Savage Lovecast Episode 962
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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, young'un. If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harmony, well, there's nothing you can't do.

I'm going to climb out here on a limb today and say that I don't think the mayor of Mino, North Dakota, who resigned last week under pressure, I don't think he should have lost his job.

My opinion is not affected for once by partisanship because I don't know if the mayor of Mino is a Democrat or a Republican and I can't look it up because I haven't seen the White Lotus season finale yet and I am not going to risk getting online until after I do later tonight.

All right. So with everything else going down right now, the Dow, the S&P, your 401k, you may have missed this story. You may have also missed the story about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordering the CDC to fire every scientist monitoring gonorrhea in the United States for signs of drug resistant strains, which seems like a very bad idea.

Left untreated, the New York Times reports, gonorrhea can cause infertility and sterility, blindness in infants, or even death. Huh, yeah, seems crazy for the party of creepy billionaires who are worried about falling birth rates to leave us all vulnerable to drug-resistant strains of a disease that can make people infertile or sterile.

Broke Americans are less likely to have children, but sterile Americans can't have children, and there are only so many children Elon Musk can have on his own.

Anyway, back to Minot, North Dakota. Official nickname, Magic City. Unofficial nickname during Prohibition, Little Chicago. Apparently Al Capone used to smuggle booze into the United States through Minot, and in the 20s, Minot was full of bootleggers and whores and opium dens and brothels. It's a little sleepier now. I know, I've been there.

But things in my know haven't been sleepy since this January, since Mayor Tom Ross, who's been in office since 2022, accidentally sent a text message meant for someone else to Minot City Attorney Stephanie Stahlheim. It wasn't a text. It was a sext. And it wasn't a text sext. It was a video. No delicate way to put this. It was a video of Mayor Tom Ross texting.

having a wank the mayor of minnow immediately realized he'd made a mistake and sent stahlheim a follow-up text warning her not to open his last message if she hadn't already he apologized for sending it he asked her to delete it and he asked her to pretty please not tell anyone about it two weeks later stahlheim filed a harassment complaint which she had every right to do an investigation was warranted an investigation was launched and the results of that investigation

came in last week. Take it away, KFYR-TV, Bismarck's news leader. According to the report, when interviewed about the incident, Ross confirmed it was him in the video and he had recorded the video during his lunch break prior to sending it to Stahlheim. The reporter-writer says Ross intended to send it to his romantic partner, whose name begins with C, but mistakenly sent it to the contact city attorney. That was Kiona Rivera reporting for KFYR.

So it appears to have been a mistake, like Mayor Ross said in his follow-up text to the city attorney. It was a mistake, an embarrassing mistake, a mortifying mistake, an actionable mistake. And action was taken and investigation again was launched again.

But maybe it wasn't a mistake that should have cost Ross his job, seeing as the results of the investigation point to it having been a mistake.

Before I get any deeper into this, I want to share another clip from KFYR's report. Because if you thought the leaders of a city famous for its brothels would handle this adult issue in a calm and adult manner, you thought wrong. Here's what two Minos City Council members had to say during the meeting where the results of the investigation were discussed and the mayor's resignation was accepted. The city's been through an awful lot.

City organization, city staff, the people of our city have been through a lot. The well-being of our city, as Alderman Blessom said, has been on shaky ground more often than we care to admit over the last few years and months. We've been faced with challenges that most cities never have to endure. Today, I sit before you with heart overcome by sadness and disappointment as we face yet another moment of poor leadership in our city's history.

All right, first, I've been pronouncing it Minot for 30 years since I first passed through Minot on the Empire Builder, Amtrak's train that connects Chicago to Seattle. But it's not Minot, it's Minot. My bad. Sorry about that, Minotians, Minotians. Anyway, second, oh my God, what drama queens Minot City Council members are. It was one awful thing.

unfortunate, inappropriate, stray text message? It wasn't two dozen 911s. All right. So some will argue that my position, maybe just maybe someone shouldn't lose their job over one stray text message. Some will argue that

That would open the door or open all of our DMs to shitty men in or out of positions of power who get off on sending dick pics to people who don't want to see them, mostly to women people who don't want to see them. And we don't want to live in a world where shitty men can send dick pics without accountability by claiming whoopsies or takesies, backsies, no harmsies, no foulsies on account of whoopsies. But hear me out.

