bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->1:25:57</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->1:25:57</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Fay and Better Sex</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The advice lumnist discs how datg, sex and relatnships have changed over the past 30 years — and where they should go next.</h4><time dateTime="2023-01-10T10:00:12.000Z" class="css-1e605">2023-01-10T05:00:12-05:00</time></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m Ezra Kle. This is “The Ezra Kle Show.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How do you troduce Dan Savage? Oof. I thk ’s fair. I thk ’s maybe arguable to say he’s the most important sex advice lumnist the untry — and has been for a long time. There’s a good profile of him Slate om a b back that wrote, quote, “In the three s sce the lumn buted, Savage Love”— which is the name of his sex advice lumn — “has morphed om a c stunt to the most important text ntemporary Amerin sexual ethics.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s right: “the most important text ntemporary Amerin sexual ethics.” But what’s so important about , I thk, is that Savage, his lumns and his podst, the “Savage Lovest,” has been this ccial bridge between the gay, queer and straight muni, at a time when sexual and relatnal norms all of them are changg and cross-pollatg. And this has been a time of a lot of change and a lot of cross-pollatn. I thk is hard, if you are jt livg through this — as we all are — to really step back and regnize how different thgs have bee such a short perd of time.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Legal — not jt legal — nstutnal same-sex marriage; the rise of app-based datg, which I don’t thk we’ve really apprehend how different that is to pletely turn around the fundamental qutn of datg om srcy to abundance — or at least abundance of choic, if not always people; much more openns — part due to Savage — towards var forms of ethil non-monogamy. We’re seeg so much more fluidy and possibily and eedom. And that has e wh a lot of anxiety and unhapps and send-gusg. You would thk we’d be this space of unbelievable sexual and relatnal abundance, and stead, people are talkg about sex recsns. App-based datg may have given people more choice, but are they happier? Are their relatnships stronger? It don’t seem so.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk the tensn here is that we now have the eedom to live our sexual and relatnal liv really differently, but I’m not sure that we have, or that many of have, the skills or the expectatns or the munitn need to navigate that eedom smoothly.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And, a way, I’ve always thought that’s really the eper topic Savage wr about. Sex is sort of a way to that for him. So I want to brg him on the show to discs . As always, my email, </p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Dan Savage, what a pleasure to have you on the show.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m shocked to be here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] I like that. That’s how I want people to feel when we beg. So I want to start wh a b of a grand sweep. You’ve been wrg, I thk, the most important sex and probably relatnship advice lumn Ameri for 30 years. What are the biggt chang that perd, to you, our sexual and relatnal landspe?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">When I started wrg Savage Love 1991, kk wasn’t as wily unrstood, genr wasn’t as wily unrstood, and the possibily of stcturg your own relatnships a way that worked for you, rather than a way that worked for your parents or grandparents, wasn’t somethg that straight people had embraced. And I’m gay, and one of the thgs that was unique about Savage Love, when I started wrg , was was sex advice for straight people wrten by a gay du, and I got a lot of angry letters the first uple of years om people projectg onto me, as a gay person, their ignorance of gay people as straight people. Like, they didn’t know anythg about gay people or gay relatnships, and they jt assumed I would know nothg about straight people and straight relatnships, as if my parents weren’t straight, as if my siblgs weren’t straight, as if I didn’t fake beg straight for a while, and didn’t make a very close study of what a straight person acted like, wanted, and did, an attempt to pass myself as straight. Gay people know what straight people are like.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And if there’s been any change the last 30 years that I thk is the most signifint is this great cultural cross-pollatn between gay life and straight life that really drove home that thgs we thought of as particular to gay muni, gay subcultur, gay life were not choic gay people were makg, and a lot of thgs that we associated wh straight people, straight life, were not choic that straight people were eely makg, and that, once people were more ee to make their own choic, a lot of gay people acted a lot more straight, and a lot of straight people began to act a lot more gay.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’ve been thkg, to pull back the curta on this a b, about dog a relatnships episo for a while, and what keeps trippg up is that most relatnship books are bad. And one of the reasons I was exced when we thought of havg on is that, one, I realized that a lot of jt the language people e around me now om you, om your lumn, om your rears — you know, “monogamish,” and “GGG” — and all the thgs you’ve brought to the disurse, but beyond that, somethg that I thk you’ve had a huge fluence on is beg this bridge om gay and queer and kk culture to straight datg culture, a way that has actually ma — at least sce I moved to San Francis, I see much more — straight datg culture very different. What are some of those differenc? You’ve mentned that there was this kd of bridge that opened up, but what me over ?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The ia that monogamy is a choice a uple mak, and a choice a uple n revis, that monogamy shouldn’t be a flt settg, should be somethg that you opt to and n opt out of over the life of a relatnship. When I first me out as gay and began to meet gay upl, I was surprised. You know, I moved to datg and relatnships wh expectatns and wants that had been hand to me, and I was surprised by the numbers of gay upl I met who were wrg their own script and dog their own thg. And, at first, I found that threateng, and then I got ed to , and then I saw the logic and the utily of , that you should do what works for you and for you two as a uple, and that should be a nversatn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s primarily what me over . I don’t thk everybody is monogamish or open now. If there’s anythg that I’ve really tried to hammer home over the years, ’s to attack the myths, the li that we’re told when we’re children that beg love means you aren’t gog to want to sleep wh anybody else. Not te. Beg love, if you’ve ma a monogamo mment, might mean you don’t sleep wh anybody else, out of rpect for your partner, and the choice you ma, and the choice you ma together, but you’re still gog to want to sleep wh somebody else, and expectg that other person to pretend they don’t want to sometim, that they aren’t tempted, and gettg angry whenever you stumble over evince that your partner might be attracted to somebody else, which isn’t me givg permissn to people to be sensive or cel about sometim fdg other people attractive, if you’re an exclive relatnship, but ’s such an enge of nflict. That’s what I began to see when I first started gettg a lot of letters om straight people, that the expectatns — that love meant you didn’t sleep wh anybody else at all, te and lastg relatnships were monogamo relatnships, created so much strs and tensn, and wound up endg a lot of really good relatnships and imperfect on. And monogamy is sort of my hobbyhorse. Monogamy is lerally the only thg humans attempt where perfectn is the only metric of succs.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You should meet some vegans.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] Well, I gus there’s that too.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Sorry.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’ve met a few. We have some for Christmas Eve dner every year. It’s very plited. But, you know, if perfectn is your measure of succs, you’re settg yourself up for failure and disappotment a mted, long-term, sexually exclive relatnship. You know, the world’s greatt chef sometim burns an omelet. Still the world’s greatt chef. Shn Whe is the world’s greatt snowboarr, has fallen down and gotten up and still been Shn Whe. world’s greatt snowboarr. If you’re wh somebody for 50 years and you fd out they cheated on you once, they were terrible at monogamy, they failed at monogamy, they never loved you, wasn’t a real relatnship. We believe the thgs and then they stroy not open relatnships, they stroy monogamo relatnships that are imperfect, as all relatnships are. And, if anythg, if there’s any wdl I tilted agast that I feel like I knocked over, was that one.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I was lookg at a poll preparg for this that I thought was both kd of funny and revealg. It was a YouGov poll om 2020, and found that 12 percent of adults said they’d had some kd of sexual experience outsi their partnership wh their partner’s nsent — which is higher than I thought would be, actually — and 18 percent said they’d had a sexual experience outsi the partnership whout their partner’s nsent. And we know, pollg, people are not gog to adm to that full numbers, so ’s probably higher. So ’s not jt that there is monogamy and non-monogamy, but there’s also the sha of people who say they’re monogamo and aren’t.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, people dog what they need to do sometim to stay married and stay sane, and everybody looks at that, and ’s sudnly whe hats and black hats, and the person who cheated is a terrible person. I like what Esther Perel has said — that sometim, the victim of the affair is not the victim of the marriage. I also like what I’ve said, that, sometim, cheatg is the least-worst optn for all volved. You know, whenever I say I’m the guy who sometim giv people permissn to cheat, a lot of people jump down my throat, bee they jt thk that mt be awful. And then a lot of the exampl that I ce, thgs that have e up my lumn, are, you know, someone who’s a long-term, mted relatnship wh a person who is chronilly ill, and the sexual part of their relatnship has end. And is the right thg to tell the person who wants to have sex outsi that relatnship — that’s about re and nurturg and mment, but not about sex anymore? Am I supposed to tell that person, well, do the right thg and leave? Do the right thg and get a divorce? Don’t, like, slip out to discreetly get a sexual need met so that you n be there fully for your partner and not rent your partner for how prived you feel of any sort of sexual outlet. Go do that discreetly and then be there. And that’s me somehow beg agast relatnships, agast mment, and that’s me sort of wrtlg wh realy — that life is long and that, sometim, ntgenci have to be ma.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I would jt say, that 18 percent, everyone’s gog to hear that figure and thk, oh, the serial adulterers, oh, the awful people, lyg and cheatg and nng around behd their partner’s backs. If you’re my posn, where you get a lot of letters and emails and lls om people who are very difficult circumstanc, where they have a very human, reptile bra need, that they’re kd of gog crazy, and ’s harmg their relatnship that this need is unmet, I thk, reprented that 18 percent figure to a very signifint gree. But when we talk about the 18 percent who have slept wh somebody else whout their partner’s nsent, what we see are ds, and what we see are terrible people. We see cheaters as they’re prented to film and televisn and novels. And reali are very different.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t thk I’ve ever known anybody cheatg on their partner — and not that they so often adm to me — where they were happy, which jt speaks a ltle b to your pot. I mean, I may be a b more of a moralist on this than you. I may have not fully absorbed the Savage wisdom, but I’ve been a nfidant on suatns like this before, and they’re always very tough. People — sometim they’re not — I do want to say, sometim, people are not dog what they need to do, they’re jt dog what they would like to do. But oftentim, the thgs are ntext where my advice is, well, you guys should have broken up. But ’s very easy to be outsi of a relatnship sayg that everythg that has been built should be end. And si relatnships, ’s much more plited, and how people got to a pot where they’re sort of miserably unable to talk about their own unhapps wh each other, and tryg to fd too much outsi is — I mean, often the tragedy, and to Perel’s pot, the crim occurred before. This is a culmatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y, and a need. You know, sex is bigger than we are, and we pretend that we’re ntrol of sex, and we’re charge of sex. Sex built and is buildg whatever after . Through the procs of natural selectn and spontaneo mutatn, here we are. And we like to pretend that we get to fe sex. I thk we negotiate wh sex om a posn of relative powerlsns, and has to be channeled. It n’t be dammed up, and that clus sexual sire, which is about a lot more than sex, even the ntext of a mted relatnship.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not agast monogamy. This is ually when somebody jumps up to say, you’re agast monogamy. I’m a long-term, mted, open relatnship. We’re approachg our third together, and I still get people who are monogamists, who will say to my face, well, I uldn’t do what you and Terry do, bee I value mment too highly, and I look at them, and I’m like, how many s do we have to be together before we get some cred for mment?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I always thk “sex” is a word here that obscur so much more than reveals. Already, when people talk about men, where ’s like sex is jt as if you need to play basketball once a week to get your energy out, where, particularly relatnships, and long relatnships, what people want, often seems to me, is much more plited. Sex is this stand- — or this way people are fdg the feelg of beg sired or of sire or of novelty or of love and secury. And different kds produce pletely different thgs, right? This is a big Esther Perel pot — of this kd of petn between the need for secury and the need for novelty. But always has seemed to me, we have this disurse about sex as if simply havg sex as if you n tally up on a ltle marker sheet, where — people have a lot of trouble, my experience, sayg what needs they actually need fulfilled, bee they’ve not typilly been given a lot of language for what’s behd that gigantic thg blottg out the sun of emotnal needs that we always talk about stead.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that those two thgs, sexual and emotnal needs, n be on parallel tracks, but they’re on separate tracks, and jt the eedom to acknowledge that the ntext of a mted relatnship n make easier to be a mted relatnship. I’m not the enemy of monogamy. I see the benefs of monogamy for many people, around sexual exclivy, paternal secury, protectn om sexually transmted fectns. There are advantag to monogamy. There are advantag to some gree of permted, ntrolled sexual eedom the ntext of a mted relatnship. But I regnize that you have a zone of erotic tonomy, and so do I, and to not try to ntrol that, to create some space and eedom si the relatnship for that mak that ls of a potentially damagg chaos agent that uld stroy the relatnship. There’s a really tertg study out of the Netherlands lookg at marriage. Netherlands is the place that’s had marriage equaly for the longt — gay marriage for the longt. And tertgly, they found, spe people’s assumptns, that gay male upl are the least likely to divorce; straight upl were more likely, lbian upl most likely. Lbian upl and straight upl most likely to be monogamo; gay upl least likely to be monogamo. Correlatn a’t atn, but would seem that gay male upl are dog somethg right by diffg the bomb that explos so many straight and lbian relatnships, which is this sire for outsi sexual ntact, for tonomo sexual experienc, for the affirmatn of your sirabily by others whose job isn’t to affirm your sirabily, and that n redound to the benef of your mted relatnship, to your primary partnership.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And you look at this study, and you read , and you thk, well, maybe gay upl are dog somethg right here, and I thk, as more gay people have e out, and more straight people have gotten to the gay people that they knew, or gotten to know gay people who they didn’t know, they’ve seen that at work our relatnships. And more straight people have at least entertaed the thought of there beg different possibili, which, a way, ironilly, is the stated fear of social nservativ om the ‘70s and ‘80s, when I was a kid — that gay people led the hedonistic liftyl, and straight people were gog to be tempted to adopt gay, hedonistic liftyl. And we’ve kd of seen that e to pass. It’s jt straight people took everythg gay people were dog and gave new nam.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t know if I n swear on your podst, but gay people had tricks and fuck buddi, and straight people renamed that as iends wh benefs and hookg up. There’s jt so much om gay culture that straight people jt adopted wholale and renamed, and that was what Jerry Falwell Sr. — who would be very shocked at Jerry Falwell Jr.‘s behavr — was worried about, and me te.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’ve been talkg a b about unhapps that afflicts married or long-term, mted partnerships, but one of the motivatns for this chat, for me, has been that there’s been this spate of books over the past uple of years wh nam like “Bad Sex” and “Rethkg Sex” and “The Right to Sex,” and I’ve done podsts wh some of the people, like Amia Srivasan and Maggie Nelson and Erika Bachchi. There’s an tertg moment here of qutng where the sexual revolutn got , and particularly qutng where is left people, not so much mted partnerships but who are stgglg wh this kd of expansive eedom to not be mted partnerships, and I’m cur of your sense of that. What’s behd a lot of the disntent right now, and how do you read ?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I read “Right to Sex.” I also read the wrer for The Washgton Post.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, Christe Emba.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I had her on my show for “Rethkg Sex: A Provotn.” It is tertg. I have felt for — you know, I’m sort of intified wh the sex posivy movement, and I’ve never really tossed that term around a lot to scribe myself or what I do. I was really thrilled to read all the way through Chre Emba’s book, “Rethkg Sex,” and get to a place where she quoted somethg I said, that was basilly, there needs to be a limg prciple. You n have sex wh too many people. You n have sex too often, and that kd of puts you at a greater physil risk, and n do a psychic damage. I’ve never been, the solutn for everybody’s unhapps is jt for everybody to have more, and tons, and lots of different partners. I thk that’s a part of the sex posivy movement, the Mary Popps ia that enough is as good as a feast.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, the books are beg wrten by women. A lot of the young femists that are wrten about “The Right to Sex,” who are re-evaluatg and rethkg and embracg wrers like Andrea Dwork are women and young women, who fd the sexual marketplace to be humanizg. And that may be an element of the current sex culture that there needs to be a rrectn for, a unter-reformatn, maybe. I thk, when sex is bad, odds are was worse for, bad for the woman. So don’t surprise me that a lot of the books were wrten by women, and I thk the crique the books about a lot of what’s been sold to people as sex posivy is jt libratg the settgs so that they work for men.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I’ve always thought Andrew Sullivan’s pot about, when you look at gay male sex culture vers lbian sex culture, sometim, that you n see some sort of sential difference between men and women. And men approach sex, straight men approach sex whout, I thk, an awarens of the implied vlence, the threat that a lot of women will say y to sex bee they don’t feel empowered to say no, and that n rult a lot of women havg sex that they didn’t enjoy, that left them feelg terrible, and the guy don’t even realize, right, bee he’s so thoughtls about , bee he hasn’t projected himself to the woman’s experience.