WEBVTT - David Axelrod: Axe Files Crossover 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:09.240 Hi Katie, Hi there, Brian. We should warn listeners that 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:13.920 our podcast today should probably get an R rating. If 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.840 you have young children in the room, you may want 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.600 to have them listen to something else. Our guest today 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.560 is an expert on relationships and sex. In fact, it's 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.480 something of a living legend on those topics. For over 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:33.040 twenty five years, Dan Savage has dished out sex advice, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:37.040 love advice in his syndicated Savage Love column. He's also 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:42.720 written several books about his own family and relationships, dance writing, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:48.000 and well. Dan himself actually is, by turns withering, empathetic, hilarious, 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:54.360 brutally honest, a little dirty, and always always fearless. And 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.200 for Dan, the personal is definitely political. He often writes 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.560 about abortion law, contraception, gay rights, HIV and AIDS, and 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.280 he's no stranger to taking on politicians as well, most 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.560 notably Rick Santorum. And you're gonna have to google that 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.240 one because I really am not going to describe it. 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.280 We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, from 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.840 Dan's childhood to how he became a columnist, his love 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.840 affair with Ann Landers, which is fascinating, his It Gets 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:31.160 Better campaign, how he feels about Donald Trump and by 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:36.680 the way, not very kindly, all sorts of things in between. 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:42.280 So here's our conversation with Dan Savage. With all due 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.720 respect to the Dosac case. Man, I think you're the 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.000 most interesting man in the world. You have done so 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.400 many things. Just reading about you, I think, what hasn't 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.240 Dan Savage done. You've written books, you've hosted podcasts, you've 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.440 led advocacy campaigns. We're going to get into all that 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.960 in a moment, but first we want to talk about 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.880 your long running advice column called Savage Love. You've been 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.239 doing it for twenty five years. When your column first 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:13.160 came out, it was a very new phenomenon, wasn't it 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.600 a gay man giving frank sexual and relationship advice to 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.480 mostly straight people. Yeah. At first, the idea, you know, 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:21.359 the concept originally was it just gonna be a joke, 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:22.920 and I was gonna do it for six months or 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.240 a year, and I was going to treat the straight people, 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.680 uh and straight sex with the same contempt and revulsion 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.600 that hetersexual straight lady advice comments had always treated gay 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.960 people and gay sex with, you know, an landers who 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.320 I loved back in the day, the Playboy advisor. These 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.320 people would occasionally take a gay question and you know, 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:44.640 hold it with tongs and wrinkled their noses, but then 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.200 give a little advice. Uh. And I thought I should 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.040 do that to straight people and see how they liked it. 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.000 And it turned out that they really liked it. Why 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.079 they liked like, how gross is straight sex kind? It 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:58.880 was the first year of it was I can't believe 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:00.680 you would do such a disgusting thing. Your poor mother 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.920 must be heartbroken. Here's some advice that's so funny. And 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:06.680 it took off. And I think it was because, you know, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.720 straight people have never been treated this way before. And 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.960 it was, you know, humorous if you were straight, to 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.200 be treated as if you were powerless, which you weren't. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.720 Um and the advice was I guess good because the 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.359 letters started just pouring in, and this kind of joke 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.920 advice column under my feet within the first twelve months 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.520 became an actual advice column. I'm sure the only person 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.280 who could turn you away from being gay was a lands. Now, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.760 what up with that? Dan? How did you become obsessed 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.639 with of all people and landers? Instead of by the 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.800 way her sister Abby, I grew up in a newspaper house. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.160 My grandfather worked for the Chicago Daily News in Chicago Star, 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.040 both now closed unfortunately, And so we got all the 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.960 papers when I was a kid living in my grandparents 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.880 house of my family, um MultiGen household, and so really 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.720 the comics and the advice columns were the entry point 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:58.840 for young you know, for the kids who looked at 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.040 the newspapers were spread out over the dining room table. Uh. 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.520 And so I just started reading and Landers, and we 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.640 were liberals and Dems, So we got the Suntimes after 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:09.760 a while stopped gtting the Tribune, which is where Abby was. 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.280 So I grew up reading and who you know, grew 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.280 and learned over the years and you know, changed her 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.880 position on uh, gay people and a right to exist 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.240 and why we exist. But what I was reading in 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.720 Anne when I was, you know, eight eleven twelve wasn't 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.200 very positive. But that's you know, she was over generation 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:29.960 and we can't judge her through the light of right 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:31.800 this minute. We have to look at her in the 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.240 context of them, and she was compassionate in ways that 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.240 other UH folks in the culture at that point weren't. 