Dear readers: Folks who have the Savage Love app get the Savage Love Letter of the Day (SLLOTD) delivered to their iPhones or Androids. This week I’m running three recent SLLOTDs to give my online or print-only readers a taste of what they’re missing. I’m also giving myself a bit of a break: I’m currently dashing around the country on a book tour for It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living. (Order yourself a copy—or donate one to your old middle or high school—at itgetsbetter.org.) But before we get to the letters . . .
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My husband, Terry, and I created the project in response to the suicides of several LGBT youth. The idea was to give bullied and despairing LGBT youth hope for their futures by encouraging LGBT adults to reach out to them via YouTube. (For the record: not all LGBT youth are bullied or despairing.) The It Gets Better Project was first announced in this space. Savage Love readers jumped in to help spread the word about the project on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and Savage Love readers created the very first wave of IGBP videos. Savage Love readers are responsible for making the It Gets Better Project the international phenomenon it is today and, more importantly, for helping to save the lives of countless LGBT kids.
Q My fiance is awesome. I’m very happy we’re getting married. We’re in our early 30s. But . . . he has tantrums. When he gets upset, he literally throws things, punches things (never me), and screams obscenities. What makes him upset? Losing his keys, being overcharged at the supermarket, missing the subway. These moments are humiliating for me. On top of that, I had an abusive father who hit me, and though my fiance would never in a million years hit or abuse me, his tantrums remind me of those childhood experiences.
Q I’m female, bi, mid-20s, into kink—bedroom-only BDSM stuff—and involved in the local kink scene in NYC. I’m not into public sex or group sex; that’s just not appealing to me. One of my closest friends is having a birthday party. Most people do a bar crawl, but this friend is hosting a straight-up orgy. I don’t want to be a no-show—it’s her birthday!—but sitting around fully dressed, trying to make small talk with someone while a fisting scene is taking place two feet away? Awkward. I thought about going for the first half, while people are drinking, and leaving before it turns into an orgy. But what excuse could I give to bail? —Wallflower at the Orgy
Q I’m a 28-year-old woman living in a town with a big military base. About a year ago I noticed this really torn-up-looking guy sitting by himself in a bar. It turned out his wife had just been deployed and was going to be gone for nine months. He said he didn’t think he’d make it. We wound up having sex. I moved in a few days after that. The whole thing revolved around nobody asking questions. Over time I fell in love with him, and I thought he fell in love with me. If I thought about the future, I told myself he’d leave his wife for me.
My reasoning: he took up with another woman during his wife’s absence, and he allowed this other woman to move into the home he shared with his wife. The other woman avoided conversations about the future because she was afraid of finding out that she didn’t have one; he avoided conversations about the future because he was afraid the other woman would pack up her pussy and leave if he told her she didn’t have one. And then he tossed the other woman out on her ass the very day his wife returned to the States, giving her very little time to make other living arrangements.