One way we determine whether someone is a sex pest or a sexual predator is to look for patterns of behavior, to look for other incidents, to look for other victims. Now, to be clear, I am not saying Stahlheim wasn't victimized because there don't appear to be other victims. Stahlheim was victimized. But no other victims are mentioned in the report. Surely, if investigators had uncovered a pattern of behavior here,

If Ross had been sending unsolicited dick pics to other women or other city employees in Minot, that would have made it into the report. And if that was the case, Ross shouldn't have been allowed to resign. He should have been fired. That wasn't the case or doesn't appear to have been the case.

So this investigation into this sext message seems to corroborate Ross's version of events. It points to it being a terrible mistake, a mistake that any one of us could make. You want to live in a world where your private life and your professional life are both funneled through one device, through your phone, and you're always one slip of the thumb away from ruin?

Maybe you don't worry about it because you would never, you would never make that video. You would never share it with anyone. So you would never make this mistake, but someone you care about might make this mistake. Do you want your kid to be a young adult to come of age in a world where one slip of the thumb could ruin their life?

Now, maybe I'm biased, not again in favor of the mayor of Minot, North Dakota, because he's a Dem. I don't know if he's a Dem. I kind of doubt it. This is North Dakota we're talking about here.

But maybe I'm biased because I am someone who once sent a text message to a relative whose first name was and still is the female spelling of the name of the intended recipient who was both male and not a relative. I, of course, apologize to the person I sent that text message to and I'm glad I didn't lose my job over that. And I don't think anyone else should if it's a one-off and an accident and not a pattern.

Should either. All right. Speaking of White Lotus, remember when I mentioned White Lotus at the top of the show? I haven't seen the season finale yet. I am about to. If you want to know what I was thinking after seeing episode seven of the White Lotus,

Check out episode seven of the official HBO White Lotus season three podcast hosted by Gia Tolentino and Josh Bearman on all podcasting platforms. I made my predictions about what might happen in the finale after seeing episode seven. If you want to find out how right or wrong or off or accurate my predictions were, go again, listen to episode seven of the official HBO White Lotus season three podcast.

All right, coming up on today's show, Diana Adams, the Savage Lovecast's favorite lawyer, head of the Chosen Family Law Center, returns to the show. Diana came on the show last after Trump was elected, but before he was sworn into office to warn trans and non-binary listeners about getting their government paperwork in order while they still could. Two months in, Diana's back.

to let trans people know, like one of our callers, what they can do now if their documents are not in order to protect themselves from the Trump administration. And on the magnum only, the great Dr. Jen Gunter, author of the Vagina Bible and the Menopause Manifesto, returns to the show with something we are in need of at this time in our lives. Dr. Jen Gunter is here with some good news, a

a promising new study on male partner treatment for bacterial vaginosis, which is a huge pain in the vagina for millions and millions of women. The

We've got lots of great stuff in today's show for micro listeners too. Tons of great questions, tons of my answers up to you, whether they're great or not. But if you want to hear my interview with Dr. Gunter and get the longer podcast, the longer column, invites to Savage Love Live and more, become one of my subs now by subscribing at savage.love. All right, let's get to that first call. Nancy, set me up.

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This episode is brought to you by FOREA. FOREA, makers of Awaken Arousal Oil, Intimacy Melt, and Sex Oil. Get 20% off your first order by visiting FOREAwellness.com slash SAVAGE and using code SAVAGE at checkout. Hey Dan, 28-year-old guy here in an open relationship, and I'm quite kinky, as are my friends.

Lately, we've been going to more kink events together, and my partner has a rule. No sexual contact of any kind between me and my friends. The thing is, both of my two best friends separately have asked if we could play together. I've said no out of respect for my partner's boundaries, but the questions keep coming up. We all go to events together, sometimes with my partner, and inevitably, when alcohol is involved, things can get a little blurry.

I end up having to push people away, which can feel frustrating and awkward. Personally, I identify as poly, and if it were up to me, I would be in multiple relationships. But my partner doesn't see it that way, and I really want to respect that. Still, I'm starting to wonder if this boundary is sustainable. My partner himself has tied up some of our friends at events, but still insists that no sexual contact happened between us and any of our friend circle.

To me, it feels like that line has already been blurred. So how would you handle this? Am I being unreasonable for struggling with this boundary? Is my partner? I love my friends and I love my relationship, but I'm not sure what to do. You know, if the boundaries get blurry when you add alcohol, you either have a problem with alcohol or a problem with that particular boundary or both.