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.960 In fact, you bought her desk at an auction. Is 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.120 that right? I did? Uh? I got her daughter, Margot 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.440 Howard's her daughter, one of the original dear Prudences. It's late. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.200 So she wrote an advice came for many years. And 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:50.919 I called her when I heard about the auction of 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.200 a Landers effects and got her permission because I didn't 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.960 want it to be spun in the media as if 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.000 I was being somehow disrespectful to the memory of a Landers. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.200 You're doing something that might upset her daughter. Uh. And 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.840 got Margot's permission. And Margot and I are now friends 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.039 and we chat all the time. And so I write 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.000 my very dirty, very different sex advice column at the 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.719 same desk. Grand Landers wrote her column for forty five years. 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.440 We want to give our listeners a feel for your 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:18.880 column and your podcast. So let's go over some of 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:23.080 the signature savage love acronyms and catchphrases. Rapid fire, You ready, 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.479 I'm ready? Are your listeners ready? I don't know, I 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.880 don't know. I hope. So what's the Campsite rule? The 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.400 Campsite rule is that if there's a large age difference 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.000 or experience gap between two people who are hooking up 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.080 or or friends with benefits or even dating that it 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.480 is on the onus is on the older or more 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.360 experienced partner to leave the younger or less experienced partner 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.680 in better shape than you found them, which is the 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:50.839 rule for when you camp. You should always leave your 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:52.960 campsite in better shape than you found it, and we 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.560 should all and it should apply generally like you should 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.279 always leave people that you've dated or been with, hopefully 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.600 in better shape than you found them. But in this context, 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.120 you know the older younger. It means uh, you know, 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:09.080 no sexually transmitted infections, no one planned pregnancies, no needless pain, 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.000 no promises that you know you can't fulfill uh and 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.479 that you help this person learn and grow while they're 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:17.719 with you, and you don't leave them in worse shape 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.040 than you found them. The camp say rule, what about 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.680 g G good giving in game? That's what we should 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.240 all be for our sex partners, UM good in bed. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.560 You know you want to acquire some skills. A human 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.400 means a lot more complicated than a violin, and no 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.160 one can play the violin the first time they pick 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.599 it up. You gotta practice UH giving, which is sometimes 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.320 you give pleasure UH in your indulgent without an expectation 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.200 of an immediate return, that everything doesn't have to be 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.520 instantly and equally reciprocity in the moment that sometimes you give. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.040 It doesn't have to be good for everybody. Well hopefully 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.320 it's not. You want it to be traumatic for anybody 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.279 or or unpleasant for anybody. But sometimes you are giving 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.680 UM and not getting at that moment and that's okay. 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.320 And game means sort of up for anything within reason. 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.400 That sex should be an adventure that you two are 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.239 on together. UM, and you know it's like good improv. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.600 You never say no in improv. And you want to, 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.560 you know, be the person for your partner, particularly if 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.480 it's a sexually exclusive relationship, Be the person who makes 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.600 things happen for your partner. Be the person they come to, UH, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.800 who's going to welcome their fantasies or interests or kinson 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.000 and celebrate them and make that stuff happen dot dot 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.480 dot within reason. You know, being G G G good. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.240 Giving a game doesn't mean you do anything that your 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.280 partner asks or wants and no, but he gets everything 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.240 they want out of a relationship. UM. And sometimes you pay. 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:40.240 It's another thing that to call them the price of 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.720 admission is kind of grows out of G G G. 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:44.520 And the price of admission is, you know, the price 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.560 you pay to be with somebody. You know, if you're 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.160 desperately into sex act X and that's not something that 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.960 your partner will ever do, then the price of admission 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.240 that you pay to be with that person as you 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.000 never get to do that. And what about c posts 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.920 that stands for cheating piece of shit? Uh? And do 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.200 you have a lot of people call you dan or 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.160 write to you and and they are writing about their 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.920 c pos Mostly I get letters. When people use the 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:12.400 acronym in a letter to me, they're using it to 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.360 describe themselves. Really they you know, they say that I 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.720 feel terrible, I'm a CPO s I'm a cheating piece 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.880 of ship uh. And talking about non monogamy is not 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.160 to tear down people who value monogamy, who want monogamy, 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.200 