Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's some one soul mate. It's not like there's one.
Speaker 1: Although bon Jovi is my soul mate, there's always exceptions.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that gossiping is the same as if
Speaker 1: I'm picking lice out of your scalp and eating it. Well,
Speaker 1: you've done both, So what do you think? I want
Speaker 1: to give her too much? I don't like her to
Speaker 1: come in with an inflated head, so we won't mentioned
Speaker 1: the Golden Globe. After all we've been through. We deserve
Speaker 1: an orgasm. Cis I deserve? Okay, Welcome to Go ask Ali.
Speaker 1: I am Ali Wentworth and this season, I'm digging into
Speaker 1: everything I can get my hands on. I'm peeling back
Speaker 1: to layers and I'm getting dirty. I mean like really dirty,
Speaker 1: like sexy dirty. Because I'm talking to a renowned sex
Speaker 1: expert about how we're all faring coming out of this demic.
Speaker 1: How did everyone do? My gosh, did your sex life
Speaker 1: survived during the pandemic? Are you having safer sex now
Speaker 1: that you have condoms and masks as the world opens up?
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky to say that during the pandemic, my
Speaker 1: husband and I continued to have great sex, and not
Speaker 1: so much for some of the people I know. I
Speaker 1: have friends that got divorced during the pandemic. I have
Speaker 1: friends that met people during the pandemic. Um, I have
Speaker 1: friends that became closer to their vibrator during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So everybody had very different experiences sexually. Listen, there's so
Speaker 1: much to cover when it comes to human sexuality. It
Speaker 1: is a endless wonder to me. So nobody better than
Speaker 1: Dan Savage to talk about all things sc X Dan Savage.
Speaker 1: He's a columnist, podcaster, and author. His syndicated Savage Love
Speaker 1: sex advice column has been running for thirty years. He
Speaker 1: became one of the original podcasters in two thousand and
Speaker 1: six when he started Savage Love Cast, which is still
Speaker 1: going strong. He's published half a dozen books on sex
Speaker 1: and relationship. His newest book, Savage Love from eight Z,
Speaker 1: was just published last fall. Dan and his husband Terry
Speaker 1: Miller found the award winning It Gets Better project, which
Speaker 1: offers support and hope to l g B t Q
Speaker 1: plus kids. Hello Dance, I have a lot of questions
Speaker 1: for you, but I want to start with saying, I've
Speaker 1: been wondering during COVID during the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: how is anybody dating. I've known some single friends who
Speaker 1: have been having relationships that they established online, but they
Speaker 1: haven't seen each other. They like, have wine together, you know,
Speaker 1: this weird sort of cyber relationship. Are you hearing that too? Yeah,
Speaker 1: early on in the pandemic, a lot of people were
Speaker 1: having virtual relationships, even you know, having cyber sex but
Speaker 1: dating line. I think a lot of those people have
Speaker 1: transitioned to dating in real life, in the flesh now
Speaker 1: that people are vaccinated. But yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: who had never really given the Internet a chance when
Speaker 1: it came to finding partners are dating suddenly adopted it,
Speaker 1: were urged to adopt it by by health departments because
Speaker 1: you know, even though there was a pandemic raging and
Speaker 1: we were ordered to socially distance. If I make quote,
Speaker 1: would he allen the heart wants what the heart wants,
Speaker 1: and people still wanted that kind of connection. And I
Speaker 1: think what's often really important about dating is the affirmation,
Speaker 1: you know, the minder that you are an object and
Speaker 1: a desirable one as well as human being. I'm a
Speaker 1: smart one. And people needed that, and the Internet made
Speaker 1: it possible for this pandemic to be a little different
Speaker 1: than it would have been. You know, before the Internet
Speaker 1: came along, the isolation was really much less acute, although
Speaker 1: a lot of people felt it. You know, I had
Speaker 1: friends who didn't see another living human being in the
Speaker 1: flow for a year, but they were able to stay connected.
Speaker 1: We were socially distant, but not emotionally distant. The silver
Speaker 1: lining about social media. But I will say I had
Speaker 1: a few friends that were dating online and then when
Speaker 1: things opened up a little and then they met the person,
Speaker 1: it was even though they were looking at each other,
Speaker 1: it was not what they expected. But I guess that
Speaker 1: goes hand in hand with online dating. Yeah, well that's
Speaker 1: why before the pandemic the advice was, you know, if
Speaker 1: you meet somebody online through a dating app, you know,
Speaker 1: schedule that first in person meeting before you make a
Speaker 1: huge investment of time or emotional energy, because you can't
Speaker 1: always know, like how you're gonna vibe with someone in person,
Speaker 1: that that chemical spark that's going to be there. You
Speaker 1: can see all their pictures, and their pictures can be accurate,
Speaker 1: and that first time that you meet face to face,
Speaker 1: it just might not click. There are three feet shorter
Speaker 1: than you, and you you didn't know, so have you heard?
