March 28, 2003

Today is the day to be the luckiest in luckydom.

I need artistic submissions, please. Read about it here.

Hungry for chocolate, ready for Easter, Mary and I go at it in Week 4 of "A Tale of Two Catholics." Will this Lent ever end?

I am immensely proud to feature today's interviewee. An author, editor and sex columnist, he's provided entertainment, knowledge, and insight with his column "Savage Love." He's also got a new book out called Skipping to Gomorrah, (which my brother really wanted an autographed copy of for Christmas, but his mean sister couldn't make it down to Borders for the signing). I can truthfully say it made me laugh and changed my mind about a few things. Why is he so great? I'm sure that his being from the Chicago suburbs has nothing to do with it. Or does it?

The Dan Savage Interview: Slightly Less Than Twenty Questions

In your discussion of each of the seven deadly sins in Skipping to Gomorrah, you used a particular place or occasion or people. For instance, you attended the NAAFA Convention for Gluttony, chatted up suburban swingers for Lust and went to the Las Vegas for Greed. Did you ever have second thoughts about how you explored the sins and thought, “Oh, I could have gone to a pie-eating contest for Gluttony” or something like that?
Yes, absolutely. Every day I read the papers and think, "Oh, shit, that would've been perfect..." But at a certain point you just have to say, "I'm done." My big regret is not going to a "competitive eating" contest for Gluttony. And I wish I'd rented a few male escorts I thought were cute....

In the book, you repeatedly cite and call upon conservatives like William J. Bennett, Patrick Buchanan and Robert Bork. Have any of them heard of the book, that you know of and/or get in touch with you? What about Ashton Kutcher?
Ashton Kutcher, my big crush, sent me an email once. He made it clear that he was straight--which is fine. Some gay guys have screamed at me for objectifying straight male stars like Ashton. They think I should publicly lust after gay celebs like... uh... Danny from the "Real World", I guess. But I'm not attracted to Danny from the "Real World." And other than him, it's pretty slim pickings. Harvey Feirstine. Elton John, Nathan Lane. Not into 'em, sorry.

I haven't heard from Bork or Buchanan or Bennett--the three big "Bs." They refused to go on talk shows with me, which was fucked up, and they told the Washington Post that they wouldn't be reading the book. Big babies. I read their damn books.

Do people have a misconception of you based on "Savage Love," that isn't so true in real life, i.e. that you might be rude, kinky or a friend to all gays?
Well, a lot of gay people don't like "Savage Love." They don't think it's friendly enough to gays. I take gay men to task for the dumb things they do, and I don't spend a lot of time waiving the rainbow flag or weeping about homophobia or gay oppression.

People do think I'm kinky. They think I do everything I write about... which I don't. I mean, compared to some guys, I am kinky. I have a friend who likes sex clubs; he goes and has vanilla sex--just oral sex--with strange men, guys he'll never see again. I think that's wild and nuts and, frankly, kinda sick and repulsive. And I tell him so. Then I tell him what I've been up to lately with my boyfriend of eight years and my sex-club-hopping friend is like, "You did WHAT?!?" I like to do nutty stuff with my one true love and he likes to do regular stuff with a cast of thousands.

As for rude, well, some people think so, some don't. I'm pretty shy, which people mistake for rudeness. I also tend to walk around in a daze, thinking, and I will walk right past someone I met the day before and he'll think, "How rude!" Really, I just didn't see him, you know?

Like Ann Landers or “Dear” Abigail Van Buren, you never got training to be a columnist. How did you get the column in the first place?
I met someone who was starting a paper and told him he should have an advice column and he asked me to write it. I was giving him advice, after all. I wasn't angling for the job--I'd never written much before in my life, and I didn't think of myself as a writer, and I didn't really want to write.... funny how shit happens, huh?

How did you come to found The Stranger? And how did you come up with the name?
I didn't found it. Tim Keck, one of the founders of The Onion, founded it with a few other people who had worked on The Onion. Everyone had moved to Seattle from Madison, Wisconsin, where The Onion began, to work on the paper. They were all strangers to Seattle... so the paper was called "The Stranger."

Do people come up to you and ask you for sexual advice in person? It seems like it'd be much harder to deal with that face-to-face instead of over the computer.
People do... and it makes me uncomfortable sometimes. I mean, I love it. I love talking about sex... but not when I'm out with my kid or having dinner with my mom, or just in a funk. I'm like the doctor who gets asked to look down people's throats at dinner parties... sometimes he's up for it, and gracious about it. Sometimes he's spent all day looking down throats and just wants to eat his dinner and think about something else, you know?