who want a monogamous commitment, creating a universe where people 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.880 who don't want monogamy and can't honor a monogamous commitment 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.319 can go make commitments to people who also don't want 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.079 monogamy and don't want a monogamous commitments. That makes people 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.880 who end up in monogamous relationships. That makes those monogamous 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.640 relationships safer and stronger, just like not having gay men 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.439 mary straight women makes marriage stronger. Not having people who 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.440 can't do monogamy making commitments to people who demand monogamy 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.680 makes those monogamous commitments that are ultimately made stronger if 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:58.280 the non monogamous and monogamous sort themselves. You're an early 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.319 podcast adopter, and I'm curious, what is the podcast offer 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.880 you that the column doesn't. Uh, you can really get 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.320 into the nuance in a podcast the columns um and 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.200 you really have to boil everything down to the nut. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.040 And on a podcast you can. You can digress, and 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.160 I can get people on the phone and instead of 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:19.920 it just being here's the letter, here's my response, we 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.079 can have a conversation. I can bring in guest experts 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.679 and and interview them at great length about an issue 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.520 or a problem. Um. It just allows for more. Although now, 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.199 because my podcasts have been around for so long, when 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.160 I was podcasting so early, people like, oh my god, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.719 you were an early adopter of this new format. You 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.719 must be a you know, a genius and you had 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:41.400 such foresight, And it's like no, no, no, no, there 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.360 were I call them the tech savvy at risk youth. 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.240 There were people that I worked with who are young 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.319 and tech savvy, who are like you were going to 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:51.600 start doing this podcast whether you like it or not, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.320 and they kind of forced me to do it. I 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.000 was very resistant. What are most of the calls about 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.320 so situational ethics? You know? Twenty six years ago when 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.120 I started writing Savage Love, half the questions were, you know, 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.920 what's about plug? Or where's the swingers club in my area? 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.840 Two words I never thought i'd hear on this badcast 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.080 and now, and this may be helpful to you, Katie. Now, 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:19.760 butt Plug has a wiki page, so you don't have 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:21.360 to write into me to ask what it is after 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.439 you overheard someone talking about one of the bus and 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.400 swingers clubs all have their own website, so you don't 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.959 need sort of specialized magazines with you know, referrals to 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.280 p O boxes to find a swing club and Dallas, 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.960 just google Dallas and swingers clubs and they pop right up. 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.320 So all the questions I get now with the podcast 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.960 and the column are I did this, they did that, 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.400 I'm mad about this, they're mad about that. Who's right, 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.520 who's wrong? And you have to kind of way in 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.360 on these situational ethics, that the situation of ethics of 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.880 this problem in this conflict. And it's a lot harder 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.400 now to write an advice column than it used to 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.160 be because you don't get I used to call them 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.760 definitions and referrals. I don't get defined this, what is this? 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.280 And I don't get referral questions anymore because the Internet 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.800 does that. All I get are this is what happened. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.400 We need a ruling from Solomon about how we're going 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.320 to cut this baby in half or whether we should. 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:12.920 When when did you realize you were good at giving 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:14.520 people advice? I mean you were a little bit of 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.280 a of an outcast in in high school. You were 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.720 the only out gay person in your class. As I 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.480 understand it, and so did you did you sort of 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.480 always feel a little bit separated from the back. It's 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.480 just the way women. I think, I think more about 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.600 gender because it impacts them more severely, you know, gender 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.360 based discrimination, and people of color think more about race. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.080 I think when you're gay, you think more about sex 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.480 because it's what makes you different. It sets you apart 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.000 and complicates your life, and you have to be a 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.800 little bit more thoughtful about it, and I realized early 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:47.840 in life, and I was rare for gay out of 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:49.680 my generation. I'm fifty two years old. It was rare 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.199 for kids to be coming out in high school who 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:54.679 are my age. But I did come out in high 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.440 school and instantly became kind of the go to guy 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:02.319 for my straight friends who had relationship problems or sex questions. UM, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.800 because I think they just intuitive that I was thinking 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.000 more about these things than they were, because I had 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.600 to think more about these things. Uh. And I think 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:13.280 that's true for a lot of gay people. We talked 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.800 a lot of gay men, lesbians, uh, even very young 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.400 uh and recently out or out in college, and they'll 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.160 tell you that they're the person that their friends confide 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.520 in about their sex and relationship problems. I think because 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.120 you know, they figure, you gave yourself permission not to 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.240 be gay, but to be out, and maybe you'll give 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.760 them permission to be whoever they actually are and help 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.160 them let go of normal, which plagues a lot of people. 