Savage Love | Opinion | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper

Savage Love

Maybe I'm behind the times, but I don't think two people who've never met in real life should be planning a future together

I am a young gay man who has been so freaked out by the idea of catching an STI that I haven't gotten with anyone for two years. But last night, I hooked up with a cute 21-year-old FTM trans boy, and maybe because it was a person with lady parts, I let caution go, and no condom was used. How worried should I be about having made a baby?

Cautious Homo In Loopy Dilemma

P.S. He is on hormone therapy.

Here's a good rule of thumb: A new sex friend who'll have unprotected sex with you has probably had unprotected sex with other sex friends. Yes, typically cautious people have been known to "let caution go" on rare occasions. But the odds that two typically cautious people will both simultaneously decide to "let caution go" and have unprotected sex with a brand-new sex friend just this once are pretty slim.

Which means you should be less concerned with pregnancy, and more concerned with that old concern of yours, sexually transmitted infections. There's only a 1-in-20 chance that a single act of unprotected penis-in-vagina sex will result in pregnancy, and the fact that this guy is on hormone therapy may make him slightly less likely to conceive. But if your hookup was having unprotected sex with others, you're at greater risk of acquiring an STI than of acquiring an heir.

Get tested, and while you wait for your results, ponder this: Health workers and HIV-prevention educators tell me that the more freaked out someone is by the idea of catching an STI — the more paralyzed by fear someone is — the likelier that person is to have unprotected sex when they do have sex. So working to conquer your irrational fear of STIs — and having sex once in a while — will leave you less likely to contract one.

Twenty-one-year-old furfag here. I consider myself a bi guy, but I'm a virgin. I have a boyfriend of three years, and we do role-play online. We met online, and I fell in love with his personality two years before we traded pics. He is totally OK-looking, and I am fine with this because he's a sweetheart. He's also four years my senior. I'm working on my bachelor's and trying to get into graduate school. He swears that no matter where I go, he'll follow me. Is this a strange relationship? Is it a bad move? What if we meet and try gaying it up and I'm not into it? ("Ha! You ruined your life. I'm not even into men.") Sex doesn't hold a big interest for me, and porn doesn't do ANYTHING for me. I've never even masturbated. Am I going about this wrong?

Fella Unsure Regarding Feelings About Gayness

Maybe I'm behind the times — maybe I just don't get this "online relationship" stuff — but I don't think two people who've never met in real life should be planning a future together. Attraction is about more than just shared interests, emotional compatibility and kinks in common. There's an ephemeral, unquantifiable aspect to attraction, something that can only be established when you're face-to-face/tongue-to-tongue. I don't think you can know it's love — a love worth moving across the country for — until you've tasted each other's spit.

Don't get me wrong: It's great that you two got together, FURFAG. One wonderful thing about the Internet is the way it brings people with rare kinks together. And sometimes people with uncommon kinks have to go to uncommon lengths to be together — which can include a big risk like moving across the country to be with the furfag of your dreams.

But before you do that — or let him do that — you need to meet in person at least once to establish that: (1) you're actually in love with each other, and (2) you're actually into men. You can't resolve those doubts until you've acknowledged them, which means a truth-telling, doubts-airing, non-role-playing Skype session is in order.

I'm a 19-year-old gay guy in a relationship with an 18-year-old guy. We have a good sex life, but I rarely get to top him. The act of getting penetrated is almost always painful or uncomfortable for my boyfriend, even with plenty of lubrication and preparation. I know it's not his fault, but I sometimes feel that he isn't putting in enough effort to try to bottom for me. Additionally, it's hard for me to understand how he feels because bottoming is never painful for me, and I enjoy it a lot. We've discussed the possibility of me topping another guy (alone or in a threesome), but I'd much rather it be him. Is there any way we can make bottoming pleasurable for him?

Ready To Top

The best way to determine if your boyfriend is a natural-born top — not into getting fucked, never will be into getting fucked — is to explore his ass, and his capacity to experience anal pleasure without fucking him. Get some small anal toys that aren't designed for in-and-out play, but set-and-forget play — a few butt plugs, one or two small vibrating eggs. Pop one in his ass and then let him fuck yours. If you can take the pressure off your boyfriend while getting a toy in him, he may begin to associate having something in his ass with pleasure. If he can do that, he may be able to graduate to your cock.

I'm a 21-year-old gay boy with a kinky side that I keep private. I went to London to get with a guy who has an amazing dungeon. I spent a week being his slave boy, and I had a blast. He posted some pictures of me to his Tumblr, which I was OK with, but some gossipy vanilla boys I go to school with recognized me even though my face was blurred out. What do I say to them?!?

Kinked Twink

"I had a blast."

This week on the Savage Lovecast: When gays ATTACK! Find it at savagelovecast.com.

Pro-Palestine protestors demonstrate a die-in
20 images