Better off bread BY DAN SAVAGE

I am a 26-year-old gay guy with a strange fetish. Mine feels like it’s the strangest one out there because I’ve never read anything about it anywhere. Consequently, I’ve always felt embarrassed and ashamed.

Even before I was consciously aware of my attractions to guys, I’ve been aroused by bread. My sexual attraction to men was confirmed when a friend who wrestled found it humorous (or arousing) to pin me in such a way that his buns were pressed down on my face, smothering me. Something about being dominated in this way excited me. As I became more in touch with these desires, I began doing auto-asphyxiation using bread to smother myself when I masturbated. The only time I’ve been able to recreate this sensation with a guy is when I’ve been lucky enough to rim a perfectly smooth guy’s bottom. But I can’t imagine I’ll ever be able to experience my deepest, darkest fantasy: finding an aggressively dominant bottom who will sit on my cock while smothering me with a loaf of white bread. Knowing that I may never experience this has led me to feel extremely alienated from, and weird about, my desires, and ultimately left me never truly satisfied from sex.

There are several issues at work here that you could address. I’m not really quite sure what it is I’m asking for.

The End Eater

You’re asking for the same thing most of the people who write me are asking for, TEE: permission to open your mouth and ask your sex partners for what you want. Your fetish is odd — any fetish I’ve never heard of has to be considered odd — but it’s not an unworkable fetish, provided you’re willing to tell the guys you’re sleeping with about it. Start opening up and sooner or later you’ll come across a guy who’ll happily indulge you. Some guys may laugh you out of their bedrooms, of course, but that’s a small price to pay on the way to finding a guy who runs to the kitchen for a loaf of white bread, isn’t it?

And look on the bright side, TEE: while your fetish is rare, you’ve got one serious advantage over guys with similarly rare fetishes — e.g., guys with a boner for dress socks, or guys who want to have pies smashed in their faces. Fact is, TEE, there are an awful lot of guys out there who are into breath control, the fancy fetish term for choking, suffocating, and/or smothering someone during sex. (Please note: breath control is an inherently dangerous, varsity-level kink — anyone interested in breath control should, at the very least, Google "breath control fetish FAQ" and read all about it.) All you need is to find a guy who’s into you, into breath control, and willing to use white bread to cut off your air. Compared to finding a guy who’ll splatter pies all over his sheets, that should be a cinch.

With respect to your reply to MUTT, the woman aroused by the idea of having sex with a dog, I must ask the following: since when did you get so moralistic? Applying your usual logic, as long as two partners are in agreement, then, hey, anything goes. Well, I’ve met plenty a family dog that is more than happy to hump a guest’s leg if allowed to. I’m sure they would be happy to go "all the way" if they found a willing participant.

Perhaps you are a little too prudish to see the big inconsistency in your advice to MUTT. Namely, you presume that animal sex is somehow very bad without justifying your decision. I’m sure your readers would appreciate some knowledgeable and well-reasoned advice on the issue of bestiality.

Let the Dogs Out

If I started giving out knowledgeable and well-reasoned advice on the issue of bestiality, LTDO, then I’d have to give it out on other subjects too. I’m not sure I want to work that hard, particularly in August. Still, as I wrote once on this subject: if I were a sheep, I’d probably prefer to be fucked every once in a while and live to an old age than be brutally murdered and turned into kebabs. That said, LTDO, bestiality is one of the "big three" perversions that I’m simply never going to budge on. I will always disapprove of fucking animals, molesting children, and eating poop. (A scat scene with a lamb would hit the trifecta of my disapproval.) Yes, yes, I know: a mind is like an umbrella — it only works when it’s open. But if you’re going to have a closed mind about just three things, fucking animals, molesting children, and eating poop are good picks, don’t you think?

In reference to Mistakes Were Made, the college boy who participated in a wild orgy with six of his best friends after taking ecstasy, I doubt his story is true. However entertaining the situation sounds, the story sounds made up.

1) Ecstasy doesn’t make men horny. Of all the men I know who have tried E (including myself), none of them could sustain an erection if they tried. Even if it does work for some, I doubt it would simultaneously make seven people horny and facilitate such a photogenic event.

2) I doubt one girl would be willing to provide seven $15 pills to her friends.

Skeptical Much

1) Tragically, SM, ecstasy these days is often cut with other drugs — including drugs that can make people horny, like speed and even Viagra. It’s possible that MWM was given adulterated E. Also, ecstasy, like all illegal drugs, doesn’t come in clearly labeled, sealed packages for your protection. It’s possible that MWM wasn’t given E at all, but some other, boner-inducing drug.

2) You doubt one girl would be willing to provide seven $15 pills to her friends? It’s obvious that our social spheres have been widely different, SM. I’ve been to parties where rich girls freely shared drugs worth thousands of dollars. The idea that someone might pass out a measly $105 worth of drugs to a group of friends seems entirely plausible to me.

3) I don’t like to run fake letters, SM, and I do my best to keep the fakes out. But does it really matter all that much if MWM’s letter was a fake? Or if TEE’s letter about bread is a fake? After all, SM, with the exception of the one person I’m addressing when I respond to a letter, for all my other readers the problem is really just a hypothetical situation, no? Bearing that in mind, SM, I resolved long ago not to lose sleep over the occasional fake slipping into the column. I mean, look at poor Ann Landers: that woman was always stressing out about fake letters making it into her column — and where is Ann Landers today? Dead, SM! No doubt from the stress of worrying about fake letters making it into her column! Personally, I’d rather have margaritas carry me off.

Dan Savage can be reached at mail@savagelove.net