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.520 You know. I was. I was struck that you came 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.160 of age as a gay guy in a conservative Catholic 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.600 household and during the height or the depths of the 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:52.439 aids epidemics. I'm just curious how those two experiences shaped 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.400 the sort of journalist and columnist you later became. Well, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.960 I got a Catholic education, educated by Jesuits, and you know, 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:05.320 my parents were evangelical Catholics before that was a hip 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.480 thing to be, which seems to be now. Um. And 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.400 my mother would joke later, you know, after she came 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.280 around on the gay thing, which she did pretty quickly 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.560 after I came out, that the values that they had 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.640 imparted to us, part of sort of their interpretation of 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:22.560 the Catholic tradition was one of the reasons that I 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.360 was out to them. And so it kind of blew 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.160 back and bit them on the ass because they were 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.080 very much about, you know, the importance of being honest 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.400 and loving the people in your life and being truthful, uh, 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.280 and not being deceitful. And yet I felt myself, you know, 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.560 when I was young and Catholic and I thought about 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.319 being a priest. I thought about, I could never come out. 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.480 It would kill my parents. Um. I thought about, you know, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:47.559 I'll need to find a woman that I can lie 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.520 to for fifty years and marry her. And then that 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:52.360 was just so in conflict with what I had been 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:57.320 taught about right and wrong uh, in Sunday School, at 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.280 my Catholic grade school, at my Catholic high school, to 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.520 to lie to someone all their life like that, to 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.400 mislead someone, and it just forced me to to be out. 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:08.840 It just felt like it grew out of my sort 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.120 of education. Even though my faith didn't survive my coming 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.520 out and I actually came out before the AIDS epidemic. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.600 I came out in and then uh into that buzz 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.760 saw UH and watched a lot of my friends die 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:28.040 in their mid twenties and early thirties, and that was 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.680 really rough, and there was you know, there were moments 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:33.520 there at the beginning of the HIV AIDS epidemic where 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.240 I watched people that I knew to be gay go 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.359 back in the closet um or or renounced their homosexuality 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:44.480 and who were already infected and then died anyway, Uh, 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.480 and it it, you know, the AIDS epidemic forced us 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.520 to start telling the truth. Um. People were outed because 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:57.760 they you know, suddenly had Carposi sarcoma UM. And it 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.800 also forced us to tell the truth about about how 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:03.320 we were having sex. You know, it used to be. 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.480 You know, before HIV AIDS, there was the sex that 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.520 everybody agreed that everybody ought to be having, even though 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.040 everybody kind of knew that everybody wasn't having necessarily that 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.440 kind of sex. And what AIDS force was a conversation 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.840 about the sex people were actually having, not the sex 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.000 that we all agreed people ought to have, which was 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.320 the kind of sex that most advice columnists specialized in, 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.240 like what you ought to be doing, And it was 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.280 different about savage love. When I started, it really did 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.840 grow out of my experience in the HIV AIDS epidemic, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.240 um the crisis, the worst years of it was let's 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.320 talk about what we're actually doing, because that's where the 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.480 risk comes in. As as I'm listening to Dan, I'm 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.880 thinking how ironic it is that in some ways the 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:47.760 AIDS epidemic accelerated the acceptance and tolerance in it, certainly 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:52.280 in some quarters of gay people in general. Absolutely, you know, 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.120 before the AIDS epidemic, we were just you know, gay 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.120 people started coming out on mass after the Stonewall riots 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.720 in nine and there was this kind of you know, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:08.520 bakan knowledge, youthful, exuberant adolescence of the movement where people 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.800 were just so thrilled to be out and open and 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:12.960 able to live openly, love openly, and it was just 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.840 kind of a party. And that was the you know, 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.400 the hedonism that people like Jerry Fallwell pointed to um 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.200 and condemned. And then the AIDS epidemics slammed into the 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:26.160 community and you suddenly saw that, you know, we suffered 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.280 and died, and we suffered and died and loved and 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.280 took care of each other at a time when even 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.640 our own families refused to take care of us. Plus 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.280 the activism, I think that that grew out of the 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.480 AIDS epidemic. I