Thursday, November 15, 2018

Savage Love

From the November 6, 2018 edition of "Savage Love":

Q: I knew my little brother had an odd fascination with rubber that would likely become sexual. He would steal rubber gloves and hide them in his room, and there was a huge meltdown when our mother found a gas mask in his room when he was 12. My brother is in his 30s now and has a closet full of rubber "gear" that he dresses in pretty much exclusively. (When he's not at work, he's in rubber.) All of his friends are rubber fetishists. When he travels, it's only to fetish events where he can wear his rubber clothing publicly. He will date only other rubber fetishists, which seems to have severely limited his romantic prospects, and he posts photos of himself in rubber to his social media accounts. I read your column, and I understand that kinks aren't chosen and they can be incorporated into a person's sex life in a healthy way. But my brother's interest in rubber seems obsessive. Your thoughts? —Rubbered Up Baby Brother's Erotic Rut
 
A: If your brother was obsessed with surfing or snowboarding and built his life around chasing waves or powder—and would date only people who shared his passion—you wouldn't have written me. Same goes if he were obsessed with pro sports, as so many straight men are, or Broadway shows, as so many gay men are. The only "problem" here is that your brother's obsession makes his dick hard—and to be clear, RUBBER, the problem is yours, not his. An erotic obsession or passion is just as legitimate as a nonerotic one. And even if I thought your brother had a problem—and I do not—nothing I wrote here would result in him liking his rubber clothes, rubber buddies, or rubber fetish events any less.

Bravo, Dan Savage, bravo!

No comments: