Savage Love: The return of santorum

By Dan Savage - May 1, 2025
Abascal_Santorum_cropped
Rick Santorum speaking at the 2017 CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland. Credit: Gage Skidmore

I’m a lesbian in my early 20s who just started experimenting with anal with my girlfriend. It’s been great fun! However, I have discovered that my ass gets wet, producing sizeable quantities of slightly yellow slippery discharge. 

Everything I have read says that the rectum should be fairly dry. What could be the root of my self-lubing asshole?!?

— We’re Exploring This Anal Stuff Seriously

I love a good, ol’ fashioned sex question: If you’re using as much lube as you should as an anal newbie — a lot and then adding more — some of that lube is gonna get so far up inside you, WETASS, that you’re not gonna be able to crap it all out when you’re done. Which means some residual/leftover lube is gonna work its way down and out over the next twelve hours or so. 

So, if you’ve only noticed your ass producing slightly yellow slippery discharge (technical term: santorum) on the days you’ve done butt stuff, that’s probably just lube leaking out of you. But if you’re noticing discharge even on days when your girlfriend hasn’t been plowing your ass, that could be a sign of a sexually transmitted infection, WETASS, and you’re gonna need to talk to a doctor about that.


I’m a cis woman in my mid-30s in an open relationship with my long-term partner, who is a trans man. I haven't been on any kind of contraception since pretty early on in our relationship. Within our open relationship, our rule has been to always use condoms when having sex with people with penises. 

I'm beginning to question this as a hard rule. I'd like to hear your take on condoms for PIV sex. 

— Wants A Penis

Moving from irrelevant bad guys (Santorum) to modern day bad guys...

Seeing as abortion has been banned or heavily restricted in more than half the states, and seeing as Republicans are right now working to roll back access to both medication abortion and birth control, anyone with a working flesh-and-blood dick who wants to raw dog a casual sex partner should get a vasectomy before those are banned. 

You and your partner agreed to one very explicit rule, and now you want to renegotiate that rule. It’s going to be a complicated conversation, WAP, and you may not get the answer you want right away (or at all), but renegotiating the rules shouldn’t be against the rules.

P.S. Gay guys? They’re coming for our PrEP, too.


My wife and I are socially monogamous but have a DADT arrangement that applies if we’re not in our home city. I just had an outstanding weekend getaway with a new friend. 

Here is my question: How do I sustain the erotic tension with this new friend with so much time between now and our next date? We are planning to introduce Shibari into our play next time, with me tying her, so I was thinking sending some self-tie photos or photos of the ties I plan on doing would sustain the erotic tension. But taking photos at “home base” could count as a possible rules violation.

— Bending Rules In Erotic Frenzy

Let’s get the question you asked out of the way first: Ask her. What works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another person.

Speaking of communication…

The DADT agreement you have with your wife is way too vague. Non-monogamous relationships require more communication, not less. You owe it to your wife to have a real conversation about the terms of your DADT agreement. You need agreements, not assumptions. 


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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