The issue then becomes, I think, you know, if alcohol is the way that you can almost get to at least giving yourself the permission that you want to do the thing that you want to do, the risk here is that if you can't go to your partner and get permission to do that thing that you want to do, that alcohol is almost giving you permission to do, you're going to keep adding alcohol until you get there, until you

Reach a point where you're so, your judgment is so impaired or you have the excuse that your judgment is so impaired that you just go for it and violate that boundary, which argues, I think, for sobriety or for revisiting this boundary, having that conversation with,

with your partner and being honest with your partner and saying, look, every time we're at one of these kink events and there's alcohol and I'm drinking, I want to do these things that I know that I'm not allowed to do. And I just worry that one day I'm going to go for it and blow up our relationship. So what do we do here? Not go to these parties. Both of us stay sober when we are at these parties together or discuss this boundary. You say no hanky panky with friends is allowed.

Hanky Panky is kind of vague. You also say at these kink parties, your partner has tied up your friends. So obviously your partner does not regard the kink play, bondage, impact play, hot wax, whatever, as Hanky Panky, as sexual contact. Is that enough for you? Being allowed to flog your friends? Which...

could be for your friends and for you, an erotic experience, but just far enough away from a sexual experience that your partner's comfortable with you engaging in whatever kind of kink play you enjoy. Obviously, your partner likes to tie people up. Your partner's given themselves permission to tie other people up. Your partner doesn't understand that as hanky-panky. If your partner understands your kink interests as hanky-panky, even if your kink interests don't involve sex,

genital contact don't involve oral or anal or any other kinds of what we usually understand as sexual intercourse well then your partner is enforcing a double standard and you're going to have to push back you're going to have to insist that if he's allowed to engage in kink play with others without sexual contact you should be allowed to do that as well if you're not already allowed to do that

Should friends mess around? I'm from the yeah, maybe side of that argument and friendly sex can be friendly. That is something your partner is uncomfortable with. Then you're going to have to maybe pay the price of admission and not have sex with your friends. But it seems to me at the very least there's some erotic kink DS bondage SM play that

that is permissible when you play with your friends, seeing as that kind of play is permissible. Your partner's already given themselves permission to engage in that kind of play themselves. So a conversation where you more clearly define what hanky-panky is and what it isn't, what sex with friends is and what it isn't, and where you draw the line between kink and sex. So you have a clearer understanding of

What it means to be in this relationship, what you're sacrificing to be in this relationship, what you're giving up to be in this relationship, but also what you're allowed in this relationship. And yeah, maybe drink a little less at kink events if that leads you into temptation.

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Let him know the love cast sent you liberator.com slash savage. Dan, this is a trans guy here in Ohio calling with the question about what I can do to safeguard myself during this administration and any unforeseen upcoming changes in policy regarding trans people nationally or here in Ohio. I've changed my name legally twice, my first name and my middle name. And all of my legal documents say my current experience,

except for my birth certificate, which still says female because the judge in my county won't let trans people change the gender on their birth certificate. It also says the second name that I've had in my life instead of my last name.

my final male name but I'm scared to go change that because what if I just don't get the certificate back what if they decide they're going to put my birth name on it what if you know lots of questions there so I'm just sort of not touching the birth certificate since all my other documents have male and my current name on there medically I have a stockpile of testosterone and needles I

I've just been stretching out the time between shots so that I have some extra. Physically, I pass as male. I've worked with folks for a decade who have no idea that I'm trans. One person I came out to as trans said, "Wait, you want to be a girl?" So I pass very well. I'm very lucky in that respect. So physically, like in terms of passing, things are fine. Socially, things are fine. Everyone sees me as a guy.

But my question is about that legal and sort of the medical aspect of, I know we don't know what's coming, but is there any other way that you can think of or that your listeners can think of that I can safeguard myself knowing that that birth certificate is hopefully just going to kind of stay buried until the judges change and then I can go get it changed down the road. But for right now, I'm just going to leave it be.

Joining me to help answer this question, Diana Adams, the executive director of Chosen Family Law Center, a nonprofit providing free legal representation for low-income LGBTQIA plus families and trans communities in New York. Diana, welcome back to the show.