Speaker 1: Because I'm curious during COVID and people finally meeting face
Speaker 1: to face, how big is the vaccine? How big a
Speaker 1: role does it play? Because I can only think, and
Speaker 1: you know, I've been married for a thousand years, even
Speaker 1: before online dating existed, but I would imagine for me
Speaker 1: it would be a big deal. You see it on
Speaker 1: a lot of people's personal ads, vaxed. I've been with
Speaker 1: my husband since before online dating was the thing, before
Speaker 1: the internet was a thing. But I sometimes go on
Speaker 1: just to like stay current because I do have to
Speaker 1: talk about these things that people who are dating now.
Speaker 1: And you know, I see so often people mentioning they're
Speaker 1: vaccinated that it's conspicuous when I feel like you need
Speaker 1: to say that you're vaxed, that everyone should be vaxed.
Speaker 1: And if you don't say that you're vaxed on your
Speaker 1: dating profile, I think it's fair for people to assume
Speaker 1: you're not and to stay the funk away from you.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, do you know if watching porn just went
Speaker 1: with the roof during COVID? Yeah, watching porn absolutely went
Speaker 1: through the roof during COVID. You know, social media, it's
Speaker 1: a double edged sword. The more explicit kinds of social
Speaker 1: media are also a double edged sword. I've always thought
Speaker 1: of the Internet as kind of a hammer. You can
Speaker 1: pick it up and build something, or you can pick
Speaker 1: it up and beat someone to death. One of things
Speaker 1: I like about the Internet when it comes to our
Speaker 1: sex lives is it's made it possible for people with
Speaker 1: niche sexual interest to connect with other people who share
Speaker 1: them all over the country. It's shrunk the world and
Speaker 1: made a lot of relationships happen and possible. It allows
Speaker 1: people to share pictures and videos they make of themselves.
Speaker 1: I think most of the porn that's made or shared
Speaker 1: on any given day in this country is amateur and
Speaker 1: between consenting adults and its lovers and friends, and that
Speaker 1: poinn doesn't make it onto porn hub ideally, because you
Speaker 1: know somebody share something with you privately, you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to put it on porn hub. But so much of
Speaker 1: what people are doing when they're swapping dirty picks and
Speaker 1: videos is swapping dirty picks and videos of themselves with
Speaker 1: people who want to see them. That it's interesting you
Speaker 1: bring this up because that is sort of a newer phenomenon,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I don't remember when I was, you know,
Speaker 1: young and single and free. I don't remember that being
Speaker 1: a thing. I didn't send my boyfriend's naked nor did
Speaker 1: I get dick pics from them. You can only get
Speaker 1: you can only get dick etches sketches then, or to
Speaker 1: cocktail napkin drawings. It's not the same thing. Yeah, unless
Speaker 1: he had a polaroid camera, and even then polaroids had
Speaker 1: to be passed around or pastor in person to person.
Speaker 1: It was the phone in our pocket with the camera
Speaker 1: on it, and then internet access that you know, made
Speaker 1: showing off for each other and you know, the tease
Speaker 1: with the visuals a part of most people's sex lives,
Speaker 1: and not just single people's sex lives. Tracy Clark Flori
Speaker 1: as a sex writer, and she wrote a piece about
Speaker 1: how she sexed all the time with her husband and
Speaker 1: it's improved their sex lives. They like flirt and swap
Speaker 1: pictures of themselves, and I think that's really really common,
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the benefits. Unless somebody
Speaker 1: else gets a hand of them, right, unless they escape
Speaker 1: out into the wild but I think we're reaching a
Speaker 1: kind of tipping point where everybody's going to have dirty
Speaker 1: pictures out there somewhere. There'll be less of a negative
Speaker 1: impact or consequence for a person if they're but direaty
Speaker 1: pictures somehow go public because instead of looking at someone's
Speaker 1: dirty pictures and going, oh my god, what a terrible
Speaker 1: person that they would do that, now you look at
Speaker 1: somebody's dirty pictures and you go, well, there, but for
Speaker 1: the grace of God, go I I have my own
Speaker 1: dirty pictures out there. We're all in this together, right,
Speaker 1: But it didn't exist when I was younger. But I
Speaker 1: feel like I lecture my girls about it because you know,
Speaker 1: that's a big thing in the teen world, and you
Speaker 1: know that gets into a whole other thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: then it's like child pornography, and it's sort of a
Speaker 1: scary slippery slope with that. It's child pornography. And there
Speaker 1: been prosecutions of kids who've taken pictures of themselves, which
Speaker 1: is a little fucked up. Ye, we do need to
Speaker 1: warn our kids about taking and sharing photographs. We also
Speaker 1: need to get on our kids about not sharing a
Speaker 1: photo that was shared with you privately. Yes, yes, because
Speaker 1: that's the real consent violation. That's the thing that's shameful
Speaker 1: and that should be stigmatized. It makes me bananas when
Speaker 1: you know some girls photos were spread around to school
Speaker 1: and that girl gets suspended. It's everybody who shared that
Speaker 1: photo who should be suspended, not just high school kids.
