Savage Love
by Dan Savage

Hey, Everybody: By now you’ve no doubt heard the news that America’s favorite crystal-meth-snorting, male-escort-blowing evangelical Christian pastor is cured! While 99.9 percent of wannabe ex-gays struggle to overcome their homosexuality for decades, Ted Haggard was pronounced “completely heterosexual” after just 21 days of counseling! Don’t you just love a happy ending?

I’d love to devote a whole column to Haggard—there’s just so much to process. For instance, according to the ministers overseeing Haggard’s treatment, Ted was able to “discover” his complete heterosexuality so quickly because his homosexual activity was never “constant.” By that standard I’ve been completely heterosexual since, gee, about 10 minutes after 2:00 this morning.

Yippee! I’m completely heterosexual, too! And as everyone knows, once you’re completely heterosexual all your troubles are over. Just ask San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.

But that’s all the space I can waste on that yam-faced faggot. Because it’s Valentine’s Day—or it just was, depending on when you’re reading this—and to counter the impression that fetishes and impulsive hookups always lead to conflict and heartache, I asked vanilla types contentedly partnered with kinky motherfuckers and vice versa, along with anyone who ever took a chance on an anonymous piece of ass and wound up marrying it, to send me their happy-endings stories. In honor of Ted Haggard, this week’s happy endings are completely heterosexual. Happy Valentine’s Day.

 

I met an awesome guy by taking a chance and asking a complete stranger for his phone number. After three weeks of dating Mr. Perfect, we had the sex conversation. I’ve always been GGG, but I had limits: no piss, poop, blood, kids, or animals. Then I found out Mr. Perfect likes to pee his pants and wanted me to do it with him. I gave it some thought, decided it was harmless, and that I was willing to try it. It’s taken some getting used to, but I’m actually starting to enjoy peeing my pants. More importantly, I get off on the fact that he gets off on it so much. It’s been seven months and we are still completely retarded for each other.

Pee Is Sorta Sexy

 

I’m a straight male crossdressing sissy and even though it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I told my wife about it before we had a lot invested in the relationship. We’ve been together five years and I never imagined being this happy. I blog about our life at sweatshopsissy.wordpress.com

Sweat Shop Sissy

 

I was a stripper who spent an awful lot of time trying to make the other girls understand that the man of their dreams was NOT going to be tucking dollar bills into their G-strings at the club. Then one night I was on stage, boobs in the breeze, when this guy walked in. I froze. When I recovered enough to finish my set, I went and bought the guy a drink. Wow, he was actually nice—and smart and funny! And hot! He bought a VIP dance and I actually came just dancing for him. I refused to go out with him out of sheer terror of the chemistry, but he hung in there—despite his friends telling him the girl of his dreams was NOT hanging upside down topless from a brass pole! We went on our first date two months later, much to the amusement of my cohorts, who took great glee in taunting me. We married two years later. Our sixth wedding anniversary was in January.

Long Odds Paid Off

 

I was on the anal-sex channel on IRC, telling everyone about the webcam I had set up at work to watch over the crack alley across the street. This woman immediately messaged me and asked, “You work at —, don’t you? I used to work there, too! I know that crack alley!”

She invited me out to a bar across the street and we started dating shortly after that. Well, it turned out that not only was she into anal sex, but pegging as well. We’ve been the very model of what it means to be GGG. I introduced her to BDSM; she introduced me to group sex. We’ve been married for three years now and had our first kid on December 3.

We Owe It All To Crack Alley

 

This is the true confession of a vanilla girl (VG) who took a chance on a kinky boy (KB).

I was a shy, 18-year-old virgin. KB was wise enough to let out his kinky side a little at a time, starting with new positions. (I actually thought missionary was the only physically possible way to have sex.) Over three years, he revealed a laundry list of kinks: BDSM, swinging, anal, earning money by homosexual favors, and three- (or more) ways. Each revelation left me wondering what I was getting into, but I always jumped in and never had any regrets. We eventually got married over the protests of everyone we knew.