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">As a gay man, as a man who has sex wh men, I thk I have some appreciatn for what ’s like to have sex wh men, and for what men are. A lot of men don’t, and I thk that rults a lot of bad sex for a lot of women. And like I’ve said, I thk we do need some sort of unter-reformatn that rrects for and rais some awarens of sensivi around the relative vulnerabily that a woman experienc a sexual enunter wh a man, relative to the man’s experience or even perceptns of the power differential that exists.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You had an tertg pot there that I was reflectg on while you were talkg about how most of the books have been wrten by women, and I get the sense — this is an unproven hypothis — I don’t get the sense that young men are super happy out there. And you mentned, you see the data that young men are not havg a lot of sex. They’re also havg a lot of mental problems. There’s been this huge rise of the cels, and Amia Srivasan’s this is wrten direct rponse to, or at least the tle say is direct rponse to cel stuff. And I sometim thk, on both sis, that gets to this ia that one thg that we have told people is that sex n solve more problems than actually n.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I always thought there’s a weird thg that would happen repeatedly nversatns about cels, where somebody would say, and then get a ton of crap, I thk rrectly, for sayg, well, should we jt give them sex workers? Should there be some kd of right to a sex worker? And even if you uld do that — and even if that was not credibly humanizg to sex workers — I thk ’s pletely clear that what the people wanted was not actually terurse; was stat. It was the sense of havg a posn society where people wanted you and would sire you and would thk you had worth, enough worth that they would choose you eely. And solvg that need is way harr than answerg the qutn of how n we possibly get you laid. And, siarly, I thk, what a lot of people are lookg for relatnships that don’t get well-answered by hook-ups is the kd of sendary needs about what the gaze of another person means to me as a person.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I don’t know, readg some of the books, I’ve had this thought, and I’m cur if rgs te to you, that we jt have had a lot more sexual revolutn than relatnal revolutn, or relatnship revolutn. I mean, we do talk about monogamy vers polyamory vers ethil monogamy and non-monogamy more, but terms of how we relate to each other, we jt seem way behd the amount of eedom we have sudnly achieved.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I pletely agree. I am one of those people, though, who have suggted that I don’t thk ’s a solutn to cels to hand sex workers to them. I have a lot of iends, unlike a lot of people who wre about the thgs, who are sex workers. The last thg I want to do is lock one of my iends who’s a sex worker a room wh a vlent misogynist cel. That said, downstream, a culture where we stigmatized sex work and stigmatized payg for sex, that very clear way of, like, handg over of money for sex, people who, addn to feelg emotnally unfulfilled, emotnally unsatisfied, then also stew sexual privatn, might be a balm.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk all relatnships, if you really peel the layers back far enough, are, at some pot, transactnal. I pay for wh my hband. I don’t pay for wh sh money. I pay for wh time, attentn, affectn, ncern, makg sure he go to see the doctor when he needs to go see the doctor. There’s a reason married people live longer. If I stopped payg like that, if I stopped rg about him, if he stopped payg like that, stopped payg me wh those same ephemeral, tangible, but very important thgs, our relatnship would llapse.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We see transactnal relatnships everywhere, and if you know people who are sex workers, a lot of what they’re paid for is not sex, ’s time, ’s attentn, ’s foc, and if we have a culture that tells people that, if you ever had to pay for wh sh, you’re a loser, or a monster, or both, mak the one outlet that some people may have, the one way that some people may pay for , that other people who are also payg for might not pay for , clos that lane down. It’s not a solutn for people who are right now on Redd, you know, celebratg vlence agast women, bee they’re so angry about beg low stat, right? It’s a solutn that uld roll out over a generatn or four, where we have ls cels, ls vlence, ls misogyny 100 years om now than we do now, if we uld all jt regnize — jt like we should all regnize that beg love and a mted monogamo relatnship don’t mean your partner isn’t terted the waer — if we uld also regnize that all relatnships, all sexual relatnships, all emotnal relatnships are, on some level, transactnal, and, therefore, we shouldn’t stigmatize the on that are more evintly transactnal.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I agree on the not stigmatizg, but I want to hold, I’m so terted this word “transactnal,” and I’m tryg to watch what’s happeng my own head on , which is — Which is jt fancy for “we all pay for .”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, I know, but this is what has e to my md on this. I don’t know if, wh more time to thk about , I would hold here, but I’m gonna go wh my stct, which is, I thk this is a place where our market metaphors are so domant that that feels right, even as feels to be wrong, which is, I wonr why the word there isn’t actually still relatnal, which is to say, I mean, on some level, everythg has an exchange, and everythg has a dynamic, and thgs you give, and thgs you get, but, one thg, I have transactnal, tly transactnal relatnships my life, and what mak them transactnal is the abily to fairly, cleanly walk away.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">One of the weird thgs about beg a parent and havg child re is you have people who are embedd your life this unbelievably important faial role and, also, you pay them, and creat this very tense and noticeable tensn between the transactnal level of the relatnship and the fact that they love your child, and you love your child, and you love them for lovg your child, and ’s this whole thg. And this is a ltle b what I mean when I say, sometim, I thk that we have over-theorized and over-worked on sex and unr-theorized and unr-worked on relatnships. Bee, some ways, seems cleaner to say the relatnship is transactnal, but what’s so tratg and real about them, to me, is how often they’re not.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But maybe one of the thgs you exchange that transactnal, mted relatnship is the difficulty of extractg yourself om , of extritg yourself om . One of the thgs that Terry has given me is marriage, and one of thgs I’ve given him is marriage, which upped the stak, right, and ma walkg away om this relatnship — created a gree of difficulty that has discentivized walkg away om this relatnship, and that is one of the thgs that we have exchanged.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s a betiful thg, really, about marriage. I had a iend who ed to say — that I heard him say, and I’ve always felt ’s te, that, before he and his partner got married, you’d be argug over, you know, the curtas the hoe, and wasn’t clear if you’re argug about the curtas or argug about whether or not you should break up, and after you get married, until a certa really, really tense pot, you really are argug about the curtas, and there’s both difficulty and bety that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m not agast love, and I don’t thk love is —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not puttg you agast love. I’m jt thkg aloud wh you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not agast love, and I thk there is some there there, but ’s so hard to p down. It’s so subjective. It’s so personal. It’s so hard to scribe. We n only scribe sort of the physil worlds and actual actns and eds that are attendant to , right? But I know ’s there, and I know ’s a thg self too. I also know that ’s an ia. I also know ’s a lie. A love story is somethg that two people create together. It’s a myth two people create together and then rem to and are always sort of edg and rhapg and retellg. And has a power. Stori have power.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Even that, though, the tellg and retellg of that story, is somethg we give each other a relatnship and somethg that giv a feelg of meang and safety and ntentment as dividuals, but also, then, as that — you know, we are all dividuals. A uple is an ia. A uple is somethg two dividuals agreed to pretend to be together, right?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I love that. I thk that’s so unbelievably te.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, you thk about, so many of the problems of sex a long-term relatnship is tryg to repture the magic and tensy and passn of the begng, and so much of the sex advice-dtrial plex is about lyg to people and tellg them they n, right, or that they should, and that ’s possible. And a long-term relatnship, by weight of — and we’re not really even talkg now about, you know, “Rethkg Sex,” “The Right to Sex.” The problem of nnectn, and how atomized people are the days, and the difficulty, particularly younger people are havg, fdg each other and the paradox of choice — if there’s too many different kds of mtard the mtard aisle at the grocery store, people walk down that aisle and don’t get mtard, even if was on their list, bee they n’t choose, and, really, the ter has created for many people that — and so ’s not all people who feel low stat, who feel cheated, who feel unmarketable for some reason.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">A lot of people who are, you know, the mtard aisle of, like, datg apps, and want to pick a jar of mtard and would like to have mtard at home whenever they want n’t que brg themselv to do , and I thk all of the problems and how we figure out how to addrs them are better problems to have than what people pe for, which are when women didn’t have optns, when women weren’t legal adults, when women uldn’t have cred rds or bank acunts or sign leas, when women were property, and a lot of men wound up relatnships wh women who were there unr durs, and we lled that “marriage,” right?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that’s not the se anymore. And how do we ntrol for that? How do we ntrol for high-stat men churng through as many women as they n get, jt like high-stat gay men ed to be able to churn through a lot of male partners, and then how do we ntrol for low stat or low social skills?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, when I talk to cels, and I’ve talked to cels — I’ve gotten on the phone wh some people privately — you thk of that movie, I thk, “The Ssns,” wh Helen Hunt. It’s about a sex worker gog to see a profoundly physilly disabled client, and everyone’s like, oh, that’s wonrful. That’s plited, bee we have weird, screwed-up feelgs about sex work and whether ’s legimate, whether ’s work or not, whether should be legal or not, safe or not — that’s the argument when to the legaly of sex work. It’s not whether ’s gog to exist or not, or ’s gog to be safe, or riskier than all jobs are. And we regnize that, if somebody is profoundly physilly disabled, that the attentn and affectn of a sex worker is a wonrful thg to be provid, sometim even by fay, to that person.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, a lot of the cels that I’ve actually spoken to are profoundly socially disabled. I thk that disabily, when somebody who has profound social disabili se a sex worker, we should be able to regnize that, that need for affectn, that need for sex, this route to obtag and the improvement of the qualy of life of that person, ’s legimate. It’s legimate. And is a good, and we should make that easier — not, you know, through feral subsidi, you know, the Department of Sex Work. We should make that easier by elimatg the stigma and givg people who do sex work or see sex workers the benef of the doubt, and then also to regnize people who see sex workers, to regnize ourselv, to regnize the ways which, even our own mted relatnships, there are still the transactnal elements.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That don’t mean there’s not affectn. Everyone I know who is a sex worker who has long-term clients, those are relatnships of real, lastg affectn. Those are long-term relatnships. And yet we want to knock those relatnships down to purely transactnal; we want to ll them crim; and then we refe to regnize our own relatnships the transactnal elements that might help empathize wh people who have no other outlet except a sex worker.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s so much richns that answer, but I want to go back to somethg you said early that stck me as one of the tt sentenc I’ve ever heard, which is, “Every uple is an ia.” And, a way, all of are ias, and another way of amg some thgs I’ve been sayg here is that a big part of sex is how chang or affirms or validat, or unrm our ia of ourselv. But you also see relatnships, and upl, this le, you know, that people often have many marriag to the same person, and I thk that’s te, but ’s always been a very unclear le, what means.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I thk what you’re sayg is a much clearer way of sayg , that what will often happen a marriage, and ’s happened me, is that the first ia of the uple stops beg te, and that’s a very, very, very difficult place, when that ia stops beg te, when the story you told is no longer the story that fs, and upl that survive and thrive n fd another ia of themselv —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">— some other story that they now hab, and they’re proud of, and they like. But ’s also te for dividuals. A lot of life is havg a story that you believe of yourself and that other people believe enough about you that you n move through the world a way that you regnize who you are, and regnize how you are seen, and you are OK wh what you see that regnn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m cur, though, bee this seems like a skill, and I want to actually speak about skills here, but that we don’t really have, which is to know explicly how to tell what stori we are tellg, and to also know how to change them, know how to make them amenable to edg, to difference, to new chapters. How do you thk about that?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, the difficulty is you have to be tellg the same story together — that if your revisn isn’t also your wife’s revisn, or the new way that you’re tellg the story. If you’re imposg on your partner, or ’s jt nflict wh the story that they’re tellg about the relatnship, ’s gog to be a very dysfunctnal relatnship. It’s gog to fall apart. That’s the hard part. You know, I’ve been wh my hband for almost 30 years. We’ve had very different stag and eras of our relatnship. It’s more like layers of sediment. It’s more like diggg up Troy than is jt, like, scrappg the story and tellg a new one. There’s jt this new cy built on top of the old cy, but the old cy is still unr there somewhere.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The hard part is, you know, when you’re nflict — and Terry and I have stared to the abyss. We’ve gone to upl unselg. We’ve been bter nflicts, screamed the word “divorce” each other’s fac, and then we me to a new unrstandg of who we were gog to be to each other and how that was gog to work, and we began to hab that new story and tell that new story together. And that only works if you n do together. Can I jump back for a send —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Please.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">— bee somethg occured to me when you were askg that qutn about, like, we see — ’s a cliche, you know, the powerful C.E.O who go to see the domatrix, right, the right-on femist woman who wants, durg sex wh a partner that she chose, and she feels safe and fortable wh, wants her hair pulled and wants to be lled a “slut,” the gay guy, who’s out and proud, and is turned on durg sex, wh someone he chose, to have homophobic hate words hurled at him durg sex. The are all clich. The are all tisms about sex. And the paradox is this is not who I am. Like, I am not a dirty slut who should have her hair pulled. This is not who I am. By leapg to that, fantasy or role play or experience, almost affirms and solidifi who you are the rt of the time, the 99.9999 percent of the time, when that is not happeng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s somethg about sex where we want to transgrs agast our ias of self. There’s also somethg that’s dangeroly powerful about sex, where we want to transgrs agast the story we’re tellg as a uple, that there is somethg about beg a long-term, mted relatnship, and there’s somethg about sex where, sometim, you want to be not you, and that n then extend to, sometim, you want to vlate who you’re perceived to be, the uple that — you want to vlate who your partner thks you are. How do you put those thgs harns to serve the relatnship, as opposed to tear the relatnship apart, is a real, varsy-level, high gree of difficulty thg to do. Hontly, really, to rporate hontly to the relatnship, most people rporate that stuff dishontly to the relatnship, and I don’t mean that most people cheat a relatnship, but that most people have that zone of erotic tonomy, or those tim when they tiptoe up to the edge, and then they don’t jump over, when they see how they uld transgrs, and that mak the adrenale pump, and that mak feel like dividuals aga, and I thk that’s so important, right, and even jt rpectg your partner’s privacy.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’ve talked to so many people who have no rpect for their partner’s privacy, as if their privacy is a vlatn of the ia of the uple, their partner havg privacy. And this road so many people are on, the expectatns so many people have about what is to be a part of a uple are ncers that grow on their relatnships until they kill them.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk there’s somethg really tertg there the way sex is a space where we will do thgs or hab thgs we would not say, and then I want to plite the “we” here. So I moved out to San Francis four years ago, and I was g om D.C., where I had lived for 14 years, and that’s a pretty head-spng difference relatnal and sexual cultur, to say the least. Well, one thg here that has been strikg is my muny here, ’s much more queer than was. It’s much ls likely to be monogamo than was. I know people who are more the kk muny, which is not somethg I knew much about before. And for a b, I was, like, really stck by all the tegory chang and differenc fn and l.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then, after some time of jt knowg everybody, what I me to thk was that the big difference out here is munitn styl, that the way people will talk about what they want and negotiate their relatnship or negotiate somethg wh kk for themselv or — ’s, like, stuff that I wouldn’t have even spoken about the thg, much ls actually ask for the thg wh a person whose opn of me I was ncerned about. And I thk there’s so much attentn —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We have to put a p that. We need to revis that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, we will. There’s so much attentn on, like, what kd of sex liv people should have and what kds of relatnships they should have and are they polyamoro or monogamo, but I actually thk this is more, a weird way, important, about how people munite, that’s so much the base layer of all the relatnships, and n you even know what story your partner is tellg? It’s so different to listen to people who are actually negotiatg everythg out and are ed to dog that that that was by far the biggt, like, revolutn what I realized was possible.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I want to claim cred for that — not me personally, not bee of my lumn — gay people.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s right, though.