Speaker 1: Like adults will do that too. You know, we do
Speaker 1: need to have an out back of our heads. If
Speaker 1: we take and share a photograph, a phone can be hacked,
Speaker 1: somebody can share that photograph with someone they think they
Speaker 1: can trust. Too, can't be trusted. You're really not in
Speaker 1: control of it anymore. The future that I'm imagining is
Speaker 1: one where since all of us are most of us
Speaker 1: have photos online, it can't be used to socially harm anybody,
Speaker 1: any individual anymore, in the same way finding out that
Speaker 1: somebody has used pot doesn't destroy a career anymore. And
Speaker 1: I think we're getting there with dirty photos where oh,
Speaker 1: you've never taken one, Well, that's odd because almost everyone has.
Speaker 1: And therefore, you know, in my idealized future, it can't
Speaker 1: do the damage that it has done to some people's
Speaker 1: lives and careers. Now that's of course very different when
Speaker 1: someone's under age when someone is a minor. In the
Speaker 1: same way sexual activity can pland differently when you're under
Speaker 1: age and experience not ready for it. You know, I
Speaker 1: think a thirty year old who's shared a bunch of
Speaker 1: photographs can shrug off one of those ending up on
Speaker 1: the Internet or a friend finding them in a way
Speaker 1: that a fourteen year old can't. Yeah, I completely agree,
Speaker 1: and I liken it too. When they're the sex tapes
Speaker 1: on VHS was a thing, you know, It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: who's making a sex tape? And that was terrifying, And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden they all get leaked and
Speaker 1: you've seen them all, and you know the back of
Speaker 1: the day when I was like, oh, who's this Kim Kardashian,
Speaker 1: you know, so you're Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. Remember
Speaker 1: when their sex tape got out there, somebody's doing a
Speaker 1: big movie about it. Yeah, but I remember that was
Speaker 1: like a really big deal. And now, you know, even
Speaker 1: that has become sort of dismissed as a yeah, just
Speaker 1: a sex tape. Paris Hilton is testifying before Congress about
Speaker 1: those wilderness campboarding schools and being taken seriously as she
Speaker 1: should be on that and you know, it hasn't heard
Speaker 1: Kim Kardashian's career that her first entry and kind of
Speaker 1: into public consciousness was because of a sex tape. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think Pamela Anderson after this movie comes out,
Speaker 1: is going to be She's gonna have a revival, not
Speaker 1: be like sent away in Shame. And that's as it
Speaker 1: should be. You know, when you think about our sex lives,
Speaker 1: almost universally now, for young people their very first sexual experiences,
Speaker 1: tech is the medium that their first sort of you know,
Speaker 1: used to be like your imagination or a stray porn
Speaker 1: bag if you can get your hands on one, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, or the series catalog underwear section and you know,
Speaker 1: eighty years ago and now like so many people's first
Speaker 1: sexual experiences are sitting in front of computers, are looking
Speaker 1: at phones, and those are interactive devices, so you can
Speaker 1: you're not just like taking it in, you can also
Speaker 1: put it out there. And it makes a kind of
Speaker 1: sense that so many people have incorporated technology into their
Speaker 1: sexual expression, into their sex lives almost effortlessly, because people
Speaker 1: who are thirty now or five now had their first iPhones,
Speaker 1: which are really porn production studios in their pockets when
Speaker 1: they were teenagers and they've always been with them. And
Speaker 1: you know, a computer or phone isn't just for communicating
Speaker 1: or texting or reading Twitter. It's also for looking at porn,
Speaker 1: learning about sex, reading, connecting, finding sex partners. It's a
Speaker 1: porn production studio, it's a singles bar, it's really everything.
Speaker 1: And so that people are filming themselves having sex and
Speaker 1: in an kind of effortless, un self conscious way totally
Speaker 1: makes sense. We should have seen this coming. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at your face and you're smiling, so you approve of this.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a great thing. I think it's
Speaker 1: a thing. It's a thing. Yeah, it can you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I said, it's a hammer. You can build
Speaker 1: something or destroy something with it. The video that you
Speaker 1: made today and shared with your lover. Relationships go south.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you were with somebody and they become a vindictive
Speaker 1: X and they have these things that they could, you know,
Speaker 1: send to your mom and your coworkers. And that has
Speaker 1: happened to men and women. Do you have callers that
Speaker 1: have called in about that? Oh? Yeah, yeah, lots of
Speaker 1: revenge porn stories. And I'm happy to say now that
Speaker 1: like there are revenge porn statutes, and I think thirty
Speaker 1: states more. When I first started talking about this issue
Speaker 1: on my podcast, there were no revenge porn statutes anywhere.
Speaker 1: It was not a crime too. You know, if you
Speaker 1: had someone's pictures or video to email it to everyone
Speaker 1: at their workplace, it was not a crime. Now it's
Speaker 1: a crime, and people have been prosecuted, and its shifted
Speaker 1: some of the hopefully stigma, shame, and consequences onto the
Speaker 1: shoulders of people who should be stigmatis and face consequences
Speaker 1: for this kind of behavior. Not the person who took
Speaker 1: a picture of her tits or his dick and send
Speaker 1: it to somebody who wanted to see the tits or
Speaker 1: the tick, but the person who then tried to destroy
Speaker 1: someone's life with that picture. Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, social media is just the wild West, and
Speaker 1: so I'm happy to hear there are laws about revenge porn.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more to come after this short break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. You know, we're coming out of COVID. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit safer to be out and about. I
Speaker 1: would imagine your callers and some of the things you're
Speaker 1: dealing with on your podcast are a little shifted. Now
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that you're hearing from people,
Speaker 1: or concerns or great things. Even the great thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, people are anxious to get out there. Right
Speaker 1: before the pandemic hit, there was a lot of writing
Speaker 1: and talking about a sex recession. The younger people were
Speaker 1: having less sex or waiting till they were older, right,
Speaker 1: or waiting till they were older. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you're as old as I am, you remember when the
Speaker 1: moral panic was young people having too much sex and
Speaker 1: rainbow parties and teen pregnancies and high st I rates
Speaker 1: among young people. I got to ask you, what is
Speaker 1: a rainbow party? It was a It was bullshit. It
Speaker 1: was this thing that ran around in the nineties that
Speaker 1: high school students were all getting together and the girls
Speaker 1: were putting on different shades of lipstick, and then the
Speaker 1: boys on their penises were collecting rings until their penises
Speaker 1: looked like rainbows. Okay, and that's just not how Dick's work,
Speaker 1: or lips work or lipstick works. And yet people believe
Speaker 1: this was a thing, a rainbow party. Okay. Now the
Speaker 1: concern is that people aren't having sex. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people a getting back out there. Unfortunately, people
Speaker 1: are getting back out there and not being safe. We
Speaker 1: are seeing a huge explosion in the last six months
Speaker 1: in s t I rates. So people who did the
Speaker 1: right thing and took care to be safe from COVID
Speaker 1: are running out of the house now that they're vaccinated
Speaker 1: and there's some degree of normalcy and being cavalier taking
Speaker 1: risks around styes. Isn't syphilis on the rise right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: simphilis is on the rise, Ganaria, clamydia all on the rise.
Speaker 1: And we may see when we can finally have the data.
Speaker 1: But this year that s t I rates are higher
Speaker 1: in the United States, that's the projection, higher now than
Speaker 1: they have ever been in history. That's a problem, and
Speaker 1: that's in a circumstance where more people are waiting, where
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a sex recession. There are lots
Speaker 1: of people young man who've never had a sex partner,
Speaker 1: and yet we are seeing this often driven by the
Speaker 1: game mail community boom in s t S so that
Speaker 1: because they feel they're vaccinated, so the imminent death threat
Speaker 1: or imminent health concern is taken care of, and so
Speaker 1: they're not really thinking about their sexual health. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: people engage in a little bit of magical thinking like
Speaker 1: I did all I did the right thing during COVID. Therefore,
Speaker 1: like the universe owes me this risk. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to wear a condom because I
Speaker 1: wore a mask. I shouldn't have to wear a condom
Speaker 1: because I wore a mask. People engage in a lot
Speaker 1: of magical thinking when they're horny, not just people with penises.
Speaker 1: People without penises too, engaging a lot of magical thinking
Speaker 1: and rationalizations. One more thing about STI is it's sort
Speaker 1: of a tragedy. I had a call and I talked
Speaker 1: about this with an epidemiologist on my show, that if
Speaker 1: we were all going to be locked in, remember early
Speaker 1: in the pandemic, when we thought wuld be two months,
Speaker 1: three months, everyone who had been exposed to an STI,
Speaker 1: their symptoms would appear. And if everybody got treated during lockdown,
Speaker 1: we could eradicate not HIV, not HPV, and not herpies
Speaker 1: because they persist in our bodies, but chlamydia, syphilis and ganahea.
Speaker 1: If like nobody touched anybody for three months and then
Speaker 1: everybody who was symptomatic it got treated, then when we
Speaker 1: all got back out there, there would be no Simples's
Speaker 1: kind of real climity, but it did not work out
Speaker 1: that way. Well, I don't remember anyone telling everybody to
Speaker 1: do that. That would have been a great idea. Where
Speaker 1: were you, Dan? I talked about it on my show.
Speaker 1: The problem is that like people don't have access to healthcare. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, we were providing people with free COVID screenings,
Speaker 1: providing people with free vaccines when they came out, not
Speaker 1: charging people if they wound up in the hospital for COVID.
Speaker 1: But if you know you don't have access to a
Speaker 1: primary care physician and you don't have enough money because
Speaker 1: you're broken, unemployed and at home during lockdown to pay
Speaker 1: for the meds, you know a lot of people just
Speaker 1: tough out a sexually transmitted infection and and didn't get treated.
Speaker 1: And not everybody, of course, um stayed in during lockdown. Yes,
Speaker 1: certainly during lockdown when you see the beach parties in
Speaker 1: Florida and stuff, that seemed like a big festival of STD.
Speaker 1: So Um, I have a question for you with orgies.
Speaker 1: What happens if you go to an orgy? This is
Speaker 1: I'm asking for a friend. If you go to an
Speaker 1: orgy and there's a bunch of people there and somebody's
Speaker 1: not vaccinated. You know, if there's one unvaccinated person at
Speaker 1: an event, the risk for the vaccinated is low. The
Speaker 1: risk really is for the unvaccinated people. They're dying. And
Speaker 1: what is it nine ten times the rate of the vaccinated.