Seventeen years later, we are proud parents and still very much in love. While writing this, I asked KB why he took a chance on a VG. I had always assumed he enjoyed corrupting my innocence. But he said that I was a steadying force in his wild life, and that he would have died young doing something too risky if he didn’t find a way to settle down. Call me crazy, but I find his answer romantic.

Vanilla Girl Loves Kinky Boy

 

I’m a girl in my mid-20s. Over the course of a few years, I’ve succeeded in turning a thoroughly vanilla guy into a spankophile who’s happy to tie me up, crop me, pull my hair, and order me around. He’s not a real sadist, he says, but it turns him on to see me so turned on. What a sweetheart! We’ve even seen a couple of professional mistresses together so that he could learn a few tricks. Yum. And my last two presents from him were a paddle and an engagement ring.

Ode To Kink

 

I’m a mostly het white boy, she was a fundamentalist Christian. When we first met, she was still “no sex till marriage” and trying to save me. Maybe it was the repression of her upbringing, but damn that girl was willing! We tried role-play, toys in abundance, cock rings, hardcore porn, ATM, sex in public. We even did a couple of group scenes. I loved sitting next to her in church singing the praises of Jebus after a wild Saturday night.

The happy ending? Five years on, she’s happily married to a nice Christian boy with a kid on the way, and we’re still friends.

Happy Christian Corrupter

 

Okay, those were the straight happy endings—the ones I could fit in the column. Read on for tons more. In next week’s Savage Love, shitloads of completely queer happy endings, also in honor of Ted Haggard.

 

From the time I was a teen, I knew I had this “thing” for diapers, most likely stemming from a father who berated me for not being manly enough and a mother who threatened to put me back in diapers. (I was an occasional bed wetter until age 14.) Somehow those insults and threats worked their way into my subconscious and I spent a good part of high school fantasizing about my female classmates putting me in diapers and teasing me.

I have had many girlfriends as an adult, but after feeling them out (usually me saying “I know this girl whose boyfriend liked diapers” followed by a response of “Eww, that’s fucked up!”), I never had the courage to tell my dirty secret. So I kept my diapers and plastic pants well hidden in closets, drop ceilings, or under mattresses. It was a terrible way to live. For 15 years, I felt disgusted with myself and guilty and fearful of being discovered. I would buy diapers and after masturbating in one, throw the entire package out in a garbage can miles from home. Then I discovered the internet and found out that I was not alone. Soon after, I met the girl of my dreams, “Jenny,” and decided to tell her the truth. She was pretty calm about the whole thing—not ecstatic, but calm.

In the months that followed, diapers were eased into our sex life and now she doesn’t bat an eye at the idea. Yes, we do have normal man-on-top vanilla sex, but she is always willing to slap a diaper on my ass and treat me like the dirty boy I am. Although she’s never been kinky before, she admits to liking the control of diapering and spanking me and making me beg to get off.

It’s been two years now and I just asked her to marry me last week.

Still In Pampers

 

In the fall of 2001, I had sworn off men. I had just gotten in a fight with my best friend over a guy we both liked at the time and I had decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. I wanted to finish up my undergraduate degree and get on with my future. At that same time, I had just opened an account on LiveJournal at the insistence of a high-school friend of mine. Lo and behold, someone added me from England. He had hit the “random” button and brought up my journal. He thought I was funny, so he added me.

We got to talking and he offered to call sometime, and it wasn’t too long before I figured I really liked this guy. It was right after 9/11, and plane tickets were cheap, so—much to the horror of my college and high-school buddies—I jumped on one to England to meet him. Turns out he was as much of a gentleman in real life as over the phone. We’re pretty vanilla in bed, but I’d say it takes hardcore guts to fly halfway around the globe on a hunch. We’ve been happily married since July 2004.

Molly

 

I met a total dreamboat online a couple of years ago. He was hesitant to date me because I’d been so much more promiscuous than he had; he figured I wouldn’t see anything in a guy like him. We kept our pants on for over two months of dating, but after we had come to our senses, I took a big chance and told him my longtime fantasy of strapping it on. I had no idea how he’d take the news, but it turns out he was quite happy to hear it. Within a few months, we went shopping and he bought a leather harness, the silicone cock he most wanted up his ass, and a vibrator for me—all with his own money. Yes, my boyfriend bought my cock. We now own a house together and have a bedside dresser drawer overflowing with just the right amount of kink. He is an upstanding model of grace in bed. I can’t even take it like he does.

