Back story

Savage Love was the name of a syndicated sex-advice column written by Dan Savage. It may still be running, I don’t know. The wiki entry for Savage is HERE.

The time is early 2000’s, I was living in Toronto and Dan’s column was running in the local entertainment rag called the Now magazine. Back then, newsprint was still dominant and many publications carried a personals section on the back pages. I couldn’t find any example images, so for those of you old enough to remember, do so. The rest will have to use their imaginations.

This is a piece from a time when I used to perform at open mic shows. I would write a piece, perform it or read it out loud in front of an audience, a few times, tweak it as needed, then move on to another piece. That’s all I wanted to do. The piece is windy, but hopefully you’ll get a few laughs out of it, if nothing else.

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Update: I’ve since found out, Now magazine stopped running the personals section.

Read about it HERE. This link has a bunch of photos, one of them is the back page where Savage Love column used to appear alongside the ads for escort services.

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Continued - Savage Love

Anybody read Savage Love? He’s published in the Now magazine, in the last section called the Privates, I mean the Personals. Oddly enough, the Personals are all about the privates.

The photographs in that section prove it. We’ve all seen these pictures haven’t we? Images of busty women with their privates blacked out. They’re hard to miss. Even my six yr. old nephew has seen them.

Images of women in seductive poses, but the images appear to be censored. One bar conceals the woman’s breasts and the other conceals her pelvis. From a seller’s point of view, it’s Marketing 101. Black out the portions you want people to pay attention to.

No, no, perhaps the private parts are sexy to begin with and that’s why we cover them up? Okay, so the private parts are sexy, and we know this, because when we expose them, we make sure to cover them up, partially. It’s all very confusing and I’m not helping any.

The creepiest image has got to be the one where the woman is nearly all blacked out. There’s one bar across her pelvis, one across her boobs, and another one across her eyes. Sure, eyes can be sexy too. Sometimes, it’s just two little stars placed over her eye sockets. All these pictures give me the creeps, but why should they? Aren’t they sexy, what with all the privates parts blacked out?

I imagine Muslim newspapers also run images in the Personals. Picture a nude woman with a bar that covers her entire body from head to toe. The caption reads, “Call Now! The whole thing is sexy!”

I wonder if a bar drawn across the privates actually conveys sexy or sexiness? Perhaps, the act of covering up fuels a negative attitude? It stigmatizes the privates. The privates are dirty, naughty, and even sinful. In the general population, these descriptive words enjoy a broad appeal, in a Pavlovian way. To call something dirty and sinful is as good as censoring the privates with a black bar.

What’s the matter with us? We can’t get the hots for something unless we stigmatize it? On to Savage Love.

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Continued - Savage Love

Savage Love is an advice column. Readers send in letters seeking advice on sex related problems and Savage offers them insight and thoughtful suggestions.

The first time I ran across Dan’s column, it featured a letter from a guy who had some bizarre problem. I don’t remember what it was, however, I do remember, Savage responded with some good advice. I thought so, anyway.

At that moment, I couldn’t help thinking to myself. If, I had such a problem, there is no one in my immediate family or circle of friends with whom I could share it with, let alone receive good advice. It was then, the thought occurred to me, here under our very noses, a virtue of mass publication is realized daily.

Under the sanctuary of anonymity, sex enthusiasts seek out moral support as they publicly resolve issues which arise from following through on bizarre sexual urges. Needless to say, I started reading the article regularly.

This one time, Savage ran a survey to select a name for a particular sex act. The question was, “What should we call it when a woman inserts a dildo inside man’s anus? In the lead were terms like Bobbing and Pegging, but terms like “Ouch”; and “F*ck that hurts!” were dropped pretty early in the race, strange but true.

One guy sent in a story about the origins of the term Pegging and Savage went ahead and included the letter in his column.

It would seem, even up to recent times, the British navy had been implementing a rather inventive procedure, meant to help sailors deal with their sexual urges while out at sea. Apparently, for the duration of the journey, a handful of young sailors were chosen to go beyond the call of duty.

This is, relatively, recent British history, circa 1800’s. The British empire was still piecing itself together. A time when a boy was a man at 13, and most didn’t have two blades of grass to rub together, so ships bound for the new world were never short of crew, by hook or by crook.

In any case, in order for the selected young sailors to stay loose for their nightly chores, by day they were required to sit on pegs, which led to the name Peg Boy. I suppose, somewhere along the way, the word boy was dropped and the name shortened to Pegging.

Can you imagine? We don’t have to. This really happened! We need to remember.

Generation after generation of young men did their duty and entered the British navy. On many a dark and soggy English mornings, unsuspecting seamen, one by one, filed up the gangway. The captain gave the orders, the crew hauled up the anchor, and the ship set sail for distance shores.

Not too long into the journey, the sailors were called on deck. Rows upon rows of sailors stood at attention, while an old salty dog, frothing at the mouth, barked out the new rules of engagement for the ‘chosen ones’.

Old Sailor:
"Alrrright then lads. You h’rd the capt’n, parrt y’urr p’nk cheeks, op’n th’ hatch and take a seet, w’errr go’n out to sea!"

I can’t imagine too many young sailors looking forward to this chore. No matter how nicely the Captain may have laid out the terms.

Fantasy Captain:
"Gentlemen, there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Do not look upon this as an abomination, but rather look upon it as a noble and generous gesture from one fighting man to another. Now that being said, would you gentlemen please be so kind as to take a seat on those rather large twigs over there."

Try again?

Captain:
"I don’t care what god forsaken rat hole you came from! I don’t give a stinkin’ rat’s ass about your names either! From here on in, you’ll be known as Peg Boys! Chop, Chop! Do you hear me? Get on with it. You’re just lucky I don’t call you ‘Peg Girls!"

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Ouch! That must have hurt. What’s worse than being called a Peg Boy? Of course a Peg Girl.

Could this be considered stigmatizing? Stigmatizing helps the aggressor overcome any present or future moral dilemmas. In hindsight, they were not violating human beings of equal value and standing. Perhaps, it was merely re-creational time with a class of near pets called Peg Boys.

To this day, I still can’t explain my knee jerk reaction to this bit of information. I won’t bother. Sex is as important to the species as food, air and water. Considering it is as such, why is there so much stigma attached to it?

Anonymous:
“How come, I don’t gross out when I think about that other guy?”

Me:
“What guy?”

Anonymous:
“That guy below deck, who spent the whole day chopping vegetables, stewing meat and baking bread? No less than three times a days, those hoggish sailors went below deck to satisfy their voracious appetite for his vittles!”

Me:
“Yikes! What did they call that guy?”

Anonymous:
“The cook! They called him the cook! The guy who wore the fancy cap was called the CAPtain. The guy next to him was called the First Mate, and so on down the line to the bottom rung. Those cocksuckers were called the Peg Boys!”

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Are you blushing? Two brownie points for you little angel, now let’s return to the plight of the kid pauper. Do you think these boys would have been spared the joys of fellatio? I’m sure the captain didn’t call it that. Fellatio sounds like an Italian dessert. The captain wouldn’t have called it oral sex either.

Anonymous:
“Alright, you Oral Sex Boys, down on your knees!”

I’ll leave this train of thought for another day, let’s get back to Anal Sex.

I reread the column, thinking I missed it. But I hadn’t. No one had mentioned it, not even Savage. There’s already a name for this act, it’s called sodomy. This term reigned supreme for many centuries, right up there with the term buggery. For god’s sakes, the term sodomy appears dozens of times in the bible, that's got to be worth something.

The Inuit have 42 words for Snow. Let’s see now. They live in snow, they walk on snow, they sleep in snow, they eat snow, they drink snow; they make love on snow; for them winter means a lot of snow and summer means a little less snow. In retrospect maybe 42 words isn’t all that much?

Compare that to us modern people and our growing rolodex of terms for sodomy cum anal penetration. Are we modern people encountering our anuses in more ways than we should?

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Continued - Savage Love

When in Greece, do as the Greeks do. Let us make a science out of it.

Throw out that rolodex of slang terms and get serious with a lexicon of respectable expressions. The medical term for this new branch of knowledge will be Anus Penitus.

The rule of thumb; the act in specific will be defined by the object inserted into the anus. If it’s a penis, it’s plain old sodomy. If it’s a dildo, it could be called Pegging, Bobbing, or an umbrella term like “Device Assisted Buggery”.

As seen on the internet, when a fist is inserted into the anus, it’s called Fisting. By this logic, if we were to insert a head, then it would be called Heading.

Wife:
“Honey, I’m Heading in your direction!”

Husband:
“I know sweet heart. I can feel it. OUCH!!!! Can we go back to Fisting?”

Pop!

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The dictionary definition of the verb sex goes something like this. Sex is happening when a penis penetrates the vagina. The in and out motion is called sex. There’s no mention of an anus or anal penetration.

Should it be called sex, when only one set of sexual organs are in use? Yes.

Okay, then perhaps, we should call masturbation something else, for example Hand Sex. I’m assuming, but I think most would not qualify “One on none’ or rather, “One on Self’ as sex.

I bring this issue up because I need to know, when does sex stop being sex? In this time of ‘anything’ can pass for sex, when does sex stop being sex?

Where is that proverbial line? The line, which once crossed, not only triggers alarm but may also require group action.

Let’s start from a moral consensus as determined by what is published on the web. The internet provides common people an opportunity to get their message across to a mass audience with relative ease. Given these circumstances, what type of materials are common people choosing to publish and what type of materials are common people paying attention to?

Note, on the web, it’s called Anal Sex. There’s no heading such as Sodomy or Buggery. It’s either Anal Sex or Anal Action, also Reamed, Plugged, Torn and Ripped.

On the internet, without even trying, it’s easy to happen upon photos depicting a variety of objects being inserted into the anus, for example; bottles, candles, vegetables and even animals. By far, the most frightening for me, was a human fist.

I will use my reactions as a starting point in the following hypothetical situations. If, I were at a party and I accidentally opened the wrong door and interrupted two people engaged in Fisting. What would I do?

I would immediately excuse myself and slam the door shut. I would run away and tell the first person I came across. I think, it would probably end there. Definitely, I would have wild thoughts for days, as the mental shock diffused throughout my mind.

On the other hand, if I were at a party and I accidentally opened the wrong door and interrupted two people engaged in Heading, I think, I would scream, or at least gasp very loudly. I would not apologize that’s for sure, or maybe I would. I don’t know. Most likely, I would scream in shock, then yell for help. I would run away and come back with some big burly guy, and shout, “Stop them, stop them!”

What I want to know is, where is that line? What is that proverbial appendage that breaks the camel’s back, so to speak? At what point, will I attempt to regulate another person’s conduct and enforce my own personal moral discretion as the norm?

Well, it can’t be the hand, since Fisting is an actual category in the lexicon of sex and sexy behavior. I would be considered an ogre.

Heading, as illustrated above, would definitely provoke reaction from me. That’s way over the line. So in the middle somewhere, there’s an appendage. A part of the body, which once inserted into the anus, transforms this sex act to something beyond the pale of acceptable sexy behavior.

Would it be the Elbows, the Knees, maybe the Foot? Yes, it may be the foot. If, I were to interrupt two people engaged in Footing, I would be treading ambiguous territory. I would gasp and slam the door shut, then stand there wondering what to do.

If I were to stop them, would I be oppressing love, a love you can’t find every day, the love between the foot and the anus?

If I were to walk away, would I be wagering anything more than their foot and their ass?

Signed,

Morally Challenged in the land of Savage Love.

~ The End ~

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