“We got stuck with the Puritans.”

Post-gay with Seattle’s “Savage Love” guru

Dan Savage published The Kid in 1999, when I was trying to conceive Wee Sprite. His page-turning memoir tells “What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant.” I was listening to my local NPR affiliate, WAMU, driving to the doctor’s office the day Kojo Nnamdi hosted Dan on his book tour. I got pregnant, devoured the memoir and have looked forward to this chat with my favorite sex guru ever since. This interview with Dan Savage was published January 1, 2016 in The Gay & Lesbian Review edited by Richard Schneider. The issue explores “the future of gay” and also contains a review of the book I edited, Romaine Brooks: A Life by Cassandra Langer.

DAN SAVAGE has been a fixture of LGBT culture and politics for over two decades—as journalist, author, media pundit, and founder of the sex advice column “Savage Love,” which is syndicated in several dozen U.S. newspapers. His media work includes recurring appearances on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, and various gigs on MSNBC, among many others.

Savage’s most recent project to gain worldwide renown was the “It Gets Better” campaign, which targets LGBT youths who face bullying or isolation and may be at risk of suicide. The campaign generated a vast number of videos affirming gay lives, many from celebrities and many more that went viral. His more recent books include The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family (2005) and a collection of essays titled American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Flights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics (2014).

Something readers may not know is that Savage was part of a satirical theater group in Seattle starting in the ’90s. His interest in guerilla theater has made several appearances since, notably: his contest to redefine the word “santorum” in a way befitting the “man on dog” former senator; closely covering the Bruce Bauer campaign and even trying to give the candidate the flu; and his annual Hump Pornography festival, which features short video clips from
contestants.

Born and raised in Chicago, now a resident of Seattle, Savage married his partner Terry Miller in Canada in 2005 and in Washington in 2012, one of the first gay couples to do so in that state. He and Miller have an adopted son named D.J., who’s the title character in Savage’s 2000 memoir The Kid.

This interview was conducted by telephone in early November.