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’ve always said, as a provotn myself, gay people have more sex, know more about sex, and are better at sex than straight people are, and then that mak straight people get fensive and reil, and then I tell them why that’s te. We have to munite. A man and a woman nsent to sex and go to bed for the first time — that’s ually when the nversatn about sex stops, bee what’s gog to happen is a flt settg and is assumed. Much to the triment of both of their experienc, often, those assumptns n rult people havg the kd of bad sex that Christe Emba wr about a lot. When two men go to bed together for the first time, they nsent to sex, is the begng of a nversatn, bee there is no flt settg. What’s gog to happen? Who’s gog to do what to whom?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">My first sexual experienc wh other men — and, you know, I lost my virgy wh a woman, so my first sex experienc weren’t wh men — my first sexual appearance wh a man, the guy looked at me and said, what are you to? I ll them the four magic words, “What are you to?” And at that moment, you n le anythg , le anythg out. You n ask for what you want. You’ve been asked to ask for what you want, bee your partner n’t assume, right? I have had experienc where both people ask that qutn at the exact same time, and then look at each other and say, jx, right? What are you to? Ha, ha, ha, jx, and then you have that nversatn. Some straight people have that nversatn. Most don’t, bee they n avoid . Gay people don’t have that nversatn bee we’re more highly evolved. We don’t have that nversatn bee we’re better. We have that nversatn bee we mt. And that’s what you see San Francis. You see a lot of people, straight people, who have embraced “What are you to?” as the start of a nversatn about a relatnship and about a sexual relatnship, and ’s ma them better at sex. It’s ma them better at relatnships. You know, I don’t want to say gay people are necsarily better at relatnships, but that study out of the Netherlands, other studi, have shown that gay men are often slower to m, but once they m, ls likely for the relatnship to end, and I thk ’s bee of those nversatns and bee of that qutn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I thk this is part of why there is so much unhapps right now for a lot of people, and I feel this, even. So, I met my wife, not then my wife, right before the rise of app datg, so onle datg was still a ltle b weird, and wh five years, would be all anybody I knew did. And so this crazy thg happened, which is that the fundamental srcy of your love life, like, how do you fd a person to date — you’ve met your iends’ iends. You’re not good at htg on people parti. Like, what are you gonnna do?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You meet people at work, or you ed to.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right. It upends, and all of a sudn, people have this sane amount of choice. And I thought, om the outsi of this, I mean, this is gonna be a wonrland. Like, how great? And then, you know, nobody was happy, and people get tired, and they seem to be meetg — you know, a lot of pa attached there too. It’s not like there’s been some great shift our societal happs or the qualy of our relatnships or anythg. And I do thk this is a place where maybe the problem got mistaken, that there’s so much more eedom and possibily and choice, and those thgs all seem really great, but you need a lot of skills, and particularly munitn skills, to navigate that. And we got all the new optns and possibili, and no upgra or change skills and, to some gree, no change expectatns. And those thgs are a level of nflict wh each other that seems to me to be makg a lot of people miserable.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, the better people are at munitg their sir, their wants, their boundari, the ls likely they are to wd up a suatn where they’re havg — you know, bad sex happens to everybody, but ls likely to wd up a suatn where you’re havg sex or a relatnship that isn’t makg you happy. You know, the people out there who aren’t havg sex ually have a problem wh munitg, wh askg, wh tellg, and one of the thgs I wanted to jump back to is that thg you said that n be difficult to share your actual wants and sir when the stak are high. I n’t remember exactly how you put . That’s often a problem relatnships. You know, people put up their Potemk village versn of themselv and then they get to a mted relatnship, and they haven’t actually revealed who they are sexually and what they want sexually. They didn’t start wh that. And now, if revealg those thgs about yourself is a threat to the relatnship potentially — you fear might be — you don’t. You kick that n further down the road, and then be harr and harr to reveal .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I gus I’m not really answerg your qutn. Yeah, everyone is unhappy all the time. Inter datg has been really tertg. You know, Terry and I predate that. Terry and I both have other partners that we did meet on the ter, so we have some experience wh what the ter is like, and some people are paralyzed by the amount of choice that they have, you know, the mtard aisle problem. I thk that’s preferable to the lack of choice that people ed to endure before the sexual revolutn, before the ter me along, and we need — you know, we have new problems to addrs, and we have new problems to rrect for, and some people are miserable bee they haven’t ma a choice, right, and they need to be enuraged to perhaps make a choice, and sometim havg someone or somethg is better than havg no one or nothg. And there is no perfect partner. There’s no lid for every pot. You know, there’s no “the one,” which is a thg I talk about my lumn all the time. There’s a .73 that you round up to the one, and that’s about the bt you n do. And some people fd that dispirg. I thk that’s kd of lovely, bee not only are you roundg that person up, but you know that they’re roundg you up too, and I thk that’s a gift, and you should take .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I want to take a moment here on munitn culture, bee, as you were sayg that, somethg that was occurrg to me is, you thk about this terms of sex, but I actually want to thk about terms of relatnships, and I’ll put on myself, that one of the harst thgs for me has been gettg to a pot where I’m not offend by needg to ask for what I need, right, gettg over the fantasy that other people are gog to know what is I need at a moment, or that, if is not natural for them to provi , that that is some kd of problem wh them. And this is a place, I thk, where expectatns are very stctive, but gettg to a pot as a person where you, ankly, know what you need, that you are willg to ask for enough tim that other people n unrstand or be remd of , and that you’re not so worried about everybody else’s reactns to that, that you’re not paralyzed when makg the ask, bee other people’s disfort is more unbearable than your own or than your own possible feelg of huiatn or what happens if you ask and n’t be offered, and got me thkg about, I watched, as part of preparg for this, a nversatn you did wh Esther Perel on YouTube. It’s on YouTube, and people should check out. It’s fantastic.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The two of you have a long thg about what sex ed uld and should be like your perfect world, and left me thkg a lot about how there’s no relatnship ed, and nobody even really talks about one, to say nothg of jt how we talk to each other —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Which is what sex ed should be.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Which is probably what sex ed should be, but ’s not even jt sex. It’s iendships. It’s work. It’s our whole mocracy. Jt beg good at munitn is so bedrock, and we jt kd of turn people out to the world and are like, hope for the bt, like, good luck to you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. I don’t know what I have to say there except that I pletely agree. I would add to the abily to ask for what you need is also the abily to see what you’re pable of givg, to know what you’re pable of givg, and, sometim, the abily to be patient, bee you may ask for somethg and not get a y right away or get right away, or you know, you’re told you to wa or be patient, you’ll get soon, or eventually, this weekend, or, you know, I’m movg toward that, or not yet, which is often somethg people hear when they ask to open a relatnship, is maybe, and that’s a nversatn we need to keep havg. So, yeah, ask for what you need, know what you n give and know that the answer isn’t always gog to be y.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s a thg I talk about my lumn and on my podst all the time lled the “price of admissn,” which is there’s a price of admissn you pay to be any relatnship, and if there’s somethg that’s a price of admissn that you’re unwillg to pay, then you shouldn’t be that relatnship. But, you know, if there’s no price you’re willg to pay to be a relatnship, you’re not gog to ever be a relatnship. You know, addn to beg a myth, a story, a relatnship is a never-endg promise.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk of this as the ept level of your work, which is this nstant prsure you’re puttg on people’s expectatns and nstant light you’re tryg to she on .</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">To have realistic expectatns.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">If people have unrealistic expectatns, then they’re nstantly disappoted. And this n get very, like, metaphysil, people’s expectatns. I do not expect, when I go home, to fd a clean kchen, bee the people I live wh are not gonna do dish, so I am never cshed when I get home and the first thg I have to do is dish. I’m jt like, price of admissn that I pay to be the relatnships, and that’s fe. And the trick to payg the price of admissn is you don’t bch about . You know, you pay the price, you ri the ri. If you don’t want to pay the price, don’t get on the roller aster. But don’t buy a ticket to that roller aster and then pla the whole time you’re on the ri about how much sts. At a certa pot, you jt get off or you don’t get on that ri.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And addn to enuragg people to have realistic expectatns, people have to take rponsibily for the choic that they’ve ma, for the tickets they’ve purchased, and be wh the people that they’re actually wh, and if they don’t want to be wh that person or people, they shouldn’t be.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I do want to jump back, though, to this what sex ed should be, bee I thk this is so important and maybe people listen to your show who have some ntrol of this, and, oh my God, on the seizg of school boards across the untry and the current sex panic, you know, about groomers, any rmatn beg provid to kids about sex, sexualy, inty. Reproductive blogy you n ver at a half an hour. It’s simple. Where people get hurt havg sex is munitn, is negotiatn, is talkg somebody to havg sex wh you, is makg sure that you have their nsent, is makg sure that you’ve clearly munited whether they have yours and feelg empowered to have those kds of negotiatns and nversatns. That is where people get hurt. That is where sex go wrong.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How to put a ndom on a banana, you n do that. Sexually transmted fectns, you n ver the on people need to worry about 10 extra mut. Everythg else is difficult and hard, bee feelgs e to play, securi e to play, expectatns, realistic and unrealistic, e to play, and that’s where people get trouble. And the people we often have the harst time talkg about wh sex are our sex partners. How did we nstct that, and how do we nstct that, that rner we’ve pated ourselv to, that the person we feel least ee beg ourselv wh and openg up wh about who we are sexually and what we want is somebody that we are about to have sex wh for the first time, or somebody we’ve been havg sex wh for 20 years?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">How do you get better at munitn? I mean, even as you’re sayg that, occurred to me, if I wanted to get stronger, I know who I n go pay. If I want to eat better, I know who I n go pay. If I want somebody who n teach me how to rock climb, I know who n go pay. Like, I know where to look the — I was gonna say the yellow pag, but that’s only bee I’m 1,000 years old now — but Google.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I got the reference, so I’m much olr than you, actually.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, ’s tough. But munitn, ’s everythg, I mean, on some level, and pletely fuzzy out there. If you’re somebody who wants to be a better munitor, where do you start?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">People know how to ask for what they want, you know, om a waer. People know how to ask, often, for what they want om a sex worker. You know, one of the thgs, when out, as has, people who ll me to wre me, their partner was seeg a sex worker, and was dog wh the sex worker, somethg they never asked the partner to do wh them, and was bee they weren’t aaid that the sex worker would leave them. And, ually, when people have a hard time munitg about sex, sire, timacy, relatnships, there’s this fear of rejectn, fear of beg judged, fear of beg left.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Early a relatnship, you should embrace rejectn, and you should n at that fear. You have to be willg to risk . That’s how you bee a better munitor. You n’t ask for what you want if you’re not willg to risk losg what you have. And what you might risk losg is this person that you jt met on an app that you’re gettg along wh and you’d like to see naked and you risk munitg, not a, like, if you e home wh me, we’re gonna do four thgs om lumn A, four thgs om lumn B, and one thg om lumn C, but jt, like, beg actually who you are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">In some ways, you have to straddle this creatn of the Potemk self, your bt self, and your real self. You have to do both at the same time, and that n be difficult. And I’m not tryg to dodge your qutn here. It’s jt about dishibg around the fear of rejectn — that, if this person isn’t right for you, give them a chance. Allow them to give you a chance. There may be thgs that you don’t agree on. You know, everythg won’t be on the menu, but so much is, and so much do work that, you know, you’re willg to let go of some thgs and round them up. They’re gog to round you up. You’re willg to pay certa pric of admissn. But you have to be willg to risk rejectn, and that’s why people have a hard time munitg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So, if you were gog to open the yellow pag 1972 and try to fd where to go to get strong, you look for the gym. You jt have to — there’s no willg-to-risk-rejectn ach the yellow pag, but that’s what you have to be willg to do, and that’s si you. And that’s really about prrizg your needs, your fort, what you want, and fdg somebody who wants enough of what you want, and enough of what you are, and vise versa, that would work out long term, which is not to say that — one of the thgs I like to talk about is that we overemphasize the importance or the primacy of long-term relatnships.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We have many more short-term relatnships, and we should want those to be succs too. I don’t thk a relatnship has to end wh somebody a box at a funeral home for to have been a succs, but ath is our only standard of succs. You know, a relatnship is the only thg that we regard as a failure of everyone volved gets out alive. Image if we applied that standard to rtrants or flights, right? If ’s a high-nflict relatnship and a terrible divorce, and nobody n stand each other or speak to each other aga, if there was abe, emotnal, physil, yeah, that relatnship need to end and was probably experienced as a failure, particularly by the person who was abed. If two people get out of a relatnship and there’s affectn and rpect, even a iendship, even if end, was a succs. And if we jt looked at all of our relatnships, we have so many short-term relatnships, and we work so hard at makg the L.T.R.s a succs that we neglect makg the S.T.R.s a succs, and all an L.T.R. is an S.T.R. that worked out.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s easy, I thk, when we talk about munitn, to talk about talkg, right? When I say, “How do I munite?” I thk what people hear is, “How do I talk better?” But the flip of that is, how do I listen better? How do I actually hear what you’re sayg when you’re talkg to me?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I have met people, some people poisoned by, maybe, the disurse around sex, who are all about what they want and askg for what they want, mandg what they want and expectg what they want and not about hearg what their partner wants, and not regardg their partner’s wants, needs, securi as as legimate as their own. It’s like that fn of pornography, you know when you see .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, when you’re talkg wh somebody who’s askg for what they want, you know when that person is also terted what you want, and fdg the center of that Venn diagram, where you n tablish all the patibili — sexual patibily, emotnal patibily, you know, long-term prospect, what you want out of life patibili, and you want to be that person, and to be that person who n ask for what you want, but also give and listen, you have to be self-cril, you have to check wh iends, you have to listen to your ex, you have to intify patterns.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, if you’ve had a long strg of terrible relatnships, at some pot, you have to look at that and go, well, I’m the mon nomator. What am I dog wrong? And people have a hard time wh that kd of munitn, ternal munitn, self cricism. And you have to ask yourself what you want and how you’re gettg the way of .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I want to ask you about somethg we touched on at the begng, which is, first, a bridge that you’ve been a big part of, om the L.G.B.T.Q. muny to the straight muny, but also, now, the way that’s changg and jt the unrlyg stcture that is changg. So, I thk the pollg on this is really, really tertg. So, Gallup says 2.6 percent of baby boomers intify as some sort of L.G.B.T.Q., 10.5 percent of lennials do, and 20 percent of Gen Z do, and that 20 percent is doubled a fairly short perd of time. What do you thk acunts for those radilly higher rat?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The are thgs that will get me trouble for sayg out loud. There has been this explosn sort of more fely sized sexual orientatns, inti. How many pri flags are there now? I have lost unt. And younger people may be more fortable intifyg as not straight, intifyg as queer, ways that, you know, as a rult of relatnship styl or terts, that, when you, or I, or people who remember what the yellow pag are, or were, hear the word “queer,” we thk same-sex relatnships, for the most part, and a lot of people who intify as queer that 20 percent of Gen Z aren’t necsarily — or terted or ever gog to be — same-sex relatnships.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Demisexual is someone who n’t experience sexual attractn the absence of some sort of emotnal nnectn, which scrib a lot of people, right, who aren’t gay or lbian or bi or trans, necsarily. It also scrib a lot of people who are gay, lbian, bi, and/or trans. And asexualy is a real thg, really, a hardwired sexual orientatn for about 1 percent of the populatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Can you say what asexual is for people who don’t know?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Someone who don’t experience sexual sire. And, you know, is a spectm. Everythg is a spectm, right? So there are some people who are asexual who experience mimal sexual sire. There are some people asexual who have sexual relatnships, bee sex meets a need that is not about sex. It’s credibly plited. That said, most people who are asexual who are relatnships or would like to be relatnships are still terted romantic relatnships, even if they’re not sexual relatnships. So there’s a lot of people beg shipped unr the “queer” label now that yellow pag typ like you and me n’t easily intify, n’t see unr that umbrella, right, but they are, and that’s great. Wele. I’m all for the most expansive fn of “queer” as possible, and anybody who wants to intify as whatever they want to intify as n intify as that.