It's good to be with you, Dan, always. So we had you on right after Trump's election, and you gave advice to people out there, to trans people, gender nonconforming people. And your advice was basically, get your documents in order now. I heard from lots of our listeners who took your advice, who got their documents in order now. So you saw this coming.

Have your worst fears been realized by the actions of the Trump administration in targeting particularly trans people after January 20th? Unfortunately, Dan, some of those worst fears have been realized in that right away in January, we saw executive orders related to the inability to do any more passport changes related to federal documents about

updating your gender marker on your passport. And what's even worse than that is that they've seized people's passports. If you sent it in on January 18th and hadn't gotten it back yet, you know, if you'd sent it in on January 10th and hadn't gotten your passport back yet, and even if you weren't necessarily asking for a gender change, but if you previously had had a gender change on your passport, they've just

seized people's passports and they say that it's in a processing kind of time period. But of course, that's really alarming and menacing for people who might want to leave the country for their safety. And so there's an element there of intentional fear and intimidation.

toward a very marginalized community that is already disproportionately having, you know, stigma socially, public health outcomes that are really challenging, and it's already facing so much. It's 1% of the population, and they've really gone after it. We've also seen a targeting with over 500 state bills introduced just this year in 2025 against

trans people and queer people. When a government targets a vulnerable and small minority group for persecution and then turns around and makes it harder for members of that group to leave the country or flee the country, that generally historically does not end well, not just for that targeted minority population that we should give a shit about regardless, but for that society, for everybody. Yeah.

And I don't know how many piles of dead canaries in this coal mine we have to step over before everybody. A lot of people have woken up to the risks and the dangers, but not everybody has. And the canaries keep piling up. A famous example of a trans person who has been

in this way is Hunter Schaefer, the trans actress from Euphoria, other things. It's funny that I use actress because everybody uses actor now to refer to both male and female actors, but just out of an abundance of caution and respect for Hunter Schaefer's gender identity, I'm going to use actress like I used to use waitress. I don't use waitress anymore. Everyone's a waiter now. But she took to Instagram to

to say that she just got her passport back and she had submitted it for reissuing before the Trump administration came in. And it came back with a male gender marker, which is going to make it impossible for Hunter Schaefer to travel internationally safely. These issues are really frightening. And you're right, Dan, that when we are seeing this kind of malicious targeting of Trump

threats to curtail the civil rights of a very marginalized group and then to not let them leave the country safely, that's got to be alarming for all of us. And we also need to be aware, and I think people are waking up to this. It gives me hope that people are waking up to how absurd this is, given the other kinds of major crises we're having in our economy. We have food prices have increased 30% in the past six years. 18% more Americans are homeless than were last year. And

You know, the number of trans college athletes at an NCAA level are less than 10 out of 500,000, while we have 50 million people just lost access to their contraceptives. Right. Well, we have over 7 million seniors that just lost access to their medical care. So it's so obvious and it is so corrupt and it is such obvious propaganda scapegoating a group that is clearly not the problem.

That I am hopeful. I am hopeful about the people who are turning out of town halls screaming about these kinds of issues, including in red states. I love what Laverne Cox had to say when she said, we're not the 1% you should be afraid of or worried about. So to the specifics of this caller's question, it sounds like they have most of their government documents in order, but this birth certificate is sitting out there.

Is it a ticking time bomb? Could the birth certificate cause a problem for this guy down the road?

Birth certificate is a concern when we don't have all of our governmental documents lined up with the same name and the same gender marker, because the ways that fascists get to you often is bureaucratic hassle. That's an excuse to not, for example, let you vote because the SAVE Act is related to people needing to present a birth certificate that would allow them to then be able to vote. Now, that is intended to target and harass immigrants. It also targets and harasses

in terms of their voting rights. But actually, the group that would maybe be impacted the most are married women who've changed their name. And so, wow, they get to target the voting rights of immigrants, trans people, and women all at once. And the SAVE Act is something that all of us need to be concerned about.

be concerned about. Because if they would go after the voting rights of that many people, don't think they wouldn't go after yours. So-called fringe voices on the right have been saying for years now that the country would be better off, meaning in their view, the country would have nothing but Republican presidents and Republican elected officials if women couldn't vote. They've been signaling that they want to make it harder for women to vote. And along comes the SAVE Act that's going to disenfranchise millions of women, millions

Paradoxically, a greater percentage of conservative women who may have taken their husband's last names are not going to be able to vote. I feel like a bit of a crazy person because before the election I was just screaming like the Republican agenda for American women are pregnancies you can't prevent or

Husbands, you can't leave. They want to make no-fault divorce illegal. And politicians, you can't vote out of office because they want to strip you of the right to vote. And here we are. It's not just targeting trans people. Not that that shouldn't be enough for us to be concerned and take to the streets, but targeting women, more than 50% of the population. All right. Not to get too doom and gloom, what can people do now? Now that the Trump administration is in there slinging these anti-trans slogans

executive orders? What can people who couldn't get their documents in order in time or didn't realize they needed to, what do they do now to protect themselves? I would lean into checking with state-level organizations. It's always very common that we see the big names that are doing the federal lawsuits, and it's amazing how much ACLU is fighting back with federal lawsuits against Trump. But

What's happening at a state level is also really state by state. And so for this person in Ohio, Equality Ohio is a fantastic organization that will give them Ohio specific information. And I think that that's important to kind of lean into that. And I would not at this point. No one should mail in their passport, even if you're just a person wanting to update your passport. There's so much chaos right now and incompetence and so much.

in terms of delay, I'd be really wary about that. I'd go in person if you can. Some people are trying to go in person to get their documents amended. But at this point, I would probably try to hold and stay with the federal documents that you have if you're a trans person and let the birth certificate lay for now, if you can, because I would just be worried that a bureaucrat could try to seize it. And so there may be state-specific information that could help this particular person. And hoarding...

Testosterone. Is this something that more and more trans people are having to do, hoard their medications? I think hoarding medications could make sense even for any of us who may feel that there's supply chain shortages. We're entering a time period of chaos with these ridiculous tariffs where things may get much more expensive. And so I think that all of us having a stockpile of medication is the kind of thing to do in a crisis situation and especially for trans people. Okay, so much doom and gloom.

Any hope? Any bright spots on the horizon? Yes. I want to share some hope, which is that we are seeing people waking up. We're seeing people waking up to the fact that this is obviously not helping them with their grocery prices. This is obviously not making anybody's life easier if they feel afraid to travel and can't afford eggs.

And so we are seeing at a local level, at a state level, a lot of really positive action. The attempt by the right has been to flood the zone and overwhelm us. You know, of those 500 anti-LGBTQ bills, only 10 have passed so far in 2025. And so a lot of this is the drama. It's the political theater. And a lot of the actual terrible things that they want to do are not actually happening. The people who are in charge are clowns. We have a lot of great lawyers on our side. And so

I would suggest that people lean in and look to what's going on at a city and state level in your city and state. You can get things passed at a city council level much faster. And I would encourage people to not disengage and to look around at what's going on at your local level because many places have actually really been standing up.

in ways that are encouraging and inspiring. And even if you don't have a dollar to donate, following your city and state organizations online, sharing information that they're putting out there with other people is really helpful because that's the resistance. The city and state level small groups are resistance. Speaking of city and state level, a law you helped author recently

Has just passed or is about to pass in New York City, is that correct?

are the most protective. And so we helped contribute, along with a number of other really great groups, to this pending legislation in New York City, which would be the strongest trans protection laws in the country that are intersectional with reproductive rights and immigrants, so they can't pit us against each other, and would have real teeth and real dollars. It would make it a crime to sue somebody in New York.

for doing things that are legal in New York so that you can't be harassing abortion doctors and doctors who support trans people and the parents of trans kids in New York. It's actually a crime of harassment to do that if you do so. So we need these to pass. We'll be fighting for them to pass in New York. And that's exciting here. And I'm glad Chosen Family Law Center could be involved. But there are things happening in your city too, probably. And look to the organizations that are doing that for whatever issue is important to you, whether it be the legislative work

There are people that are organizing mutual aid to support the 7.5 million U.S. children that are losing access to their special education supports through the IDEA Act. That funding is gone for all these kids that have the IEPs and need extra special education assistance at school. Who are the groups that are doing that? Who are the groups that are helping to fund the soup kitchen that just got defunded? And give them some support and energy if you can.

Okay, so circling back to the caller's question, your advice generally to trans people and non-binary people out there whose documents may not all be in alignment is to right now maybe not attract attention to your documents not being in alignment.

to wait, check with your local organizations, check with a local legal group, check local advocates, but it may be wiser to do what the caller suggested that he is going to do, which is to wait out the Trump administration before circling back to altering or attempting to have altered or correct his birth certificate corrected. Is that where we are right now? Just like, yeah, I would be very cautious about, um,

updating documents because you can still update your documents as a trans person at a state level. You can still get your name changed. You can often get a gender marker change. My worry is in having, you know, maybe a New York State driver's license that doesn't match your passport.

you're having names that don't match up, having a gender marker that doesn't match up. I worry about that and particularly passports. So that's a strategic decision to decide, am I going to be safer if my driver's license matches my gender appearance while I'm living here in Montana and I'm not planning to leave the country? Okay, then maybe we want to update everything in Montana so that you're not going to get harassed when people get...

out you as trans based on your driver's license, right? But if you may want to leave the country, which could be something that any trans person has in their mind, I would definitely not try to update your passport. And at this point, they're not stopping people who don't have a gender appearance that don't match their passport.

That could happen, but that has not happened yet. So I would be, if you haven't updated your documents, I would just try to make sure if you have something at a state level that could be updated to match the passport and you can do that in your state, then great. I would leave the passport the same and probably not try to push. Diana Adams, Executive Director of Chosen Family Law Center. Thank you for coming back on the show.

Want to have you on again sometime just for fun. We'll take some sex questions together. Yes, that would be fun. I don't want people to hate me every time they see me. It's bad news. Yeah, I don't want people to hear your name and then be like bracing themselves for impact. I know, it's a bad news person. You're a fun, sex-positive, wonderful person with a lot of insight into human sexuality and family and relationships. And we're going to have you back on to talk about that. Thank you. I appreciate that. And for now, it's an honor to get to talk to people about how they can protect themselves.

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Go treat yourself or treat someone you love and show your support for the Lovecast while you're at it. That's dame.com, code SAVAGE20. Hello, 55-year-old straight male in an E&M relationship with a poly woman. We get along great. We've been dating for about three years. I occasionally will go off on weekend or three-day trips sometimes.

with other women and we talk it all out. She's not always happy about it. I sort of contend that she has a whole life with her husband and family and they run off to foreign countries and cool cities. And she says, yeah, well, that's different. She's married and it's not super romantic anymore. And I'm kind of like, well,

It's not that different. She has her life outside of our relationship, and I sort of feel like I should be able to have mine. And again, we talk it out and we work it out, and it's not going to get in the way of our relationship. But maybe having a third party give me her perspective would also be helpful for me, just to hear someone talk through that. I can understand why she might feel jealous, and I think you can understand why she might feel jealous too. You're her only romantic partner.

She is not your only romantic partner. Yeah, she's married. She and her husband once had a romantic and sexual connection, but at least going on what she's shared with you about her relationship with her husband, it's not a romantic connection anymore. It's companionate. It's a partnership. It's about...

co-parenting, but it's not a romance. So when you take off for the weekend with some other woman that you're interested in, in the open relationship that you're in, you're interested in that other woman, at least sexually and potentially romantically. You can understand why that might make her feel a little bit insecure, even if on paper you're not really doing anything

That's much different than she's doing. You're spending time away from her with a different partner, but the partner you're spending time away from her with is different by degrees than the partner she's spending time away from you with. You're spending time, again, with somebody that you're interested in, at least sexually, perhaps romantically, perhaps both. You say it's a polyamorous open relationship. She's spending time away with her husband, right?

That she is not romantically attracted to or into anymore. Not in the way she's into you. So what do you do with that? I think she just has to fucking eat it. Right? Someone's allowed to feel their feelings and you can say to her, look, I get why this bothers you in a way that you being off with your husband is

doesn't bother me or doesn't wouldn't bother me in the same way. Cause your husband doesn't mean the same thing, but what are we going to do about that? We're not in a monogamous relationship. We're in an open polyamorous relationship. You have other partners, uh,

at least one other partner. I'm allowed to have other partners. You spend time away with your other partner and I'm going to spend time with my other partners. And when she has feelings about that as not just a casual sex partner, but an intimate romantic partner, you're going to have to help her process those insecurities. You're at least going to have to listen to her. You're at least going to have to let her vent a little and then give her what

healthy functional person and I'm going to assume your girlfriend is a healthy functional person, what a healthy functional person expressing insecurity might need in a moment like that, which is not veto, which is not absolute control, which is not deference, some reassurance that your feelings for these other women that you might be spending the weekend with don't negate or override or even compete with your feelings for her, this longstanding partner.

