"Nympho" Was Clearly a Compliment, Sexless Relationships Are the Worst, and the Precise Moment My Column Started Sucking—Reader Advice Roundup!

This week's Savage Love Letters of the Day: How do you date again after a painful breakup ? How do you breakup with someone when you know it'll cause them pain ? Polyamory expert Cunning Minx jumps in to tackle a poly question that's too complicated for me . His wife is done with sex after 45 years of marriage but he's not. And, of course, this week's Savage Love and this week's Savage Lovecast

First up, EARNEST did mean "nympho" as a compliment:

Thanks for posting my letter. I hoped that it would be pithy and widely applicable enough to catch notice, and I do appreciate the answer. "To her face" is enough of one. That is what I did the one other time I was in a similar situation, but it was brutal for both of us and I didn't leave that situation feeling confident it was the right way to do it. But I respect your perspective a great deal, and will take your response to heart. To address your concern, I do not have an issue at all with the sex/respect thing. There are some minor biological incompatibilities, but by and large I did mean the nympho part as shorthand for "everything a sexual man could want in a sexual woman." My issues with her are more to do with general competence and life effectiveness. She wants more of a friend group but isn't willing to talk to people and make it happen; if I offered to pay for a trip for us to Europe if she planned it, I have low confidence that it would go well. That sort of thing. Briefly, I thought the definition of ghosting was just not responding to text/communications anymore. Does breaking up over text also count as ghosting?

Thanks for writing back, EARNEST, and the commenters were right: your use of "nympho," in context, was clearly meant as a compliment. ("She is nice, kind, a nympho, and has other pleasant qualities.") The word is so rarely used as a compliment that I had a knee-jerk reaction so severe to seeing it in EARNEST's letter that my reading comprehension skills failed me... along with my rereading comprehension skills. (I read each letter more than once before posting and somehow still fucked that one up.) My apologies to EARNEST and my thanks, as always, to SL commenters. As for your followup question: ghosting is "ending [all] personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication." So breaking up via text doesn't count as ghosting. And breaking up via text, if the relationship was brief and/or very casual, is permissible—certainly better than suddenly and inexplicably going silent.

Regarding my advice for SLAPME...

Your advice for SLAPME was your usual spot-on stuff. Your unfailingly direct advice is always delight to read but the great irony, which you touched on towards the end, was that you covered more useful territory in a handful of paragraphs than SLAPME has been able to realize from ongoing paid therapy. I question the value of the therapist who evidently hasn’t been able to discern such a smoldering issue and pull it out of her. So many therapists are content to week after week clock billable time letting folks retool the same story and clients unwilling to do the hard work to move forward are comfortable with that model. That’s one of the reasons I opted not to hang a shingle for counseling services: I’d go broke because I’d be firing my clients constantly because they refused to do the work to move forward. You really should figure out a way to organize by general topical areas your material into some type of book format. So many so-called self-help books are just bullshit. Your direct, understanding but nevertheless tough love advice with comments from adjunct professionals is consistent gold.

Not every reader thinks my current columns are gold...

You columns are going down hill fast. I remember before you purchased Ann Landers' desk your columns were GREAT, KINKY, FUN, WEIRD, and totally engaging, educational, and entertaining. Soon after you announced the desk purchase, I wrote you and told you to get an ax, take the desk outside, and chop/bash the hell out of it! That's how bad your columns became under the influence of that desk—and they haven't recovered. For example, last weeks column??? "What should I do with my dead dad's porn?" SERIOUSLY??!! WHAT THE HELL!!?? This is how far you've fallen??? The last question (and your answer) was almost as pathetic—some old guy hooking up with some young guy off of Grinder and not knowing how to tell him not to contact him without hurting his feelings??!!?? OMG this is SUCH an 'Ask Ann Landers' question and NOT a Savage Love question!!! Dan, you have to focus. Focus. Focus! FOCUS!!! Now, get an ax, take that desk outside, chop/bash the hell out of it, and BURN IT!!! Or, donate it to your local Republican't party, and let it curse them. You need to reclaim your past columns glory of kinky, weird, not-your-dead-fathers-porn advice for all of us that demand it.

Um... I bought Ann Landers' desk seventeen years ago. If my columns have sucked ass ever since that fateful purchase, well, I wanna thank you for hanging in there and reading my cursed, awful, boring, sucky columns for the last eight hundred and eighty four weeks. (This week's column is about cheating sluts, slutty cheats, and kinky cheating sluts. Hopefully it's an improvement.)

Regarding my advice for Heartbroken Over Nothing...

Just wanted to say that your response to HON, just published, ought to be required reading for everyone, everywhere. Goddamn I wish I had read (and understood) what you said to HON when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I have loved your column for a long time. So—thank you!

About that caller on this week's Savage Lovecast who was impregnated by a man who assured her he'd had a vasectomy...

This is regarding the call from the pregnant lady who slept with the guy who said he had a vasectomy. I’m a man with a vasectomy, and my scrotum has a scar. It’s not the kind of thing that you would notice from across a room, but anybody who has a vasectomy should be able to find where an incision was made, and show it to their partners if there’s any question about whether they are a liar. Having a vasectomy is not something a guy just forgets about or makes a mistake about, and there is follow-up testing to confirm that you are shooting blanks. She should absolutely sue the guy for damages.

Regarding Rehoming Inherited Pornography:

RIP asked what to do with his late father's porn stash—nothing collectible, but still decent wank material. I suggest dropping it off at his/her local thrift shop. Put it at the bottom of a bag (or bags), and top the bag off with clothes or something average-looking. And then duck out quick. Chances are that the staff of the thrift shop will come running for dibsies once the find is found, unless the finder grabs it for him/herself...

Regarding SCARED...

I divorced my husband for this. No way was I going to go through another year, let alone decades. Never going to be in a sexless relationship again. #DTMFA

— krista moll (@keetots) October 18, 2019

Dan’s advice is much more sensible - to first find out what’s going on before jumping to conclusions.

— Aaron Marx (@AaronMarx) October 18, 2019

I assure you, I didn’t just serve the papers. Dan always says it better!!

— krista moll (@keetots) October 18, 2019

Sure, sure. It was your "best friend" who was confused...

“For so long ,I thought it was weird that free version of @fakedansavage’s podcast was sponsored by @mikeroweworks, then I realized it was the MICRO version of the Savage Love Cast, not the Mike Rowe version.” - my best friend

— 🎃Ahhhhhh!-lyssa🎃 (@alyssalina) October 19, 2019

Okay, we're going to leave it there. Have a great weekend, everybody, and we'll see you Monday!

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