Savage Love
Savage Love is a syndicated sex-advice column by Dan Savage. The column appears weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free newspapers in the US and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger.
Since October 2006, Savage has also recorded the Savage Lovecast, a weekly podcast version of the column, featuring telephone advice sessions. Podcasts are released every Tuesday.
History
In 1991, Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and working as a manager at a local video store that specialized in independent film titles. There, he befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, who announced that he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper titled The Stranger. Savage "made the offhand comment that forever altered life: 'Make sure your paper has an advice column – everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em'." He typed up a sample column, and to his surprise Keck offered him the job.Until 1999, the format of the conversation began with an advice seeker saying, "Hey faggot", then asking their question. Savage's intent was reappropriation of the word into a positive description for gay guys. Using this word worked when the readers were LGBT, but as the column grew popular, Savage changed to a generic greeting to better match the expectations of the general public.
Since 2002, he has written the column at Eppie Lederer's desk, which he, a "lifelong fan" of her Ann Landers column, bought at auction after the noted advice columnist died.
Savage stated in a February 2006 interview in The Onions A.V. Club that he began the column with the express purpose of providing mocking advice to heterosexuals, since most straight advice columnists were "clueless" when responding to letters from gay people.
Language
During the run of Savage Love, Savage has popularized several neologisms and initialisms. He has also debunked several sexual neologisms for sex acts, including the "donkey punch", the "Dirty Sanchez", the "pirate", and the "hot Karl", concluding "they're all fictions." He has objected to use of the term "pussy" as an insult, saying that vaginas were wonderful, "popping out babies", and proposed "scrotum" as an insult.Savage has also tried to reclaim many offensive words. For the first six years of the column, he had his readers address him with "Hey, faggot", as a comment on previous efforts to reclaim offensive words. He was criticized for this by some gay activists. After receiving criticism for use of the word "retarded"—considered by many to be an offensive slur against those with intellectual disabilities—Savage suggested "leotarded" as an alternative, because "leotard" rhymes with "retard".
Campsite rule
In any relationship, but particularly those with a large difference of age or experience between the partners, the older or more experienced partner has the responsibility to leave the younger or less experienced partner in at least as good a state as before the relationship. The "campsite rule" includes things like leaving the younger or less experienced partner with no STDs, no unwanted pregnancies, and not overburdening them with emotional and sexual baggage.Tea and sympathy rule
Shortly after a 2009 scandal in Portland, Oregon, involving openly gay mayor Sam Adams and Beau Breedlove, who had allegedly begun a sexual relationship with Adams almost immediately after turning 18, Savage created a companion rule to the "campsite rule", now known as the "tea and sympathy rule". The rule is a reference to a line in the play of the same name, in which a much older woman asks of a high-school-age boy, right before having sex with him: "Years from now, when you talk about this – and you will – be kind." Savage claimed in an article in The Portland Mercury that, while Adams followed the "campsite rule" – Breedlove did not claim that Adams had given him any diseases or caused him emotional trauma, and in fact still refers to Adams as a friend – Breedlove violated the "tea and sympathy" rule by making public statements that he knew could ruin Adams' career.CPOS
"Cheating piece of shit", said of a cheater, but usually reserved for one who is chronic or abusive/passive-aggressive about it.DTMFA and ITMFA
Savage often uses the expression "dump the mother-fucker already", at the close of a response, recommending that the writer immediately end an abusive or worthless relationship.A reader of Savage Love suggested the initialisation ITMFA, a take on DTMFA, meaning "Impeach the Motherfucker Already!" The initialisation was coined in reference to the presidency of [George W. Bush] in 2006, but was reintroduced in 2017 in reaction to the presidency of Donald Trump. Starting in 2018 Savage, through his website, sold clothing with ITMFA on it.
GGG
Savage coined "GGG", "good, giving, and game", and it means one should strive to be good in bed, giving "equal time and equal pleasure" to one's partner, and game "for anything – within reason". The term inspired the "How GGG Are You? Test" on dating site OkCupid, and the invention of a cocktail.HTH
"How'd that happen?", a mock-incredulous reply to those who write in and say they had certain things "happen to" them, as if they had no part or say in the incident, when they clearly did.Lifting luggage
Following the "rent boy" allegations regarding George Rekers, who has widely promoted aversion therapy, Dan Savage, along with others including Stephen Colbert, promoted the use of the idiom "to lift one's luggage", meaning to supply sexual pleasure to, or derive it from, one's partner. This originated from Rekers who, when outed, insisted he had hired the escort only to assist him with lifting his luggage. Rekers also claimed he "spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse" and "shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail".Originally Savage suggested that "lifting my luggage" refer to listening to the speaker expound on the "desirability" of converting oneself from homosexual to heterosexual. Later, after several political humorists started employing "lifting your luggage" as an implicit or explicit reference to various sexual acts, Savage suggested that "whatever lifts your luggage" supplant "whatever floats your boat" in common parlance.