And if she wants to continue on in the relationship that you two are in, she's going to have to take that, yes, that reassurance for an answer.

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slash savage for 20% off your first order. I recommend trying their new massage oil combined with their awaken arousal oil. You can, and will thank me later. Hi, Dan. I'm a mid forties, bisexual woman in a happily married E&M situation. And I have sent my husband and our female partner of two years off to have sex.

their first one-on-one sexual experience tonight. And I have a question about something that she's feeling. So she said she wasn't sure that she got a 100% read from me, that I was 100% okay with them going off one-on-one. And so I've been checking in with myself and trying to feel whether or not I could call it 100%. And

And what I came up with and shared with her is that a big part of the conundrum for me with being in an open relationship is I at once feel a sense of compersion, especially when I get to watch my husband and our female partner hook up, which we've always had threesome situations or just me and her one-on-one situations.

But I also have jealousy. It comes up for me as an intense kind of primal physical experience. Sometimes, especially when they first dated, they were one-on-one with each other and I could feel that kind of primal fear in my body while they were gone together, but I trust them both deeply. And so I was trying to express to her that I want them to have

their experience and am totally trusting of them and trusting of myself to be able to handle the jealousy aspect. And I also think the jealousy aspect is going to be a turn on for me, just knowing what they're up to, seeing them afterward, you know, together or separately feeling like a little left out and like I have to kind of fight for their attention again.

But she's not wired that way. So she's feeling a little anxious, like, I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to ruin our ability to all be together in a positive light in the future. But I think what I've tried to convey is just like, I am kind of wired that way. Like there's a level of need in me for chaos and some pulling on my anxious attachment wounds. And I'm...

pretty healthy around it all. I'm aware of it, but I think that there's like an erotic charge. She's so worried that it's going to mess things up. And my husband trusts me. He knows I've been down that path with him before and come back from it feeling that anxious kind of insecurity, fear show up and then having super hot sex.

that's charged by that afterward. Is there anything I can do to help her feel a little more ease or trust around it? Or am I, you know, gaslighting myself? There's a catch 22 here because your other partner, the woman that your husband is off with right now,

is going to have to see it before she can trust it. And obviously she took your word for it and she took your husband's word for it, that this wouldn't be so terrible. It wouldn't destroy the relationship. Otherwise they wouldn't be off somewhere together alone right now with your permission. So what is it going to be when they get back? When you say that you're a bit of a cuck, it sounds like a bit of a cuck queen, that there's something about toying with the jealousy and the hurt that turns you on.

and you enjoy then in the wake of your husband getting with somebody else as he originally was getting with this woman alone without you having to fight for his attention again. What does that fight look like? What does that fight look

Does it mean that kind of reclamation sex that people talk about who are into swinging or hot wifing or cuckolding where you reunite with your partner after they've been with somebody else and you're kind of reasserting your claim to them, your connection with them, and that sex can be tense and erotically charged and really hot and that's what you're fighting for and looking forward to? Or when you say...

that you need a little bit of that chaos and you need that fight, do you go to pieces? Do you lose your shit? Do you become unpleasant and irrational and combative? And do you lash out? Because if it's the former, if it's just about play and a little bit of

the theater of jealousy, if it's kind of good jealousy, but with a, like a little glaze of bad jealousy and, you know, ripping the scabs off your anxious attachment style, that's fine. Your partner should be able to, your other partner, your female partner should be able to kind of roll with that and enjoy the theater of that too. Once she sees it and sees that it's something you're playing with and not something you're in the thrall of, because if it's the latter, if it's,

You lose your shit. You blow the fuck up and your husband, it's worth it for him to get to be with somebody else knowing that he's coming home to you throwing things and having to be talked off ledges. That might be too much for her. That might not be a place she enjoys going. So which is it? Which is it? Is it playful, fun, jealousy and reclamation sex with a little bit of

Cops and robbers for grownups with your pants off a little bit of erotically charged play acting, or is it you lose your shit and you blow the fuck up? If it's the former, once your other partner sees what that looks like, sees how containable that is and how controlled you actually are as you enjoy inducing a little bit of this anxious attachment style bullshit and jealousy, erotic jealousy, then

Then she'll feel more comfortable and more confident going there with you, going there for you. But if it's a ladder, she's never going to want to go there again. If you spend the next week blowing the fuck up at her and your husband, and there's a ton of drama, you might not ever see this woman ever again because she might be down for some theater, but not down for chaos, not down for real conflict based on the fact that they're already together or

And the tone of your voice, my hunch is that it's the playful jealousy and reclamation sex and a little bit of sand in the shell, a little bit of conflict induced for the erotic charge and not the latter. And your girlfriend, your other partner that you and your husband enjoy spending time with, she's going to see that too tomorrow when they get back. And this won't be a problem going forward.

All right, time for listener feedback. First up, a few comments about last week's show from the comment threads at savage.love. Says Thingamajig, regarding Dan's continuing incredulity at people who demand monogamy but won't have sex with their partners either. I think it often comes down to this. For some people, the point of monogamy is the sacrifice their partner is making.

I want you to prove you love me by agreeing not to have sex with any of the other 8 billion people on the planet. If then I cut you off, you're not having sex with 8 billion and 1 people. All right, that is one way of looking at it. For another way of looking at it, check out the really long and thoughtful series of comments from No Cute Name about how we don't need sex to live a life with meaning. I agree.

wholeheartedly and in no way does agreeing with that statement and no cute names argument

conflict with my belief that a monogamous commitment is a mutual agreement, usually made by two people, sometimes more, not to fuck anybody else and to meet each other's reasonable sexual needs. If one person is not willing or sadly able to be sexual anymore, they don't have to have sex. They don't want to have or can't have. But holding someone to a monogamous commitment that we can't honor anymore, unilaterally declaring someone else's sex life to be over, that is...

Not fair. Says in Contempo as a foreigner listening to the Lovecast, I had to Google truck nuts, Idaho to make sure Dan's opening wasn't an April Fool's Day joke. And also because I didn't know what truck nuts were. Not a joke. Last week's opening of the show, although it did come out on April Fool's Day. Yes, the state legislature in Idaho said,

Not serious people who somehow managed to do serious harm to the people of Idaho every day declared an emergency and banned truck nuts and bear boobies in the state of Idaho. Says Coyote Den, LOL truck nuts. They don't even have to look like human balls. In fact, I've seen a pair of

of big heavy metal hex nuts hanging from a chain at the back of a truck, which seems funny until you realize what could happen if one of those came loose at highway speeds. I very quickly change lanes when I see that.

If I knew how to drive, Coyote Dan and I was on the highway and I saw that, I would change lanes too. All right, for more reader comments, go to savage.love, click on the latest Lovecast or column, scroll down to the bottom, and there you will find an amazing community of thoughtful, kind, compassionate people. People who sometimes see a listener's question or problem from a different angle than I do, sometimes have a different take, and I'll admit it every once in a while,

have better advice for a listener or a reader than I do. Join the convo now at savage.love.

And now some of the voicemail Savage Love listeners left on our answering machine about last week's show. Hey, Dan. I wanted to comment on the woman who says that her ex was acting weird in front of his wife and in front of her partner. And she thinks that he ghosted her because the wife put the kibosh on things because she's...

insecure. I think that maybe in actuality her ex and his wife are swingers and they were trying to test the waters with you and your partner and once he realized that you guys wasn't picking that up and maybe not on the same page, he was embarrassed by his advances and so that's why he ghosted you because he's

He's embarrassed that you think that you're judging him or you think that they're freaks or whatever the case may be. So, yeah, did you ever consider that, that they might be swingers and they might be into you and your man?

Hi, this is in response to the man who called because his wife can't have intercourse anymore. Thank you so much for playing that call and for having the doctor on, the expert. That has been my issue for about 10 years, and it's awful and shameful, and hardly anyone talks about it. I do want to say that my husband and I have found a solution, which is the sex between the thighs.

It sounds crazy, but it works for him, and I'm just really relieved I got that idea from you, Dan. Thank you so much for bringing attention to this really, I guess, common issue.

And we are going to leave it there. Got a question for me? Go to savage.love slash askdan to record and upload your question directly onto our website. Or you can make a voice memo on your very own phone and email us your question or your comment to q at savage.love. Or you can call us at 206-302-2064 and leave us a message on our answering machine.

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The Savage Lovecast is produced every week by Nancy Hartunian and me and the tech savvy at-risk youth and Nancy. We will all be back at you next week with another installment of the Savage Lovecast. Thank you, as ever, for that. We appreciate it so much.