Columns

I have an awesome relationship with an awesome guy. He loves me and takes care of me. I’m GGG and he’s vanilla. I only draw the line at poop, animals, and children. But he’s never asked me for anything other than vanilla sex. Which is why I don’t know what to do. I went downstairs late the other night, and he was sitting on the couch masturbating while stroking the cat, which was sitting on his chest. The cat was sitting ON him, Dan, WHILE he was yanking himself. I don’t know if he saw me. I went right back upstairs and went to bed. In the morning, he acted like nothing happened.

I am the father of a recently out 18-year-old gay boy. Here’s the problem: My son is in a relationship with a 31-year-old guy. I’m not okay with that. Yes, my son is a legal adult at 18 and can make his own decisions, but he’s also still in high school. His mother argues that in order to be supportive, we can’t object to this relationship. I don’t think this is a gay versus straight objection. If I had an 18-year-old heterosexual daughter who was in a relationship with a 31-year-old man, I would have exactly the same concerns and objections.

I was recently advised to begin reading your column by my therapist. I am a 21-year-old male and a senior at an Ivy League school. Despite my academic success, I’ve battled a lot of stuff in the past few years: anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and porn addiction. It’s quite a load of shit to try to wade through, but I honestly feel I’m getting better.

Why is it that someone who blasts the top off of a bluff to recover the rock — in the process sending noise and dust onto his neighbor’s property — is called a developer and is applauded, while someone who touches a planter on another’s property with her foot is called a trespasser and is arrested?

Thank you for your advocacy of monogamishy. (Monogamishness?) When I fell in love with my gloriously kinky and GGG wife several years ago, we were honest about our sexual desires—vast and wide-ranging—and we negotiated an arrangement that works for us. We encourage each other’s outside crushes, and we both just want to be present while one of us is banging that outside crush. Your column gave us the tools we needed to talk with other potentially kinky folks. Thanks!

The snowberries of January finally started to turn brown and shrivel in February. Marching towards the equinox, buds are swelling to release the first greens of spring. The valley forest has a magic air in March because snowberry and osoberry fringe the twiggy underbrush with a vibrant hue. The broadleaf tree canopy still has naked branches, making the underbrush foliage all the more lovely on sunny days. It’s hard not to throw off the job to walk outside when a sunny hour suddenly appears.

Rick Santorum talks like a guy who should be put on the no-fly list for his own good.

Without motor boats, Waldo Lake is serene. With motor boats, it is Fern Ridge Reservoir, but without the convenience of the Shell station and the Dixie Cafe.