Strapped And Happy

 

I moved from England to the USA about two years ago, bright eyed and bushy tailed—and very sexually naive. After six months or so of bar/restaurant jobs, I met a girl. Over the course of six weeks I realized that this vanilla boy (me) had fallen for this kinky motherfucker of a girl (her) and it terrified me. I had never even imagined some of the things she whispered to me during sex, and I felt a little intimidated. I was wondering if I was in waaaaay over my head, but I was in love.

From the outset, we maintained an atmosphere of full disclosure and so over the course of a few months, we talked about bondage, domination, biting, anal, BDSM, violation fantasies, everything. But most importantly, we confronted my inexperience and my previous reluctance to experiment sexually. We explored with each other, never pushing, never insisting, but always respecting and talking to each other.

Fast-forward to the present, and my wife and I are more in love with each other than ever. We are still in the USA, but the naive little vanilla boy can become one seriously kinky motherfucker when he feels like it (now, fairly often). His wife, still as freaky as ever, sometimes enjoys nothing more than a night of slow, intimate, vanilla lovemaking. We took a chance on each other for sure, but it was the best decision I have ever made.

Stupidly Happy In Newfound Ecstasy

 

I met my husband on Fark.com. Yes, it’s a seething pool of stupidity, misogyny, and ass-backward political views, but I was spending time there and noticed that one poster was consistently intelligent, well-spoken, and witty. I looked in his profile and, lo and behold, he was my age and lived a few blocks from me. I actually asked for his e-mail address in a Fark comment thread and we agreed to meet at a bar, each assuming the other would fit the stereotypical internet profile of obese, unhygienic, social retard. Well, a gorgeous man walked into the bar, and his eyes similarly bugged out when he saw me. We got married a year later, and he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. Internet dating is a one-armed bandit with poor odds, but what a friggin’ jackpot.

Mouth Breathing Internet Geek

 

I met my wife almost 10 years ago. I was not only a virgin extremely interested in a wide variety of kink—BDSM, water sports, pegging—I was also obsessive about my crushes, almost to the point of stalking. I worked at a gas station, and across the street lived this hot chick who I knew through mutual friends. We started talking, making out, etc. and I found out that she would sit across the street and watch me while I worked. Not only did I find someone who didn’t mind a little stalkerish behavior, but practiced it herself! Ten years later, the obsession has only gotten deeper and darker for both of us.

At the time she was rather vanilla, but over the years she has become a strong and nasty dominatrix. She is still the only person I’ve ever been with, but since she indulges every nasty activity I’ve ever wanted to try, and lets me watch any kind of porn I want to, why would I ever want to stray? And did I mention one of us is basically a hippie and the other a goth?

Oil And Water Do Mix

 

A few months into my serious relationship with a man I had been deeply in love with for quite some time, he confessed to me that he was a foot fetishist. I must admit that at first I was a little hesitant. I knew about foot fetishes, but I also knew that my friends would laugh or criticize people with fetishes and run in the opposite direction. I decided to indulge him—test the waters—to see if it was something that I would be comfortable with. If I could let him caress my feet to make him happy without getting too weirded out, then it was something I could live with for the sake of our happiness.

Am I glad I did! His foot fetish gives me an excuse to spend money on great-looking shoes and I get foot massages on a regular basis. It has allowed us to explore the kinkier side of sex, which makes our sex life never dull. Nearly five years later, we’re still happily together. To everyone out there who’s been afraid of a man or a woman with a different taste when it comes to sex, don’t shy away so quickly. Give it a try, and who knows, you might like it too!

Vanilla Who Took A Risk

 

I met my husband by answering his online personal ad titled, “Wanna fuck?” (Catchy, I know!) I had just broken up with my asshole ex fiancé and was in no mood for romance, so his ad piqued my interest. I thought, “No chance for getting serious here!” We had a lot of fun that first night. Neither of us started out wanting a serious relationship, but we’ll be damned if it didn’t turn into one.

