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Last
weekend I visited my second cousin. We’ve been close since
childhood. We would spend two weeks a year together every
year and those days constitute some of my happiest memories.
During my visit to her home, we admitted that we had childhood
crushes on each other. By the end of the night, we were making
love and it was both emotionally and physically fulfilling.
Although things were fine between us the next day, she said
that what we had done must remain a secret. She doesn’t think
she can handle telling our family that we are in love, although
I could live with whatever judgment was passed on us. I miss
her every minute and I want to convince her that we should
be together. Give me some advice.
—Almost
Incestuous Canadian Heartbreak
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My
advice? Read the friggin’ newspapers, AICH. The New York
Fucking Times recently signed off on first cousins
getting married and having babies: “Contrary to widely held
beliefs and longstanding taboos in America,” Denise Grady
wrote in the page-one story, “first cousins can have children
together without a great risk of birth defects or genetic
disease.” Grady cites a report in the The Journal of Genetic
Counseling by Dr. Arno Motulsky of the University of
Washington. After studying thousands of births to first cousins,
Motulsky and his pals at National Society of Genetic Counselors
concluded that there was little harm in first cousins getting
married and having babies. Oh, and when I checked out a Web
site that Grady mentioned—www.cousincouples.com—I learned
that, “ . . . first cousin marriages are legal in every country
in the Western Civilization, including Australia, Europe and
South America, and Canada.” Since you and your childhood crush/adult
lover are second cousins, I don’t see what the angst
and secrecy are all about. And, I’m sorry, but you’re not
going to get any sympathy from this cocksucker on the she-can’t-handle-telling-our-family-because-they-might-pass-judgement
score. Boo fucking hoo! If it’s that kind of shit that worries
her then your second cousin/future wife should get down on
her knees and thank God she didn’t fall in love with a female
first- or second-cousin.
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I’m a 19-year-old gay male. I sometimes have sex with my
straight male cousin, who is a year younger than me. To count
the ways in which this is wrong, I would need more fingers
and toes than I have. And I have 20. It started through childhood
sex play. But then we got older. (My first orgasm prompted
a conversation that began, “It was really salty that time.”)
Now we’re adults. We get together under the pretense of drinking
and looking at porn but wind up with my mouth around his dick.
He has offered to reciprocate, but I declined because I knew
he wouldn’t really enjoy it. I am torn. It’s wrong to have
sex with your cousin. On the other hand, I like sucking dick,
and he likes having his dick sucked . . .
—Sticky
Oral Situation
If
it’s OK for straight cousins to marry and make babies, it’s
certainly OK for gay cousins to offer their not-getting-any
straight cousins a little head now and then.
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I was abused as a child and therefore sexualized at an
early age. When I was about 11 or 12 and my brother was about
8 or 9 I encouraged him to do sexual things with me, such
as kissing, exploring our bodies, and simulating sex. I “forgot”
about these encounters until I took a human sexuality class
in college. The professor said that sex play between siblings
is a normal part of childhood, but that people often feel
very guilty about this because they see it as incest. This
brought back the memories of what I encouraged my brother
to do. Now I can’t shake this feeling of guilt. My brother
and I are close, but I don’t think this is something I could
bring up. The funny thing is, my brother and cousin recently
joked about how they used to play doctor. They feel no guilt
or shame, yet I do. Is it truly normal for siblings to have
such encounters?
—Twisted
Sister
Your
problem can be divided into What You Did, and Why You Did
It. What you did wasn’t a big deal. Your professor was right:
Sex play between siblings is a normal part of childhood—although
not all siblings engage in sex play, and there’s nothing
abnormal about people who didn’t engage in childhood
sex play with their siblings. But, again, rest assured that
what you did with your brother was no biggie.
Why you did it—or why you think you did it—is the biggie.
You say that you were abused as a child, “sexualized at an
early age,” and you believe that’s the reason you initiated
sex play with your brother. Perhaps it is, but plenty of people
who weren’t abused as children engage in sex play with their
siblings. Still, you view your sexual abuse as the reason
you initiated sex play with your brother, and since you view
that sex play as an extension of your abuse, you regard yourself
as the “aggressor” and your brother as the “victim.” But guess
what? If your brother wasn’t traumatized by the sex play,
then you have nothing to feel guilty about. Now guess what?
You won’t feel better about what happened until you hear that
from your brother. That means, of course, that you’re just
going to have to get drunk and ask him if he remembers those
times you messed around as kids.
So, Dan, where were you when you heard that Ann Landers
was dead?
—Morbid
Curiosity
I
was afraid someone would ask me that. Intending no disrespect,
I share the following information with my readers only because
it’s God’s own truth: I was sitting on the toilet reading
David Brock’s Blinded By the Right and listening
to the radio. It’s fitting that I was—I’m avoiding the obvious
rhyme out of respect—crapping when I heard the news. You see,
for years I’ve been getting letters from people who wanted
me to shit all over Ann Landers. It seems that a lot of people
who read my column didn’t like Ann or her sister Abigail Van
Buren much, and people would write me and ask me to rip into
them. Here’s a letter from the fall of 2000: “Why do you spend
so much time bashing Ralph Nader? Why don’t you stick to your
field and bash Ann Landers, that conservative, tight-assed,
reactionary bitch?”
Some people may not know that I dedicated my first book, a
collection of Savage Love columns, to Ann Landers (as well
as Abigail and Xaviera Hollander). Ann Landers invented the
modern advice column, and while we third-generation advice-columnists
may use language she wouldn’t approve of, all of our columns
are modeled after hers. The conversational tone, the guest
experts, debates with readers who disagree with you—that’s
Ann Landers. While Ann Landers never could wrap her perm around
the fact that most cross-dressers are straight men, she was
more progressive than some of my readers were willing to give
her credit for. She didn’t pressure women to stay in bad marriages,
her position on homosexuality changed with the times, and
she was pro-gun control. Two years ago, Landers came out in
favor of legalizing prostitution!
Her column ran in 1,200 papers, and in some of those papers,
her voice was the only progressive voice her readers ever
heard. Landers may not have entertained questions about shooting
beer up your butt, or fucking your sister, but she didn’t
have to. She made it possible for a freak like me to answer
those questions.
mail@savagelove.net
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