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I see people on the right eakg out about, you know, at this rate, everybody’s gonna be queer 100 years, and then we’re gog to go extct as a speci, bee we’re gog to fet which hole babi e out of, I gus. A lot of the people who intify as queer, and may be legimately so, when down to sex and relatnships, are gonna end up havg sex that social nservativ would be fortable wh and havg relatnships that most social nservativ would be fortable wh, and most social nservativ would assume they’re not havg if they’re queer-intified, when they actually are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You’re San Francis. How many people do you know who intify as queer who are oppose sex and married? Or however they intify other ways, are technilly oppose sex, and marriag, they may or may not be monogamo. It’s really high, and that’s wonrful, I gus.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">This is sort of the motivatn for the qutn, a way, which is that — and I feel, aga, like I’m 2,000 years old when I start askg qutns motivated by, well, I was talkg to some teens, but at least among people I’ve met out here, straight is not an aspiratnal inty. Like, ’s sort of somethg where you’re like, yeah, yeah, sorry, you know? [LAUGHS]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s a really tertg — that’s why I’m kd of askg your thoughts on . It’s a really tertg change to me that has happened my lifetime, and seems to be growg, where —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, ’s jt like “Christian.” Like, so many people — non are the fastt growg tegory of believers, people who don’t believe anythg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, not Christian nuns, but N-O-N-E-S.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">N-O-N-E-S, non.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y, people who don’t have a — Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I remember Christian nuns. I was tght by them. And a lot of the people are still sort of nomally Christian, they jt don’t want to publicly associate wh what Christiany, policized Christiany, has e to mean our culture, thanks to od people like Jerry Falwell Jr. and Tony Perks and the Fay Rearch Council. They don’t want to be affiliated wh that. And I thk the same procs is sort of played out wh “straight.” There’s a lot of people who feel like straight’s brand is toxic. There ed to be a greater stigma attached to beg perceived as not straight, and certa subcultur, certa is, that polary has flipped.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">This gets to somethg that I sometim hear om my queer iends and particularly my more polilly radil queer iends, which is that we were talkg earlier about the ways which a lot of gay culture has migrated to straight culture, but there’s a feelg that ’s gone the other way too, that there was a more radil set of fay formatns, of kship, not jt non-monogamy, but ias about how you would stcture, you know, fai of choice, and how you would stcture social works, and what would mean to be a relatnship and that, the fight for gay marriage, there was a lot of what gets lled “assiatn” but that a lot of that got phed to the margs, and a lot of that experimentatn stopped happeng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I sometim get asked how havg children changed my polics, which I have all kds of answers for, but the ma thg ’s done more recently is really persua me that somethg is pletely wrong how we do fay — that ’s a pretty new experience for so many people to live so far om the rt of their fay. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, and at this moment, we don’t live near any fay.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">That’s really hard.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s pletely sane.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Mm-hmm.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And my lleague David Brooks has wrten a great piece The Atlantic a uple of years back on this, like, the nuclear fay, like, this kd of goln age of the nuclear fay, was a uple--long aberratn. Before that, you had big extend fai that lived together, and then, after that, what you have is richer people buyg extend fai, through purchasg a lot of hoehold help and child re and so on, and poor people really stgglg. And we do, I thk, have a nstant ferment around qutns of sexual revolutn, and we’ve been talkg about relatnal revolutn, but jt seems to me that two people is too few to raise a fay. Now, maybe one answer is you live near your fay, if you n, and if that works for your job, and if your parents are healthy, and able to help, and, I mean, there are all kds of qualifitns there.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But many ways, I keep wag for this thg social nservativ keep warng me is g, which is more experimentatn how we do fay, more experimentatn how we do child raisg. I mean, I do know people out here who, they live poly hoeholds, and six people raise two kids, and ’s not so much about who’s sleepg wh whom, ’s really about the parentg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And jt somethg jt has seemed off to me as a parent for some time — ’s jt we have so ltle muny, and we seem trapped this view that this kd of atomizatn is OK, or we paper over wh money, and I don’t know, I don’t feel like, 100 years, we’re gonna be dog this way. I don’t know how we’re gonna be dog , but this seems crazy.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We weren’t dog this way 100 years ago. I grew up a multigeneratnal hoehold, grew up a two-flat apartment buildg, which is an apartment buildg that only has the two apartments , on the North Si of Chigo, and my grandparents, and nts, and uncl lived downstairs, and my mom, and dad, and my three siblgs lived upstairs. There were a lot of people around, and everybody helped raise the kids, and some of my nts and uncl were still kids themselv when we were very ltle children. That worked. There were downsis. You know, you were always who you were as a child. You were always unr the gaze of your parents, grandparents. We overrrected when we atomized, and the prsure puts on two people, alone, jt a uple to raise kids, like, Hillary Clton was right, really do take a village, and we have to ask ourselv, what are the motiv of the people out there tryg to nvce everyone that should jt be two people livg a suburban home the suburbs? I blame the tomobile. I blame the exprsway for ntributg to the atomizatn of the fay.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But, yeah, havg fay close by or havg people your life that are fay, the fay you’ve created, not blogil k or extend fay, but the fay of choice that people talk about plac like San Francis and Seattle, that mak parentg easier and more possible, and rettg those cultural norms around extend fai and around not expectg that a uple n or should do everythg — You know, one of the thgs my mom did when Terry and I first beme parents, and she me to vis, was take our fant om and ph out the ont door and told to take advantage, right? You know, one of thgs my mother told me when I beme a parent was the only time you remember why you liked your partner enough to want to have children wh them the first place was when you were alone wh your partner, away om your children. And that was possible for my parents, when we were ltle kids, bee of my grandparents and nts and uncl.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And was harr for , bee our fay wasn’t Seattle wh . I pletely agree wh you. And not jt this way but so many ways. Set up a system that mak parentg as miserable, isolatg and punishg as possible, and then social nservativ s around wh their thumbs their butts, wonrg why so few people want to do this anymore. And ’s not jt about child re. It’s not jt about profsnal child re, jt about prchool or day re. It’s also about mother--law apartments. It’s about people livg nser plac. The neighborhood I grew up Chigo was very nse. It was one of the reasons why, you know, when an nt and uncle moved out of my grandparents’ hoe, they moved down the block, and was possible for them to move down the block and to stay our liv and to be a relief for my parents, who had four kids.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this is a place that go back to your foc, sometim, on expectatns, where I have every supply of a flexible job, I make good money, my partner and, I, like have a good relatnship, we spl the parentg. The expectatns you’re given on this are pletely sane, and basilly every parent I know, you up talkg for two mut — I mean, Jsi Grose jt wrote a book about this — you end up talkg for two mut, and people jt climbg up the walls, and the part of the difficulty of is this belief the back of your head that, somewhere, somebody is dog this perfectly, right? Somewhere, isn’t feelg like this for them. And isn’t. You start to realize that. But ’s jt a place where there’s been so ltle experimentatn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, you were jt mentng nsy and hog. I thk a big problem for liberals here is that, look, we n and should have universal pre-K and child re, and every part of the social state that n help people parent that is possible, and that we see dozens and dozens of other untri, but isn’t gog to solve all of this. Like, at some pot —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">— there is this qutn of jt the muny around the parent. I mean, Clton’s book, this way, is really prophetic. I should go back and read aga, bee we’ve jt pletely lost , and I did this nversatn wh Patrick Deneen some number of months ago, and he’s a kd of hardre, post-liberal nservative —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Very tense iology happeng over there.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. Terrifyg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I was thkg, after our nversatn, about the way which somethg that he unrstood rrectly was that liberals had stopped havg anythg, really, to say about the fay beyond social supports, and as such, they weren’t talkg to people a language they uld hear, and I don’t thk where Deneen is gog wh this isn’t gog to talk to them a language that mak sense eher. I do thk, there, we got to a pot where, after how much discrimatn, and how many wars for equaly there were, a lot of folks got to a space of jt wantg to show that they were acceptg, and, also, they weren’t tryg to change too much simultaneoly, as opposed to sayg, somethg has really gone wrong here, and we should be a space of experimentatn to try to create mols where parentg is not somethg you flict upon yourself, but somethg that works wh the society that we have built.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I have strong views about this. [LAUGHS]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I do too, and I listened to that nversatn, and whenever you terview one of those people on the — I don’t know what to ll them — the far bizarro right, ’s a torment to me, bee there are tim when I’m noddg along, like, we need more fay support, we need more workg — you know, brg back jobs and make possible for a fay to functn, if n, on one e. But we also need universal pre-K and day re, but n’t be 30 away, or 10 away. It’s gotta be on the block. And one of the thgs you’ve been hammerg away at is why liberals n’t seem to n the ci that they’re charge of anymore, and this block on nstctg hog and nser neighborhoods, where plac where people want to live and where the jobs are, and yet people who bought ho there 30 years ago are preventg the cy where they live om ntug to be a cy that functns and grows and where ’s possible for fai to thrive, and, you kmnow, multiple generatns of a sgle fay to live close proximy to one another. And ’s a problem.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It remds me of somethg that me up at the begng of that nversatn, and people should go — sorry if you didn’t listen to . It’s a nversatn between me and Patrick Deneen. You n search . But somethg he says at the begng, when I was askg him, like, who are you talkg to? Who is your enemy here? Bee I’m pretty sure ’s actually me, was what I was tryg to get at. But, neverthels, he’s like, well, there are the people, the liberals the legal amy that want to do away wh the fay, and maybe there are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But the thg that’s tertg to me is that the thg that I see on the edge, and is the reason I brought this topic up the ntext of the qutn of, was somethg lost the experimentatns of the queer muny around marriage, is that the people I know who have expand fay que a b are more margal muni more often. I mean, I don’t know many polyamoro hoeholds, but I know a uple that raise children, and seems to work for them. I do have queer iends who tend to have much more kd of ser alloparentg among their muni, bee there’s jt more people who are bought to that fay’s succs, and they’ve built more of a chosen — the approach to the iendship is more like a fay than is among many straight folks or straight upl. And I keep wonrg about if that kd of thg is gog to expand, bee we’re not gog to abolish the fay. I fd that to be a pletely functnally ridiculo ncern. But we do somehow need to expand , and that’s what we have not figured out.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Or have we? Are the poly fai or people engaged alloparentg that you are seeg the procs of figurg out? Have they figured out? I thk they have. You know, one of the thgs, whenever I listen to a nversatn of yours wh someone like that du, I always wished you’d ask them, and what are we gog to do about the gay people who are already out and the queer fai that are already formed? Bee they seem to regard as the enemy of fay, as opposed — you know, we don’t jump out of bbage patch. We don’t emerge fully formed om the back rooms of gay bars at 18. We’re part of the fai that he p for and the kd of fay stcture that he p for, and once we were ee to start creatg our own, we did. We want to be a part, you know, queer people, of this faial project, and yet we’re regard, by the people argug that liberals are the enemi of the fay, our prence is somehow a threat to the fay, or anthetil to the ia of fay, and I would like to know what their fix is, what they’re gog to do about , and they never answer that qutn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t thk they have an answer, but I will ask you what your answer on the oppose is. What are the prcipl of fay, the ias of fay, that you have seen your muny that, if you were a parentg lumnist and not a sex and relatnships lumnist, you’d be tryg to ph across the bridge?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] Parentg up a lot. Well, a way, you know, I thk tak more than two people, and sometim a lot more than two people, and that’s often my advice to people about their sex liv. That also would be my advice two people a sexually exclive relatnship who are attemptg to parent. It n’t jt be the two of you. You have to brg other people , other fay members, if they’re nearby, and if you’re gog to have kids and start a fay of your own, you need a work of chosen fay to help you do this, bee ’s so, so hard.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s a good place to end. Always our fal qutn. What are the three books you’d remend to the dience?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I gave this so much thought. “The Ethil Slut,” by Dossie Easton and Ja Hardy. I’m sure, sce movg to San Francis, you’ve probably heard this book mentned, or seen on a shelf somewhere. It was published 25 years ago, and ’s sort of the Co of Hammurabi where ethil non-monogamy is ncerned.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">They should make that the blurb.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] I read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” when I was a kid, and I’ve regretted a uple of tim but William Shirer, who wrote “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” he was a foreign rrponnt Berl the ‘30s. He worked wh Edward R. Murrow, and after the llapse of the Nazi regime, he wrote “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” wh accs to the Nazi archiv. It’s a fascatg book. But he also wrote somethg lled “Berl Diary,” which was published 1941, whout the benef of hdsight, which is diary entri as he’s wnsg the rise of fascism and totalarianism Germany, and I don’t thk I need to tell your dience why I thk that book is so relevant to this moment, and I recently reread , and ’s chillg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then one that I don’t thk people would expect om me is “A Royal Affair: Gee III and His Sndalo Siblgs,” by Stella Tillyard. Gee III, of urse, was the Kg of England durg the Amerin Revolutn. I love royal histori, royal bgraphi. I’m sort of a closet monarchist — except I’m always sayg to microphon I’m a closet monarchist, which I gus means I’m not a closet monarchist. [LAUGHS] But everyone’s always tryg to make, popular media, and films, and televisn a kd of proto-femist hero of Marie Antoette, which she jt is not. Gee III’s youngt sister, Carole Matilda, is that proto-femist hero, and Stella Tillyard wrote a group bgraphy about all of Gee III’s siblgs, but the foc is Carole Matilda, and she lived openly a polyamoro triad. She had a child by her hband the Kg of Denmark — she was the queen of Denmark — and a child by her lover, wore men’s clothg, went out ridg, and everythg the Amerin foundg fathers did, eedom of the prs, eedom of relign, banng cel and unual punishment, Carole Matilda did first as a teenage girl Denmark and Queen of Denmark the 1760s.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that Amerins don’t know her — I’ve been tryg for a to make a TV show about Carole Matilda happen, whout much succs, but Stella Tillyard’s book is amazg, and if you like real bgraphi, even if you don’t, ’s such a tremendo read. In some ways, the tle is a ltle salac for the kd of origal source history that Stella Tillyard wrote about Carole Matilda and her siblgs. If you’re embarrassed by the tle, jt take the ver off the book but read the book.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I would fely watch that. So, Prtige drama producers who are listeng, and programmers, you know where to go. Go to Dan Savage. Dan, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you. Thank you. It was a real honor.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">“The Ezra Kle Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galv, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Krist L. Fact-checkg by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sclair. Origal mic by Isaac Jon. Mixg by Jeff Geld and Sonia Herrero. Audience strategy by Shannon Bta. The executive producer of New York Tim Opn Aud is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Pat McCker.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><div style="posn:absolute;width:0;height:0;visibily:hidn;display:none"></div><hear class="css-1vwfk9f" data-breakpot=""><div style="width:100%" data-ttid="flt-layout"><div style="background-image:url()" class="css-197zlhc e1llfg0"><div class="css-1hmsypo e1llfg2"><div class="css-131hid3 e1llfg3"><div class="css-1uhi299 e1llfg1"></div><div class="css-1tloyb6"><div class="css-ah35qo ehra6vc0"><a href=" class="css-2ne0py"><span class="css-1f76qa2"><img alt="The Ezra Kle Show logo" src="><span>The Ezra Kle Show</span></span></a></div></div><div class="css-1r0dpua e1llfg4"><div class="css-wfiq9c edye5kn0"><div><h1 class="css-15oz550 edye5kn2">Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Fay and Better Sex</h1><h2 class="css-syyj5g edye5kn3">The advice lumnist discs how datg, sex and relatnships have changed over the past 30 years — and where they should go next.</h2></div><span class="css-xpptmx edye5kn4"></span><button type="button" class="css-w62hzm" aria-haspopup="te" aria-label="Show Aud Transcript"><div class="css-1vd84sn"><svg xmlns=" width="24" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 20" fill="#F8F8F8"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M0 0H24V20H0V0ZM3 7H21V9H3V7ZM21 11H3V13H21V11ZM3 15H21V17H3V15ZM11 3H3V5H11V3Z" fill="#F8F8F8"></path></svg><span class="css-16bt4xd">Transcript</span></div></button></div><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back to The Ezra Kle Show</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* EZRA KLEIN GAY

bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->1:25:57</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->1:25:57</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Fay and Better Sex</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The advice lumnist discs how datg, sex and relatnships have changed over the past 30 years — and where they should go next.</h4><time dateTime="2023-01-10T10:00:12.000Z" class="css-1e605">2023-01-10T05:00:12-05:00</time></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m Ezra Kle. This is “The Ezra Kle Show.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How do you troduce Dan Savage? Oof. I thk ’s fair. I thk ’s maybe arguable to say he’s the most important sex advice lumnist the untry — and has been for a long time. There’s a good profile of him Slate om a b back that wrote, quote, “In the three s sce the lumn buted, Savage Love”— which is the name of his sex advice lumn — “has morphed om a c stunt to the most important text ntemporary Amerin sexual ethics.”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s right: “the most important text ntemporary Amerin sexual ethics.” But what’s so important about , I thk, is that Savage, his lumns and his podst, the “Savage Lovest,” has been this ccial bridge between the gay, queer and straight muni, at a time when sexual and relatnal norms all of them are changg and cross-pollatg. And this has been a time of a lot of change and a lot of cross-pollatn. I thk is hard, if you are jt livg through this — as we all are — to really step back and regnize how different thgs have bee such a short perd of time.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Legal — not jt legal — nstutnal same-sex marriage; the rise of app-based datg, which I don’t thk we’ve really apprehend how different that is to pletely turn around the fundamental qutn of datg om srcy to abundance — or at least abundance of choic, if not always people; much more openns — part due to Savage — towards var forms of ethil non-monogamy. We’re seeg so much more fluidy and possibily and eedom. And that has e wh a lot of anxiety and unhapps and send-gusg. You would thk we’d be this space of unbelievable sexual and relatnal abundance, and stead, people are talkg about sex recsns. App-based datg may have given people more choice, but are they happier? Are their relatnships stronger? It don’t seem so.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk the tensn here is that we now have the eedom to live our sexual and relatnal liv really differently, but I’m not sure that we have, or that many of have, the skills or the expectatns or the munitn need to navigate that eedom smoothly.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And, a way, I’ve always thought that’s really the eper topic Savage wr about. Sex is sort of a way to that for him. So I want to brg him on the show to discs . As always, my email, </p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Dan Savage, what a pleasure to have you on the show.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m shocked to be here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] I like that. That’s how I want people to feel when we beg. So I want to start wh a b of a grand sweep. You’ve been wrg, I thk, the most important sex and probably relatnship advice lumn Ameri for 30 years. What are the biggt chang that perd, to you, our sexual and relatnal landspe?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">When I started wrg Savage Love 1991, kk wasn’t as wily unrstood, genr wasn’t as wily unrstood, and the possibily of stcturg your own relatnships a way that worked for you, rather than a way that worked for your parents or grandparents, wasn’t somethg that straight people had embraced. And I’m gay, and one of the thgs that was unique about Savage Love, when I started wrg , was was sex advice for straight people wrten by a gay du, and I got a lot of angry letters the first uple of years om people projectg onto me, as a gay person, their ignorance of gay people as straight people. Like, they didn’t know anythg about gay people or gay relatnships, and they jt assumed I would know nothg about straight people and straight relatnships, as if my parents weren’t straight, as if my siblgs weren’t straight, as if I didn’t fake beg straight for a while, and didn’t make a very close study of what a straight person acted like, wanted, and did, an attempt to pass myself as straight. Gay people know what straight people are like.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And if there’s been any change the last 30 years that I thk is the most signifint is this great cultural cross-pollatn between gay life and straight life that really drove home that thgs we thought of as particular to gay muni, gay subcultur, gay life were not choic gay people were makg, and a lot of thgs that we associated wh straight people, straight life, were not choic that straight people were eely makg, and that, once people were more ee to make their own choic, a lot of gay people acted a lot more straight, and a lot of straight people began to act a lot more gay.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’ve been thkg, to pull back the curta on this a b, about dog a relatnships episo for a while, and what keeps trippg up is that most relatnship books are bad. And one of the reasons I was exced when we thought of havg on is that, one, I realized that a lot of jt the language people e around me now om you, om your lumn, om your rears — you know, “monogamish,” and “GGG” — and all the thgs you’ve brought to the disurse, but beyond that, somethg that I thk you’ve had a huge fluence on is beg this bridge om gay and queer and kk culture to straight datg culture, a way that has actually ma — at least sce I moved to San Francis, I see much more — straight datg culture very different. What are some of those differenc? You’ve mentned that there was this kd of bridge that opened up, but what me over ?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The ia that monogamy is a choice a uple mak, and a choice a uple n revis, that monogamy shouldn’t be a flt settg, should be somethg that you opt to and n opt out of over the life of a relatnship. When I first me out as gay and began to meet gay upl, I was surprised. You know, I moved to datg and relatnships wh expectatns and wants that had been hand to me, and I was surprised by the numbers of gay upl I met who were wrg their own script and dog their own thg. And, at first, I found that threateng, and then I got ed to , and then I saw the logic and the utily of , that you should do what works for you and for you two as a uple, and that should be a nversatn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s primarily what me over . I don’t thk everybody is monogamish or open now. If there’s anythg that I’ve really tried to hammer home over the years, ’s to attack the myths, the li that we’re told when we’re children that beg love means you aren’t gog to want to sleep wh anybody else. Not te. Beg love, if you’ve ma a monogamo mment, might mean you don’t sleep wh anybody else, out of rpect for your partner, and the choice you ma, and the choice you ma together, but you’re still gog to want to sleep wh somebody else, and expectg that other person to pretend they don’t want to sometim, that they aren’t tempted, and gettg angry whenever you stumble over evince that your partner might be attracted to somebody else, which isn’t me givg permissn to people to be sensive or cel about sometim fdg other people attractive, if you’re an exclive relatnship, but ’s such an enge of nflict. That’s what I began to see when I first started gettg a lot of letters om straight people, that the expectatns — that love meant you didn’t sleep wh anybody else at all, te and lastg relatnships were monogamo relatnships, created so much strs and tensn, and wound up endg a lot of really good relatnships and imperfect on. And monogamy is sort of my hobbyhorse. Monogamy is lerally the only thg humans attempt where perfectn is the only metric of succs.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You should meet some vegans.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] Well, I gus there’s that too.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Sorry.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’ve met a few. We have some for Christmas Eve dner every year. It’s very plited. But, you know, if perfectn is your measure of succs, you’re settg yourself up for failure and disappotment a mted, long-term, sexually exclive relatnship. You know, the world’s greatt chef sometim burns an omelet. Still the world’s greatt chef. Shn Whe is the world’s greatt snowboarr, has fallen down and gotten up and still been Shn Whe. world’s greatt snowboarr. If you’re wh somebody for 50 years and you fd out they cheated on you once, they were terrible at monogamy, they failed at monogamy, they never loved you, wasn’t a real relatnship. We believe the thgs and then they stroy not open relatnships, they stroy monogamo relatnships that are imperfect, as all relatnships are. And, if anythg, if there’s any wdl I tilted agast that I feel like I knocked over, was that one.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I was lookg at a poll preparg for this that I thought was both kd of funny and revealg. It was a YouGov poll om 2020, and found that 12 percent of adults said they’d had some kd of sexual experience outsi their partnership wh their partner’s nsent — which is higher than I thought would be, actually — and 18 percent said they’d had a sexual experience outsi the partnership whout their partner’s nsent. And we know, pollg, people are not gog to adm to that full numbers, so ’s probably higher. So ’s not jt that there is monogamy and non-monogamy, but there’s also the sha of people who say they’re monogamo and aren’t.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, people dog what they need to do sometim to stay married and stay sane, and everybody looks at that, and ’s sudnly whe hats and black hats, and the person who cheated is a terrible person. I like what Esther Perel has said — that sometim, the victim of the affair is not the victim of the marriage. I also like what I’ve said, that, sometim, cheatg is the least-worst optn for all volved. You know, whenever I say I’m the guy who sometim giv people permissn to cheat, a lot of people jump down my throat, bee they jt thk that mt be awful. And then a lot of the exampl that I ce, thgs that have e up my lumn, are, you know, someone who’s a long-term, mted relatnship wh a person who is chronilly ill, and the sexual part of their relatnship has end. And is the right thg to tell the person who wants to have sex outsi that relatnship — that’s about re and nurturg and mment, but not about sex anymore? Am I supposed to tell that person, well, do the right thg and leave? Do the right thg and get a divorce? Don’t, like, slip out to discreetly get a sexual need met so that you n be there fully for your partner and not rent your partner for how prived you feel of any sort of sexual outlet. Go do that discreetly and then be there. And that’s me somehow beg agast relatnships, agast mment, and that’s me sort of wrtlg wh realy — that life is long and that, sometim, ntgenci have to be ma.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I would jt say, that 18 percent, everyone’s gog to hear that figure and thk, oh, the serial adulterers, oh, the awful people, lyg and cheatg and nng around behd their partner’s backs. If you’re my posn, where you get a lot of letters and emails and lls om people who are very difficult circumstanc, where they have a very human, reptile bra need, that they’re kd of gog crazy, and ’s harmg their relatnship that this need is unmet, I thk, reprented that 18 percent figure to a very signifint gree. But when we talk about the 18 percent who have slept wh somebody else whout their partner’s nsent, what we see are ds, and what we see are terrible people. We see cheaters as they’re prented to film and televisn and novels. And reali are very different.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t thk I’ve ever known anybody cheatg on their partner — and not that they so often adm to me — where they were happy, which jt speaks a ltle b to your pot. I mean, I may be a b more of a moralist on this than you. I may have not fully absorbed the Savage wisdom, but I’ve been a nfidant on suatns like this before, and they’re always very tough. People — sometim they’re not — I do want to say, sometim, people are not dog what they need to do, they’re jt dog what they would like to do. But oftentim, the thgs are ntext where my advice is, well, you guys should have broken up. But ’s very easy to be outsi of a relatnship sayg that everythg that has been built should be end. And si relatnships, ’s much more plited, and how people got to a pot where they’re sort of miserably unable to talk about their own unhapps wh each other, and tryg to fd too much outsi is — I mean, often the tragedy, and to Perel’s pot, the crim occurred before. This is a culmatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y, and a need. You know, sex is bigger than we are, and we pretend that we’re ntrol of sex, and we’re charge of sex. Sex built and is buildg whatever after . Through the procs of natural selectn and spontaneo mutatn, here we are. And we like to pretend that we get to fe sex. I thk we negotiate wh sex om a posn of relative powerlsns, and has to be channeled. It n’t be dammed up, and that clus sexual sire, which is about a lot more than sex, even the ntext of a mted relatnship.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not agast monogamy. This is ually when somebody jumps up to say, you’re agast monogamy. I’m a long-term, mted, open relatnship. We’re approachg our third together, and I still get people who are monogamists, who will say to my face, well, I uldn’t do what you and Terry do, bee I value mment too highly, and I look at them, and I’m like, how many s do we have to be together before we get some cred for mment?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I always thk “sex” is a word here that obscur so much more than reveals. Already, when people talk about men, where ’s like sex is jt as if you need to play basketball once a week to get your energy out, where, particularly relatnships, and long relatnships, what people want, often seems to me, is much more plited. Sex is this stand- — or this way people are fdg the feelg of beg sired or of sire or of novelty or of love and secury. And different kds produce pletely different thgs, right? This is a big Esther Perel pot — of this kd of petn between the need for secury and the need for novelty. But always has seemed to me, we have this disurse about sex as if simply havg sex as if you n tally up on a ltle marker sheet, where — people have a lot of trouble, my experience, sayg what needs they actually need fulfilled, bee they’ve not typilly been given a lot of language for what’s behd that gigantic thg blottg out the sun of emotnal needs that we always talk about stead.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that those two thgs, sexual and emotnal needs, n be on parallel tracks, but they’re on separate tracks, and jt the eedom to acknowledge that the ntext of a mted relatnship n make easier to be a mted relatnship. I’m not the enemy of monogamy. I see the benefs of monogamy for many people, around sexual exclivy, paternal secury, protectn om sexually transmted fectns. There are advantag to monogamy. There are advantag to some gree of permted, ntrolled sexual eedom the ntext of a mted relatnship. But I regnize that you have a zone of erotic tonomy, and so do I, and to not try to ntrol that, to create some space and eedom si the relatnship for that mak that ls of a potentially damagg chaos agent that uld stroy the relatnship. There’s a really tertg study out of the Netherlands lookg at marriage. Netherlands is the place that’s had marriage equaly for the longt — gay marriage for the longt. And tertgly, they found, spe people’s assumptns, that gay male upl are the least likely to divorce; straight upl were more likely, lbian upl most likely. Lbian upl and straight upl most likely to be monogamo; gay upl least likely to be monogamo. Correlatn a’t atn, but would seem that gay male upl are dog somethg right by diffg the bomb that explos so many straight and lbian relatnships, which is this sire for outsi sexual ntact, for tonomo sexual experienc, for the affirmatn of your sirabily by others whose job isn’t to affirm your sirabily, and that n redound to the benef of your mted relatnship, to your primary partnership.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And you look at this study, and you read , and you thk, well, maybe gay upl are dog somethg right here, and I thk, as more gay people have e out, and more straight people have gotten to the gay people that they knew, or gotten to know gay people who they didn’t know, they’ve seen that at work our relatnships. And more straight people have at least entertaed the thought of there beg different possibili, which, a way, ironilly, is the stated fear of social nservativ om the ‘70s and ‘80s, when I was a kid — that gay people led the hedonistic liftyl, and straight people were gog to be tempted to adopt gay, hedonistic liftyl. And we’ve kd of seen that e to pass. It’s jt straight people took everythg gay people were dog and gave new nam.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t know if I n swear on your podst, but gay people had tricks and fuck buddi, and straight people renamed that as iends wh benefs and hookg up. There’s jt so much om gay culture that straight people jt adopted wholale and renamed, and that was what Jerry Falwell Sr. — who would be very shocked at Jerry Falwell Jr.‘s behavr — was worried about, and me te.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’ve been talkg a b about unhapps that afflicts married or long-term, mted partnerships, but one of the motivatns for this chat, for me, has been that there’s been this spate of books over the past uple of years wh nam like “Bad Sex” and “Rethkg Sex” and “The Right to Sex,” and I’ve done podsts wh some of the people, like Amia Srivasan and Maggie Nelson and Erika Bachchi. There’s an tertg moment here of qutng where the sexual revolutn got , and particularly qutng where is left people, not so much mted partnerships but who are stgglg wh this kd of expansive eedom to not be mted partnerships, and I’m cur of your sense of that. What’s behd a lot of the disntent right now, and how do you read ?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I read “Right to Sex.” I also read the wrer for The Washgton Post.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, Christe Emba.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I had her on my show for “Rethkg Sex: A Provotn.” It is tertg. I have felt for — you know, I’m sort of intified wh the sex posivy movement, and I’ve never really tossed that term around a lot to scribe myself or what I do. I was really thrilled to read all the way through Chre Emba’s book, “Rethkg Sex,” and get to a place where she quoted somethg I said, that was basilly, there needs to be a limg prciple. You n have sex wh too many people. You n have sex too often, and that kd of puts you at a greater physil risk, and n do a psychic damage. I’ve never been, the solutn for everybody’s unhapps is jt for everybody to have more, and tons, and lots of different partners. I thk that’s a part of the sex posivy movement, the Mary Popps ia that enough is as good as a feast.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, the books are beg wrten by women. A lot of the young femists that are wrten about “The Right to Sex,” who are re-evaluatg and rethkg and embracg wrers like Andrea Dwork are women and young women, who fd the sexual marketplace to be humanizg. And that may be an element of the current sex culture that there needs to be a rrectn for, a unter-reformatn, maybe. I thk, when sex is bad, odds are was worse for, bad for the woman. So don’t surprise me that a lot of the books were wrten by women, and I thk the crique the books about a lot of what’s been sold to people as sex posivy is jt libratg the settgs so that they work for men.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I’ve always thought Andrew Sullivan’s pot about, when you look at gay male sex culture vers lbian sex culture, sometim, that you n see some sort of sential difference between men and women. And men approach sex, straight men approach sex whout, I thk, an awarens of the implied vlence, the threat that a lot of women will say y to sex bee they don’t feel empowered to say no, and that n rult a lot of women havg sex that they didn’t enjoy, that left them feelg terrible, and the guy don’t even realize, right, bee he’s so thoughtls about , bee he hasn’t projected himself to the woman’s experience.