Speaker 1: Are hospitals that are, you know, not as overwhelmed now
Speaker 1: as they were a month or two ago, but still mobbed.
Speaker 1: It's the unvaccinated. So one unvaccinated person managing to get
Speaker 1: into your orgy? All right, whatever? The question? You know what,
Speaker 1: the question I keep getting isn't about orgies. It's about weddings. Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought the two went hand in hand. I mean,
Speaker 1: that'd be fun, I think so. I don't think getting
Speaker 1: married should be the end of a sexual adventure and pleasure.
Speaker 1: I think people should be able to go to the
Speaker 1: occasional orgy or sex party after they're marriage. I certainly
Speaker 1: have um with my husband. Yeah, the question I get
Speaker 1: it's the you know, I'm going home to a wedding
Speaker 1: and they're not vaccinated, the bride and groom, and they're
Speaker 1: not requiring anyone to be vaccinated, and they're inviting old
Speaker 1: people in the family to attend. And I'm vaccinated, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to go because you know, even if
Speaker 1: you're vaxed, you can still get infected, absolutely breakthrough cases
Speaker 1: like Cold and Powell perfect example. So you're a big
Speaker 1: LGBTQ activist, and one of the things that I was
Speaker 1: reading and talking to people about during COVID was how
Speaker 1: many gay and trans kids were then in lockdown with
Speaker 1: people that didn't accept who they were and it was
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult for them and their mental health. So did
Speaker 1: you find when you spoke to a lot of people
Speaker 1: from especially younger people in that community, that was the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the world is different now. When I came
Speaker 1: out when I was a teenage, I rare ok for
Speaker 1: gay men of my generation, and then I came out
Speaker 1: in high school. It was more common for gaymen of
Speaker 1: my generation to come out in college or after college.
Speaker 1: And the assumption then if you were gay and a
Speaker 1: teenager now it was that your family was hostile. The
Speaker 1: assumption now is like, you know, your family is probably
Speaker 1: in your corner. And we've seen that again and again
Speaker 1: with families even in like Red States defending their queer
Speaker 1: children in a way that would have blown our minds
Speaker 1: in the eighties that said, it's an often unacknowledged fact
Speaker 1: in the lives of a lot of queer young people
Speaker 1: that the worst bullying they face isn't at school, it's
Speaker 1: at home. And for a lot of young queer kids,
Speaker 1: school is the refuge. At home is the mine field.
Speaker 1: And I heard from kids, heard from teenagers who no
Speaker 1: longer could go to the g s a who no
Speaker 1: longer could go to school and not feel policed by bullying.
Speaker 1: Parents are scrutinized by hostile siblings about their gender presentation
Speaker 1: or their second orientation. And that was very, very stressful.
Speaker 1: That said, you have you ever heard of P flag
Speaker 1: parents and friends of lesbians and gays? When I was,
Speaker 1: you know, in the early eighties, when P flag would
Speaker 1: come up the street, everyone would lose it. At the
Speaker 1: Pride parade, everyone would be bawling because so many of
Speaker 1: us at the Pride parade watching Godby didn't have parents
Speaker 1: who loved us. A lot of us were estranged from
Speaker 1: our parents. And to see parents marching in the Pride
Speaker 1: parade and to sometimes you know, I'm gonna try talking
Speaker 1: about it. I'm gonna gay men and lesbians like be
Speaker 1: hugged by a parent did not even their parents and
Speaker 1: lose it. God bless P Flag and they've done such
Speaker 1: great and important work. It doesn't have the same emotional
Speaker 1: impact when P Flag walks up the street in the
Speaker 1: Pride parade. Now everyone is deliriously happy to see them.
Speaker 1: Is that as devastating because it's no longer the default
Speaker 1: expectation that a gay person who's out has a terrible
Speaker 1: relationship with their parents, or that our parents don't love us.
Speaker 1: It's almost shocking now when you hear from a gay
Speaker 1: person in the West, in the United States whose parents,
Speaker 1: even if they had a bad reaction at first, have
Speaker 1: not yet come around and don't love and accept them.
Speaker 1: And that's what we fought for. We want to live
Speaker 1: in a world where the expectation is that you will
Speaker 1: have the love and support of your family, if not immediately,
Speaker 1: hopefully shortly after you come out. The social norms and
Speaker 1: expectations have changed. It's a bitter irony that some parents
Speaker 1: rejected their gay kids because they thought that's what they
Speaker 1: had to do to be good people, because they didn't
Speaker 1: want to be judged or shamed for accepting their gay kids.
Speaker 1: You know, forty years ago, what would the neighbors think
Speaker 1: if I was okay about my kid being gay. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not be okay about it lest I be judged.
Speaker 1: Now people are judged when they don't accept they're gay kids,
Speaker 1: and thank god, and they should be, but it you know,
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's thirty who's such a lovely person,
Speaker 1: and you know, his father was dying, and he was
Speaker 1: the one who went home and took care of his father,
Speaker 1: and his dad was very hostile about him being gay.
