You're listening to the micro version of the Savage Lovecast at savage.love. Full disclosure, I only read the headline of the story I want to talk about at the top of the show today because the story itself is behind a paywall at Business Insider and I am maxed out on subscriptions at the moment.
And unlike us here at savage.love, Business Insider is not having a sale right now. We are right now. You can get to Magnum subscription to anybody on your list who likes the show by going to savage.love and clicking on. gift. Anyway, most people only read the headlines of stories, which is why it's important to get those headlines right, which the Washington Post and the New York Times are not managing to do.
all of their stories about Trump's cabinet picks, but I am not going to unpack those headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post here because that's what my Blue Sky account is for. I'm at Dan Savage on Blue Sky. Please follow me. There. Anyway, that Business Insider headline, I chat with my AI boyfriend all the time. My teenager thinks it's weird. The author of the piece, Kamna.
Bojwani, forgive me, Kamna, I am sure I just mispronounced your name. The author created her AI boyfriend in May of this year, and her AI boyfriend, as the subhead goes on to tell us, is a nice compliment to her other relationships. The reaction of most people to this piece, most people think it's sad that Kamna doesn't chat as much or as often or as deeply and about everything.
With the husband, everyone seems to assume that she has, which is not information available in the headline, but I'm just going to run with she has a husband. Also, some people are a little worried about all the data Kamna is sharing with some AI chatbot company. But it's mostly how sad a reflection it is on a lot of our long-term relationships that we might feel more comfortable opening up and sharing and talking all day and chatting with an AI chatbot.
I think that's kind of predictable. I mean, I didn't see AI chatbot boyfriends coming. I didn't predict that. I'm not omniscient. But the fact that someone feels like they can speak more freely with their... side piece or their side chat bot, someone or something they've only been quote unquote with for six months, as opposed to the husband they've been with forever. That's predictable. And kind of sad, I guess, but...
Also, sadly, kind of unavoidable. This story, or this headline, again, I didn't read the story, helped clarify something that I've been thinking about for a long time, something I've noticed in a lot of long-term relationships that I've been... a part of or witness to the three stages of communication and romantic relationships. That's what I'm calling it right now. It's a little clunky, still workshopping it. Stage one.
You don't tell your new boyfriend everything because you just met him and you really like him and you don't want to say the wrong thing because the stakes feel so high. Stage two, you feel like you can tell this guy or this girl. anything, and you love them so much for that. Stage three, you can't tell your husband or your wife everything because you're married now and you have kids and a house and the stakes don't feel high. They are high.
At best, stage one, carefully weighing your words because you don't want to scare them off. Stage one lasts a few months, six if you're lucky. Stage two, I can tell this person anything. That lasts, at best, a few years, maybe less. But stage three, when the stakes are actually high, that's when you become acutely aware that there are things you can't say because you can't unsay them. Things that...
If said could cost you your marriage and your home and your kids if you said them out loud so you don't say those things. The real inhibiting headfuck of it all is you can't predict consistently. You can't know what those things are, the things you shouldn't say out loud, because you can't unsay them. Which can lead to you censoring yourself around the person you should, in theory,
be able to tell anything. So to recap stage one, a few months, stage two, a year or two, stage three, that stage goes on for decades and there's no going back to stage two. There's only two ways out of stage three, divorce or death. Well, there is one way to get back to stage two in my personal experience. It involves a cabin on the Oregon coast and some molly, but you can only visit stage two. You can't stay there.
Because there's only so much time you can spend in a cabin on the Oregon coast in the tsunami zone. And only so much molly you can do. Eventually you gotta come down and go home. I actually think this phenomenon, this stages thing. is the reason couples, long-term couples, are famous for talking shit about other couples. Not me and Terry, of course. We don't do that. If you know me and Terry personally, we have never once talked shit about you.
or your relationship. But other couples do that all the time. It's almost like... We are sorry. They're subconsciously aware that there are things they can't say to each other about their relationship and they're compensating by saying whatever the fuck they want to about other people's relationships, at least to each other.
Now, after working myself up like this, I'm usually here with a suggestion, something, a fix, something we could all be doing differently, a change we could make, something besides cabins and molly that might help us all. get back to stage two in a sustainable way. But honestly, I got nothing. I don't think this can be solved. This is just one of those things, one of those prices of admission.
that we all have to pay, partnered people, coupled up people, and live with. And if your AI boyfriend helps you live with it, more power to you. and your AI boyfriend of six months. So still in the NRE stage with the AI boyfriend, see how long that lasts. And then instead of wondering what your partner wants to say to you, but doesn't, the things that they worry.
that if said, they wouldn't be able to unsay, you should appreciate your partner for the effort they go to, day in and day out, to not say those things, whatever they might be. And your partner should appreciate you. We're doing the same for them. And if you're asking yourself, why is he talking about this story in Business Insider that he couldn't even read? Well, full disclosure, more full disclosure.
