Slog
News & ArtsMonday, February 18, 2013
Savage Love SL Letter of the Day: The College Try
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:24 PM
I'm 22-year-old straight girl with two problems that relate. I've been dating an awesome 22-year-old GGG guy for three years. We have good sex, similar values and plans, and lots of fun. We always fuck first. But he's backpacking in Australia, has been since November and will be until May. I'm in Edmonton, freezing cold and slogging my way through my undergrad work. That's problem number one.
Here's problem number two: one of my best friends at school is a super hot 19-year-old lesbian who is very touchy and flirtatious when we drink. Maybe it's because of this four month dry spell, Dan, but I have developed a raging crush. Do I mention this to her? I don't want to make her uncomfortable but I would actually like to experiment. There are other complications: the boyfriend and I are monogamous and I don't know how to address this with him. I guess my ideal situation would be fooling around with my friend after getting permission from the BF but that seems unlikely. Especially cause opening the relationship up while he's so far away doesn't seem particularly healthy. Plus I've never considered myself anything but straight and feel like this whole thing could just be the female version of thinking with my dick. I don't want to fuck things up with either of the people I love! Help!
Confused In Canada
My response after the jump...
Backpacking being what it is, Australians being what they are, and boyfriends being, well, boys, it seems highly likely that your boyfriend—backpacking through Australia for the last four months—has already crossed paths with one girl who made him feel the way your best friend at school is making you feel, i.e. crushed out, giddy, and guilty. At least one girl. Frankly, CIC, it wouldn't surprise me if your boyfriend had crossed a lot more than paths with a girl or two down there.
So here's what you're gonna do, CIC: you're gonna get your boyfriend on Skype and you're gonna confess. Unburden yourself, CIC. Tell your boyfriend about this girl who doesn't really present a threat to your relationship because she's a lesbian and you're straight and blah blah blah but you've developed this crazy and unexpected crush on her in his absence (be sure to drop an "in your absence" or two in there) and you're actually kinda curious about girl-on-girl sex and you're sorely tempted but of course you haven't done anything and of course you wouldn't do anything... without his permission. Then ask him how things are going for him.
If he has messed around with anyone over the last four months, CIC, there's a strong chance your awesome boyfriend will match your confession with one of his own and he'll encourage you to sleep with your lesbian pal in order to 1. even the score and 2. alleviate his guilt. And even if he hasn't messed around with anyone, CIC, he's probably had more than one opportunity to mess around and wanted to mess around but passed out of loyalty to you. Talking honestly about your crush could help you two come to a new agreement about your time apart: you're allowed to mess around a little, he's allowed to mess around a little, and so long as everyone is honest and the sex is safe and everything is above board... it's healthy.
As for your first big experiment with lesbian sex—which only happens if you get the go-ahead from the boyfriend and if your lesbian classmate is interested in being someone's experiment—here's hoping your college try goes better than Garfunkel & Oates's did...
2
That said, don't be surprised if he finds the airfare to come watch.
3
What you should've said was, "invite your too-be lesbian lover over, Skype the boyfriend, ask for permission, and let him watch on the spot! An then of course record it and post it on the internet. Afterall, as #2 said, there couldn't possibly be that many girl-on-girl sex videos online.
I think Mr Savage is a little too result-focused on this one. It's perhaps sweet to want to get the LF some action, but using heterocentrically prejudicial views about the irrelevance of same-sex experimentation to do so doesn't sit well. I'm going to hope that LF would be willing to be an experimental fling with LW, but, discovering herself to be presented to BF as non-threatening, storms off in high dudgeon (or at least low dudgeon).
There's an early episode of As Time Goes By in which Jean's divorced daughter Judith is about to go to a dinner party with some married couples. She tells Lionel that her married friends all love her to pieces because she's so non-threatening. Lionel cheers her up considerably, telling her to be a threat.
7
More the irrelevance of young relationships. He's not somehow "kinder" to the dude.
12
If Dan started adding: "oh, and by the way half of your straight boyfriends/husbands have enjoyed some kind of sex with men" (Does half seem about right? Kinsey says a third, but that was a while ago and the risks of experimentation have gone down a lot), do you think he would lose readership because people aren't ready to hear that?
16
Current wisdom is that women toggle freely back and forth from lesbian and straight, but they're unique in this. And supposedly this phenomena isn't proper bisexuality. My gut instinct tells me that there are more bisexuals than gays+straights, though they suffer from cultural pressures and cannot bring themselves to identify as bi. Science suggests there are even fewer (male) bisexuals than there are gays!
When I think of all the guys I met in bars and slept with who insisted they were straight... I lose my confidence in surveys. My unscientific conclusion is that people with same-sex attraction and sexual experience are less willing to identify as gay or bi these days. My guess is that in earlier times, people didn't know that experimentation was common and normal. Any act you'd committed was proof you were queer. Now sexuality is becoming better known, people use it as an excuse to put off deciding. I wonder if we probed young men more deeply, would they admit to being "straight but a little freaky"?
"Tell your boyfriend about this girl who doesn't really present a threat to your relationship because she's a lesbian and you're straight and blah blah blah..."
is not only the sort of mediocrity one expects more from Ms Prudie than from Mr Savage, but also ought to strike anyone with a good sense of cliche that leading with She Isn't a Threat is the surest path to LW discovering that she's mistaken about that.
I think I have a double standard on this one because just by nature of societal advantages a possible opposite-sex relationship constitutes an almost automatic threat in reversed situations.
23
24
25
27
29
"... who doesn't really present a threat to your relationship because she's a lesbian and you're straight and blah blah blah..."I read that completely as an eyeroll from Dan. With maybe a little weariness at the cliche.
31
Today's research, even major studies, use a survey and rarely "plumb the depths." Next, only some surveys ask about lifetime behavior now, most just focus on the past year. Many just ask "are you gay/straight/bi" and so *only* get at self-identification -- which is about 2% gay for males.
> Science suggests there are even fewer (male) bisexuals than there are gays!
Actually, today's science shows that bi-identified males are almost as rare as unicorns. But bi males go way up if you look at the research that looks at behavior (look at MSM on pubmed). The problem is that media summaries of the science usually get it all wrong / oversimplified.
Kinsey's work was in a way much more in depth than modern research. But it had faults too. There is no exact science when it comes to sex, as Kinsey said, we're all snowflakes. (Or was that gall wasps?)
Another wrinkle -- probably more situational male-on-male adolescent sex in the 1950s, whereas more of today's adolescent males can get it on with adolescent females.
Mostly / entirely straight males and females have so much same-sex situational sex in certain situations -- English boarding schools in the 1930s, prisons, Oberlin College -- that the same-sex "ewww" factor obviously is made up / a cultural response -- or at least is no greater than for anyone having sex for the first time, whether with same gender or other gender.
No and no. Why would you even go there?
Where are people getting this idea that the bf is so likely to agree to the proposal? Most young men are a lot more interested in getting pussy themselves than they are in enabling their girlfriend to get some. Sure, there's some wank material to be had from thinking about your girl burying her face in another girl thousands of miles away - but the boy is a lot more likely to agree if (a) he's likely to score soon himself and wants the free pass or (b) he thinks there's a chance he'll benefit directly when he returns home. But unless one of those two things is the case, it wouldn't surprise me if he said no. Most people want to have sex a lot more than they want to help their partner have sex, and most people don't like feeling left out.
What I meant is that CIC should not ask the girlcrush if she'll sleep with the boyfriend. And she shouldn't allow the boyfriend to think that this is possible. It's not possible -- the other woman is a lesbian.
40
You're not really arguing with Dan here.
41
@40: Maybe not. I think Dan's overestimating the power of guilt, though.
43
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Portland Voters Are Stoopid by Goldy
-
An I-5 Bridge Over the Skagit River Has Collapsed by Paul Constant
-
Why They Break Windows by Unpaid Intern
-
Did You Steal Our Unpaid Intern's Camera? by Goldy
-
Usually When I'm Sent a Photoshopped Image of a Gun Pointed At Me... by Dan Savage
-
The Only Thing More Tragic than a Bridge Collapse Would Be a 10 Cent a Gallon Increase in the Gas Tax by Goldy
-
Tornado Truthers by Dan Savage
-
Star Trek Releases Deleted Scene of Benedict Cumberbatch Showering to Counter Claims of Sexism by Cienna Madrid
-
Boy Scouts Lift Ban on Gay Members by Paul Constant
-
Should I Buy One of These? by Goldy
Stranger Personals
The Stranger
RSSSeattle Art & Performance Quarterly
A complete guide to Seattle's current art, film, dance, and theater season.
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (43) RSS