Speaker 1: Kind of came around, but his mom, even after his
Speaker 1: father's death, his mom is still like, you're going to
Speaker 1: hell and you need to repent and you need to
Speaker 1: stop this. He was the one who went home, He
Speaker 1: was the one who was there for his parents as
Speaker 1: his father died, and his mother is still like bullying him.
Speaker 1: It affects him in a way that you know, of course,
Speaker 1: how could it not. Yeah, the only comparison is, like
Speaker 1: you know, transracial adoptions, mixed race kids sometimes feel like
Speaker 1: they have a racist parent, and it is devastating. I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine to be gay or trans or by
Speaker 1: and have a parent who is you're the worst bullying
Speaker 1: in your life and the one you can an't escape,
Speaker 1: and the one who's approval on some level, you always
Speaker 1: crave and who's the withdrawal of their love? You will
Speaker 1: always feel right and be punished by and yeah, be
Speaker 1: wounded by. Yeah. I sometime get in trouble with some
Speaker 1: people in the gay community because I will tell or
Speaker 1: the LGBT community, I will tell you know, gay kids
Speaker 1: who want to come out to wait. I'm the one
Speaker 1: who will tell a fifteen year old gay boy that
Speaker 1: coming out is not the end of all of your troubles,
Speaker 1: it's the beginning of new troubles. And if your parents
Speaker 1: are really hostile. Homeless kids, homeless miners are LGBT kids
Speaker 1: who are kicked out or thrown out after they came out,
Speaker 1: and they're only like three or four of the population,
Speaker 1: so they're disproportionately represented among homeless youth. And so, my god,
Speaker 1: if you're fifteen and you think your parents might throw
Speaker 1: you out on the street, maybe you should wait. You know,
Speaker 1: their parents taught them not to lie, and now they're
Speaker 1: having to lie to their parents. And I've told kids
Speaker 1: like that's a lot you tell your parents under duress,
Speaker 1: and it's their fault. You have to tell that lie,
Speaker 1: and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. So if you
Speaker 1: have to lie to your parents that they're paying for
Speaker 1: your college and they'll withdraw that support if you tell
Speaker 1: them you're gay, don't tell them you're gay till you
Speaker 1: got your first job. Then tell them you're right until
Speaker 1: you're more independent. Yeah, And it's on them that you
Speaker 1: couldn't be honest with them, not on you. It's their familing,
Speaker 1: not yours. Right, we're gonna take a short break and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back, and we're back. Did you find
Speaker 1: that a lot of people kind of lost their libido
Speaker 1: during COVID Justin Leigh Miller, who's a sex researcher and
Speaker 1: writer host of the Sex and Psychology podcast at Kinsey Institute.
Speaker 1: They've been tracking it. They've been gathering data throughout the pandemic.
Speaker 1: The data is a little maddening, and how sort of
Speaker 1: right down the middle it falls roughly half of people
Speaker 1: during the pandemics, all their libidos tank, Roughly half of
Speaker 1: people during the pandemics, all their libidos just skyrocket. So interesting,
Speaker 1: and do they know why. No, it's just like some
Speaker 1: people reacted to the stress in the isolation by just
Speaker 1: being super horny, and some people reacted to it by
Speaker 1: shutting down sexually, you know that feeling of confinement for
Speaker 1: some people like to have to sit with your thoughts
Speaker 1: or sit alone in your home. Their thoughts go to
Speaker 1: sex and they can feel it. The real problem was,
Speaker 1: like everyone who's libido tanked wasn't necessarily in a relationship
Speaker 1: with someone else who's libido tanked. And some people were
Speaker 1: in mixed tanked relationships. Mind tank, yours did in my tank,
Speaker 1: your skyrocketed. Now what do we do now You're super
Speaker 1: frustrated or I'm having to do things I don't want
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, exactly. It's much more complicated than the
Speaker 1: statistics that said, you know, a lot of people ended
Speaker 1: up getting divorced or separating or breaking up because they
Speaker 1: were confined together and it wasn't working. Some people thrived
Speaker 1: with it, but I would imagine sexually, I mean, to
Speaker 1: get both trains on the same track are a little
Speaker 1: bit difficult. I mean, I can only speak for myself.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank god I have a healthy sex life
Speaker 1: with my husband. But there were moments during lockdown with
Speaker 1: my dark roots coming in and I've just packed on
Speaker 1: ten pounds because I'm living for Ben and Jerry's at night,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't feel sexual because my own health
Speaker 1: wasn't thriving. I would imagine, like you said that, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to get you and your partner kind of
Speaker 1: symbiotic anyway. Yeah, not during a pandemic. It's hard to
Speaker 1: be on the same page all the time, and you
Speaker 1: have to seize those opportunities when they come. I'm a
Speaker 1: big proponent of maintenance sex. I'm a big proponent of
Speaker 1: assisted masturbation. Uh. Sometimes you you know what's maintenance sex.