It's because I haven't been able to go see Wicked yet. All right, coming up on today's show, tons of your Q, lots of my A. And joining me on the magnum, Lee Coward, author of Hurts So Good, The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, comes back on the show. We talk about... masochism, why pain-seeking behaviors are valorized so long as no one is obtaining any sexual gratification from them. We also talk about the election and...
The masochism that I perceive in the American electorate. And then Lee hangs out and we take a couple of calls together. That's on the magnum. Tons of great stuff on the Micro 2. And from now until December 31st, year-long gift subscriptions to the Magnum. Half price, that's only $24 for a year of Magnum.
Magic, that's the longer ad-free show, Saxon Politics, Savage Love Live, discounted hump tickets, struggle session, and more. Our subs help us keep the lights on around here, help us keep the tech-savvy at-risk youth. clothed and fed this holiday season. Give your loved one or your worst enemy a gift that won't end up in a landfill. Give them the love cast at savage.love. All right, let's get to that first call.
This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep, the very best mattress designed with your comfort in mind. Right now, get up to 20% off a mattress purchase plus two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash savage. This episode of the Savage Lovecast is brought to you by Dipsy. Dipsy is an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women.
Get an extended 30-day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com slash savage. This episode is brought to you by Talkspace, therapy made easy. Get $80 off your first month when you go to Talkspace.com slash savage and enter promo code SPACE80. Hey Dan, straight male in my 30s, dating a female in her 20s. We've been having sex for about six months now, and the first week we did, it took a lot of lube and patience for me to fit inside of her. I'm a little bit on the bigger side.
But once we got through that break-in period, it was really off to the races and had a great summer of... constant sex, and she never had any of that initial pain return to her vagina. But cut to the fall, we had to switch to long distance because I went back to school and we get to see each other about once a month now. And when we see each other, we're quite sexually voracious. And we'll have sex four, five, or six times in the first hour or two we see each other.
And this is great at first, but it's become problematic because a day or two later into this, you know, if we see each other for four or five days a month, these long weekends, a day or two later, she will be... too sore to continuing having all the sex that we want. Her symptoms will be a puffy labia and a sore labia. And also more acutely, she'll complain of feelings of maybe like little tears or incisions inside her vagina. And it's painful for me to enter her.
Maybe once we get going, it's not as bad. But we just want to avoid the pain. We want to be able to have as much sex as we want and avoid the pain. We do use a little bit of lube. Maybe we could use more. I'm open to suggestions.
try to avoid pounding sex, and that doesn't seem to help. We'll just do slower, deep sex, which is... the pains still come a day or two later inhibiting uh the sex we would like so yeah uh it should be it's worth noting too we're in such a rural state and place that it's really hard to get medical advice She is going to see a gynecologist and ask them about this over the Christmas holidays, but hoping for some advice before then. We just want to take care of her vagina and have tons of sex.
As I've said to straight guys before, usually when straight guys want to have a conversation with me about why women are not as up for sex as often as they perceive their... gay male friends, sex partners to be. As I've said to these straight guys, you know, if every time you said yes to sex, your ass got fucked, you might say yes to sex a little less often than you would.
Otherwise, you're having sex with your girlfriend that she wants to have with you. It's consensual sex. Five times in a single day with your big ass dick. Yeah. That's a lot of sex. That's going to... have physical consequences for her that it might not have for you because she's the one getting fucked. When you're the one getting fucked, your body pays a little bit of higher tax than if you're the one doing.
So what you need to do is have sex five times in a day when you're reunited with your girlfriend, but not vaginal intercourse every single time. Vaginal intercourse is not sex. Sex is not. Vaginal intercourse. Vaginal intercourse is sex, but sex is not just vaginal intercourse. Broaden your definition of sex. Give her pussy a break. Have vaginal intercourse twice.
bookend it with vaginal intercourse, but have more and other different kinds of sex in between when you first see each other after some time apart and before you go to bed that night that you were reunited after you've... gotten back together again mutual masturbation oral sex get her a strap on dildo and let her fuck your ass five times in a row when you reunite next and it might make you a little bit more sensitive to
Varying your routine, adding different things to the menu, broadening your definition of sex and using lots more lube. If one of the things she's coming away with besides just. sore puffy genitals after you guys fuck five times in a day are abrasions small cuts inside her vaginal canal hopefully not incisions which is the word you used which you need a scalpel to make you're not doing that
You're not using enough lube. And maybe if she pegged your ass five times in a row the next time you got together with as little lube as possible. It would sensitize you to the need for more lube. Here's what the OBGYN, the gynecologist that your girlfriend's going to see over the holidays is going to tell her. Use a lot more lube. Get a lube bottle with a squirt top and mix it up.
