Savage Love

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: Guy meets Girl. Guy cooks dinner for Girl
on second date, and make-out session erupts on living room couch. Guy takes Girl
kayaking on third date, and make-out session breaks out after romantic picnic.
Guy and Girl meet for a drink as she prepares to leave for a week-long vacation.
Girl promises to call Guy upon return. Time of promised return comes and goes.
Guy leaves Girl several phone messages. No response.

Guy likes Girl and feels there is potential. Should Guy continue to pursue
Girl?

I’m the Guy

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: Girl meets Guy, Girl goes out a few dates
with Guy. Unfortunately, Girl isn’t romantically attracted to Guy. Still, Guy
is nice, so Girl keeps seeing Guy. Girl even makes out with Guy a couple of
times, hoping that romantic feelings for Guy will kick in once she’s tasted
his spit. Girl goes away, thinks things over, and admits to herself that she
will never be romantically attracted to Guy. So when Girl returns, Girl sends
the universal signal for “not interested” by not returning Guy’s calls. Guy
sends pathetic letter to advice columnist. Advice columnist orders Guy to take
the friggin’ hint already.

That’s the obvious scenario, ITG, and obvious scenarios are usually the correct
ones. Oh, there’s some slim chance that this girl never came back from her vacation,
having been eaten alive by a shark off the coast of Florida or something. Or
perhaps she was in the tub the first time you called and, in her rush to answer
the phone, slipped and fell, broke both her legs, and is now slowly starving
to death on the floor of her bathroom while her phone rings and rings. These
scenarios are possible, I guess, but “not interested” seems more likely than
“eaten by sharks” or “starving to death on her bathroom floor,” dontcha think?

You say in your recent column that the only way to truly avoid STDs is to
not have sex. Well, a friend of mine contracted genital herpes (at the time,
she was a virgin) from a guy who went down on her while he had a herpes breakout
in his mouth.

Catherine

Everybody, all together: Oral sex is sex. Girls who let guys go down on them
aren’t virgins. Your “virgin” friend was just as sexually active as any crusty
ol’ dyke, and all sexually active people put themselves at some risk of contracting
STDs, hymen or no hymen. It’s the price of admission.

Giving or receiving, there are a number of STDs that can be contracted through
oral sex–up to and including HIV/AIDS. While the risk of contracting HIV while
performing oral sex is very low (and it’s almost impossible to contract HIV
from someone who’s performing oral sex on you), the relative rarity of oral
HIV transmission comes as cold comfort to people who were infected that way.

That said, I’m sorry your friend has herpes, and I hope she’s told her doc
about it. There are some very effective treatments for herpes these days, and
she should seek ’em out.

I recently started working in an office building that is filled with straight
men. Now there’s something I have to ask: What’s up with all the grunting, groaning,
and loud exhalation when straight men piss?

Every time I use the toilet in this joint there is some straight guy making
all kinds of noise while taking a piss. What gives? Are these guys all ravaged
with gonorrhea? Do they have prostates the size of grapefruits? What causes straight
men pain when they piss?

Gonna Get Me Some Earplugs

The noisy pissers you work with, GGMSE, are not in pain. In fact, there’s
nothing wrong with them at all. No, there’s something wrong with you.

You see, for straight boys, bathrooms at school or work are extensions of
the boys-only tree houses they frequented as children. Young straight boys in
tree houses–and then in locker rooms or on camping trips–tend to feel awkward
about their bodily functions, which they compensate for by boldly burping, insisting
that farts are funny, and making a production number out of a piss. Then the
boys grow up, become men, and while most stop farting in public (in case there
are women around they might wanna fuck), they go right on making a piss a production
when they’re alone with the guys.

As boys, GGMSE, most gay men were excluded from tree houses and locker rooms
and camping trips. Consequently, we missed out on the farts-are-hilarious/listen-to-me-piss
socialization that our straight male counterparts subjected each other to. I
don’t know about you, GGMSE, but personally I’m glad I was at home memorizing
the score of Cats and not trapped in some filthy tree house learning how to
light farts or gulp air and belch at will.

With all the mail you receive from people sharing the most intimate details
of their sex lives, you must have heard some really entertaining masturbation
horror stories. I’m not talking about a little embarrassment, Dan, but lasting
trauma. This reader would like to see you dedicate a couple of columns to masturbation
horror stories.

Here’s my contribution: One time my best friend, in need of lubrication, grabbed
the first gelatinous product he could find in his bedroom: a bottle of waterbed
fluid. It wasn’t until after his orgasm that he glanced at the contents listed
on the bottle. He ran to the sink and washed off, but the damage was done. Waterbed
fluid contains a great deal of acid, and soon my friend’s dick blistered and peeled
(think bad day at the beach), which caused him much suffering during basketball
practice.

Surely you’ve heard worse than this, Dan. Can you comfort my friend with
some evidence that he’s not alone?

Probably A Former Best Friend

It’s been a long time since we had a contest here at Savage Love–too long.
Okay, kids, send your masturbation horror stories to masturbationhorrorstory@savagelove.net.
A specially selected panel of masturbation experts (I’m thinking seven or eight
15-year-old boys) will sift through the horror stories and pick the best, and
I’ll devote a couple of columns to masturbation horror stories. The author of
the best masturbation story will win a gift basket filled with masturbation
lotions, implements, and inspiring smut from some of my favorite woman-owned,
sex-positive sex shops. (Please note: Stories about mom walking in are a dime
a dozen, so please don’t waste my time. No one wants to hear your mom-walked-in
story unless your mom walked in on you masturbating over the corpse of your
beauty-queen little sister.)

Next week: The predictable shit storm materializes. Responses to my
column about San Francisco’s dumbest HIV-prevention educator.

letters@savagelove.net