Savage Love: Nov. 23, 2023

Thanksgiving-themed columns from years past

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I’m taking the week off. Please enjoy these Thanksgiving-themed questions from the Savage Love archives. Gobble, gobble. — Dan

Something is bothering me, and I don’t know where else to turn. I’m a bisexual man. I’ve been married to a great guy for the past six years. Despite COVID, we gathered safely for an outdoors Thanksgiving dinner with my family. My mom, my brother and sister-in-law, and my adult nieces and nephews and their partners were there. Each household contributed to the feast, and we had a wonderful evening. While my husband and I were snuggling in bed later, he said that my casserole was a big hit thanks to the “secret ingredient.” When I asked what he meant, he informed me that he had deposited my cum from a blowjob he’d given me earlier that day in my half-finished casserole. When I asked why he did this, he said he thought it was hot and he was aroused watching my family ingest it. To me, this seems a bit twisted and feels like a deeply disrespectful act toward my family. Now I cannot sleep, and it is impossible for me to think of anything else. I wish he had never told me.

Confused And Shuddering Sleeplessly, Entirely Revolted Over Loaded Entrée

Some questions you suspect are fake, some questions you know are fake, and some questions you hope are fake. I wish I could say this question fell into the second category — a question I knew to be fake — but I once got a letter from a man who would excuse himself at dinner parties, quickly rub one out in the bathroom, and then dip the bristles of his hosts’ toothbrushes in his semen. (That was twenty years ago, and I’m still securing my toothbrush in a secret, undisclosed location when we have guests.) So as much as I wished we lived in a world where something like this could never happen, CASSEROLE, we don’t live in that world.

That said… some details don’t add up. I’ve been in the receiving end of plenty of blowjobs, CASSEROLE, and there are always tells when a guy doesn’t immediately swallow. A man who’s holding your load in his mouth has a certain look; his mouth and jaw are set in a particular and revealing way. There’s also no post-blowjob kissing or snuggling. And if you were to say, “Thank you, that was great,” and they hummed back, “Mmm-hmm,” instead of saying, “You’re welcome,” you would know the guy didn’t swallow. And yet you would have us believe that your husband somehow gave you a blowjob and somehow didn’t swallow without you noticing and then… did what exactly? Strolled around the house with a mouth full of cum until the opportunity to defile your casserole presented itself?

Then again…

Impromptu blowjobs sometimes happen, CASSEROLE, and they sometimes happen in kitchens. So, I suppose it’s possible your husband interrupted you while you were making a casserole and then spat your load into the casserole you were making and managed to give it a quick stir… without you noticing the spit or the stir? Sounds improbable… but I suppose your husband could have created an additional diversion — a post-blowjob diversion — that took your attention off your casserole long enough to execute this spit-and-stir maneuver. But even if he did all of this — blew you, didn’t swallow, created a diversion, spat your semen into your Thanksgiving casserole — would he tell you about it? The guy who was glazing his friend’s toothbrushes didn’t brag to his friends about it. He wrote to me about it, described it as a compulsion, and asked me how to stop. That your husband would be so clueless as to think you wouldn’t be revolted by this is, if you’ll forgive me, a little hard to swallow.

Still…

If your nieces and nephews are adults… it’s possible you and your husband are getting up there… and he could be suffering from early-onset dementia; inappropriate sexual behavior and poor impulse control are symptoms. So, on the off, off, off chance this actually happened, CASSEROLE, here’s my advice: If your husband spat your load into a half-finished casserole and then watched your whole family consume it and then assumed you would think it was hot and isn’t suffering from dementia, CASSEROLE, then you absolutely, positively need to divorce him. Let us count the ways you can’t trust this man: You can’t trust him with your semen, you can’t trust him not to feed your cum to your mother, you can’t trust him around your siblings and nieces and nephews. You can’t even leave him in the company of an unaccompanied casserole. So unless you looked into his eyes on your wedding day and thought, “This is a guy who would feed a woman her own son’s semen and I’m fine with that,” your husband isn’t the “great guy” you thought he was. He’s a monster and what he did unforgivable, even criminal. Divorce the asserole. Some will urge you to go to the police and press charges for sexual assault — those casserole leftovers may contain DNA evidence — but you’ll have to weigh involving the police against burdening your mother with the knowledge of your Thanksgiving casserole’s secret ingredient.