Speaker 1: You have sex with your partner because they want to
Speaker 1: have sex. It's not like perhaps the most off the
Speaker 1: wall or energetic or athletic sex you might have. But
Speaker 1: you're just like you're being a good partner. You're being
Speaker 1: a good partner. And this gets dicey when you talk
Speaker 1: about sort of men and women. I's gonna say every woman,
Speaker 1: every female audience person right now is going, oh, girl,
Speaker 1: I know what that is. Yeah. Yeah, you know, women
Speaker 1: are socialized to defer to men and not say no
Speaker 1: to men. And you know a lot of the standard
Speaker 1: advices now you should never have sex that you don't
Speaker 1: want to have. Well, there's sometimes you might want to
Speaker 1: have sex, but not because you want to have sex there.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you might want to have sex to meet your
Speaker 1: partner's needs to maintain the relationship, or you know, the
Speaker 1: expectation that your partner will do the same for you
Speaker 1: if you're horny and they're not. I think it's really
Speaker 1: important and sexually exclusive relationships that you make an effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think there are times for
Speaker 1: me where I feel like, yeah, he's he's in a
Speaker 1: sexy mood, and I don't want to be the one
Speaker 1: in the turnalneck sweater nightgown going like don't touch me,
Speaker 1: don't look at me, and you know I I do
Speaker 1: it for him. But there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 1: this wave of empowerment where people say like only when
Speaker 1: I want on my terms, and I think that that
Speaker 1: just hurts the relationship in the long run. I think
Speaker 1: it does hurt the relationship in the long run. And
Speaker 1: there's something you can get out of sex other than sex, intimacy, connection, release,
Speaker 1: And often when you're having maintenance sex, you catch a
Speaker 1: groove and suddenly you're having sex that you want to
Speaker 1: have to y and you deny yourself all of those
Speaker 1: opportunities to like catch that groove and suddenly be into
Speaker 1: it and really glad your partner instigated and you went there.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I often suggest to people besides
Speaker 1: maintenance sects, you know, I say this straight guys all
Speaker 1: the time. If every time you said yes to sex
Speaker 1: you're as scot fucked, you'd say yes, probably less often
Speaker 1: than you might otherwise. Then, you know, penetration can be
Speaker 1: a high bar for the penetrate t sometimes, so be
Speaker 1: willing to like mutual masturbation, light oral rolling around. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes maintenance sex isn't intercourse. Sometimes maintenance sex is what
Speaker 1: I like to call assisted masturbation. And if you're open
Speaker 1: to that and you don't guilt your partner about it
Speaker 1: or treat it like a sad consolation prize, but as
Speaker 1: actual sex, you'll have more and better yes and hence
Speaker 1: it's a stronger relationship. Before I let you go and
Speaker 1: have sex, I'm going to go out a sandwich. Tell
Speaker 1: me this for people that sort of got through the
Speaker 1: pandemic with a pretty good sexual relationship, For people that
Speaker 1: are now sort of crawling out from under the rocks
Speaker 1: and looking for other sexual partners, what kind of advice
Speaker 1: can you give us? Now? Well, if you've been not
Speaker 1: very sexually active throughout the pandemic. Get tested before you
Speaker 1: get out there. You have get an s t I screening.
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes people can have GONERI in their throat.
Speaker 1: They can have GONA and the rear end and they
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of symptoms and a syphilis or
Speaker 1: it can be very subtle, you know, and then it
Speaker 1: goes away and you stop thinking about it. But you
Speaker 1: have syphilis and you can be infectionous. So if you
Speaker 1: haven't been screened in a while, get screened, and if
Speaker 1: you do have something, get treated before you get out there.
Speaker 1: But I think my only other piece of advice is
Speaker 1: one of the things we should take away from the pandemic,
Speaker 1: all of us, is something that a lot of game
Speaker 1: men took away from the HIV epidemic. Life is short
Speaker 1: and precious. You don't have as much time to waste
Speaker 1: as you think. So ask for what you want and
Speaker 1: go look for what you want and find somebody who
Speaker 1: you're what they want, and the things that you want
Speaker 1: to do are the things that they want to do.
Speaker 1: I'm always in the position of telling people to kind
Speaker 1: of embrace rejection. You know, people will not be fully
Speaker 1: who they are with somebody they're afraid of being rejected.
Speaker 1: They won't ask for what they want because like, and
Speaker 1: then what if the person doesn't want that and they
Speaker 1: reject me. Well, if they don't want what you want,
Speaker 1: then you're not a match and it's going to end
Speaker 1: eventually any way. So put it out there in a
Speaker 1: you know, an emotionally intelligent and reasonable way. You don't like,
Speaker 1: blurt out all your kinks in the first date, but
Speaker 1: lay that out there and if they're not into you,
Speaker 1: bye bye, Yeah, put it out there. Don't fear rejection.
Speaker 1: Rejections your friend. As painful as rejection is, because the
Speaker 1: sooner somebody that's not right for you rejects you, the
Speaker 1: sooner you land in the bed, in the lap, and
Speaker 1: the life of someone who's right for you not perfect.
Speaker 1: There's no perfect, there's no the one. There's only the
Speaker 1: point six four that you round up to the one.
Speaker 1: But rejection gets you to that person faster. And what
Speaker 1: about people that have been in long term relationships? Any
Speaker 1: advice for them? Now? Don't pull the plug. You know,
Speaker 1: this was the pandemic and all the time we had
Speaker 1: to spend with our partners. That's not normal. And some
Speaker 1: people are over determining and saying, well, because I couldn't
Speaker 1: be with this person locked into one bedroom up Parkman
Speaker 1: in Manhattan twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
Speaker 1: for months on end, obviously this isn't the right person
Speaker 1: for me. No, no, No, time away is good and
Speaker 1: that will come back now into your life. Don't look
Speaker 1: at your partner and say, because I can't be with
Speaker 1: you twenty four hours a day, I shouldn't be with
Speaker 1: you at all. Look at your partner and say, well,
Speaker 1: we'll get back to that time away that we all
Speaker 1: need from our partners. It was really an unprecedented time
Speaker 1: that we've all been through, and you know, we we
Speaker 1: underestimate the anxiety and so many of the other factors
Speaker 1: that played into it, which make it hard for yourself,
Speaker 1: for your partner, for everything, for sex, for love. You
Speaker 1: have to make sure you're making an instiction between I
Speaker 1: can't stand this person, and you know, the being with
Speaker 1: them all the time just really made me face that
Speaker 1: and be honest with myself about it. Or I've spent
Speaker 1: so much time with this person that I can't stand it.
Speaker 1: I can't stand spending so much time with one person.
Speaker 1: You know, we need other friends, we need work, colleagues.
Speaker 1: We need to leave the house and move through the
Speaker 1: day and then be excited to see somebody. You know.
Speaker 1: When it comes to sex in relationship advice, literally every
Speaker 1: cliche applies. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: believe me, nothing turns me on more than when my
Speaker 1: husband does a dishes. So I get it. So, Dan,
Speaker 1: I like to turn the tables now. And have you
Speaker 1: asked me a question? Anything you want? Go ask Ali?
Speaker 1: How do you feel about constitutional monarchy as a political system. No,
Speaker 1: here's one that I've never got before. How do I
Speaker 1: feel about monarchy? I don't. I'm not. I'm not a
Speaker 1: believer in monarchy. I'm much more pro democracy. Although I
Speaker 1: love the crown, um I uh, and I love the clothes.
Speaker 1: I don't think monarchy works. Why do you like? What
Speaker 1: do you think of it? I'm not or monarchy when
Speaker 1: you're talking about like the Sultan of Brunei or Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: But Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, a lot of like liberal
Speaker 1: progressive Paradise, the Netherlands are monarchies. And I really sometimes,
Speaker 1: particularly you know, having observed American politics over the last
Speaker 1: the entirety of my life. I think it's attractive, and
Speaker 1: I think we should invite Harry and Megan to become
Speaker 1: King and Queen of America. Oh wow, I was going
Speaker 1: to say the problem with our countries we don't have
Speaker 1: a royal family. I was going to say George and
Speaker 1: a mall Clooney. But I guess if you want, that's
Speaker 1: the problem. We'd have to elect them, like who's who's
Speaker 1: the person that goes? Okay, here's our new monarchy. I
Speaker 1: mean when Norway got there king and Queen only a
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, it was through referendum. Not that they rule.
Speaker 1: They're just constitutional monarchs like the Queen of England. And
Speaker 1: I'm kind of a fan. I think there's something to it.
Speaker 1: We should call Megan and see if she's into it.
Speaker 1: Where my husband, he could be Queen of America. I
Speaker 1: think you'd be good at it. All right, Well, send
Speaker 1: me a picture of him of the crown in a
Speaker 1: row and I'll we'll put it on social media and
Speaker 1: get people to vote. It'll be a reality show. Dan Savage,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for talking to me about all
Speaker 1: these things. My pleasure. Well, we covered a lot, but
Speaker 1: there I think when it comes to sex, there's you know,
Speaker 1: you could just talk forever. There are so many different
Speaker 1: channels we could go because sex is an all consuming subject.
Speaker 1: But it seems, you know, I sort of thought that
Speaker 1: during the pandemic people were sitting alone in their houses
Speaker 1: reading Sylvia Plath. But it's great to hear that there
Speaker 1: was a silver lining during the pandemic when it came
Speaker 1: to social media and people's sexuality, that people were able
Speaker 1: to connect. You know. I think when it comes to sex,
Speaker 1: where there's a will, there's a way, and people people
Speaker 1: will find ways to connect. And the most important thing
Speaker 1: is I learned what a rainbow party was. God help
Speaker 1: me anyway, Dan Savage is always incredible to talk to
Speaker 1: you about all things sex. And now I'm going to stretch,
Speaker 1: take a hot bath, and go jump on my husband.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to go ask Ali. I hope
Speaker 1: you blushed a little bit. I did. Be sure to subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review the podcast, and follow me on social
Speaker 1: media on Twitter at Ali e Wentworth and on Instagram
Speaker 1: at the Real Ali Wentworth. Now, if you'd like to
Speaker 1: ask me a question or suggest a guest or a
Speaker 1: topic to dig into, I would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole bunch of ways to do that.
Speaker 1: You can call me or text me at three to
Speaker 1: three three six four six three five six, or you
Speaker 1: can email a voice memo right from your phone to
Speaker 1: go ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com. If you
Speaker 1: leave a question, you never know you may hear it
Speaker 1: and go ask Alli. Go ask Alli is a production
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