Savage Love

Savage/Love is also the title of a short play by Sam Shepard.

Savage Love is a syndicated sex-advice column by Dan Savage, appearing weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free city papers in the U.S. and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger. It can also be found in the Stranger's sister publication, Oregon's Portland Mercury. Other venues include: The Onion AV Club [1], the LA Weekly, The Chicago Reader[2] and its affiliated paper Reader's Guide to Arts & Entertainment, the Twin Cities' City Pages, Halifax's The Coast [3], The Orlando Weekly, Boston's Weekly Dig[4], and Vancouver's Georgia Straight[5].

The openly gay author uses the column as a forum for his strong opinions that often flout "family values"; he often encourages advice-seekers to pursue their fetishes. The tone of the column is humorous, and Savage does not shy away from using profanity. He is strongly opposed to both bestiality and incest. Though Savage encourages sexual experimentation, he does not encourage carelessness. He frequently makes use of his position — that of a columnist with a large and loyal audience — to spread AIDS awareness and to promote safe sex. In political matters, Savage occasionally shows a libertarian bent. He does however vote Democratic because he believes that voting for minority parties gives votes to the Republicans.

For the first six years of the column, Savage had his readers address him with "Hey faggot", as a comment on previous efforts to recapture offensive words. He was criticized for this by some gay activists.

Neologisms

During the run of Savage Love, Savage has popularized several neologisms.

Pegging

In 2001 Savage challenged readers of his column to name the sex act in which a woman uses a strap-on dildo to perform anal sex on her male partner. After multiple nominations and a reader vote, the verb "peg" was chosen (despite Savage's aunt bearing the name Peg) with a 43% plurality over runners up "bob" and "punt". Some say that the introduction of this neologism was successful in the community of non-vanilla sex, perhaps due to the fact that the practice of pegging existed prior to the neologism, but was unnamed.

GGG

Dan Savage and his readers often use the abbreviation GGG. This stands for "good, giving and game", and generally refers to Mr. Savage's ideal for healthy human sexuality: that a partner should be "good, giving and game" when presented with a person's fantasy, however kinky or unusual.

GLH

GLH, meaning Girl Love Handles, was first mentioned in an April 2004 column. The term came from a reader, not Dan Savage himself.

Santorum

Main article: Santorum (sexual slang)

Savage reacted strongly to United States Senator Rick Santorum's statements about homosexuality in an interview with the Associated Press published April 20, 2003. (See Santorum controversy for the details.) In the interview, Santorum describes gay sex as part of a class of deviant sexual behavior, including incest, polygamy, and bestiality, which he said threaten society and the family. Furthermore Santorum stated that he believed consenting adults do not have a Constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts.

Savage was outraged by these statements. At the suggestion of a reader, Savage challenged his audience to come up with a sex-related definition for the word santorum as a satirical form of political protest for the express purpose of "memorializ[ing] the Santorum scandal […] by attaching his name to a sex act that would make his big, white teeth fall out of his big, empty head".

After Savage published several definitions suggested by readers, a vote was taken among the readers of his column. The winning definition: "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" was announced in the June 12, 2003 column.

Dan Savage's latest attempt to spread a meme (and get Bush impeached).

DTMFA/ITMFA

For years, Savage has told his readers in bad relationships to "DTMFA", or "Dump the Motherfucker Already". In March 2006, Savage launched a new website to popularize "ITMFA", or "Impeach the Motherfucker (Bush) Already", which one of Dan's readers suggested he popularize. The ITMFA site is set up as a blog, with Savage as the main writer, showcasing how people have applied the ITMFA term to homemade tee shirts, signs, buttons and even license plates.

External links and references

• Savage Love at The Stranger
• Savage Love at The Onion A.V. club
• Archives of Savage Love at The Stranger.

Links related to "pegging":

• Let's Vote, Savage calls for names for what is to be called pegging
• We Have a Winner, "pegging" wins

Links related to "santorum":

• Santorum interview, unedited
• Dan Savage opens the "Santorum Challenge", "Savage Love", May 15, 2003
• "Santorum Challenge" nominated emails (including eventual winner), "Savage Love", May 29, 2003
• "Santorum Challenge" winner announced, "Savage Love", June 12, 2003
• Genesis of the "santorum" Google bomb idea, "Savage Love", November 20, 2003
• Spreading Santorum, Savage's "santorum" campaign website