Savage Love: The reluctant, married virgin

Sex and relationship advice from Dan Savage

By Dan Savage - Mar. 13, 2025
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I’m a 28-year-old woman. I’ve been married to a 29-year-old man for almost two years, and we still haven't had sex. We dated for less than a year and knew pretty quickly that we wanted to get married. On our wedding night, we decided to leave the hotel early to spend time with family since many had traveled far for the wedding. After the wedding, life got hectic. Before we realized it, months had passed. 

I've brought it up multiple times, and he always says he feels self-conscious about his body but promises to try harder. We even scheduled times for intimacy, but when the time came, he was either too busy or he would ask if we could try tomorrow instead. 

I've stopped bringing it up because I feel like I'm nagging, but it's breaking me inside. What would you do?

— Married In Name Only

I would leave.

Zooming out for a second: Anyone out there who wants to be sexually active in the context of a sexually exclusive relationship needs to establish sexual compatibility before the wedding. Fuck first — before you get married, before you get engaged, before you go steady.

MINO, there’s clearly something your husband isn’t telling you — something you had a right to know before you married him — and you need to ask yourself how much more time you’re willing to waste before you find out what that thing is.

Best-case scenario: Your husband agrees to therapy, MINO, and you somehow manage to find the perfect therapist right away, i.e. the kind of therapist with the power to heal their clients in one or two visits. And then at your second appointment with this miracle-working therapist, MINO, your husband tells you that thing you had a right to know before you married him and it turns out to be something silly and trivial and your husband is in such a hurry to fuck you now after that silly and trivial thing is out in the open that you wind up having PIV sex for the first time in the parking garage of your therapist’s office building.

Worst-case scenario: Your husband agrees to therapy, MINO, but years go by before your husband finally levels with you about that thing you had a right to know before you married him and it’s not something silly or trivial and saying it out loud doesn’t make it go away and you have to live with the realization that you didn’t just waste years of your life on a man who couldn’t love you the way you deserved to be loved, but you wasted them on a man who could see that sexual rejection was breaking you and he didn’t love you enough to let you go.


My husband and I have been together for a long time, and we are still massively in love with each other! A few years ago, we dipped our toes into “The Lifestyle.” It was a great experience! We felt like teenagers again, inside and outside of the bedroom. Then COVID happened, and we closed things back up. 

Recently, we’ve begun discussing signing up on a few swinging apps. But I hesitate due to the political climate. Is it appropriate to share on our profiles that we are not interested in meeting anyone who is any way MAGA?

— Must Avoid Grinding Against Trump Supporters

Even if you put , “NO TRUMP VOTERS, NO MAGA IDIOTS,” in all caps on your ads, MAGATS, you’re still gonna have to do your screw diligence before meeting up with other couples. Research into online dating/hookups has shown that many people don’t read the text of a personal ad. 

Additionally, there’s nothing MAGA motherfuckers enjoy more than inflicting themselves on people who want nothing to do with them — bone the libs to own the libs — which means you’ll have to ask one or two pointed/trick questions at some point between exchanging messages and swapping partners.


Every year I make pin-on buttons for Pride and give them away leading up to and throughout the month of June.  I like to stick to a theme. This year I'm struggling for ideas. 

I am hoping (in one hand, doodling in the other) you and your readers might have ideas for themes or slogans that fit the mood of this big, ugly, scary moment. 

— Pride Is Now Needed Every Day

Some suggestions off the top of my head: “WE’RE STILL HERE,” “TRANS PEOPLE EXIST,” “DO NOT COMPLY” and “FUCK THIS SHIT.”


Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan. Read more Savage Love

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