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">As a gay man, as a man who has sex wh men, I thk I have some appreciatn for what ’s like to have sex wh men, and for what men are. A lot of men don’t, and I thk that rults a lot of bad sex for a lot of women. And like I’ve said, I thk we do need some sort of unter-reformatn that rrects for and rais some awarens of sensivi around the relative vulnerabily that a woman experienc a sexual enunter wh a man, relative to the man’s experience or even perceptns of the power differential that exists.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You had an tertg pot there that I was reflectg on while you were talkg about how most of the books have been wrten by women, and I get the sense — this is an unproven hypothis — I don’t get the sense that young men are super happy out there. And you mentned, you see the data that young men are not havg a lot of sex. They’re also havg a lot of mental problems. There’s been this huge rise of the cels, and Amia Srivasan’s this is wrten direct rponse to, or at least the tle say is direct rponse to cel stuff. And I sometim thk, on both sis, that gets to this ia that one thg that we have told people is that sex n solve more problems than actually n.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I always thought there’s a weird thg that would happen repeatedly nversatns about cels, where somebody would say, and then get a ton of crap, I thk rrectly, for sayg, well, should we jt give them sex workers? Should there be some kd of right to a sex worker? And even if you uld do that — and even if that was not credibly humanizg to sex workers — I thk ’s pletely clear that what the people wanted was not actually terurse; was stat. It was the sense of havg a posn society where people wanted you and would sire you and would thk you had worth, enough worth that they would choose you eely. And solvg that need is way harr than answerg the qutn of how n we possibly get you laid. And, siarly, I thk, what a lot of people are lookg for relatnships that don’t get well-answered by hook-ups is the kd of sendary needs about what the gaze of another person means to me as a person.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I don’t know, readg some of the books, I’ve had this thought, and I’m cur if rgs te to you, that we jt have had a lot more sexual revolutn than relatnal revolutn, or relatnship revolutn. I mean, we do talk about monogamy vers polyamory vers ethil monogamy and non-monogamy more, but terms of how we relate to each other, we jt seem way behd the amount of eedom we have sudnly achieved.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I pletely agree. I am one of those people, though, who have suggted that I don’t thk ’s a solutn to cels to hand sex workers to them. I have a lot of iends, unlike a lot of people who wre about the thgs, who are sex workers. The last thg I want to do is lock one of my iends who’s a sex worker a room wh a vlent misogynist cel. That said, downstream, a culture where we stigmatized sex work and stigmatized payg for sex, that very clear way of, like, handg over of money for sex, people who, addn to feelg emotnally unfulfilled, emotnally unsatisfied, then also stew sexual privatn, might be a balm.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk all relatnships, if you really peel the layers back far enough, are, at some pot, transactnal. I pay for wh my hband. I don’t pay for wh sh money. I pay for wh time, attentn, affectn, ncern, makg sure he go to see the doctor when he needs to go see the doctor. There’s a reason married people live longer. If I stopped payg like that, if I stopped rg about him, if he stopped payg like that, stopped payg me wh those same ephemeral, tangible, but very important thgs, our relatnship would llapse.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We see transactnal relatnships everywhere, and if you know people who are sex workers, a lot of what they’re paid for is not sex, ’s time, ’s attentn, ’s foc, and if we have a culture that tells people that, if you ever had to pay for wh sh, you’re a loser, or a monster, or both, mak the one outlet that some people may have, the one way that some people may pay for , that other people who are also payg for might not pay for , clos that lane down. It’s not a solutn for people who are right now on Redd, you know, celebratg vlence agast women, bee they’re so angry about beg low stat, right? It’s a solutn that uld roll out over a generatn or four, where we have ls cels, ls vlence, ls misogyny 100 years om now than we do now, if we uld all jt regnize — jt like we should all regnize that beg love and a mted monogamo relatnship don’t mean your partner isn’t terted the waer — if we uld also regnize that all relatnships, all sexual relatnships, all emotnal relatnships are, on some level, transactnal, and, therefore, we shouldn’t stigmatize the on that are more evintly transactnal.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I agree on the not stigmatizg, but I want to hold, I’m so terted this word “transactnal,” and I’m tryg to watch what’s happeng my own head on , which is — Which is jt fancy for “we all pay for .”</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, I know, but this is what has e to my md on this. I don’t know if, wh more time to thk about , I would hold here, but I’m gonna go wh my stct, which is, I thk this is a place where our market metaphors are so domant that that feels right, even as feels to be wrong, which is, I wonr why the word there isn’t actually still relatnal, which is to say, I mean, on some level, everythg has an exchange, and everythg has a dynamic, and thgs you give, and thgs you get, but, one thg, I have transactnal, tly transactnal relatnships my life, and what mak them transactnal is the abily to fairly, cleanly walk away.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">One of the weird thgs about beg a parent and havg child re is you have people who are embedd your life this unbelievably important faial role and, also, you pay them, and creat this very tense and noticeable tensn between the transactnal level of the relatnship and the fact that they love your child, and you love your child, and you love them for lovg your child, and ’s this whole thg. And this is a ltle b what I mean when I say, sometim, I thk that we have over-theorized and over-worked on sex and unr-theorized and unr-worked on relatnships. Bee, some ways, seems cleaner to say the relatnship is transactnal, but what’s so tratg and real about them, to me, is how often they’re not.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But maybe one of the thgs you exchange that transactnal, mted relatnship is the difficulty of extractg yourself om , of extritg yourself om . One of the thgs that Terry has given me is marriage, and one of thgs I’ve given him is marriage, which upped the stak, right, and ma walkg away om this relatnship — created a gree of difficulty that has discentivized walkg away om this relatnship, and that is one of the thgs that we have exchanged.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s a betiful thg, really, about marriage. I had a iend who ed to say — that I heard him say, and I’ve always felt ’s te, that, before he and his partner got married, you’d be argug over, you know, the curtas the hoe, and wasn’t clear if you’re argug about the curtas or argug about whether or not you should break up, and after you get married, until a certa really, really tense pot, you really are argug about the curtas, and there’s both difficulty and bety that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m not agast love, and I don’t thk love is —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not puttg you agast love. I’m jt thkg aloud wh you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m not agast love, and I thk there is some there there, but ’s so hard to p down. It’s so subjective. It’s so personal. It’s so hard to scribe. We n only scribe sort of the physil worlds and actual actns and eds that are attendant to , right? But I know ’s there, and I know ’s a thg self too. I also know that ’s an ia. I also know ’s a lie. A love story is somethg that two people create together. It’s a myth two people create together and then rem to and are always sort of edg and rhapg and retellg. And has a power. Stori have power.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Even that, though, the tellg and retellg of that story, is somethg we give each other a relatnship and somethg that giv a feelg of meang and safety and ntentment as dividuals, but also, then, as that — you know, we are all dividuals. A uple is an ia. A uple is somethg two dividuals agreed to pretend to be together, right?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I love that. I thk that’s so unbelievably te.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, you thk about, so many of the problems of sex a long-term relatnship is tryg to repture the magic and tensy and passn of the begng, and so much of the sex advice-dtrial plex is about lyg to people and tellg them they n, right, or that they should, and that ’s possible. And a long-term relatnship, by weight of — and we’re not really even talkg now about, you know, “Rethkg Sex,” “The Right to Sex.” The problem of nnectn, and how atomized people are the days, and the difficulty, particularly younger people are havg, fdg each other and the paradox of choice — if there’s too many different kds of mtard the mtard aisle at the grocery store, people walk down that aisle and don’t get mtard, even if was on their list, bee they n’t choose, and, really, the ter has created for many people that — and so ’s not all people who feel low stat, who feel cheated, who feel unmarketable for some reason.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">A lot of people who are, you know, the mtard aisle of, like, datg apps, and want to pick a jar of mtard and would like to have mtard at home whenever they want n’t que brg themselv to do , and I thk all of the problems and how we figure out how to addrs them are better problems to have than what people pe for, which are when women didn’t have optns, when women weren’t legal adults, when women uldn’t have cred rds or bank acunts or sign leas, when women were property, and a lot of men wound up relatnships wh women who were there unr durs, and we lled that “marriage,” right?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that’s not the se anymore. And how do we ntrol for that? How do we ntrol for high-stat men churng through as many women as they n get, jt like high-stat gay men ed to be able to churn through a lot of male partners, and then how do we ntrol for low stat or low social skills?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, when I talk to cels, and I’ve talked to cels — I’ve gotten on the phone wh some people privately — you thk of that movie, I thk, “The Ssns,” wh Helen Hunt. It’s about a sex worker gog to see a profoundly physilly disabled client, and everyone’s like, oh, that’s wonrful. That’s plited, bee we have weird, screwed-up feelgs about sex work and whether ’s legimate, whether ’s work or not, whether should be legal or not, safe or not — that’s the argument when to the legaly of sex work. It’s not whether ’s gog to exist or not, or ’s gog to be safe, or riskier than all jobs are. And we regnize that, if somebody is profoundly physilly disabled, that the attentn and affectn of a sex worker is a wonrful thg to be provid, sometim even by fay, to that person.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, a lot of the cels that I’ve actually spoken to are profoundly socially disabled. I thk that disabily, when somebody who has profound social disabili se a sex worker, we should be able to regnize that, that need for affectn, that need for sex, this route to obtag and the improvement of the qualy of life of that person, ’s legimate. It’s legimate. And is a good, and we should make that easier — not, you know, through feral subsidi, you know, the Department of Sex Work. We should make that easier by elimatg the stigma and givg people who do sex work or see sex workers the benef of the doubt, and then also to regnize people who see sex workers, to regnize ourselv, to regnize the ways which, even our own mted relatnships, there are still the transactnal elements.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That don’t mean there’s not affectn. Everyone I know who is a sex worker who has long-term clients, those are relatnships of real, lastg affectn. Those are long-term relatnships. And yet we want to knock those relatnships down to purely transactnal; we want to ll them crim; and then we refe to regnize our own relatnships the transactnal elements that might help empathize wh people who have no other outlet except a sex worker.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s so much richns that answer, but I want to go back to somethg you said early that stck me as one of the tt sentenc I’ve ever heard, which is, “Every uple is an ia.” And, a way, all of are ias, and another way of amg some thgs I’ve been sayg here is that a big part of sex is how chang or affirms or validat, or unrm our ia of ourselv. But you also see relatnships, and upl, this le, you know, that people often have many marriag to the same person, and I thk that’s te, but ’s always been a very unclear le, what means.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I thk what you’re sayg is a much clearer way of sayg , that what will often happen a marriage, and ’s happened me, is that the first ia of the uple stops beg te, and that’s a very, very, very difficult place, when that ia stops beg te, when the story you told is no longer the story that fs, and upl that survive and thrive n fd another ia of themselv —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">— some other story that they now hab, and they’re proud of, and they like. But ’s also te for dividuals. A lot of life is havg a story that you believe of yourself and that other people believe enough about you that you n move through the world a way that you regnize who you are, and regnize how you are seen, and you are OK wh what you see that regnn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m cur, though, bee this seems like a skill, and I want to actually speak about skills here, but that we don’t really have, which is to know explicly how to tell what stori we are tellg, and to also know how to change them, know how to make them amenable to edg, to difference, to new chapters. How do you thk about that?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, the difficulty is you have to be tellg the same story together — that if your revisn isn’t also your wife’s revisn, or the new way that you’re tellg the story. If you’re imposg on your partner, or ’s jt nflict wh the story that they’re tellg about the relatnship, ’s gog to be a very dysfunctnal relatnship. It’s gog to fall apart. That’s the hard part. You know, I’ve been wh my hband for almost 30 years. We’ve had very different stag and eras of our relatnship. It’s more like layers of sediment. It’s more like diggg up Troy than is jt, like, scrappg the story and tellg a new one. There’s jt this new cy built on top of the old cy, but the old cy is still unr there somewhere.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The hard part is, you know, when you’re nflict — and Terry and I have stared to the abyss. We’ve gone to upl unselg. We’ve been bter nflicts, screamed the word “divorce” each other’s fac, and then we me to a new unrstandg of who we were gog to be to each other and how that was gog to work, and we began to hab that new story and tell that new story together. And that only works if you n do together. Can I jump back for a send —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Please.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">— bee somethg occured to me when you were askg that qutn about, like, we see — ’s a cliche, you know, the powerful C.E.O who go to see the domatrix, right, the right-on femist woman who wants, durg sex wh a partner that she chose, and she feels safe and fortable wh, wants her hair pulled and wants to be lled a “slut,” the gay guy, who’s out and proud, and is turned on durg sex, wh someone he chose, to have homophobic hate words hurled at him durg sex. The are all clich. The are all tisms about sex. And the paradox is this is not who I am. Like, I am not a dirty slut who should have her hair pulled. This is not who I am. By leapg to that, fantasy or role play or experience, almost affirms and solidifi who you are the rt of the time, the 99.9999 percent of the time, when that is not happeng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s somethg about sex where we want to transgrs agast our ias of self. There’s also somethg that’s dangeroly powerful about sex, where we want to transgrs agast the story we’re tellg as a uple, that there is somethg about beg a long-term, mted relatnship, and there’s somethg about sex where, sometim, you want to be not you, and that n then extend to, sometim, you want to vlate who you’re perceived to be, the uple that — you want to vlate who your partner thks you are. How do you put those thgs harns to serve the relatnship, as opposed to tear the relatnship apart, is a real, varsy-level, high gree of difficulty thg to do. Hontly, really, to rporate hontly to the relatnship, most people rporate that stuff dishontly to the relatnship, and I don’t mean that most people cheat a relatnship, but that most people have that zone of erotic tonomy, or those tim when they tiptoe up to the edge, and then they don’t jump over, when they see how they uld transgrs, and that mak the adrenale pump, and that mak feel like dividuals aga, and I thk that’s so important, right, and even jt rpectg your partner’s privacy.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’ve talked to so many people who have no rpect for their partner’s privacy, as if their privacy is a vlatn of the ia of the uple, their partner havg privacy. And this road so many people are on, the expectatns so many people have about what is to be a part of a uple are ncers that grow on their relatnships until they kill them.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk there’s somethg really tertg there the way sex is a space where we will do thgs or hab thgs we would not say, and then I want to plite the “we” here. So I moved out to San Francis four years ago, and I was g om D.C., where I had lived for 14 years, and that’s a pretty head-spng difference relatnal and sexual cultur, to say the least. Well, one thg here that has been strikg is my muny here, ’s much more queer than was. It’s much ls likely to be monogamo than was. I know people who are more the kk muny, which is not somethg I knew much about before. And for a b, I was, like, really stck by all the tegory chang and differenc fn and l.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then, after some time of jt knowg everybody, what I me to thk was that the big difference out here is munitn styl, that the way people will talk about what they want and negotiate their relatnship or negotiate somethg wh kk for themselv or — ’s, like, stuff that I wouldn’t have even spoken about the thg, much ls actually ask for the thg wh a person whose opn of me I was ncerned about. And I thk there’s so much attentn —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We have to put a p that. We need to revis that.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, we will. There’s so much attentn on, like, what kd of sex liv people should have and what kds of relatnships they should have and are they polyamoro or monogamo, but I actually thk this is more, a weird way, important, about how people munite, that’s so much the base layer of all the relatnships, and n you even know what story your partner is tellg? It’s so different to listen to people who are actually negotiatg everythg out and are ed to dog that that that was by far the biggt, like, revolutn what I realized was possible.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I want to claim cred for that — not me personally, not bee of my lumn — gay people.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s right, though.