Two years after our first meeting, we were married; two years after that, we welcomed our son. And, as you know, nothing tests the strength of a marriage/committed relationship like kids! Add to that my husband getting laid off (twice), deaths of family members, serious illness, financial woes, the pregnancy from hell, us working opposite shifts so we don’t have to put our son in daycare, and my husband going back to school to get his BS, and needless to say we have had our ups and downs. But through it all, we have stuck together and actually found comfort in each other, quirks and all. Like I tell my hubby, there’s no one else I’d rather get annoyed with than him.

Michelle

 

I met my beau on Craigslist over a year ago. We arranged via e-mail to meet for coffee. Right beforehand he texted and asked me not to wear any knickers. I thought he must be a creep and considered canceling, but then I figured I’d go out with him once for a laugh and a good story. We ended up getting it on during our second date, after about six hours of knowing each other. Long story short, we’ve been inseparable ever since and now we’re planning for our suburban home and 2.5 children.

Go Figure

 

My husband and I couldn’t have been more vanilla when we met. We were high-school sweethearts, we got married as virgins, and we never dated anyone else. Only after I got married, and we had sex, did I search the internet for porn. I noticed I got off more easily to pictures that involved spanking or light domination. I never thought I would like that sort of thing! I read spanking stories all the time and they made me really horny… That was all I could think of. But how in the hell could I tell my husband, the poster boy for “vanilla”?

I loved him; I could never ever divorce him. I would rather hide this my whole life than leave him. I would rather spend my whole life having fantasies than tell him… or so I thought.

Five years later, I couldn’t take it anymore. I HAD to tell him. He didn’t take it well at first—he thought it was too weird. He said that he could never “hurt” me like that. It took me many months to explain he wouldn’t hurt me at all, that I WANTED him to spank me. He eventually tried it, mostly to please me, because for him that was the most horrible thing he had ever done to me. I LOVED it! I had this silly smile on my face for days on end. People even asked me if I was pregnant!

When he saw how much I loved it—and how happy I looked—he started to enjoy it, too. Today he spanks me every time I ask him to, and he has even learned to “read” my signs that I want to be spanked. It’s fantastic! So a vanilla guy gave his “not-so-vanilla” wife a chance, and now they can enjoy some kinky sex every once in a while. And we didn’t need to break our vows to do it!

Happily Fucked Wife

 

I am a 36-year-old woman who fantasized about sex involving bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism for all of my sexual life. While I had the occasional lover who would give me a little spanky-spanky, it didn’t satisfy my need to submit to a dominant man. After a lifetime of not acting on my desires, I created a profile on a bondage website, seeking not just someone who could dominate me sexually, but also someone with whom I could have a good, solid, stable relationship. After sorting through the numerous lame e-mails I got (e.g., “get on ur nees bitch”), I took matters into my own hands and reviewed the profiles of men I might be interested in. I really liked one profile, and sent that man an e-mail. It turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.

By sending that e-mail, I met the man who is my boyfriend, my dom, and the love of my life. Not only does he make my kinky fantasies come true, but he also loves me, understands me, and supports me in all areas of my life in a way I have never experienced before. Every day I feel lucky, lucky, lucky to be in this relationship.

Moral of the story: There are a lot of fucked-up, crazy people on the internet who will screw you over and take advantage of you, but all it takes is meeting one amazing person to find your own happy ending. Take your time, don’t just settle for anyone who comes along, and be genuine. It can happen. It did for me.

Baby’s Dom Is Such A Man

 

About 10 years ago, I had a bad injury and was disabled for nearly two years. During my turmoil, an old friend who was a professional dominatrix living in another state would call to check on me. Whenever I was having a particularly hard time she would say, “I am sending my servant Christophe to you. In his white leather pants, he will give you a foot massage, make you dinner, and take care of all your needs!”