think made a lot more people aware 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.680 and exposed to the fact that there were a lot 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.240 of gay people in the world, right, and it put 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.680 put them front and center in some ways, obviously under 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.480 terrible circumstances, but gave them much greater attention. And if 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:03.040 people don't have awareness, obviously it's hard for them to 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:07.480 go from awareness to acceptance. Right. It was a terrible 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.560 circumstance in some ways. To borrow a phrase, also our 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:14.560 finest hour, because we didn't collapse. You know, people forget 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:16.760 what was being said that I remember it all very distinctly, 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:19.200 you know, William F. Buckley saying that gay men should 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.120 be tattooed on the arm and the buttocks. You had 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:27.160 people talking about mass quarantining of openly gay people on islands. 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.000 Um Pat Buchanan floated that in columns that ran in 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.000 the Washington Post. It was a perilous moment, and we 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.120 did feel like everything, that what little visibility and little 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.840 security that we enjoyed, was going to be ripped away 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.320 from us. And instead of uh, you know, I mentioned 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:43.639 you know, a few people I knew who went back 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.040 into the closet, that's not the reaction that uh, the 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.119 overwhelming majority of gay people had. People who were not 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.600 out yet came out and came out fighting, and people 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.000 who are already out refused to see an inch of 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.639 the ground that we had secured for ourselves. And it 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.560 really was a war, and it was a war that 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.560 we won. It's interesting. Jerry Folwell, whom you mentioned earlier 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.880 and other key figures on the religious right, basically said 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.360 this was punishment for the sin of being gay. Why 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.880 do you think you were able to win that battle 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.480 in the public consciousness against all of these figures who 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.320 you know, had a lot more history and maybe credibility 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.919 among millions of Americans than sort of unknown gay activists, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:28.000 maybe because it was such a disgusting, despicable comment and observation, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.879 Maybe that they had that going for We did have 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.439 that going for us. We also had our secret weapon, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.360 which is that gay people are randomly distributed through the population, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.199 that we are born into straight families, and that was 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.320 we were embedded in the heart of straight America. Even 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.320 though many of us have been rejected by our families 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.719 when we came out and we're exiled from them, we 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.800 were still a part of them. And when people got sick, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.960 when people were dying, Uh, when lives are online, it 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.040 really like pulled people up short. And some families failed 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.120 their queer kids who are suffering their gay relatives or something. 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.520 But some families came around, and eventually more and more 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.840 of our families came around. I'm old enough to remember 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.159 when p flag parents and friends of lesbians and gays 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.600 would come up the street at the Pride parade. Everybody 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.480 lost their minds. You know, I'm gonna cry talking about 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.399 it even now. Uh, people standing a gay amend of 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.160 lesbians standing on the side of the street watching the preade. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.200 Go by would see these people, other gays and lesbians 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.159 Marsham Street with their parents, their parents who loved them 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.000 and were willing to love them publicly in March and 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.000 the Pride parade, and everybody would cry when p flag 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.359 came down the street because almost no one had that 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.199 kind of support from their parents, from their families. It 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.800 was so rare. I bet that was incredibly moving. And 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.280 you know, I just spent the weekend I was in 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.919 the pines in Fire Islands, so as you can imagine, 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:57.000 I was for this show. So my my husband's brother 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.439 Tom is gay and he's been with his partner Andy 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.400 for twenty plus years, so we always go to see 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.120 them for a weekend in the summer at their beautiful 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:08.560 home and Fire Island. And I was just thinking, as 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:13.560 I was watching all these gay couples, how much things 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.560 have changed? Dan, And I'm just I think in terms 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:23.840 of social transformations, if you will, or progress, societal progress, 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.320 I'm sure it doesn't feel that way for a lot 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.439 of gay people. I remember my dad talking who I 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.720 think was slightly homophobic, uh, you know, talking about some 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.959 gay person who worked in his office, and kind of 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.959 in hushed tones, and you know, I think and not 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.720 flattering and not a flattering way. And my father was 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.520 the most fair minded person I know, but this was 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.399 a blind spot for him. But I think culturally it 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.439 was so people were so closeted, and then you go 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.639 to Fire Island and you see everyone just out and 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.960 about and it's just it's just amazing to me how 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:04.480 much things have changed. Amazing. Yeah, oh absolutely. And you 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.000