P.S. A casserole is really more of a side dish at Thanksgiving, isn’t it?

This question originally appeared on December 8, 2020.

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for almost a year. He’s 25, I’m 27. I asked him to have Thanksgiving dinner with me and my mother at my house. He said no. I also invited him to have dinner with my father, my brother, my stepmom and me the day after Thanksgiving. He said no again. His reasoning: “It would be too awkward.” He has met both sides of my family, and I have met his parents as well. His parents are having Thanksgiving dinner with family friends, and he doesn’t have other Thanksgiving plans. This is not the first time he has turned down invitations to spend time with my family. I’ve told him the only way for us to feel less awkward with each other’s families is to spend more time with them. He just said “I know” via text. I believe he loves me, and he is a wonderful partner in many areas of my life, but this is bothering me. What should I do? I’m fighting the urge to tell him that maybe our relationship is “too awkward” and we should part ways before Christmas. What do you think?

Single On Thanksgiving

I’d like to speak your boyfriend, SOT, so I could ask him the obvious follow-up question (OFUQ): Why does it feel awkward?

Assuming your boyfriend is into you and wants to keep seeing you, his answer to the OFUQ could go something like this: “We’ve been seeing each other for less than a year, and to me it feels like it’s too soon to be spending the holidays with each other’s families — it’s also too soon for us to be calling each other ‘partner.’ So let’s take a deep breath, stay calm and keep being wonderful to each other. If we’re still together this time next year then, yeah, we’ll do Thanksgiving with your folks or mine.”

It’s also a possibility — possibility ≠ certainty — that your boyfriend doesn’t want to keep seeing you and is operating/dating under the mistaken-but-all-too-common belief that it’s kinder to string someone along through the holidays. He may not want to spend Thanksgiving/Xmess/NYE with your folks because doing so will be held up as evidence of his lying jerkiness after he dumps you on November 27 or December 26 or January 2.

My advice: Take “it’s awkward” for an answer, tell him you’d like to have dinner on Saturday, and don’t make a big deal out of his reluctance to spend Thursday with at your mom’s and Friday at your dad’s. It could mean nothing at all, SOT, or it could mean something dire. But you’ll just have to wait and see.

This question originally appeared on November 24, 2015.

When a person has no concept of God, which I assume you don’t, nothing is “off limits” as to the bounds of sexual depravity. I once was where you are now (almost anyway) but came to realize that sex is a sacred pleasure given to men and women to practice responsibly. You turn sex into an ugly recreation, where there are no restrictions or morals. I hope as you mature in life, you begin to realize the true meaning of loving sex. I don’t expect a rebuttal, but thanks for giving me a chance to vent.

Bob Z.

My moral code — when it comes to sex — goes something like this: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That rings a bell? Treat each other with respect, show consideration, be kind, meet each other’s needs, don’t take each other for granted, be decent to the people you’re indecent with, and always treat your very special guest stars with generosity. There’s a strong moral code at the heart of my advice. You may be too distracted — or too titillated — by the dirty bells and sleazy whistles to see it, Bob, but like a forearm in a power bottom at Folsom… it’s in there.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Bob. I’m glad you’re happy. But I’d be thankful if you refrained from projecting your prior unhappiness — unhappiness with choices you made that weren’t working for you — onto others. Loving sex is great, Bob, and it comes in many guises. Still, I’m glad you’ve discovered what works for you sexually and emotionally. But you can love the sex you’re having now and find meaning in it without disparaging or making assumptions about the sex other people enjoy and find meaning in.

This question — more of accusation, really — originally appeared November 24, 2016.


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