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’ve always said, as a provotn myself, gay people have more sex, know more about sex, and are better at sex than straight people are, and then that mak straight people get fensive and reil, and then I tell them why that’s te. We have to munite. A man and a woman nsent to sex and go to bed for the first time — that’s ually when the nversatn about sex stops, bee what’s gog to happen is a flt settg and is assumed. Much to the triment of both of their experienc, often, those assumptns n rult people havg the kd of bad sex that Christe Emba wr about a lot. When two men go to bed together for the first time, they nsent to sex, is the begng of a nversatn, bee there is no flt settg. What’s gog to happen? Who’s gog to do what to whom?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">My first sexual experienc wh other men — and, you know, I lost my virgy wh a woman, so my first sex experienc weren’t wh men — my first sexual appearance wh a man, the guy looked at me and said, what are you to? I ll them the four magic words, “What are you to?” And at that moment, you n le anythg , le anythg out. You n ask for what you want. You’ve been asked to ask for what you want, bee your partner n’t assume, right? I have had experienc where both people ask that qutn at the exact same time, and then look at each other and say, jx, right? What are you to? Ha, ha, ha, jx, and then you have that nversatn. Some straight people have that nversatn. Most don’t, bee they n avoid . Gay people don’t have that nversatn bee we’re more highly evolved. We don’t have that nversatn bee we’re better. We have that nversatn bee we mt. And that’s what you see San Francis. You see a lot of people, straight people, who have embraced “What are you to?” as the start of a nversatn about a relatnship and about a sexual relatnship, and ’s ma them better at sex. It’s ma them better at relatnships. You know, I don’t want to say gay people are necsarily better at relatnships, but that study out of the Netherlands, other studi, have shown that gay men are often slower to m, but once they m, ls likely for the relatnship to end, and I thk ’s bee of those nversatns and bee of that qutn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I thk this is part of why there is so much unhapps right now for a lot of people, and I feel this, even. So, I met my wife, not then my wife, right before the rise of app datg, so onle datg was still a ltle b weird, and wh five years, would be all anybody I knew did. And so this crazy thg happened, which is that the fundamental srcy of your love life, like, how do you fd a person to date — you’ve met your iends’ iends. You’re not good at htg on people parti. Like, what are you gonnna do?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You meet people at work, or you ed to.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right. It upends, and all of a sudn, people have this sane amount of choice. And I thought, om the outsi of this, I mean, this is gonna be a wonrland. Like, how great? And then, you know, nobody was happy, and people get tired, and they seem to be meetg — you know, a lot of pa attached there too. It’s not like there’s been some great shift our societal happs or the qualy of our relatnships or anythg. And I do thk this is a place where maybe the problem got mistaken, that there’s so much more eedom and possibily and choice, and those thgs all seem really great, but you need a lot of skills, and particularly munitn skills, to navigate that. And we got all the new optns and possibili, and no upgra or change skills and, to some gree, no change expectatns. And those thgs are a level of nflict wh each other that seems to me to be makg a lot of people miserable.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, the better people are at munitg their sir, their wants, their boundari, the ls likely they are to wd up a suatn where they’re havg — you know, bad sex happens to everybody, but ls likely to wd up a suatn where you’re havg sex or a relatnship that isn’t makg you happy. You know, the people out there who aren’t havg sex ually have a problem wh munitg, wh askg, wh tellg, and one of the thgs I wanted to jump back to is that thg you said that n be difficult to share your actual wants and sir when the stak are high. I n’t remember exactly how you put . That’s often a problem relatnships. You know, people put up their Potemk village versn of themselv and then they get to a mted relatnship, and they haven’t actually revealed who they are sexually and what they want sexually. They didn’t start wh that. And now, if revealg those thgs about yourself is a threat to the relatnship potentially — you fear might be — you don’t. You kick that n further down the road, and then be harr and harr to reveal .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I gus I’m not really answerg your qutn. Yeah, everyone is unhappy all the time. Inter datg has been really tertg. You know, Terry and I predate that. Terry and I both have other partners that we did meet on the ter, so we have some experience wh what the ter is like, and some people are paralyzed by the amount of choice that they have, you know, the mtard aisle problem. I thk that’s preferable to the lack of choice that people ed to endure before the sexual revolutn, before the ter me along, and we need — you know, we have new problems to addrs, and we have new problems to rrect for, and some people are miserable bee they haven’t ma a choice, right, and they need to be enuraged to perhaps make a choice, and sometim havg someone or somethg is better than havg no one or nothg. And there is no perfect partner. There’s no lid for every pot. You know, there’s no “the one,” which is a thg I talk about my lumn all the time. There’s a .73 that you round up to the one, and that’s about the bt you n do. And some people fd that dispirg. I thk that’s kd of lovely, bee not only are you roundg that person up, but you know that they’re roundg you up too, and I thk that’s a gift, and you should take .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I want to take a moment here on munitn culture, bee, as you were sayg that, somethg that was occurrg to me is, you thk about this terms of sex, but I actually want to thk about terms of relatnships, and I’ll put on myself, that one of the harst thgs for me has been gettg to a pot where I’m not offend by needg to ask for what I need, right, gettg over the fantasy that other people are gog to know what is I need at a moment, or that, if is not natural for them to provi , that that is some kd of problem wh them. And this is a place, I thk, where expectatns are very stctive, but gettg to a pot as a person where you, ankly, know what you need, that you are willg to ask for enough tim that other people n unrstand or be remd of , and that you’re not so worried about everybody else’s reactns to that, that you’re not paralyzed when makg the ask, bee other people’s disfort is more unbearable than your own or than your own possible feelg of huiatn or what happens if you ask and n’t be offered, and got me thkg about, I watched, as part of preparg for this, a nversatn you did wh Esther Perel on YouTube. It’s on YouTube, and people should check out. It’s fantastic.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The two of you have a long thg about what sex ed uld and should be like your perfect world, and left me thkg a lot about how there’s no relatnship ed, and nobody even really talks about one, to say nothg of jt how we talk to each other —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Which is what sex ed should be.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Which is probably what sex ed should be, but ’s not even jt sex. It’s iendships. It’s work. It’s our whole mocracy. Jt beg good at munitn is so bedrock, and we jt kd of turn people out to the world and are like, hope for the bt, like, good luck to you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. I don’t know what I have to say there except that I pletely agree. I would add to the abily to ask for what you need is also the abily to see what you’re pable of givg, to know what you’re pable of givg, and, sometim, the abily to be patient, bee you may ask for somethg and not get a y right away or get right away, or you know, you’re told you to wa or be patient, you’ll get soon, or eventually, this weekend, or, you know, I’m movg toward that, or not yet, which is often somethg people hear when they ask to open a relatnship, is maybe, and that’s a nversatn we need to keep havg. So, yeah, ask for what you need, know what you n give and know that the answer isn’t always gog to be y.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s a thg I talk about my lumn and on my podst all the time lled the “price of admissn,” which is there’s a price of admissn you pay to be any relatnship, and if there’s somethg that’s a price of admissn that you’re unwillg to pay, then you shouldn’t be that relatnship. But, you know, if there’s no price you’re willg to pay to be a relatnship, you’re not gog to ever be a relatnship. You know, addn to beg a myth, a story, a relatnship is a never-endg promise.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk of this as the ept level of your work, which is this nstant prsure you’re puttg on people’s expectatns and nstant light you’re tryg to she on .</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">To have realistic expectatns.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">If people have unrealistic expectatns, then they’re nstantly disappoted. And this n get very, like, metaphysil, people’s expectatns. I do not expect, when I go home, to fd a clean kchen, bee the people I live wh are not gonna do dish, so I am never cshed when I get home and the first thg I have to do is dish. I’m jt like, price of admissn that I pay to be the relatnships, and that’s fe. And the trick to payg the price of admissn is you don’t bch about . You know, you pay the price, you ri the ri. If you don’t want to pay the price, don’t get on the roller aster. But don’t buy a ticket to that roller aster and then pla the whole time you’re on the ri about how much sts. At a certa pot, you jt get off or you don’t get on that ri.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And addn to enuragg people to have realistic expectatns, people have to take rponsibily for the choic that they’ve ma, for the tickets they’ve purchased, and be wh the people that they’re actually wh, and if they don’t want to be wh that person or people, they shouldn’t be.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I do want to jump back, though, to this what sex ed should be, bee I thk this is so important and maybe people listen to your show who have some ntrol of this, and, oh my God, on the seizg of school boards across the untry and the current sex panic, you know, about groomers, any rmatn beg provid to kids about sex, sexualy, inty. Reproductive blogy you n ver at a half an hour. It’s simple. Where people get hurt havg sex is munitn, is negotiatn, is talkg somebody to havg sex wh you, is makg sure that you have their nsent, is makg sure that you’ve clearly munited whether they have yours and feelg empowered to have those kds of negotiatns and nversatns. That is where people get hurt. That is where sex go wrong.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How to put a ndom on a banana, you n do that. Sexually transmted fectns, you n ver the on people need to worry about 10 extra mut. Everythg else is difficult and hard, bee feelgs e to play, securi e to play, expectatns, realistic and unrealistic, e to play, and that’s where people get trouble. And the people we often have the harst time talkg about wh sex are our sex partners. How did we nstct that, and how do we nstct that, that rner we’ve pated ourselv to, that the person we feel least ee beg ourselv wh and openg up wh about who we are sexually and what we want is somebody that we are about to have sex wh for the first time, or somebody we’ve been havg sex wh for 20 years?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">How do you get better at munitn? I mean, even as you’re sayg that, occurred to me, if I wanted to get stronger, I know who I n go pay. If I want to eat better, I know who I n go pay. If I want somebody who n teach me how to rock climb, I know who n go pay. Like, I know where to look the — I was gonna say the yellow pag, but that’s only bee I’m 1,000 years old now — but Google.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I got the reference, so I’m much olr than you, actually.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, ’s tough. But munitn, ’s everythg, I mean, on some level, and pletely fuzzy out there. If you’re somebody who wants to be a better munitor, where do you start?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">People know how to ask for what they want, you know, om a waer. People know how to ask, often, for what they want om a sex worker. You know, one of the thgs, when out, as has, people who ll me to wre me, their partner was seeg a sex worker, and was dog wh the sex worker, somethg they never asked the partner to do wh them, and was bee they weren’t aaid that the sex worker would leave them. And, ually, when people have a hard time munitg about sex, sire, timacy, relatnships, there’s this fear of rejectn, fear of beg judged, fear of beg left.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Early a relatnship, you should embrace rejectn, and you should n at that fear. You have to be willg to risk . That’s how you bee a better munitor. You n’t ask for what you want if you’re not willg to risk losg what you have. And what you might risk losg is this person that you jt met on an app that you’re gettg along wh and you’d like to see naked and you risk munitg, not a, like, if you e home wh me, we’re gonna do four thgs om lumn A, four thgs om lumn B, and one thg om lumn C, but jt, like, beg actually who you are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">In some ways, you have to straddle this creatn of the Potemk self, your bt self, and your real self. You have to do both at the same time, and that n be difficult. And I’m not tryg to dodge your qutn here. It’s jt about dishibg around the fear of rejectn — that, if this person isn’t right for you, give them a chance. Allow them to give you a chance. There may be thgs that you don’t agree on. You know, everythg won’t be on the menu, but so much is, and so much do work that, you know, you’re willg to let go of some thgs and round them up. They’re gog to round you up. You’re willg to pay certa pric of admissn. But you have to be willg to risk rejectn, and that’s why people have a hard time munitg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So, if you were gog to open the yellow pag 1972 and try to fd where to go to get strong, you look for the gym. You jt have to — there’s no willg-to-risk-rejectn ach the yellow pag, but that’s what you have to be willg to do, and that’s si you. And that’s really about prrizg your needs, your fort, what you want, and fdg somebody who wants enough of what you want, and enough of what you are, and vise versa, that would work out long term, which is not to say that — one of the thgs I like to talk about is that we overemphasize the importance or the primacy of long-term relatnships.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We have many more short-term relatnships, and we should want those to be succs too. I don’t thk a relatnship has to end wh somebody a box at a funeral home for to have been a succs, but ath is our only standard of succs. You know, a relatnship is the only thg that we regard as a failure of everyone volved gets out alive. Image if we applied that standard to rtrants or flights, right? If ’s a high-nflict relatnship and a terrible divorce, and nobody n stand each other or speak to each other aga, if there was abe, emotnal, physil, yeah, that relatnship need to end and was probably experienced as a failure, particularly by the person who was abed. If two people get out of a relatnship and there’s affectn and rpect, even a iendship, even if end, was a succs. And if we jt looked at all of our relatnships, we have so many short-term relatnships, and we work so hard at makg the L.T.R.s a succs that we neglect makg the S.T.R.s a succs, and all an L.T.R. is an S.T.R. that worked out.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It’s easy, I thk, when we talk about munitn, to talk about talkg, right? When I say, “How do I munite?” I thk what people hear is, “How do I talk better?” But the flip of that is, how do I listen better? How do I actually hear what you’re sayg when you’re talkg to me?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I have met people, some people poisoned by, maybe, the disurse around sex, who are all about what they want and askg for what they want, mandg what they want and expectg what they want and not about hearg what their partner wants, and not regardg their partner’s wants, needs, securi as as legimate as their own. It’s like that fn of pornography, you know when you see .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, when you’re talkg wh somebody who’s askg for what they want, you know when that person is also terted what you want, and fdg the center of that Venn diagram, where you n tablish all the patibili — sexual patibily, emotnal patibily, you know, long-term prospect, what you want out of life patibili, and you want to be that person, and to be that person who n ask for what you want, but also give and listen, you have to be self-cril, you have to check wh iends, you have to listen to your ex, you have to intify patterns.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know, if you’ve had a long strg of terrible relatnships, at some pot, you have to look at that and go, well, I’m the mon nomator. What am I dog wrong? And people have a hard time wh that kd of munitn, ternal munitn, self cricism. And you have to ask yourself what you want and how you’re gettg the way of .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I want to ask you about somethg we touched on at the begng, which is, first, a bridge that you’ve been a big part of, om the L.G.B.T.Q. muny to the straight muny, but also, now, the way that’s changg and jt the unrlyg stcture that is changg. So, I thk the pollg on this is really, really tertg. So, Gallup says 2.6 percent of baby boomers intify as some sort of L.G.B.T.Q., 10.5 percent of lennials do, and 20 percent of Gen Z do, and that 20 percent is doubled a fairly short perd of time. What do you thk acunts for those radilly higher rat?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The are thgs that will get me trouble for sayg out loud. There has been this explosn sort of more fely sized sexual orientatns, inti. How many pri flags are there now? I have lost unt. And younger people may be more fortable intifyg as not straight, intifyg as queer, ways that, you know, as a rult of relatnship styl or terts, that, when you, or I, or people who remember what the yellow pag are, or were, hear the word “queer,” we thk same-sex relatnships, for the most part, and a lot of people who intify as queer that 20 percent of Gen Z aren’t necsarily — or terted or ever gog to be — same-sex relatnships.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Demisexual is someone who n’t experience sexual attractn the absence of some sort of emotnal nnectn, which scrib a lot of people, right, who aren’t gay or lbian or bi or trans, necsarily. It also scrib a lot of people who are gay, lbian, bi, and/or trans. And asexualy is a real thg, really, a hardwired sexual orientatn for about 1 percent of the populatn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Can you say what asexual is for people who don’t know?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Someone who don’t experience sexual sire. And, you know, is a spectm. Everythg is a spectm, right? So there are some people who are asexual who experience mimal sexual sire. There are some people asexual who have sexual relatnships, bee sex meets a need that is not about sex. It’s credibly plited. That said, most people who are asexual who are relatnships or would like to be relatnships are still terted romantic relatnships, even if they’re not sexual relatnships. So there’s a lot of people beg shipped unr the “queer” label now that yellow pag typ like you and me n’t easily intify, n’t see unr that umbrella, right, but they are, and that’s great. Wele. I’m all for the most expansive fn of “queer” as possible, and anybody who wants to intify as whatever they want to intify as n intify as that.