pictures of lily

Dan, you know I love you. But with all due respect - bullshit.

People masturbate over fictional characters, for God's sake. People fantasize about sex with relatives, with their best friends' spouses, with animals (both real and mythical), with children, with ALL kinds of people and things they'd never ever touch (or ever be able to touch) in real life. Gay men fantasize about straight guys who would never actually touch them; confident feminists have rape fantasies; people dream of being humiliated and abused in ways they would NEVER submit to in "real life." You know better than to say that masturbatory fantasies HAVE to have ANY basis in reality.

To bring it back to poor Anna Nicole: What if the lonely dreams of masturbators are the best way to keep her memory alive? What else does her poor shade have? What better legacy could she leave for herself? (And if you think there aren't people out there still turned on by Marilyn Monroe, you're a lot more naive than I ever gave you credit for.)

I'm masturbating to James Dean right now.

March 2007? Wow, she's been dead for a long time now.

Um, Vintage Porn???

Methinks Dan was stoned or in some astral trance when he gave this advice. It's strange and nonsensical.

But whatever, advice is advice, so take it or leave it. In my opinion, I hope MAN is still jerkin' off to Anna.

@ 1 FTW.

And also: Bettie Page.

Although I do take your point, Dan. I personally prefer my fantasies to have at least a toe-hold in reality. Yesterday I spent some happy moments just visualizing the three quarterbacks playing in the NE/NY game... Brady and Sanchez and Tebow, oh my! :-)

star trek characters, particularly Worf.

This is the most non-Dan Savage advice I've read on Dan Savage. What could be more harmless?

Pffft. Wankever works, works. Do whatcha wanka.

This means one should only masturbate to the reasonably hot middle-aged Brad Pitt, rather than the smokin' hot 25 year old Brad Pitt circa Meet Joe Black?

If they were pictures of a dead Anna Nicole Smith, it would be creepier, but still fall into the realm of "not hurting anyone else, but please don't mention it at Thanksgiving dinner because leaving that image seared into everyone's heads for all time would be harm."

You know, when we suggested that Dan get guest columnists I don't think we wanted Cary Tennis, but that seems to be who we got for this one.

I think Dan's advice might make more sense in if the object of your fantasy was a person you actually knew.

MAN wasn't really masturbating to Anna Nicole Smith (the person), but rather to a fantasy that physically resembled that person.

This kinda sounds like mudede.

Wait a minute--are you telling me I should stop jerking it to thoughts of Mary Todd Lincoln? Sorry, no can do.

This is one of those answers that reveals more about the way Dan's brain handles fantasy than anything else. For Dan it is important that there be some hope of a masturbation scenario actually happening. Lots of people (dare I say most?) don't find this as important as Dan does.

@11 has a good point along those lines. I continue to think about the hot versions of my fantasy women. Tellingly, Dan does in fact continuously update his fantasy cast as time goes by.

You would think that it would be ridiculous for anyone to hold themselves to the standard 11 proposes. However, Dan actually does do this. You can tell if you pay attention to his crush objects as he mentions them. The type remains the same, but as those boys start to get long in the tooth, the cast changes.

What I am trying to say is that Dan's fantasy life operates under the same rules as Menudo.

According to C. Mudede, this is precisely the reason one should ONLY masturbate to dead people.

Fantasies inherently involve a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Personally I find suspending disbelief in terms of 'forgetting x is dead/doesn't actually exist' not one bit harder than suspending disbelief in terms of 'there might actually be a circumstance in which x wants to sleep with me'.

So my nerd self will happily keep masturbating to fantasies of hot young Harrison Ford, rugged old Harrison Ford, AND Han Solo, thanks.

This is why I don't watch recordings of dead singers/orators/actors/musicians/dancers/comedians. After all, I'll never get to see a live performance, so what's the point? Better to live in hope of one day meeting the cast of "Step Up" than subject myself to the crushing despair of Gene Kelly's pirouettes!

There's no way I'm getting rid of my 70s porn. :(

interesting. i literally can't masturbate to fantasies of people i know, but who would not be willing/likely to go there/do that with me. even if i find them breathlessly hot. it's just too unethical to be sexy. believe me, i've tried. but actors i don't know? fictional characters? dead people?? no issue.
i guess everyone is different.

Um, what? Masturbating to a real person of any sort is a little creepy, but why is a dead celebrity whom the masturbater is not likely to ever meet any creepier than a live one?

Not all mast. is about hope. But I guess a fictional character or a dead celeb can still count as hope for whatever that celeb or ficchar represented: A hot partner who doesn't care about my [insert physical flaw here], a chance to impress someone important, true love, perfect pitch... (Okay, some of these aren't specifically sex fantasies, but the same principle applies.)

And was there something missing with this response? It starts with "But."

This is an odd one to run right now--the next week he ran letters from people telling him that he was wrong and he conceded the point (although I think he said he personally felt it was still weird).