Because, yeah, if you got your ass fucked five times in a row in a single day by your giant dick boyfriend, yeah, your ass would be sore too. You would maybe walk away from that if you could walk away from that. with a fissure. So yeah, more lube, mix it up. We're on your definition of sex. Hey Dan, big fan of the show. My son, who's almost 10, just came home and he got in trouble today for saying, that's so gay.
And didn't really have a conversation with the teacher, just immediately got a detention, missed recess, all that sort of stuff. And the teacher was walking by a bathroom when he heard my son and other kids saying, oh, that's so gay.
I think it's because a couple of kids were peeing next to each other. Is that right? This happens a bunch at our school. You're not allowed to go in a urinal next to others. When I said it, a teacher automatically got an attention, jumped to conclusions for saying that. So all those kids got a detention. So I think what I'm trying to figure out is how do I explain to my little guy here how using that phrase can be really hurtful?
to understand a little more because we were looking it up online and I came across this one line that said, if you're saying that so gay in like a gross sort of way, then that can be really hurtful. But my son doesn't really see it that way. And so I wondered if you had. a way to explain it so that he would understand because obviously the teacher didn't have a conversation. They just jumped to detention. And yeah, my son actually is quite a thoughtful kid, but...
He doesn't understand the history, I don't think. So I would love it if you had an explanation. Love the show. Thanks so much. First, your son sounds like a very thoughtful kid. Look, that's so gay. even in the context that your son used it, is a negative. What the little boys are saying to each other at that school about peeing to the same urinal, two boys peeing to the same urinal together, being gay, is they're saying that there's something
suspect or sus about it, that it's something that gay guys would do and you don't want to be a gay guy. You don't want anyone to think you're gay and sharing a urinal. is gay, gay adjacent. It's something that you wouldn't think about doing or be comfortable doing if you weren't one of those homosexuals, one of those gay guys, and nobody wants to be one of them.
That's how That's So Gay gets used. It was used a lot in the 90s. I'm surprised it's making a comeback among today's thoughtful and articulate 10-year-olds. Your son sounds adorable. Surprised it's making a comeback. But there is sort of a cycle with names and pejoratives and expressions. And there is a kind of kid culture where things kind of seem to.
live in perpetuity. Kids are still singing a song about the black plague, 600, 700 years later. What I would say to your son about what's harmful about that. So gay. is that some of the boys who are hearing that, even some of the boys who are saying that are going to internalize the implicit message, which is that being gay is bad, that gay is bad. And some of those boys are going to
grow up to be gay themselves at 10 or 11 or 12. Some of those boys may already know that they're gay and the danger. For little boys who are told over and over again that who they are is bad is that they're going to internalize that. And it's going to metastasize into a kind of. self-hatred that can then be expressed in really self-destructive ways later in life. It's why you see more drug and alcohol abuse in the gay community among gay men.
But among straight men, it's why suicide rates are higher among gay men than straight men. That little, you know, adult men who as little boys internalize these messages that who they were, that the person they are is bad.
and unworthy of love or life will set out to destroy themselves. And what I would say to your son, and I hope he's not a listener of this show, what I would say to your son is, One of those little boys, one of your friends could be gay when he grows up and hearing you say that, or hearing you laugh when he says it, that could wind up hurting him. later in life and making it impossible for him to love others, love himself. It may even set him up for...
self-destructive patterns of behavior that could end his life. And you don't want to hurt your friend, right? You don't want to hurt a friend. I would also add that boys who grow up believing that Gay is bad who are straight. It hurts those boys too because it really can deprive an adult straight man or a straight adolescent boy. of the pleasure and joy that they may take in certain things that are perceived to be gay or girly. So strong is the desire not to be seen as gay.
among straight boys who really internalized that that's so gay, gay is bad messaging in childhood from their parents or their peers or their faith leaders that they end up living really circumscribed. lives where, you know, things that they might've enjoyed that they wanted to do like sing or study ballet or go into fashion or enjoy musical theater or whatever, whatever.
they might be interested in that's perceived as or coded as gay they're not going to allow themselves to do and it's going to harm them it's going to limit their lives and their joys and their pleasures. And you see this playing out among a lot of adult straight men who are so paranoid about anybody thinking that they might be gay that they can't relax. They can't enjoy any form of homosocial.
contact. They don't allow themselves to be expressive, to be joyful, to feel because being expressive and joyful and feeling and saying, I love you to your friends. That's gay. That's so gay. And by that's so gay, what often boys mean is that's feminine. Yeah. So what I was saying to your son is there are probably.
Boys that he likes in his class right now who may have been in the bathroom during that conversation, who got detention too, didn't get to go to recess just like he didn't, who are gay and will soon realize it. And if they've internalized that's so gay, gay is bad. It's going to do them harm. It's going to hurt them. And your son, thoughtful, loving, kind, caring kid, doesn't want to hurt his friends who might be gay. Also doesn't want to hurt his friends.
who are straight, overwhelmingly, most of his friends are going to be straight and it's going to harm them too if they internalize gay as a negative and are paranoid. About how they behave, how they walk, how they talk, how they act, how they feel, what they want to do. And not allow themselves to do anything that might be gay. So gay. According to the judgments of their... peers and that can make a guy paranoid all his fucking life and really warp his life. Anyway, long answer. Yeah.
That's so gay. Oh my God, I don't want to use this word. We're not allowed to use this word. It's problematic. It's unkind. Don't say problematic to your kid. Tell him it's unkind. Unkind to his little friends who might be gay, but also unkind to his friends.
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Let them know the Lovecast sent you helixsleep.com slash savage. With Helix, better sleep starts now. Hi, Dan. Mid-20s queer woman living in the Pacific Northwest calling about a messy situation with an... ex who's a trans guy essentially we dated for four months last year it was a short relationship but very emotionally intense and it ended on pretty bad terms uh he like
refused to say a single word to me when I was picking up my stuff. And then when I called him out for that, called me a bitch and told me to leave him alone, which I did. We saw each other out like three times in the past 10 months. Each time I ignored him. Apparently he doesn't exist. He also works at a very popular gay bar that I used to go to all the time. But since we broke up, I haven't gone at all. Except for the other day, I was putting up posters.
for this event i work for and i did the art for the posters um which is a self-portrait of me kissing a woman's thigh i put up some posters in the bar where he works he was working there that night and i just reacted by completely ignoring him apparently doesn't exist some of my friends were there i said hi and then i left a few days later he goes to call my best friend who is not friends with him they barely know each other and
basically saying that he doesn't feel safe talking to me, but he said that I was mildly stalking him and that it escalated by me putting up the posters where he works. His voice was shaking on the phone. He was clearly very upset. and truly believes this delusion to the extent where he told my friend to tell me that he was seeking no contact order, despite the fact that there has been zero contact. This was triggering because I've actually had a real stalker. He knows that, and...
I reacted to this just by basically texting him to fuck off and then blocking his number. The reason I'm calling is because I don't know... what to do in regards to the fact that when I had a stalker, I felt so scared for my safety that I was ready to be violent against the person that was stalking me.
And since my ex truly believes this delusion, I am afraid that seeing me will send him into fight or flight and he may try to get violent with me. Although every time, other time I've seen him, he just kind of went into flight.
circles in the queer community here is relatively tight-knit. There's not a way for me to avoid him completely without becoming a shut-in, but I just don't know if I should leave it alone or try to reach out to one of his friends and tell them, hey, your friend is maybe going through a psychotic episode and I'm afraid for my safety.
if that would be making the same mistake that he made by reaching out to my best friend and expecting someone who I'm friends with to be loyal to them over me. Because my friend did basically tell him that he was crazy and to fuck off. I think this whole thing is because he's just too avoidant to realize that he has unresolved feelings. He's projecting the irrational terror he feels upon seeing me into this delusion. It doesn't change that I'm feeling scared. Please advise. Thank you.
You say you're having a psychotic episode and I feel like I'm on the verge of having one after listening to your call. I feel so conflicted because on the one hand, I want to tell the two of you never to be in the same room together ever again. And I also want to smack both of your heads together, which would require the two of you to come together in the same room just long enough for me to smack your heads together. Stop being such exhausting drama queens.
Both of you, you are not low key stalking your ex and your ex is being ridiculous by calling your friends like this is fucking high school and telling them to tell you like. Baby games. And now you're thinking about calling his friends to tell him after you texted him and blocked his number. Baby games. And I've had a stalker. I understand the fear.