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I see people on the right eakg out about, you know, at this rate, everybody’s gonna be queer 100 years, and then we’re gog to go extct as a speci, bee we’re gog to fet which hole babi e out of, I gus. A lot of the people who intify as queer, and may be legimately so, when down to sex and relatnships, are gonna end up havg sex that social nservativ would be fortable wh and havg relatnships that most social nservativ would be fortable wh, and most social nservativ would assume they’re not havg if they’re queer-intified, when they actually are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You’re San Francis. How many people do you know who intify as queer who are oppose sex and married? Or however they intify other ways, are technilly oppose sex, and marriag, they may or may not be monogamo. It’s really high, and that’s wonrful, I gus.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">This is sort of the motivatn for the qutn, a way, which is that — and I feel, aga, like I’m 2,000 years old when I start askg qutns motivated by, well, I was talkg to some teens, but at least among people I’ve met out here, straight is not an aspiratnal inty. Like, ’s sort of somethg where you’re like, yeah, yeah, sorry, you know? [LAUGHS]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s a really tertg — that’s why I’m kd of askg your thoughts on . It’s a really tertg change to me that has happened my lifetime, and seems to be growg, where —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, ’s jt like “Christian.” Like, so many people — non are the fastt growg tegory of believers, people who don’t believe anythg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, not Christian nuns, but N-O-N-E-S.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">N-O-N-E-S, non.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Y, people who don’t have a — Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I remember Christian nuns. I was tght by them. And a lot of the people are still sort of nomally Christian, they jt don’t want to publicly associate wh what Christiany, policized Christiany, has e to mean our culture, thanks to od people like Jerry Falwell Jr. and Tony Perks and the Fay Rearch Council. They don’t want to be affiliated wh that. And I thk the same procs is sort of played out wh “straight.” There’s a lot of people who feel like straight’s brand is toxic. There ed to be a greater stigma attached to beg perceived as not straight, and certa subcultur, certa is, that polary has flipped.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">This gets to somethg that I sometim hear om my queer iends and particularly my more polilly radil queer iends, which is that we were talkg earlier about the ways which a lot of gay culture has migrated to straight culture, but there’s a feelg that ’s gone the other way too, that there was a more radil set of fay formatns, of kship, not jt non-monogamy, but ias about how you would stcture, you know, fai of choice, and how you would stcture social works, and what would mean to be a relatnship and that, the fight for gay marriage, there was a lot of what gets lled “assiatn” but that a lot of that got phed to the margs, and a lot of that experimentatn stopped happeng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I sometim get asked how havg children changed my polics, which I have all kds of answers for, but the ma thg ’s done more recently is really persua me that somethg is pletely wrong how we do fay — that ’s a pretty new experience for so many people to live so far om the rt of their fay. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, and at this moment, we don’t live near any fay.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">That’s really hard.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s pletely sane.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Mm-hmm.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And my lleague David Brooks has wrten a great piece The Atlantic a uple of years back on this, like, the nuclear fay, like, this kd of goln age of the nuclear fay, was a uple--long aberratn. Before that, you had big extend fai that lived together, and then, after that, what you have is richer people buyg extend fai, through purchasg a lot of hoehold help and child re and so on, and poor people really stgglg. And we do, I thk, have a nstant ferment around qutns of sexual revolutn, and we’ve been talkg about relatnal revolutn, but jt seems to me that two people is too few to raise a fay. Now, maybe one answer is you live near your fay, if you n, and if that works for your job, and if your parents are healthy, and able to help, and, I mean, there are all kds of qualifitns there.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But many ways, I keep wag for this thg social nservativ keep warng me is g, which is more experimentatn how we do fay, more experimentatn how we do child raisg. I mean, I do know people out here who, they live poly hoeholds, and six people raise two kids, and ’s not so much about who’s sleepg wh whom, ’s really about the parentg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And jt somethg jt has seemed off to me as a parent for some time — ’s jt we have so ltle muny, and we seem trapped this view that this kd of atomizatn is OK, or we paper over wh money, and I don’t know, I don’t feel like, 100 years, we’re gonna be dog this way. I don’t know how we’re gonna be dog , but this seems crazy.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We weren’t dog this way 100 years ago. I grew up a multigeneratnal hoehold, grew up a two-flat apartment buildg, which is an apartment buildg that only has the two apartments , on the North Si of Chigo, and my grandparents, and nts, and uncl lived downstairs, and my mom, and dad, and my three siblgs lived upstairs. There were a lot of people around, and everybody helped raise the kids, and some of my nts and uncl were still kids themselv when we were very ltle children. That worked. There were downsis. You know, you were always who you were as a child. You were always unr the gaze of your parents, grandparents. We overrrected when we atomized, and the prsure puts on two people, alone, jt a uple to raise kids, like, Hillary Clton was right, really do take a village, and we have to ask ourselv, what are the motiv of the people out there tryg to nvce everyone that should jt be two people livg a suburban home the suburbs? I blame the tomobile. I blame the exprsway for ntributg to the atomizatn of the fay.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But, yeah, havg fay close by or havg people your life that are fay, the fay you’ve created, not blogil k or extend fay, but the fay of choice that people talk about plac like San Francis and Seattle, that mak parentg easier and more possible, and rettg those cultural norms around extend fai and around not expectg that a uple n or should do everythg — You know, one of the thgs my mom did when Terry and I first beme parents, and she me to vis, was take our fant om and ph out the ont door and told to take advantage, right? You know, one of thgs my mother told me when I beme a parent was the only time you remember why you liked your partner enough to want to have children wh them the first place was when you were alone wh your partner, away om your children. And that was possible for my parents, when we were ltle kids, bee of my grandparents and nts and uncl.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And was harr for , bee our fay wasn’t Seattle wh . I pletely agree wh you. And not jt this way but so many ways. Set up a system that mak parentg as miserable, isolatg and punishg as possible, and then social nservativ s around wh their thumbs their butts, wonrg why so few people want to do this anymore. And ’s not jt about child re. It’s not jt about profsnal child re, jt about prchool or day re. It’s also about mother--law apartments. It’s about people livg nser plac. The neighborhood I grew up Chigo was very nse. It was one of the reasons why, you know, when an nt and uncle moved out of my grandparents’ hoe, they moved down the block, and was possible for them to move down the block and to stay our liv and to be a relief for my parents, who had four kids.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this is a place that go back to your foc, sometim, on expectatns, where I have every supply of a flexible job, I make good money, my partner and, I, like have a good relatnship, we spl the parentg. The expectatns you’re given on this are pletely sane, and basilly every parent I know, you up talkg for two mut — I mean, Jsi Grose jt wrote a book about this — you end up talkg for two mut, and people jt climbg up the walls, and the part of the difficulty of is this belief the back of your head that, somewhere, somebody is dog this perfectly, right? Somewhere, isn’t feelg like this for them. And isn’t. You start to realize that. But ’s jt a place where there’s been so ltle experimentatn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, you were jt mentng nsy and hog. I thk a big problem for liberals here is that, look, we n and should have universal pre-K and child re, and every part of the social state that n help people parent that is possible, and that we see dozens and dozens of other untri, but isn’t gog to solve all of this. Like, at some pot —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">— there is this qutn of jt the muny around the parent. I mean, Clton’s book, this way, is really prophetic. I should go back and read aga, bee we’ve jt pletely lost , and I did this nversatn wh Patrick Deneen some number of months ago, and he’s a kd of hardre, post-liberal nservative —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Very tense iology happeng over there.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah. Terrifyg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I was thkg, after our nversatn, about the way which somethg that he unrstood rrectly was that liberals had stopped havg anythg, really, to say about the fay beyond social supports, and as such, they weren’t talkg to people a language they uld hear, and I don’t thk where Deneen is gog wh this isn’t gog to talk to them a language that mak sense eher. I do thk, there, we got to a pot where, after how much discrimatn, and how many wars for equaly there were, a lot of folks got to a space of jt wantg to show that they were acceptg, and, also, they weren’t tryg to change too much simultaneoly, as opposed to sayg, somethg has really gone wrong here, and we should be a space of experimentatn to try to create mols where parentg is not somethg you flict upon yourself, but somethg that works wh the society that we have built.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I have strong views about this. [LAUGHS]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I do too, and I listened to that nversatn, and whenever you terview one of those people on the — I don’t know what to ll them — the far bizarro right, ’s a torment to me, bee there are tim when I’m noddg along, like, we need more fay support, we need more workg — you know, brg back jobs and make possible for a fay to functn, if n, on one e. But we also need universal pre-K and day re, but n’t be 30 away, or 10 away. It’s gotta be on the block. And one of the thgs you’ve been hammerg away at is why liberals n’t seem to n the ci that they’re charge of anymore, and this block on nstctg hog and nser neighborhoods, where plac where people want to live and where the jobs are, and yet people who bought ho there 30 years ago are preventg the cy where they live om ntug to be a cy that functns and grows and where ’s possible for fai to thrive, and, you kmnow, multiple generatns of a sgle fay to live close proximy to one another. And ’s a problem.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">It remds me of somethg that me up at the begng of that nversatn, and people should go — sorry if you didn’t listen to . It’s a nversatn between me and Patrick Deneen. You n search . But somethg he says at the begng, when I was askg him, like, who are you talkg to? Who is your enemy here? Bee I’m pretty sure ’s actually me, was what I was tryg to get at. But, neverthels, he’s like, well, there are the people, the liberals the legal amy that want to do away wh the fay, and maybe there are.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But the thg that’s tertg to me is that the thg that I see on the edge, and is the reason I brought this topic up the ntext of the qutn of, was somethg lost the experimentatns of the queer muny around marriage, is that the people I know who have expand fay que a b are more margal muni more often. I mean, I don’t know many polyamoro hoeholds, but I know a uple that raise children, and seems to work for them. I do have queer iends who tend to have much more kd of ser alloparentg among their muni, bee there’s jt more people who are bought to that fay’s succs, and they’ve built more of a chosen — the approach to the iendship is more like a fay than is among many straight folks or straight upl. And I keep wonrg about if that kd of thg is gog to expand, bee we’re not gog to abolish the fay. I fd that to be a pletely functnally ridiculo ncern. But we do somehow need to expand , and that’s what we have not figured out.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Or have we? Are the poly fai or people engaged alloparentg that you are seeg the procs of figurg out? Have they figured out? I thk they have. You know, one of the thgs, whenever I listen to a nversatn of yours wh someone like that du, I always wished you’d ask them, and what are we gog to do about the gay people who are already out and the queer fai that are already formed? Bee they seem to regard as the enemy of fay, as opposed — you know, we don’t jump out of bbage patch. We don’t emerge fully formed om the back rooms of gay bars at 18. We’re part of the fai that he p for and the kd of fay stcture that he p for, and once we were ee to start creatg our own, we did. We want to be a part, you know, queer people, of this faial project, and yet we’re regard, by the people argug that liberals are the enemi of the fay, our prence is somehow a threat to the fay, or anthetil to the ia of fay, and I would like to know what their fix is, what they’re gog to do about , and they never answer that qutn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t thk they have an answer, but I will ask you what your answer on the oppose is. What are the prcipl of fay, the ias of fay, that you have seen your muny that, if you were a parentg lumnist and not a sex and relatnships lumnist, you’d be tryg to ph across the bridge?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] Parentg up a lot. Well, a way, you know, I thk tak more than two people, and sometim a lot more than two people, and that’s often my advice to people about their sex liv. That also would be my advice two people a sexually exclive relatnship who are attemptg to parent. It n’t jt be the two of you. You have to brg other people , other fay members, if they’re nearby, and if you’re gog to have kids and start a fay of your own, you need a work of chosen fay to help you do this, bee ’s so, so hard.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that’s a good place to end. Always our fal qutn. What are the three books you’d remend to the dience?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I gave this so much thought. “The Ethil Slut,” by Dossie Easton and Ja Hardy. I’m sure, sce movg to San Francis, you’ve probably heard this book mentned, or seen on a shelf somewhere. It was published 25 years ago, and ’s sort of the Co of Hammurabi where ethil non-monogamy is ncerned.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">They should make that the blurb.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[LAUGHS] I read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” when I was a kid, and I’ve regretted a uple of tim but William Shirer, who wrote “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” he was a foreign rrponnt Berl the ‘30s. He worked wh Edward R. Murrow, and after the llapse of the Nazi regime, he wrote “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” wh accs to the Nazi archiv. It’s a fascatg book. But he also wrote somethg lled “Berl Diary,” which was published 1941, whout the benef of hdsight, which is diary entri as he’s wnsg the rise of fascism and totalarianism Germany, and I don’t thk I need to tell your dience why I thk that book is so relevant to this moment, and I recently reread , and ’s chillg.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then one that I don’t thk people would expect om me is “A Royal Affair: Gee III and His Sndalo Siblgs,” by Stella Tillyard. Gee III, of urse, was the Kg of England durg the Amerin Revolutn. I love royal histori, royal bgraphi. I’m sort of a closet monarchist — except I’m always sayg to microphon I’m a closet monarchist, which I gus means I’m not a closet monarchist. [LAUGHS] But everyone’s always tryg to make, popular media, and films, and televisn a kd of proto-femist hero of Marie Antoette, which she jt is not. Gee III’s youngt sister, Carole Matilda, is that proto-femist hero, and Stella Tillyard wrote a group bgraphy about all of Gee III’s siblgs, but the foc is Carole Matilda, and she lived openly a polyamoro triad. She had a child by her hband the Kg of Denmark — she was the queen of Denmark — and a child by her lover, wore men’s clothg, went out ridg, and everythg the Amerin foundg fathers did, eedom of the prs, eedom of relign, banng cel and unual punishment, Carole Matilda did first as a teenage girl Denmark and Queen of Denmark the 1760s.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that Amerins don’t know her — I’ve been tryg for a to make a TV show about Carole Matilda happen, whout much succs, but Stella Tillyard’s book is amazg, and if you like real bgraphi, even if you don’t, ’s such a tremendo read. In some ways, the tle is a ltle salac for the kd of origal source history that Stella Tillyard wrote about Carole Matilda and her siblgs. If you’re embarrassed by the tle, jt take the ver off the book but read the book.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I would fely watch that. So, Prtige drama producers who are listeng, and programmers, you know where to go. Go to Dan Savage. Dan, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">dan savage</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you. Thank you. It was a real honor.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ezra kle</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">“The Ezra Kle Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galv, Jeff Geld, Roge Karma and Krist L. Fact-checkg by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sclair. Origal mic by Isaac Jon. Mixg by Jeff Geld and Sonia Herrero. Audience strategy by Shannon Bta. The executive producer of New York Tim Opn Aud is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Pat McCker.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><div style="posn:absolute;width:0;height:0;visibily:hidn;display:none"></div><hear class="css-1vwfk9f" data-breakpot=""><div style="width:100%" data-ttid="flt-layout"><div style="background-image:url()" class="css-197zlhc e1llfg0"><div class="css-1hmsypo e1llfg2"><div class="css-131hid3 e1llfg3"><div class="css-1uhi299 e1llfg1"></div><div class="css-1tloyb6"><div class="css-ah35qo ehra6vc0"><a href=" class="css-2ne0py"><span class="css-1f76qa2"><img alt="The Ezra Kle Show logo" src="><span>The Ezra Kle Show</span></span></a></div></div><div class="css-1r0dpua e1llfg4"><div class="css-wfiq9c edye5kn0"><div><h1 class="css-15oz550 edye5kn2">Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Fay and Better Sex</h1><h2 class="css-syyj5g edye5kn3">The advice lumnist discs how datg, sex and relatnships have changed over the past 30 years — and where they should go next.</h2></div><span class="css-xpptmx edye5kn4"></span><button type="button" class="css-w62hzm" aria-haspopup="te" aria-label="Show Aud Transcript"><div class="css-1vd84sn"><svg xmlns=" width="24" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 20" fill="#F8F8F8"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M0 0H24V20H0V0ZM3 7H21V9H3V7ZM21 11H3V13H21V11ZM3 15H21V17H3V15ZM11 3H3V5H11V3Z" fill="#F8F8F8"></path></svg><span class="css-16bt4xd">Transcript</span></div></button></div><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back to The Ezra Kle Show</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars .