Hey, Dan:
This may seem like a naive question, but where in New York can one take a friend for a discreet lay? Central Park? The city appears to be specifically designed in order to prevent privacy (most frustrating: the Ramble). My place or hers? We are each involved with significant others we both care about. A friend's place? Nobody knows about us, and we want to keep it that way. A hotel? The ones that don't ask for identification are too sleazy. Surely we're not the only people in Manhattan who have this problem. Any suggestions?
Frustrated Fans
Hey, FF:
Let me get this straight: You're so desperate that you contemplated having sex in Central Park--you even checked out the notorious Ramble--but your ass is too good for the sheets at a sleazy hotel? Listen, sleazebag, sex in Central Park is a lot sleazier than sex in even the sleaziest hotel in Manhattan. I suggest you check into the sleaze-o-rama Howard Johnson Hotel across the street from Madison Square Garden.
Speaking of sleazebags, earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning an article that appeared in Psychological Bulletin, an obscure journal published by the American Psychological Association. Like most everything in Psychological Bulletin, "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples" was little noticed outside pointy-headed circles--that is, until a very large and pointy knot formed in Dr. Laura's burlap panties.
According to the New York Times, the study concluded that the effects of childhood sexual abuse, or CSA, "'were neither pervasive nor typically intense, and that men reacted much less negatively than women.' They [also] argued that treating all forms of sexual abuse equally presents problems that...'are perhaps most apparent when contrasting cases such as the repeated rape of a 5-year-old girl by her father and the willing sexual involvement of a mature 15-year-old adolescent boy with an unrelated adult.' The authors also suggested that the term 'adult-adolescent sex' or 'adult-child sex' be substituted, in some cases, for 'child sexual abuse.'"
What's the problem here? Researchers reviewed the data and discovered that just how much CSA fucks people up depends to a great extent on how old they were, what they did, and with whom. Why is this controversial? Speaking as a survivor of CSA--sex at 14 with a 22-year-old woman; sex at 15 with a 30-year-old man--I can back the researchers up: I was not traumatized by these technically illegal sexual encounters; indeed, I initiated them and cherish the memories. My experience is not at all uncommon, especially among men, and it's absurd to think that what I did at 15 (and what was done to me) would even be considered "child sexual abuse" or lumped together by lazy researchers with the incestuous rape of a five-year-old girl.
What most upset Dr. Laura about the report was that those unlovable losers at the North American Man-Boy Love Association praised the study on their Web site. Well, all sorts of things are mentioned favorably on NAMBLA's Web site: Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Little League, Hanson, the Backstreet Boys and Hanes undergarments, among others. If Congress is going to condemn everything those creepy ol' boyfuckers praise on their Web site, well, Congress isn't going to have time to get much else done.
Hey, Dan:
I am a 35-year-old man who loves to have sex with big women. (I am married.) It seems like every time I see a big woman and I approach her, she gives me this look like I must be kidding. I love big asses. Actually, I love huge asses, big and round. Is there something wrong with me?
Big-Woman Lover
Hey, BWL:
Yes.
Speaking of huge asses, big and round, a Republican sent me a mash note recently, praising my passion for unborn children, my bedrock belief in the fundamental super-duperness of the American family, and my clear-headed support for tax cuts targeting the wealthy. I get letters like this all the time.
Four years ago, I accidentally joined the GOP, and since that time, mash notes from Republicans have clogged my mailbox. During the '96 campaign, I supported Pat Buchanan in the primaries, and when Republican pollsters called my house, I gave the hardest of hard-right answers. Ban abortions and throw women and their doctors in jail. Lock up homosexuals. Sextuple defense spending. Life sentences with no chance of parole for, well, everything. I don't believe these things, of course, nor do I believe Pat Buchanan should be president--I was just doing what I could to push the GOP further to the right, costing the R's votes and elections. Like sensible people everywhere, I voted for Clinton in the general election. With the 2000 race for the White House practically upon us, I started looking over Republican "presidential hopefuls," as they're called in the New York Times, wondering which hard-right nutjob I should support this time out. Unable to chose between Bauer, Keyes, Quayle, Smith and Buchanan, I decided to support the first candidate who sent me a letter asking for money.
Well, in the mail last week I received a personalized letter from millionaire publisher Steve Forbes. He wasn't on my short list of hard-right nutjobs, but a deal's a deal; I'm for Forbes. In his letter, Steve asked me for a thousand dollars, "or whatever the Savage family can afford." And if I wrote a check now for any amount, I would be invited to attend a "VIP fundraiser in your area in the very near future." I sent a check for two dollars. And that, my friends, is American politics at the end of the century: Write the goddamn millionaire a check, and the goddamn millionaire will invite you to a party where you'll have the opportunity to write the goddamn millionaire another goddamn check.
Hey, Dan:
I wonder if you could inform a soon-to-be-38-year-old, tall, healthy and intelligent incarcerated man where he could possibly meet a nice female friend--or maybe more. I have been "in" for the past twenty years, pathetically celibate and wish to counter this discipline of loneliness with an encounter of a female soul mate.
MW
Hey, MW:
Listen up, all you guys in prison writing me for help meeting women: If you're looking for love, you should be thinking cellmate, not soulmate.
Speaking of the discipline of loneliness, the nation lives in terror of Bob "Boner" Dole's awful "erectile dysfunction" commercials. If you've resisted the urge to disable your television, you've probably noticed that Boner Dole's ads aren't the only Viagra spots on the tube. You may also have noticed an interesting difference between Viagra commercials starring Boner Dole and ones starring attractive white actors. In every other commercial, men beam at their freshly fucked wives (who beam right back). These couples are shown on a beach, watching a sunset, dancing--something, you know, romantic and boner-inducing. Boner Dole, on the other hand, is shown all alone in a deserted office, looking sad and abandoned, sitting at his desk staring out a window. Part of what makes Boner Dole's Viagra ads so hard to watch is how tragic they are. Why is this poor old man taking Viagra all alone in his office? Where's Liddy? Where's anybody?
Have a question for Dan Savage? Write: Savage Love, c/o Westword, P.O. Box 5970, Denver, CO 80217, or e-mail him at [email protected].
