Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Family and Better Sex

Even if you don’t recognize the advice columnist Dan Savage by name, it’s possible that his ideas have influenced how you think about sex and relationships. For decades now, Savage has been arguing that our expectations for long-term partnerships are way too high; that healthy relationships are about acknowledging our vast spectrum of desires, not repressing them; and that monogamy is not the ideal setup for every partnership. Through over 30 years of writing “Savage Love (www.thestrange...) ,” one of the most widely read sex advice columns in the country, and more than 17 years of hosting the podcast “Savage Lovecast (savage.love/lo...) ,” he has been one of America’s most subtly influential public intellectuals on the topic of how humans conduct our most intimate - and important - relationships.
In the past half-century or so, America’s culture around sex, dating and relationships has undergone a profound transformation. Women are no longer confined to roles as wives and mothers, same-sex marriage is legal, hookup culture has changed the way young people enter the dating world, and there has been a growing interest in less traditional approaches to relationships, like polyamory and ethical nonmonogamy. These transformations have ushered in a lot of new freedoms but also a lot of new anxieties and frustrations. So I wanted to bring Savage on the show to talk through how we navigate this complicated, messy moment in our relational and sexual lives.
We discuss how America’s relationship culture has changed in the past 30 years, why the myth of finding “the one” can be so damaging, what dating apps are (and aren’t) good for, how to give more grace to our partners when they do not meet our expectations, why so many feminist writers are re-evaluating the legacy of the sexual revolution, how gay sexual cultures have influenced straight dating life, why we’ve had a “sexual revolution” but not a concomitant “relationship revolution,” what Savage makes of the statistic that 18 percent of people have had sexual experiences outside their primary relationships without their partners’ consent, the advantages and risks of experimenting with nonmonogamy, what better sex education for young people should look like, why marriages between two men seem to end less frequently than heterosexual marriages do and more.
This episode contains strong language.
Mentioned:
YouGov poll on Monogamy and Polyamory (today.yougov.c...)
“Can We Change Our Sexual Desires? Should We? (www.nytimes.co...) ” with Amia Srinivasan on The Ezra Klein Show
“Let’s Talk About the Anxiety Freedom Can Cause (www.nytimes.co...) ” with Maggie Nelson on The Ezra Klein Show
“Sex, Abortion and Feminism, as Seen From the Right (www.nytimes.co...) ” with Erika Bachiochi on The Ezra Klein Show
Dan Savage and Esther Perel on “Love, Marriage & Monogamy” ( • Dan Savage & Esther Pe... )
Screaming on the Inside (www.harpercoll...) by Jessica Grose
“What Does the ‘Post-Liberal Right’ Actually Want? (www.nytimes.co...) ” with Patrick Deneen on The Ezra Klein Show
Book Recommendations:
The Ethical Slut (www.penguinran...) by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton
Berlin Diary (www.press.jhu....) by William L. Shirer
A Royal Affair (www.penguin.co...) by Stella Tillyard
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [e-mail].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast (www.nytimes.co...) , and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at www.nytimes.co... (www.nytimes.co...) .
“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld and Sonia Herrero. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Pat McCusker.
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[@beatduck]

Monogamy?! In this economy?!🤣
One of the best interviews! Thank you.

[@ligerllama]

1:21:17 Amazing book recommendations 📚

[@anthill1510]

Thank you for realizing that incel culture is about status, not about sex. It`s making me crazy that most people can`t see through this and talk about it like it`s actually about sex or even more ridiculuos about relationships. They hate women, they are not missing a loving relationship, they want the status you get for "being the alpha male" who gets all the women or who marries the hottest one in town.

[@hamilton7798]

The alpha male thing is such bullsh!t but being a cuck is worse.
The idea that you could be okay with, or even aroused by the thought of your partner being with someone else...it makes you sick (or most people). Being a cuck is a fetish of being hurt or jealous. How can you trust someone like that? What else will they do to get that kick?
Also, I think cucks hate women equally, because they treat them as a sexualized object that they use for their fetish. 🤷🏻‍♂️