I'm afraid to even say that out loud, because you do feel like mentioning that you had a stalker is kind of going to conjure your stalker back up or a new one. But I empathize. With what you went through and how those fears can be easily activated. I get it. But what you're projecting onto him right now, that because you were.
When you had a stalker feeling like you might have to be violent at any moment to protect yourself. Therefore, because you feel like by accusing you of stalking him, he's kind of stalking you and it's going to be flight fight and he might do violence. Stop spinning yourself up about this. This is just garden variety, queer, I'm sorry, kind of die-coded, realize he's a trans guy, don't want to not affirm his gender identity, but kind of die-coded drama.
And it is exhausting. I'm sure exhausting to experience and go through. And I don't want to invalidate your feelings, but it is exhausting. to listen to. And I'm sure it is exhausting for everyone in your friend group who is now being tasked by both of you with choosing sides. You say he was trying to peel your friend off you.
And your impulse now is to call his friends and try to peel his friends off him. Stop it. You're going to look back on all of this in 10 years and really regret it. One of the superpowers of being a queer adult is. One of the things you notice about queer adults who are out of their drama plagued 20s is that 30s and 40s, when you hear about lesbians whose ex-girlfriends are officiating at their weddings.
That's 30s, 40s, post drama. And you hear about gay men who are, their weddings and their ex-boyfriends are invited or they're best men. It's post drama. You guys are just. in your 20s and in the throes of it. Stop escalating. It was a provocation. When he called your friend and told your friend to call you to tell you that he was going to maybe take out a protective order against you. And now you're contemplating retaliatory provocation of your own. Just stop, stop.
And it was maybe a little provocative for you to go into his workplace, even if it is a hub for the queer community to put up posters with your face on them at this moment with high drama. Both of you stop provoking each other and just cut each other. a wide berth. One last piece of advice from someone who's been there, had to been in gay bars, went to college in a town where there was one gay bar, had to be in gay bars where my ex would be.
in the bar because of course we were both in the bar. Pretending that somebody doesn't exist, pretending that they're not in the room is itself a kind of provocation. You know what's de-escalatory? That moment when you catch each other's eyes, just... A nod. I acknowledge your existence. I see you. We don't have to talk to each other. A quick nod is a de-escalatory gesture. Pretending they don't exist.
Provocation. And the both of you need to provoke less, cut wide berths more, and I'm sorry, grow up. Grow up a little bit. And I don't say that in a sneering way. Me in my mid twenties, right where you are now in the throes of this shit in the mid twenties and queer people, queer adults, we mature. I think a little later, we often don't come out.
until after middle school, after high school, sometimes after college. And we have to make all the mistakes. We have to go through all that high school drama, but we have to do it as adults with credit cards in our apartments and friend groups. And it sounds like where the two of you are. High school. Graduate already. This episode is brought to you by Dipsy.
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slash savage. That's dipsystories.com slash savage. We're going to take a quick break from your calls to speak with Lee Cowart. They're that masochist, that weird masochist you might have heard about. They're a science journalist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and other publications. And they're the author of Hurts So Good, The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. Lee, thank you for coming back.
Thank you for having me. I've been tricking people into coming on the show a lot lately or back on the show under the guise of talking about their work or answering a couple of sex questions with me. When what I really want them to do is help me process my trauma around the election. And I have a question about that that I thought you were the best person to answer. Is it okay that I bring this on you? All right. Let's do it.
So it is a given. It is priced in that Trump is going to hurt people. And that's his appeal to a lot of people. As pundits pointed out in 2016, the cruelty. is the point. I've listened to some pundits recently, Tom Nichols at The Atlantic, Ezra Klein at The New York Times, talk about that one of the things Trump brings or one of his appeals to a lot of people who voted for him is this sense of excitement. He's not boring. He puts on a show.
And like the Roman Colosseum or Elizabethan bear baiting rings, cruelty, again, the point, the suffering, you can see the sadism at play. But I'm wondering when you look at the electorate and this election. Women who voted for Trump, immigrants who voted for Trump, the tiny percentage of the LGBT community that voted for Trump, people who rely on Medicare and Social Security who voted for Trump, all of whom are going to suffer under Trump. Do you detect not just sadism, but masochism?
I think that's a really interesting question. And I think it comes down to kind of a semantic discussion about what masochism is. Because masochism is not just the desire to suffer. And as I lay out in my book, for masochism, like when I talk about masochism, I'm talking about something that you can consent to and opt out of, that you are fundamentally kind of in control of.
That type of masochism doesn't really reflect the American electorate to me. However, I think there's a really interesting question around where is the line between self-harm and masochism? And how do we differentiate between the types of suffering we're seeking and long-term harms that we may or may not be able to opt out of? And obviously that's a really important piece of the masochism puzzle.
is getting curious about, why do I want this? What am I expecting to get from it? And how is this going to impact my life, not just in scene, but in the long term? And so when I see people voting in such a way that... will bring more suffering to them the question is then how aware of the suffering to come are they and
Do they think they're voting in a way to avoid suffering for themselves? Or are they trying to seek it and opt for it? A lot of what you see in the interviews is a kind of magical thinking where all those things Trump said about deporting immigrants, he didn't mean it.
Right, leopards won't eat my face. Yeah, leopards won't eat my face. Everybody should go look up on Blue Sky, the leopards eating my face account. It's fascinating. So there is this sense among some that there's this magical thinking, but man, when I look at the electorate...
I see this almost, you know, people want to flip over the table, but you know, your dinner's on that table too, or they want to burn the house down, but you're in that house too. And there are people out there who don't realize, you know, this distinction you want to make about masochism. And that you really unpack in the book being opt in and you can call it off when you're ready to call it off. And so you are in control of it. I see people opting into pain and suffering here without.
seeming to realize that there's no opting out of it. Yeah. And if the Trumpsters have their way, there won't be elections in the future where you can opt out of it and the suffering could be eternal. Right. Yeah, at that point, it's no longer masochism. It's just suffering. And obviously, people can make meaning out of suffering. We always do. But that is a very different beast than the kind of pain that you are dabbling in and can ultimately bounce from.
So for people who haven't read your book, and I recommend your book to everyone, it's terrific and interesting. It's not just about BDSM and kink. It's about this phenomena of pain seeking on purpose. Can you unpack that a little bit for people who have not yet heard about your book? sure so you can kind of think of the body as a playground and when we have sensation the body responds to it and when we experience pain
That is actually the body taking some sensation from the nociceptors and cooking up the experience of pain fresh every time. Pain is there's no like one to one correlation. Pain is something that your brain gives you based on context, expectation, emotional state, how, like, if you're expecting it. There are all of these things that affect how you feel pain. And after you feel pain...
you get to tap into the endogenous morphine system of endorphins. So you kind of have this homebrew morphine that comes from inside the house that you can access through. consenting to experience aversive sensation. And masochism kind of provides this container where you can opt in and then opt out of these like suffering in pursuit of feeling better type moments. One of the things I loved about the book... is the way you link and draw this parallel between people who seek pain.
on purpose for sexual gratification and all the other ways in the culture where people are seeking pain without being shamed or judged for it. And I've observed this in lots of different realms, like add a boner and everybody's got a problem with it. Add a wet pussy, everybody's got a problem.
with it nobody has a problem with the people who go on the that show where people eat insanely hot sauce on chicken wings and suffer for our entertainment and nobody has a problem with the kind of other pain-seeking behaviors that you Write about the people that you meet who wouldn't have like wanted to connect the single solitary dot that separates them from kinksters, but you connect it in the book. And it is one of the things I loved about the book.
Besides like the usual sex shame and whatever else, why do you think it is that people look at sexually gratifying pain play and... are appalled or think it's perverse or evidence of some sort of mental illness, but then look at all other kinds of, you know, the pursuit of pain on purpose and see something ennobling. Why can't the kinky sex also be ennobling? Right?
Well, I think that when it comes to athletics, they get, I like to say they've been draped in the dignity of athletics, right? Like there's a lot of culture that says that this kind of suffering is good and special and over here on its own. even though it has a lot more in common with all of the other ways that we suffer for fun. I think that there is, you know,
BDSM is very common. A lot of people play with a lot of different types of high sensation things in the bedroom. And I think some of the pushback is curiosity. You know, feeling like... They have kind of secretly wanted to try this thing, but there's a lot of cultural conditioning around it. And so maybe they felt like that wasn't an avenue for them and they shouldn't explore that. So they then took the path.
that was socially sanctioned, where they can talk about it at a dinner party, they get lauded, their boss is happy about it. And so when someone has kind of left a part of themself behind, left a curiosity over there and has done the socially prescribed role, when you then point out that, oh, well, actually the path you're on.
that required you to leave part of yourself behind is so much like this thing you were already wanting to do. And that can bring up some stuff for people. That's a sensitive spot, I think. And we should assume somebody who's... doing extreme athletics or eating chicken wings draped in insanely hot and painful hot sauce. This isn't also a kinkster in their own time. They could be. It could be. Very much so. There's a lot of overlap in these particular Venn diagrams.
