December 13, 2006

I'm a 20-year-old straight girl. For six months, I was dating a guy I thought was nice and normal. One way my boyfriend showed he cared, or so I thought, was by massaging my feet after work. (I wait tables to pay my tuition.) Then he confessed that he has a foot fetish. He wasn't rubbing my feet to be sweet or tender or considerate, but for his own selfish reasons. I dumped him. He was very upset and is still begging me to take him back.

We had been talking about marriage, but that's over now. I don't want to be with someone who has a fetish. How can I know if he wants me back or just my feet? I know a lot of freaks write to you, and I enjoy reading about freaks, but I don't want to date a freak. Where can I find a normal man?

Freaked Out Girl

I owe you an answer, FOG, considering the number of new assholes I've ripped you since your letter arrived in September. At speaking gigs around the country, I've held you up as a shining example of sexual selfishness. Your most recent asshole dates from my talk at Cornell two weeks ago, where I spoke to a few hundred students about politics, dungeons, butt-plugs, and you. (Sorry I couldn't make porn night, Risley, and thanks for everything, Lauren.)

On to your question: Where do you find a normal man? I have no fucking idea, as I've never met one. Kink and variance seem to be a natural, intrinsic aspect of male sexuality. And while most men, like your ex, fall on the mild end of the mild-to-wild continuum, if you can't handle the odd non-normal sexual interest, FOG, I urge you to stop dating men, get a vibrator, and pack it in.

But here's what I really want to say to you:

Those foot-rubs were fine—they were wonderful!—so long as you believed your boyfriend derived no pleasure from them. The moment you learned he enjoyed those foot-rubs, too—my goodness, they turned him on!—you were no longer capable of deriving any pleasure from them yourself.

You know what, FOG? You suck.

You are the worst kind of sex partner: judgmental, selfish, and cruel. Should your boyfriend have come clean about his foot fetish sooner? Sure, maybe a month or two earlier. But not because you had some right to know what a freak he was, FOG, but because it would have spared him from getting more emotionally invested in a freakishly petty, sexually immature dumbfuck.

I predict—no, I guarantee—that this is going to come back to haunt you. There is a Karmic Rule Of Kink (KROK), FOG, and it goes something like this: "Dump the honest foot fetishist, and you will marry the dishonest necrophiliac." Break up with a guy over his relatively tame fetish—and a foot fetish is about as tame as they get—and KROK will make sure your next boyfriend is some lying corpse-fucker who tells you only what you want to hear. ("Honestly, honey, I only like live girls!") Only after you've married the corpse-fucker and had a few kids—once extricating yourself from the marriage becomes a hugely complicated ordeal—will he ask you to lie in a tub of ice until you're good and cold.

And when you're lying in that tub of ice—and odds are you will, FOG, because you won't want to put your poor kids through a divorce—you'll remember that sweet, harmless foot fetishist whose heart you broke back in college, the man you could have married.

And your heart will break.

This girl is questioning her boyfriend's sexuality. He cross-dresses, which I understand doesn't mean he's gay. But he frequently talks to gay men on the Internet and tells them he's gay. He denies actually being gay, and says he just thinks it's interesting to hear people's reactions. He says he never meets anyone, but I found MapQuest directions to a man's house on his computer. When confronted, he said that he just wanted to know where this person lived!?

I don't mind the cross-dressing, but I have a problem with him possibly being gay. He has no male friendships, and prefers friendships with women. Our relationship is at the point that we are considering marriage. All I feel is fear and doubt.

Female Is Seeking Help

If he's gay, you shouldn't marry him. If he isn't gay, you still shouldn't marry him. Because, FISH, gay or straight, your boyfriend is one big, fat, fucking mess. And, gay or straight, this mess is making you miserable. DTMFA.

Speaking of messy homos, it feels strange to rush to the defense of Mary Cheney, the useless dyke daughter of our malevolent vice president. But I knew I had to speak up after Janice Crouse of Concerned Women For America called Cheney's pregnancy "unconscionable." A few thoughts for you, Janice:

First, because Christianists like you can't come out and say they oppose Cheney's pregnancy because it says right there in Leviticus that Mary Cheney should be put to death (along with all adulterers, rebellious slaves, and lobstermen), they're condemning Cheney for creating a "fatherless" child, a child that will have no masculine role models. Have you gotten a good look at Heather Poe, Mary Cheney's partner of 15 years? My son has two fathers, but Heather Poe's left labial lip is butcher than both of us put together. Even if Mary and Heather planned on raising their child on a deserted island somewhere, their kid wouldn't want for masculine role models. And if things get too girly at Mary and Heather's place, Grandpa Dick can always take the kid hunting.

Second, fathers are great—my son couldn't agree more, Janice. And guess what? A lesbian couple can't have a child without one. For all we know, Mary and Heather, like so many other lesbian couples, used a known gay male sperm donor—Ken Mehlman? Mark Foley? Ted Haggard?—and this kid is going to have a father in his life.

Third, Concerned Women For America doesn't think Mary Cheney should have a baby. Great, fine, whatever. But Mary Cheney's uterus belongs to Mary Cheney, Janice, and she can do whatever the fuck she likes with it. She can have babies with it or keep her car keys in it or fill it up with potting soil and plant tulips in it. It's her fucking uterus, Janice, not yours. And if you keep inserting yourself into it, people are gonna think you're a dyke too, or Heather Poe is going to show up on your doorstep and beat the holy living hell out of you.

Fourth, Concerned Women For America and the Christian Coalition and Mitt Romney and Pat Robertson have all made it clear that they think it's wrong for lesbians to have children. Would someone in the media please ask them the obvious follow-up question: How the fuck do they propose to stop lesbians from having children? Post two members of the National Guard at the entrance to every lesbian vagina in the country? Forced sterilizations at women's music festivals? Mandatory abortions for every lesbian who does manage to get herself pregnant?

Fifth, up in Canada—sane, sane Canada—a bill to reopen, and possibly reverse, the decision to legalize gay marriage failed by a wide margin in Parliament Thursday, December 7.

Tons of extra advice and insight for NUMB, the woman whose boyfriend lost feeling in his face during oral sex, can be read at avclub.com/savage/numb.

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