In Skipping to Gomorrah, did your research or experiences make you change your point of view on of the seven deadly sins?
Nope... I'm all for 'em, all seven. They're not really even sins! They're moods and states of mind. I think the Catholic Church invented the Seven Deadlies because the Ten Commandments were so specific. You could obey the Ten and get away with a lot. So they came up with seven more sins but this time they were really broad and really vague. Is there anything you can think or do or say that doesn't fall under one or more of the Seven Deadlies? I know that this morning alone I was angry (at my cab driver), lustful (about the boy sitting next to me on this flight), envious (of the boy's girlfriend), and slothful (thanks to the Xanax I took)...

What percent of "Savage Love" letters are things you’ve heard before, what percent are fake and what percent legitimately shock or alarm you?
A huge chunk are fake--but so what? The column is an entertainment, not group therapy, so what does it matter? The fake letters can be as entertaining as the real ones. Most of the mail is from people who want to praise me or criticize me... only a small chunk alarm me, i.e. letters from kids who've been raped, women in abusive relationships, and--the largest group of alarming letters--the ones from people who need to see DOCTORS, not write to me. I get letters every day from people describing their symptoms. "A sore on my penis..." "I missed my period..." "there's this discharge..." I can't help those folks. I can't diagnose anything, 'cuz I'm not a doctor, and I can't write them a prescription, 'cuz I'm not a doctor. Even if I could tell them what was wrong, they would still have to go see a doctor.

Speaking of which, how can you tell when a "Savage Love" question is fake or not?
I can tell. I don't mind the fakes, I don't usually run them. Fakes are often too simple, too pat. Real problems tend to be complicated...

You live in Seattle, and I've never been there. How would you compare it to Chicago or New York?
Seattle sucks. New York and Chicago are real cities. Seattle is Dubuque, Iowa, putting on airs. People here think Seattle is Paris... it ain't. I've been to Paris, and this place isn't Paris.

You used to work in a video store, as did Quentin Tarantino, some Onion writers and I’m sure tons of other talented and famous people. What is it about working at a video store that launches people to fame?
No idea. The boredom? The low pay? The monotony? You have to get out or go insane... so smart, talented people get the hell out.

Are there any gay characters on TV or in the movies that you absolutely can’t stand, and why?
I don't waste a lot of time thinking about the gay characters on TV or in films. I don't give a shit. Will? Jack? Whatever. My straight brothers don't sit around talking about the straight characters on TV.

I'm a little confused; in Skipping to Gomorrah you identify yourself both as a Catholic and as an atheist. Why both? (and I'm assuming that you didn't give anything up for Lent, then?)
I'm culturally Catholic. I was raised Catholic... I feel Catholic. I have a Catholic world view, and for sure my kinks were shaped by all that blood and guilt and gore that the Catholics subject their children to in their formative years. But I don't believe in God or Jesus or Mary or the rest of it. When it comes to belief, I'm an atheist. When it comes to culture, Catholic...

In “Savage Love,” your readers used to address you as “Dear Faggot,” and now it’s “Dear Dan.” Why originally use ‘faggot,’ and then phase it out?
It got old. It was a joking reference to the "reclaiming hate words" debate that dominated gayland in the early 1990s. the debate ended... and six years went by, and the context for the joke had pretty much evaporated. So I thought it was time to take it off the column.

After adopting your child, you’ve been accused of being "as self-obsessed and insane [about his kid] as straight people." Is this true? After The Kid came out, were you accused of exploiting said kid?
No, it's not true. I love my kid. I wrote a book about adopting him, and I've written a grand total of three columns that even mentioned his existence in the last five years. I'm hardly obsessed. Kids aren't that interesting a topic, really. All happy families are alike... and my family is happy. What is there to say?

As for exploiting him, sure. All writers exploit the people in their lives for material and insights and plot lines and jokes.

How was the book tour? Other than dealing with that Katie chick?
It was great. It's always fun to run around and meet the people who read the column. At every reading someone came up to me and said, "I'm the guy who wrote the letter about..."

There have been a lot of issues in "Savage Love" that have raised extended ire from your readers, such as those regarding "Gift-giving," September 11 and gay guys who want to sleep with straight men. Which stand out in your memory as being the most incendiary? Are there any you wished you'd handled differently?
Gee... I have terrible memory problems. The columns I write about AIDS tend to draw a lot of fire from gay men because I don't just blame the whole mess on the government. Gay male culture is driving HIV infections, no question, and we have to look to ourselves and modify our behavior. That's the Catholic in me, I guess.

Handle differently? Nah. Even when I fuck something up it's good for a column or two. I look at the column as a debate I'm having in a bar with some drunk pals. You can't screw up a drunken conversation, you just let it flow. I let it flow in "Savage Love." When I get it wrong, someone sends me a letter correcting me, and I print it. And then get back to the debate.

How does it feel to be the 50th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
It feels like an honor.