Savage Love: The sex recession

By Dan Savage - Apr. 17, 2025
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  1. What is the one way that sex has changed over the last 20 years that has surprised you?

I’m surprised by how much less sex people have these days. We’re entering the second decade of a sex recession that shows no sign of abating, and I don’t think the efforts of “pro-natalist” Republicans to renormalize sexual assault, ban abortion, restrict birth control and make abusive marriages harder to escape are going to turn things around. 

I’m also surprised by the growing number of hyper-online queer incels way more outraged by sex scenes in movies, age-gap relationships and kink at pride than they are by attacks on LGBT civil rights.

  1. How did you become a sexpert?

By accident. I started to write an advice column 30 years ago as a joke — because wouldn’t it be hilarious if a gay man gave sex advice to straight people? — and immediately started getting real questions that required me to come up with real answers. 

Here’s one of the dirty little secrets about advice columnists: even if we had to look something up and/or consult an expert before answering a question, we like to pretend we knew the answer all along. By looking things up and consulting actual experts over the years, I learned a few things along the way…. like where to find the clitoris. But I wouldn’t describe myself as a “sexpert,” as I hate that word almost as much as I hate the word “nipple.” 

  1. What brings you the purest joy?

It’s a tie between going snowboarding with my husband and my son, doing shrooms with my husband’s boyfriend and watching a terrible movie together (Cats, Madam Web) and playing cards with my boyfriend in our favorite restaurant while we wait for our Krustenschweinbraten to come.

  1. If you could be any animal for their sexual behavior, which animal would you be?

I love being a human animal because we’re the freakiest. But if I was gonna come back as some other kind of animal in my next life, I would wanna be a giraffe or a ram… because giraffes and rams are the gayest animals and coming back as one or the other would up my chances of getting to be gay again.

  1. Do you think the definition of "tRumpMusk" should be: "(slang, colloquial, vulgar) The scent of the human male asshole when aroused or unwashed." (It's a variation of the 9th definition of musk from the Wiktionary entry for “musk.”)

I’m a big fan of aroused human males — their assholes and their other bits — and I don’t want to have to think about Donald Trump and Elon Musk every time I look at one. So, I’m sorry, but we’re not going to be doing this.


Email your question for the column to [email protected] or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan. Read more Savage Love.

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