Dan Savage Tells "New York Times Magazine" Readers About the Importance of Threeways

Though sex and relationship advice columnist Dan Savage is frequently taken to task by finger-wagging conservatives for his often-unorthodox views on coupledom, according to a terrific seven-page piece entitled "Married, With Infidelities" published in this weekend's New York Times Magazine, the openly-gay author, media personality, and creator of the life-saving "It Gets Better" Project isn't nearly as subversive as his reputation suggests.

"It Gets Better is, in the end, a paean to stable families: it is a promise to gay youth that if they can just survive the bullying, they can have spouses and children when they grow up", writes the piece's author, Mark Oppenheimer. "With Savage, the goal is always the possibility of stable, adult families, for gays and straights alike. He is capable of pro-family rants that, stripped of his habitual profanity, would be indistinguishable from Christian-right fund-raising letters."

And yet according to Oppenheimer, the reason Savage has proven so controversial isn't due to the ends he espouses (the creation of a stable, loving home) but in the idea that monogamy isn't always a viable option for every relationship, and that that's okay.

"Some people need more than one partner, he writes, just as some people need flirting, others need to be whipped, others need lovers of both sexes", Oppenheimer notes of Savage's views. "We can’t help our urges, and we should not lie to our partners about them. In some marriages, talking honestly about our needs will forestall or obviate affairs; in other marriages, the conversation may lead to an affair, but with permission. In both cases, honesty is the best policy."

Oppenheimer goes on to make a valid, if beside-the-point, observation that this attitude is "dangerous for a gay-marriage advocate to hold. It feeds into the stereotype of gay men as compulsively promiscuous, and it gives ammunition to all the forces, religious and otherwise, who say that gay families will never be real families and that we had better stop them before they ruin what is left of marriage."

And yet that's the last thing Savage wants, of course; he is in fact openly critical of "anonymous-sex, gay-bathhouse culture," as Oppenheimer notes, and when he rails against the inflexibility of traditional ideas on monogamy it is only because he feels that a loosening of these constraints can actually lead to healthier, longer-lasting relationships, and in turn more stable families.

Dan Savage

"It is for the sake of staying together — not merely for the sake of orgasms — that Savage coined his famous acronym, 'G.G.G.': lovers ought to be good, giving and game (put another way, skilled, generous and up for anything)", writes Oppenheimer. "And if they cannot fulfill all of each other’s desires, then it may be advisable to decide to go outside the bounds of marriage if that is what it takes to make the marriage work."

One telling quote by Savage in the article illustrates this idea in his typical no-nonsense fashion: “If you are expected to be monogamous and have one person be all things sexually for you, then you have to be whores for each other…you have to be up for anything.”

And yet, as Oppenheimer correctly points out, just like those who ascribe to the often-unattainable pie-in-the-sky notion of absolute monogamy, Savage is himself prone to a sort of idealism: one in which every relationship is automatically strong enough to withstand the frank honesty he says is required to keep it together.

"Where a relationship is troubled, and one partner senses, correctly, that aloneness is an imminent threat, then the other partner asking for permission to have a fling is no neutral act", he writes.

Feminist blogger Sady Doyle, a critic of Savage who is cited in the article, also brings up the interesting point that Savage's views essentially put the burden of keeping the relationship together on the partner who is hearing the sexual confession of their significant other, which, given the inherently more libidinous nature of men, is more often than not the female.

"I think sometimes it’s much harder for women to say, ‘I’m not into that,’ or ‘Please, I don’t want to do that, let’s do something else,’ than it is to say, ‘Sure,'" she notes. "Putting all the onus on the person who doesn’t have that fetish or desire, particularly if the person who doesn’t have that desire is the woman, really reproduces a lot of old structures and means of oppression for women.”

Savage's trademark forthrightness can be heard in his response: "Women, straight women, are in relationships with men. Doesn’t it help to know what we’re really like? Women can go on marrying and pretending that their boyfriends and husbands are Mr. Darcy or some RomCom dream man. But where’s that going to get ’em? Besides divorce court?”

But what do the prevailing societal norms regarding marriage have to do with gay couples (particularly men), historically more prone to engaging in "open, or semi-open, long-term partnerships"? Will attitudes change once gay relationships are legally sanctioned on a mass scale?

"As they take out joint mortgages and pal around with straight parents from the PTA, they may become considerably more square about fidelity," notes Oppenheimer. "Living in their McMansions, they, too, may decide that the walls of their marriages must be guarded at all costs."

Much of the bind both straight, and, increasingly, gay couples find themselves in, as regularly noted by Savage, is that the ideals placed on marriage in our society are so often unattainable. Oppenheimer points out that only beginning in the 20th century in America did the idea arise that marriage involved "partners [meeting] all of each other’s needs: sexual, emotional, material."

In essence, the romanticized notion that one person "completes" you (which, it should be pointed out, is an idea regularly propagated by romantic comedies) may in fact have greatly contributed to the high divorce rate we see today. "When we rely on our partners for everything", Oppenheimer notes, "any hint of betrayal is terrifying."

One bizarre tidbit offered up in the piece – a story that was included in Savage's book The Commitment, about the decision of he and husband Terry Miller (who adopted a son together) to get married in Vancouver in 2005 – had Savage indulging a college student who came up to him after a campus lecture and confessed a fetish for having birthday cake smashed in his face (really). Feeling bad for him, Savage promptly invited the student back to his hotel room and proceeded to give him a face full of frosting.

Savage and partner Terry Miller

As strange an anecdote as that may be, it's ultimately an example of Savage's overriding compassion – a compassion that led him to undertake the It Gets Better Project after a rash of teen suicides began making headlines last fall. Oppenheimer cites the heartening result of the campaign:

"Within two months, there were 10,000 videos from people attesting to their own it-gets-better experience, viewed a collective 35 million times. The 'It Gets Better' book, a selection of narratives, made The Times’s nonfiction best-seller list. In May, the It Gets Better campaign was featured in an advertisement for Google’s Chrome Web browser."

Of all he has accomplished since the beginning of his writing career in 1991 – and while he's still relatively young at 46 years of age – the campaign may indeed prove to be Savage's most lasting legacy.

"Not long ago, I mentioned Savage to a psychotherapist who works with children," writes Oppenheimer. "He said that the It Gets Better project had saved the lives of several of his patients. 'They tell me they might have killed themselves if it weren’t for Dan Savage,' [he] said, as tears filled his eyes."

You can read the full New York Times piece here.