Lee Coward, author of Hurt So Good, The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. You can follow them on Instagram and threads and Blue Sky and other social media sites at voracious. Brain. Lee, thank you so much for coming back on the Lovecast and helping me process my trauma. Thank you so much for having me. There's more of this conversation on the Magnum version of the show, the Magnum Savage Lovecast. More guests, more calls.
No ads. Subscribe now or give a subscription as a gift at savage.love. This episode is sponsored by Talkspace. A lot of us are struggling right now, whether it's you who needs to talk to someone or you're helping someone you care for in your life who needs to talk to someone. Talkspace is a great way, a way that I recommend to connect.
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and enter promo code SPACE80. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com slash savage. and enter promo code SPACE80, S-P-A-C-E 8-0, to get $80 off your first month and show your support for the show. That's Talkspace.com slash Savage, promo code SPACE80. 80 hi dan i am a almost 50 something year old american living overseas and i am stuck in a very weird situation
I have been married and have kids. I've been married since 2013 and have recently had a situation where I have found myself psychically connected to another person and this was a random occurrence this has nothing to do with psychedelic drugs or drinking in fact i've been sober since january And I've been going through a lot, though, in my personal life. And this psychic connection started almost instantly when I met this person. And when I say psychic connection, I mean I'm not a new age.
believer and things like that, but the amount of synchronization and coincidental happenings that have been around this situation have been pretty mind-blowing. And also very frightening and troubling. At this stage in the game, I can't say that there... is a romantic connection per se. However, there is starting to become a real strong bond. And this other person also feels psychic.
connection things and i have gone to a spiritual person who i know has shown me some things that have also been affirmative in this direction here's the real problem is that i have had issues with this before in the past where i've had quote unquote visions or blah, blah, blah. And I have seen two other people in my life before who became really important relationships to me. I've had this happen. One of them is my current wife.
And to have this sort of impact now with another person is kind of blowing my mind, but it's intense and it's real. What I'm hoping, Dan, is that you will hear this call. with hopes that someone out there has also experienced this sudden blast from the universe, which is a good thing. It's also a bad thing. It's pretty scary. How do I talk to my partner about this?
She is not spiritually minded, doesn't believe probably in any of this stuff. But I can't help believe that there's some serious connection going on here. And I'm also trying to make sure that I'm not a 50-year-old guy going through a midlife crisis. So you've got a crush on somebody. I'm not a person who believes in any of this spiritual stuff either. I believe we have a propensity as human beings to find meaning, find patterns.
random events. And I believe that coincidences are real, but spooks, ghost spirits, not real in my opinion. So my advice for you is predicated upon. My assumption, my bias for this being a kind of mad crush that you've got on someone. Like the mad crush you once had on your wife. What do you do about having a mad crush on someone else when you're married to the person you had that same sort of mad crush on a decade and several kids or two ago? You wait it out.
eventually the mad crush expires or you do, but there's nothing really you can do about this. And I'm not sure what you would even want to do about this necessarily. You could go to your wife. And say, hey, look, have you ever thought about being in an open relationship and create a space in your marriage for you to pursue connections with other people, intense connections? But don't justify it.
by saying the universe is sending me a sign that I must do this and you must give me permission to do this because a meteor hit me or whatever. You can go to your wife and say, I might want to talk about. whether we're going to be monogamous and sexually exclusive and emotionally exclusive because open ain't poly necessarily all our lives and what's possible for me and for you going forward. Now.
That can be a relationship extinction level event, conversation starter and marriage ender because some people. are not down and if your wife has made it clear to you that she could never be in and would never be in and doesn't want to be in any form of open relationship and would regard it as a an unforgivable betrayal, even for you to broach the subject. Yeah. Keep your fucking mouth shut and wait it out. But don't tell yourself because as a member of the meaning making connection seeking.
coincidence conflating with directives from some higher power species that the fact that this connection this crush that you have on this person you've attached all this meaning to and you're seeing these patterns and You're giving meaning and importance to things that are mere coincidences. Don't tell yourself that that's aside from the universe, that you have no choice but to pursue a relationship with this other person because you've been ordered to by.
imaginary sky friends if you're not allowed to have this kind of relationship with another person and you value the relationship you have with your spouse and you want to protect the home in which your kids are being raised you're gonna have to stuff it down You're going to have to wait it out and beware the self-serving rationalization that comes in the form of a claim to spiritual significance or signs from some.
higher power of the mysterious movement of the universe. Because for a man in a situation like the one it sounds like you're in, that is a spiritual path that lands you in divorce court. All right, it's time for some listener feedback. First up, I'm going to read a few of the comments left on last week's show in the very lively comment threads at savage.love. Says Kat, to the gay man in the Bay Area who's interested in being a bio dad.
I wanted to share that there is a local poly alternative parenting community that meets up several times a year that includes many queer people looking for co-parents. We just started a discord and have our meetups listed at the Plura app link. tr.ee slash altparenting. Also to that gay wannabe parent, you might want to avoid the other comments in that comment thread. Says Marsh LC to the woman who lied to her husband about where she found the couple they hooked up with.
First thing she needs to do is really drill down on why she lied. It's fine to be all apologetic and say you fucked up, but what was your thinking? It could be innocent and forgivable, or it might shed light on real problems. in your relationship. I don't know, Marshall C goes on, but you do call her and you can't really be honest with him if you aren't being honest with yourself. So why did you lie?
Caller, if you're out there, I would like to know the answer to that question too. Please jump into the comment thread and share. And finally, says Frink, as someone who enjoys gin. Had Bonnie, comedian, on the show last week to shit talk gin, which I hate. As someone who enjoys gin, I can only think it's because you don't like the taste of juniper berries, which all gins contain.
And yes, juniper berries have a very unique taste. One might even say it's an acquired one. Guinness come ass, all tastes worth the effort of acquiring. Five stars, would recommend gin. I'm with Bonnie, not fucking. worth the time or the effort of acquiring that taste. All right, for more listener feedback, check out Struggle Session every Thursday at savage.love. And now, everyone's favorite part of the show, mine included, the part where I shut my big gay mouth.
and my listeners get the last word. Hi Dan, I'd like to comment on the woman whose boyfriend passed away and her friends kept his affair a secret. I would just like to add that perhaps they had good reasons for keeping the affair from her while he was still alive. But assuming they were at this celebration of life and saw that both she and the other woman were there.
That might have been a good time to give her a heads up before she was blindsided when the other woman introduced herself as the girlfriend. There's no excuse for not taking her aside then. For the woman who has a hard time orgasming, I just want to point out the one person that you told that you have trouble with this is the one person you... were able to have orgasms with, even though you weren't able to prior to telling her. So I really think this could...
turn a new leaf for you if you just start saying it out front every time. I do that. Dan's advice, whenever I'm with a new partner, I always let them know that I am absolutely not going to come when I'm first starting to have sex with. somebody and having that pressure taken off, it does just really help. So definitely give that a whirl and you might be surprised.
Hi, Dan and everyone. I just listened to the last episode. You have that fantastic lawyer on to talk about what we all should be doing as queer people to protect ourselves in the new administration. You did mention that it's thousands and thousands of dollars to get your wills and your power of attorneys drawn up. And I just wanted to share that there are actually some great softwares out there. My partner and I used Quicken software to make our will, our power of attorneys.
attorney, and our advanced medical directive. We were advised by a lawyer that some of the software programs, like the Quicken one we used, are legally binding, all that you need, and perfectly fine, especially if you don't have kids. If you do have kids, you probably still want to go to a lawyer, but this is something everyone should do regardless. You sadly never know when you're going to pass.
And you want to make sure that people in your life know how you want to be cared for if you're super sick and can't speak for yourself and what should happen to your stuff if you should pass away. And it, I think, costs us $50. So just want to say there are lots of resources out there that you can use.
And we're going to leave it there. We've got three ways for you to get us your questions and comments for future shows. You can record your question or comment directly onto our website at savage.love slash askdan. Or you can make a voice memo on your very own phone and email it to us at Q. at savage.love, or you can call our landline and leave us a message at 206-302-2064.
Your Hump 2025 submission is due this week. If you haven't gotten started, don't let that stop you. People have made submissions for Hump. in the days before the deadline and gotten them into the festival and won audience awards. And in addition to the $10,000 in cash prizes awarded by Hump audiences, every filmmaker that makes it into Hump receives a percentage of every ticket sold. Submissions, again, due December 6th. But just between you and me, the Hump jury...
isn't meeting until the 11th of December. So you still have this weekend to make it happen. Learn more at humpfilmfest.com slash submit. Follow me on Instagram and threads at Dan Savage. Follow me at Blue Sky. at Dan Savage. Follow Lee Cowart on threads and Instagram and other socials at Voracious Brain. Their book, Hurts So Good, The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose.
is a great and very entertaining read. Also, it makes a great gift. The Savage Lovecast is produced every week by Nancy Hartounian and me and Nancy and the tech savvy at Rescue. We will all be back at you next week with an installment of the Savage Lovecast. Thank you for downloading.