Savage Love
I'm a 19-year-old girl, attractive, outgoing, and
ambitious. My boyfriend is 21 and shares the same qualities. We've been dating
since January. At times, he gets really moody and won't tell me why, but I've
noticed a pattern:
1. Me hanging out with
my guy friends (guy friends that I've known since we were about 13, no
attraction).
2. Me hanging out with
a guy I once had a one-night stand with, whom we both know.
3. Me talking to a guy
at a club.
Perhaps the second
incident is understandable, but the last one troubles me. We were out with
friends, dancing in a group. A guy tried to dance with just me, and I said "no"
and moved away from him. Then some guy grabbed my ass, and I turned around and
told him I was going to backhand him if he touched me again, and told him the
guy standing next to me was my boyfriend.
My boyfriend glared at
me and walked away. I found him outside and asked him what was going on, and he
ignored me. I ended up walking down the street in the rain, the most emo I
could possibly be, crying. When I saw him later, my boyfriend said that telling
the other guy "I'm here with my boyfriend" meant that if I wasn't there with my
boyfriend I would have done something with him. I ended up bawling, and then he
held me and told me it was "okay."
How should I approach
this issue? He doesn't really want to talk about it. Should I ask him if he's a
jealous person and see how it goes from there?
Goodguy Really Emotionally Exhausts Nicegirl
Fire. Rumsfeld. Now.
No, wait. I've been
spending too much time reading Andrew Sullivan's blog. I meant: Break. Up.
With. Him. Now. This is classic controlling behavior, GREEN, and if you let him
get away with it—by which I mean, if you don't dump his ass over this
bullshit—it's only going to get worse.
Here's the download: A man
that emotionally abuses a woman over casual contact with other men early in a
relationship is likely to physically abuse her later in the relationship. Even
if he never physically abuses you—a big, fat, fucking "if"—can't
you see what you're setting yourself up for if you stay with this guy? Men make
up roughly 50 percent of the population, so just about every time you leave the
house, you're going to run into men. Guys are going to speak to you in clubs
and in classes, on buses and airplanes, and unless you work in a convent,
GREEN, you're gonna have male coworkers. So your boyfriend, if you stay with
him, will be able to get all sulky and silent on your ass whenever the fuck he
feels like it. Are you prepared to live with that? Forever?
I hope not. Because you
may be outgoing and ambitious now, GREEN, but after a few years with this toxic
shithead, you're going to be a timid, self-censoring wreck, second-guessing
your every move lest it set your boyfriend off. You'll find yourself flinching
every time a man—a friend, a waiter, a retail clerk—speaks to you
in his presence. Since you'll never know which innocent conversation is going
to set him off, every interaction you have with another man is going to feel
like a risk that's not worth running. Do you want to live like that?
Yes, yes, he has good
qualities—he's outgoing and attractive. So fucking what? Most abusers
have something to recommend them, GREEN, otherwise no one would ever date one
long enough to be abused. Hell, when they're sweet, abusers can be downright
endearing. ("Oh, he makes me cry, but then he holds me and tells me it's
'okay.' He's so wonderful and sensitive!") But you need to open your eyes and
see the sweet routine for what it is: an integral part of an emerging cycle of abuse.
He acts like an asshole, you cry, and then he pours on the syrup. Why? So you
don't leave him, GREEN, so you'll still be there for him to abuse tomorrow.
Perhaps I'm painting too
dark a picture. Your boyfriend is young, perhaps he can get a handle on this
and drop the clichéd jealous/emotionally abusive boyfriend routine. But that's
not gonna happen until he realizes that he's going to pay a steep price for
treating women like shit. Namely, it will cause smart, attractive, secure
women—women like you—to dump him.
So no more emo, GREEN, no
more tears. Dump the fucker and tell him why you're dumping him. ("You are an
insecure bag of slop, and I'm simply not willing to be punished for your
insecurities.") Then tell yourself, over and over again, that you didn't really
love this guy, dearly or otherwise. You were in love with the person he could
be but isn't. Or, to be charitable, you were in love with the person he isn't
yet, the person he never will be if he doesn't suffer the consequences of his
behavior, i.e., if it doesn't cost him someone like you. So…
Dump. Him. Now.
And fire Rumsfeld, too.
A close friend that I've known for years
recently came out to some mutual friends, but has yet to say anything to me.
I'm hurt that he doesn't feel comfortable coming out to me. So what gives? Why
hasn't he told me?
Best Bud
Don't feel bad, BB. Homos frequently come out to
new friends before old, siblings before parents. The more a homo fears the loss
of a person's love and support, the harder it can be to tell them. Which is why
most homos go in for a few low-risk coming-outs before they drop the bomb on
mom, dad, and best buds.
I was somewhat surprised that in your response
to NAGS (the man dating a zoophile), you failed to comment on the questionable
ethics of zoophilia and bestiality. To me, the foremost rule of sexual ethics
is consent, something animals are incapable of granting. I remember that you
have a set of sexual practices that you do not condone under any circumstances,
but I can't remember if German-shepherd fucking is among them. I'd be
interested to hear your thoughts.
Don't Fuck Animals
Bestiality/zoophilia is on my short "No" list,
right up there with pedophilia, necrophilia, and coprophilia, much to the
consternation of dogfuckers, kidfuckers, deadfuckers, and shitfuckers
everywhere. (I really have a beef with anyone out there fucking dead,
shit-covered puppies.) Since my opposition to dogfucking has long been a matter
of public record, DFA, I didn't feel compelled to restate my opposition in my response
to NAGS. But, hey, once more for the record: Fucking dogs is bad, mmm-kay?
Don't do it.
However, it needs to be said that if zoophilia is
wrong because animals can't consent to sexual acts, then hamburgers, lamb
chops, and Jell-O brand gelatin, along with leather shoes, belts, pants,
slings, and hoods, are all equally wrong. It's possible that meat and leather
are, you know, wronger. If we could talk to the animals, I'm pretty sure they would
tell us they would rather be screwed than stewed. But until we can talk to the
animals, I fully support eating them and wearing them, not fucking them.
Lots of folks took exception to my advice for Just
That Into Him, the woman I advised to consider cleaning up after her messy
boyfriend if things got serious. You can read a smattering of the letters, pro
and con, at avclub.com/savage/intohim.