Anyone within the community has to be familiar with Dan
Savage, the stay-at-home Seattle columnist responsible for the musings in Savage Love.
He’s basically a gay “Dear Abby,” except he dispenses first-hand,
expansive advice about kink (leather fetishism, drag, bondage,
underwear/Speedos), sexuality, and same-sex political activism instead of
helpful hints regarding the multiple cleaning uses and advantages of vinegar
and baking soda.
Compared to Dan, my ordinary life sounds savage only due to
my intense fascination with, and interesting stories tied to, underwear. (I also have a repertoire of anecdotes
regarding Up With People, but we are so not going there.) I’m a savage, Savage-in-training, but I like
how my spouse gets me, much in the manner Savage describes getting his (Terry
Miller) and vice versa. In his book The Kid, for example, Savage talks about
how he hopes he and Terry will age not-so-gracefully (read: get fat) but still
go to leather bars with all the other aging homos. Tom is the same way: I want to age with him
gracefully (read: not get fat, or at
least, fatter, because I’m horribly
vain and believe I’m fat), but I also want to be able to get him all hot and
bothered as time goes on. Terry stands
up for himself, for Dan, and for their family, too, so who can’t be turned on
by that?
Savage made a bigger name for himself by writing the book The Kid, which chronicled the journey he
and Terry made in pursuing an open adoption of their now 15-year-old son. And he doesn’t just prattle on for 300 pages
– he gave an in-depth profile of growing up Catholic with a cop father; how he
and Terry met at a dance club and immediately embarked on a relationship built
on books and “being the younger brother;” meeting Terry’s mother; and being
matched to their son’s gutter punk birth mother, including all of the normal
adoption angst, intensified because of the unique bond inherent in open
adoption. There’s a scene in an airplane
lavatory, a hospital with a cute intern, a diatribe about Anita Bryant, and he even
profiles how he hates dance music and how much Terry looks like “a
broad-shouldered Kate Moss with a d***.”
(Which he really does.)
What I like about Savage is how he so casually dissects
everything that’s endemic to gay culture.
He doesn’t dabble in bulls***, and he does it in a way that explains it
to straights. So, if you’re straight and
reading his column, you get it, much in the same way I expound on a subject
which interests gay and straight men alike (probably more gay men than
straight, but I press forward), hoping to pass on a little knowledge and
culture. How many men are so open about
their first experiences with drag? Or
that their husband cleans the house in a Speedo or participates in International
Mister Leather? Too cool. While I’m sure Terry gets some words in
edgewise about what Dan can share and what he can’t, I like the fact that they
appear to have a true partnership, much like Tom and I do. And he and Terry have to be lauded for the
work they have done with the It Gets Better Project (www.itgetsbetter.org), which reaches out
to (high risk) gay youth facing harassment.
Tom and I aren’t celebrities, of course, and we’ve done our
fair share of activism and volunteerism because we honestly believe we can make
the world a better (and more fashionable, insofar as it comes to underwear)
place. Tom is the low-key partner. I’ve already pointed out how relaxed and
self-effacing he is. It’s hard to get
him angry, and in some respects, it’s also hard to get him excited … unless
you’re in possession of free tickets to an Elton John concert. I’m the one more likely to throw things
during an argument, expound on the logic of Speedos vs. board shorts (been there, done that), sunbathe in the buff, or
be the exhibitionist. In short, I’m the
physical savage, he’s the emotional one.
While this isn’t necessarily negative, it can be daunting.
Case in point was our visit to Detroit’s Motor City Pride at
the beginning of June, because it brings out the physical savage in everyone. I was, of course, drawn to the open-air
underwear shopping booth, which also sported two unbelievably sculpted guys capering
about in sneakers and Andrew Christian briefs.
(Where else but at Pride can you wear something that would normally get
you arrested?) It was like a mosquito to
a bug zapper. Fifty dollars and four
pairs of new skivvies later, I also contributed to the models’ bus fare home by
slipping each of them a single, just as I would with any poor down-on-his-luck
male dancer at any of Detroit’s clubs. There
were drag queens, drag kings (lesbians confuse me, they really do), other
white-party wannabes, and guys decked out in leather bandoliers, armbands,
hats, vests and all other kinds of bovine-made paraphernalia.
Tom would be an awesome bear/leather daddy. With his salt-and-pepper streaks and his
build, it’s just too easy to picture him with mirrored sunglasses, chewing a
toothpick and straddling a motorcycle in a pair of chaps. With me at his side in the black and blue
Private Structure briefs purchased at Pride, we’d make quite a pair. Problem is, I can’t get Tom to dress that
way.
And unfortunately, as in all Gardens of Eden, there’s more
than just that one snake. I’ll start
with my own: I’m a slob. I try to stay
neat and clean, but it’s a losing battle (“We disgust me!” is a constant nag). I know we’re guys, but we’re not the kind of
guys who live in our own filth. As I put
it to all of our visitors: “We’re guy
clean. Not mother clean, and definitely not mother-in-law clean. Just
guy clean. There are no nests of vermin
and food isn’t sticking to the walls. We’re
not complete savages (Savages?). Other than that, you’re on your own.” Everyone tends to accept this, although we
did have one exchange student who insisted on cleaning the house because he was
bored. I told Tom it was because he’s
closeted; he insisted the young man in question was getting prepared for a
career as a cosmetic surgeon. (And just
for clarification, my ex-mother-in-law isn’t a clean freak either. In fact, my ex often says I’m a better maid
on my worst day than she is on her best.)
Tom’s foibles are few, but they’re the kind that annoy just
because they can – first, he’s frugal.
Frugality isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he’s the kind of frugal
that goes into the store five times to buy ten items that have a two-item
limit. I appreciate frugality, as it
keeps us fed, but there are times when I refuse to go out in a blizzard to see
a free movie. Money was made to be spent
on underwear. (And shoes.) Second, he’s in complete control of his
hormones – so if I decide to deck out in a new pair of N2Ns in order to get his
motor running, likely as not nothing will happen because he has other things to
do. This isn’t to say he isn’t
interested. He just isn’t interested … right now. I get a classic, “Raincheck,” and he gets
back to me when he can.
So, to sum: as a complete physical savage, I wallow in
collecting undershorts and wallow in sex.
(Hhrrmm.) Tom is an emotional savage
because he won’t pay full price for anything and won’t submit to his more
primitive urges when I want him to. (Or technically,
wouldn’t that make him an anti-savage?) Since
I don’t know Dan Savage personally, I can’t really
make any complaints about him. I do,
however, have one peeve – he offered, in his book American Savage, to send readers who asked a picture of Terry in
full leather regalia, for which I had my savage ulterior motive (show it to
Tom, get him motivated to start his own ensemble of leather clothing just in
time for Pride). I have yet to receive
mine.
Thank goodness for the Internet. The photo of Terry Miller below speaks to itself
that Dan Savage is a lucky man (although I’m still miffed that my mail
apparently didn’t make it past his assistant, editor, or whoever it is that
filters his communications). And I know
that I am, too – daunting, individual savage idiosyncrasies notwithstanding.
Want to read Savage
Love? You can connect to it through www.thestranger.com. If you’re in need of some Savage Love advice, send Dan a message
at mail@savagelove.net.
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