted by Braeburn at 12:47 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
That is thoroughly disappointing, yes.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:57 AM on September 26, 2021
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:57 AM on September 26, 2021
I'm not sure it is complicated- his body of work was an improvement on other available options at the time of it being published.
Again, no it was not. It absolutely was not, and it is re-writing internet, sex education and feminist history to say it was. Dan didn't get picked on merit, he got picked out of ignorance.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:36 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Again, no it was not. It absolutely was not, and it is re-writing internet, sex education and feminist history to say it was. Dan didn't get picked on merit, he got picked out of ignorance.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:36 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I think it depends on what you mean by "available". Like, in the sense that if the hand of god reached down and plucked up a sex columnist, there were other ones available in the alternative press and proto-online spaces., yes. If you, a publisher, wanted to syndicate someone else, there were other people available.
In fact, through a series of twists of fate I think I purchased a Susie Bright book around 1992 before I ever read a Dan Savage column. But that was because I had sneaked into Chicago on the train while telling my family I was going somewhere else and then found an alternative bookstore (where? I have no idea, might have been in Wicker Park) and bought and hid the book. I also had a Cynthia Heimel book which was not a sex advice book per se but contained some sex advice passages.
Dan Savage was an improvement on other syndicated options that you might read if you did not live in New York or California, have a lot of familiarity with online culture or have a lot of familiarity with the independent press. I mean, I had both the Susie Bright and the Cynthia Heimel books, I had access to two cities at least some of the time, I knew where some independent bookstores were, I absolutely would have bought other sex instruction materials....and yet my access to that kind of stuff was still very limited.
Everyone read Dan Savage because he was syndicated in the free arts papers and those were distributed widely around metro areas, plus they were free. His work was absolutely an improvement on previous widely distributed syndicated content.
If you were younger than about 25 in 1990 and did not live on the coast or maybe in Chicago, your access to any sort of material about sex was very, very limited. If you understood the proto internet, if you were very determined, diligent and bold about ordering books and magazines, if you lived near a city with a fairly well-known alternative or GLBTQ bookstore, you could access a certain amount of stuff. Further, accessing that stuff was seen in many circles as kind of seedy and perverse, partly of course because if you wanted that material you had to be totally obsessed by it, you couldn't have a casual passing interest.
I mean, I think you could probably construct a chain of circumstances where someone-not-Dan-Savage became a Dan Savage like figure but with better politics, but given the media landscape the odds were very against it.
I add that if you go back and read, eg, that Cynthia Heimel book or the interview with Susie Bright in Angry Women, well, a lot of the stuff that we do not like in Dan Savage was actually pretty common among people who were not Dan Savage, because that's what was in the culture.
The response to the anti-sex, anti-bohemian, anti-city eighties was very much "of course you should be unshockable and pro-sex, the ideal figure of the sexually active person is a hip, beautiful artist who is never thrown or made unhappy by any experience because it's all material, if you are not uncritically pro-sex, if you are shockable, that's because the Reagan era lives on in your head". You can find, eg, small press lesbian material (On Our Backs, for instance) that's very much in this line.
That's not to say that there was no alternative to Dan Savage, but the alternatives might not have been as alternative as it is tempting to think.
posted by Frowner at 5:59 AM on September 26, 2021 [52 favorites]
In fact, through a series of twists of fate I think I purchased a Susie Bright book around 1992 before I ever read a Dan Savage column. But that was because I had sneaked into Chicago on the train while telling my family I was going somewhere else and then found an alternative bookstore (where? I have no idea, might have been in Wicker Park) and bought and hid the book. I also had a Cynthia Heimel book which was not a sex advice book per se but contained some sex advice passages.
Dan Savage was an improvement on other syndicated options that you might read if you did not live in New York or California, have a lot of familiarity with online culture or have a lot of familiarity with the independent press. I mean, I had both the Susie Bright and the Cynthia Heimel books, I had access to two cities at least some of the time, I knew where some independent bookstores were, I absolutely would have bought other sex instruction materials....and yet my access to that kind of stuff was still very limited.
Everyone read Dan Savage because he was syndicated in the free arts papers and those were distributed widely around metro areas, plus they were free. His work was absolutely an improvement on previous widely distributed syndicated content.
If you were younger than about 25 in 1990 and did not live on the coast or maybe in Chicago, your access to any sort of material about sex was very, very limited. If you understood the proto internet, if you were very determined, diligent and bold about ordering books and magazines, if you lived near a city with a fairly well-known alternative or GLBTQ bookstore, you could access a certain amount of stuff. Further, accessing that stuff was seen in many circles as kind of seedy and perverse, partly of course because if you wanted that material you had to be totally obsessed by it, you couldn't have a casual passing interest.
I mean, I think you could probably construct a chain of circumstances where someone-not-Dan-Savage became a Dan Savage like figure but with better politics, but given the media landscape the odds were very against it.
I add that if you go back and read, eg, that Cynthia Heimel book or the interview with Susie Bright in Angry Women, well, a lot of the stuff that we do not like in Dan Savage was actually pretty common among people who were not Dan Savage, because that's what was in the culture.
The response to the anti-sex, anti-bohemian, anti-city eighties was very much "of course you should be unshockable and pro-sex, the ideal figure of the sexually active person is a hip, beautiful artist who is never thrown or made unhappy by any experience because it's all material, if you are not uncritically pro-sex, if you are shockable, that's because the Reagan era lives on in your head". You can find, eg, small press lesbian material (On Our Backs, for instance) that's very much in this line.
That's not to say that there was no alternative to Dan Savage, but the alternatives might not have been as alternative as it is tempting to think.
posted by Frowner at 5:59 AM on September 26, 2021 [52 favorites]
I grew up in the suburbs in NC and Charlotte's Creative Loafing was one of my only windows on a more interesting and better world. Kids like me in the 90s read those free arts papers like they were oxygen
posted by hydropsyche at 6:43 AM on September 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 6:43 AM on September 26, 2021 [14 favorites]
I feel like at some point, the (very correct) notion that you don’t have to spend time trying to convince people of your perspective because that can be damaging and exhausting, became twisted into “it is ideologically wrong and utterly pointless to even attempt to open a dialogue with Those People in any circumstances, fuck them, I’ll see them in hell.” But if some people hadn’t done the frustrating work of convincing some other people to be frustratingly halfway to getting it, I could never have come out to most members of my family. Because they didn’t start out woke in the 40s and 50s. Other people worked on them, and then by the time I was a teenager they were embarrassed of the things they used to believe. So when people say “a bigot is always a bigot and they shouldn’t get credit for changing,” well I’m just glad some people who didn’t believe that met some bigots and talked to them.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:43 AM on September 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:43 AM on September 26, 2021 [25 favorites]
If you were younger than about 25 in 1990 and did not live on the coast or maybe in Chicago, your access to any sort of material about sex was very, very limited.
Grew up in a small town in Texas, can confirm. Literally nothing was available there. I went to college in NYC in the mid 90s, and Dan Savage was just there, in the Village Voice. He was available. I wouldn't have had a clue where or how to find anything else. I eventually did. He was a gateway, an introduction, for me and probably a lot of other people for whom feminist and queer work might as well have been on the moon.
I stopped reading him a long time ago and didn't realize he sucks until Lindy West talked about his fat-phobia and then his transphobia got coverage.
posted by Mavri at 8:49 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Grew up in a small town in Texas, can confirm. Literally nothing was available there. I went to college in NYC in the mid 90s, and Dan Savage was just there, in the Village Voice. He was available. I wouldn't have had a clue where or how to find anything else. I eventually did. He was a gateway, an introduction, for me and probably a lot of other people for whom feminist and queer work might as well have been on the moon.
I stopped reading him a long time ago and didn't realize he sucks until Lindy West talked about his fat-phobia and then his transphobia got coverage.
posted by Mavri at 8:49 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
His was the first work I was exposed to, on sexuality and sexing, that was both accessible to me as the guy everyone thought I was. (The 90s weren't particularly great at trans, so I waited a couple more decades.) I disagreed with him sometimes, but I remember being very crystal clear that his core belief was "it's always your decision what to do next, no matter what anyone else desires, even if you're just doing it for someone else". I haven't looked up anything he's written in fifteen years, but I can trace a direct line from his "GGG" ethos to a decade of wreckage in relationships that would have (appropriately) ended a lot sooner had I been (appropriately) unforgiving. I suppose it sucks that he's transphobic, but actively transitioning leaves me no time or energy to invest in outrage, and I don't recommend him or talk about him anyways.
But, having read these comments for a couple days, and the Slate post yesterday, I feel that nebulawindphone's point is one that is valuable and should be given more consideration. This writer managed to get through to assholes and make them more communicative and accepting. He didn't try to change who they are, he didn't try to tell them to be nice. He just explained his viewpoint in their own language and then ungracefully demonstrated how stupid theirs was. And it worked, and they listened. Growing up in PNW, it was very common to encounter negotiation and moderation trained folks, and his approach gets their hackles up like nothing else. But his approach also works when theirs would not, for a subset of people that they cannot reach otherwise. His specific views aged poorly, but decades later, I'd still rather read an advice column that pulls no punches than one that's soothing and nice. Just not his.
posted by Callisto Prime at 10:59 AM on September 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
But, having read these comments for a couple days, and the Slate post yesterday, I feel that nebulawindphone's point is one that is valuable and should be given more consideration. This writer managed to get through to assholes and make them more communicative and accepting. He didn't try to change who they are, he didn't try to tell them to be nice. He just explained his viewpoint in their own language and then ungracefully demonstrated how stupid theirs was. And it worked, and they listened. Growing up in PNW, it was very common to encounter negotiation and moderation trained folks, and his approach gets their hackles up like nothing else. But his approach also works when theirs would not, for a subset of people that they cannot reach otherwise. His specific views aged poorly, but decades later, I'd still rather read an advice column that pulls no punches than one that's soothing and nice. Just not his.
posted by Callisto Prime at 10:59 AM on September 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
"Growing up in PNW, it was very common to encounter negotiation and moderation trained folks, and his approach gets their hackles up like nothing else. But his approach also works when theirs would not, for a subset of people that they cannot reach otherwise."
Completely agree.
He code switches super hard and it had actually been incredibly effective: if people read past the lack of textbook/politically correct negotiation, he's one person who could potentially convince someone's rowdy, dense homophobic uncle, gay people are still people, too. It's the reason I still support the information: there is strong politico-cultural significance within it.
posted by firstdaffodils at 2:25 PM on September 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
Completely agree.
He code switches super hard and it had actually been incredibly effective: if people read past the lack of textbook/politically correct negotiation, he's one person who could potentially convince someone's rowdy, dense homophobic uncle, gay people are still people, too. It's the reason I still support the information: there is strong politico-cultural significance within it.
posted by firstdaffodils at 2:25 PM on September 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
I wonder why Anka from Details, Susie Bright as mentioned, Ask Sasha from Toronto and Montreal, maybe Cafila, could have done it better?
posted by PinkMoose at 2:49 PM on September 26, 2021
posted by PinkMoose at 2:49 PM on September 26, 2021
(PinkMoose, I’m uncertain which of our comments your reply stems from; if it’s mine, I’m not very familiar with most of those names or places, and certainly not back in the 90s, so I can’t answer that question, apologies.)
posted by Callisto Prime at 3:23 PM on September 26, 2021
posted by Callisto Prime at 3:23 PM on September 26, 2021
While talking about Singal let's not forget that Savage, as senior editor of the Stranger, also hired and supported Katie Hertzog. Who I see now no longer works for the Stranger (yay) and has a podcast with Singal (oh god).
posted by vibratory manner of working at 6:30 PM on September 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 6:30 PM on September 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
What ever happened to Susie Bright, anyway?
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:31 PM on September 26, 2021
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:31 PM on September 26, 2021
I hadn't thought about her in years but Wikipedia informs me that she now has a career producing audio books. I also didn't realize she came from such an academically connected family, although it makes sense - working class people, for instance, would not have had the same opportunities to have radical movement experience, etc, as she did prior to writing.
But anyway - as you probably recall, she had a really cruel and unpleasant breakup with her woman partner, leaving her out of the blue for a man. This caused a great deal of scandal since she'd built her career on being a lesbian - but that wasn't at all fair since there wasn't cultural space even in the mid-nineties to be a....a serious bisexual? The kind that has relationships with multiple genders rather than the movie/fantasy kind who is young, really hot, only dates men but loves MFF threesomes?
I do note that her mainstream sex advice career took off (in Salon IIRC) only when she was living with a man, which really makes me wonder if it would actually have been possible to have a mainstream queer sex advice columnist in the nineties who was less brash and confrontational than old Dan Savage. I mean, women get taken less seriously in general and people were constantly saying that queer experience "wasn't universal" and therefore had nothing to say to straight people. SB was probably a lot more plausible as a mainstream writer once everyone was comfortably sure that she wasn't some man-hating lesbian or anything.
posted by Frowner at 5:46 AM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
But anyway - as you probably recall, she had a really cruel and unpleasant breakup with her woman partner, leaving her out of the blue for a man. This caused a great deal of scandal since she'd built her career on being a lesbian - but that wasn't at all fair since there wasn't cultural space even in the mid-nineties to be a....a serious bisexual? The kind that has relationships with multiple genders rather than the movie/fantasy kind who is young, really hot, only dates men but loves MFF threesomes?
I do note that her mainstream sex advice career took off (in Salon IIRC) only when she was living with a man, which really makes me wonder if it would actually have been possible to have a mainstream queer sex advice columnist in the nineties who was less brash and confrontational than old Dan Savage. I mean, women get taken less seriously in general and people were constantly saying that queer experience "wasn't universal" and therefore had nothing to say to straight people. SB was probably a lot more plausible as a mainstream writer once everyone was comfortably sure that she wasn't some man-hating lesbian or anything.
posted by Frowner at 5:46 AM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Everyone read Dan Savage because he was syndicated in the free arts papers and those were distributed widely around metro areas, plus they were free. His work was absolutely an improvement on previous widely distributed syndicated content.
I can remember listening to a panel of advice columnists on some NPR show about 15 years ago, and they all insisted that an extramarital affair meant the marriage was over, dead, kaput, except for Carolyn Hax, who suggested that maybe the couple could forgive and get past it.
This despite boatloads of real-world evidence of couples who do get past an affair, in addition to those who don't. But I was aghast that people who made their living as advice columnists were so adamant on an opinion that has probably never been objectively true.
posted by Gelatin at 8:19 AM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I can remember listening to a panel of advice columnists on some NPR show about 15 years ago, and they all insisted that an extramarital affair meant the marriage was over, dead, kaput, except for Carolyn Hax, who suggested that maybe the couple could forgive and get past it.
This despite boatloads of real-world evidence of couples who do get past an affair, in addition to those who don't. But I was aghast that people who made their living as advice columnists were so adamant on an opinion that has probably never been objectively true.
posted by Gelatin at 8:19 AM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
..can we just honor this thread by labeling not-useful or dated sex/gender identity advice "Old Dan Savage,"/ODS, a la Frowner (see above)?
eg, those Guardian articles can be a little ODS..?
(sorry I'll stop and not do again)
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:35 AM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
eg, those Guardian articles can be a little ODS..?
(sorry I'll stop and not do again)
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:35 AM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I remember Ask Isadora. She was in the free papers too. I vividly remember discarding her advice with a passion after she received a letter from some guy asking if he should go through with a mother/daughter threesome from some lady who offered her daughter up, and her advice was not "no, what the living fuck is your problem." (In retrospect, probably that was a fake letter, but it also had enough skeevy details to suggest a real grounding in real, terrible lives.)
posted by Countess Elena at 9:00 AM on September 27, 2021
posted by Countess Elena at 9:00 AM on September 27, 2021
He now thinks advice columns are biased in favor of “the solvable problem.”That is striking and is going to affect how I look at advice columns from here on out.
posted by brainwane at 5:20 AM on September 28, 2021
He tries to be learn and be better.
It strikes me, though, that his motivation to learn and be better is when he encounters a situation that personally affects him. Upthread someone mentions that he was prone to disparaging "breeders" until he had a kid himself, and then surprise, it stopped. He has said fatphobic things in the past, but something tells me if his partner started putting on some weight he'd switch to "hey, we need to be body positive!"
It's like those stereotypical homophobic parents who suddenly have one of their kids come out and then they're all "wait, gay people should have rights too". Or the guys who are misogynist hosebeasts until they have a daughter who kicks ass at sports and then they're all "GIVE IT UP FOR TITLE IX WHOOOOOOO!" And, I mean, hooray he's learned from these particular road-to-Damascus moments - too many don't - but I personally tend to be more impressed when someone has enough imagination and empathy that they don't need the "but suddenly it's personal" kind of thing happen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:17 AM on September 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
It strikes me, though, that his motivation to learn and be better is when he encounters a situation that personally affects him. Upthread someone mentions that he was prone to disparaging "breeders" until he had a kid himself, and then surprise, it stopped. He has said fatphobic things in the past, but something tells me if his partner started putting on some weight he'd switch to "hey, we need to be body positive!"
It's like those stereotypical homophobic parents who suddenly have one of their kids come out and then they're all "wait, gay people should have rights too". Or the guys who are misogynist hosebeasts until they have a daughter who kicks ass at sports and then they're all "GIVE IT UP FOR TITLE IX WHOOOOOOO!" And, I mean, hooray he's learned from these particular road-to-Damascus moments - too many don't - but I personally tend to be more impressed when someone has enough imagination and empathy that they don't need the "but suddenly it's personal" kind of thing happen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:17 AM on September 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
Wait, why are we trying to determine his intentions, his inherent moral worth, his motivations? How on earth are we supposed to determine such things?? I feel like this thinking is an unhealthy expression of the entitlement that comes from building up parasocial relationships with celebrities. I don't think we can be assessing his intentions or what he's trying to do or what his moral worth is from afar! We can only talk about his impact, because that's the only thing we have experienced for ourselves. In terms of impact, then -
It's true that he was an incredibly valuable voice in moving several, ah, ~Overtons Window~, in the correct direction - on personal, relational, and political levels - for many people on matters of sex and sexuality.
Its also true that he has always has espoused some pretty messed up ideas, that he continues to espouse messed up ideas even now, that his understanding of certain issues (and his desire to understand) is dangerously lacking for someone with such a large platform.
Both are true at the same time. I don't think that those of us who want to acknowledge his immense contribution to changing the cultural conversation are trying to claim he's a flawless god to whom all must bow. To me that's what it means to say "your faves are problematic" - we don't uncritically celebrate any work, let alone any person who has created the work.
And equally, I don't think those of us who are pissed off about the harm he did along the way are trying to claim he was always an insignificant nobody who has never done anything but harm. To me, that's what it means to "cancel" someone: we're saying, "this person has crossed a line, I will criticize them for it and not buy/engage with/consume anything from them (barring amends)," and not "this person is a monster, everything they've ever done is tainted with monstrosity, anyone who thinks they got something from this monster's work is deluded or naive, because monsters can only ever harm us."
posted by MiraK at 10:26 AM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's true that he was an incredibly valuable voice in moving several, ah, ~Overtons Window~, in the correct direction - on personal, relational, and political levels - for many people on matters of sex and sexuality.
Its also true that he has always has espoused some pretty messed up ideas, that he continues to espouse messed up ideas even now, that his understanding of certain issues (and his desire to understand) is dangerously lacking for someone with such a large platform.
Both are true at the same time. I don't think that those of us who want to acknowledge his immense contribution to changing the cultural conversation are trying to claim he's a flawless god to whom all must bow. To me that's what it means to say "your faves are problematic" - we don't uncritically celebrate any work, let alone any person who has created the work.
And equally, I don't think those of us who are pissed off about the harm he did along the way are trying to claim he was always an insignificant nobody who has never done anything but harm. To me, that's what it means to "cancel" someone: we're saying, "this person has crossed a line, I will criticize them for it and not buy/engage with/consume anything from them (barring amends)," and not "this person is a monster, everything they've ever done is tainted with monstrosity, anyone who thinks they got something from this monster's work is deluded or naive, because monsters can only ever harm us."
posted by MiraK at 10:26 AM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
First post, sorry if it’s not done to comment on something so old…not Dan, but this post! Anyway remember he was Lindsay West’s boss at Seattle’s The Stranger and he was such a fat-phobic fuckhead.
posted by sallyswift at 1:58 PM on October 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by sallyswift at 1:58 PM on October 14, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think it's perfectly fine to comment on an old thread, though you might not get much engagement. I only noticed because I lurk in my recent activity page to see how other people are answering AskMes I commented on. Anyway, hi!
posted by Wretch729 at 7:18 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 7:18 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
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I remember listening to Savage Love Live back when it was on KCMU late night here in Seattle. It was always entertaining and informative.
posted by calamari kid at 6:54 PM on September 24, 2021 [3 favorites]