“Christophe” was an imaginary figure, a dream man she conjured for me. (Uh, where the white leather pants came from, I have no idea. I suspect it’s an Exit to Eden thing.) At the time, I was a deeply kinky submissive and couldn’t fathom a man serving me. Bind me, spank me, gag me—but serve me? It might have been what I needed, but not what I was looking for.

Over the years, although my body healed, my love life didn’t. I met a lot of asshole doms over the internet and never met anyone special, either vanilla or kinky. Whenever I mentioned my heartache to my old friend, she would say the same thing to me: “I am sending my servant Christophe to you. He will take care of you! You deserve it!” By then, I was growing more and more dominant in my BDSM play. One night I went to a popular BDSM club in North Hollywood called Lair de Sade with a new friend. I was in the kitchen chatting with the drop-dead-sexy hostess when, for some reason, I told her about my old friend and “Christophe,” the perfect servant in white leather pants. The hostess raised her eyebrows and said, “Well, I know someone named Christophe who is a terrific submissive. And he’s just sitting outside. Would you like to meet him?”

He was wearing black leather pants, but the rest is, as they say, history. In May 2006 we had a commitment/ownership ceremony at The Lair. Christophe was pierced in three places for me. In turn, he gave me an incredibly beautiful antique French ring. Christophe and I have been together nearly two years now in kinky bliss. Not only do I torture his cock and tie him up in glamorous ways, I occasionally switch with him so he can redden my bottom. We’ve met each other’s families and they greatly approve. We are crazy in love like I never knew possible.

Mistress Minou & Christophe, In Black Leather Pants

 

This is a beautiful success story of a kinky girl and a vanilla boy living happily ever after. When I first met him (let’s call him Rick), he was so sweet and straight and shy that at first I wouldn’t even consider going out with him. But he was so gorgeous I couldn’t resist. I finally went out with him, expecting the worst.

I am a tall and confident woman and most people would probably assume from my personality that I would be more of a dominant when it comes to sex, but it is quite the opposite. I like to be punished and spanked—a lot. After about a year together, I discovered that Rick was a totally perverted ass man! I was snooping through his porn stash and I found porn stories that he had written himself, featuring some very kinky butt-oriented action. Needless to say, when I finally let it slip that I had been bad and deserved a spanking, he really let me have it—with gusto!

I married this “sweet and straight” man. Now sometimes he uses a leather belt. I’m so happy!

So Unbelievably Blissful

 

For 10 years I enjoyed a relatively vanilla sex life. Standard missionary, maybe a little to the side with a leg lifted, ho-hum. Then I met my girlfriend. Two months after we started dating, she goes down on me on her front porch. She informs me that doing it in public gives her a rush and turns her on. Cut to two and half years later: We’re now engaged and we’ve moved up to anal, both of us giving, both of us receiving. Aside from a phenomenal sex life (the neighbors have called in noise complaints), we complement each other personality-wise as well.

Playful Experiences = Great Sex

 

I grew up as a fundamentalist Christian—taught that sex was dirty and nasty and should therefore be saved for the man you married. Of course the only acceptable type of sex was missionary position in the dark. Until I was in my early 40s, I fully subscribed to that philosophy.

Then I met the love of my life—who turned out to be a gorgeous, fiftysomething, crossdressing minister who wanted to be dominated, feminized, and fucked with a dildo. It took him a long time to come clean to me—to confess all of his fantasies and sexual quirks—but the more he told me, the more intrigued and turned on I got. I can’t seem to get enough of him!

My only complaint is that he said he wanted to be a sissy maid—but he never seems to find the time to clean my damned apartment!

Allegra

 

My husband’s kink is actually rather tame—he likes a lady all decked out in a spandex bodysuit. He had never told anyone about his fetish because he was ashamed of it. We ordered a spandex bodysuit, downloaded some porn, and things have been dandy and randy ever since. There’s no harm in hearing out your partner’s fantasy. If you really don’t feel comfortable with it, respectfully decline. However, most fetishes warrant at least a test run. You just might end up loving it!

So Unexpectedly Into This

 

A new Savage Love podcast is available for download every Tuesday at www.thestranger.com/savage.

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