I have a mentally disabled cousin who I haven’t figured out how to help. He’s lived for more than 40 years in the same nursing home in a small, conservative town. His mental age is about 8, there are other mental-illness issues, and he has some physical problems. He is now in his late 60s. He has always enjoyed dressing up as a woman, but given that he’s in a Christian nursing home, he must keep it fairly secret. He doesn’t want to move from his home of so many years. He periodically calls me to tell me about a dress he’s purchased or his monthly therapy sessions where he’s permitted to dress up, and I’m uncomfortable with the sexual vibe of the conversations. I would like him to have a sexual outlet, but one that doesn’t involve me. Any ideas?
She Knows It’s Really Tough
Nope.
And staging some sort of intervention now — well, the effort seems about four decades late. Even if you could find a new living situation for your cousin, SKIRT, your cousin doesn’t want to move. He seems to like where he lives, he gets to buy himself dresses, and he gets to dress up once in a while. He’d probably be happier if he didn’t have to keep his dresses secret, but things could be much, much worse.
My son is 13. After I caught him with porn on his smartphone, I replaced it with a dumb phone and limited his access to the internet at home. We have talked about desensitization and the oppression of women that occurs with porn. Yet the hormones rage on. He has asked me to buy him a Playboy. I need to play this right. I want him to come to me to talk about sex, but a mom buying her son porn doesn’t seem okay. If I don’t buy him a magazine, he will seek porn on the non-parent-regulated internet. If I do purchase porn for him, doesn’t that just encourage him to walk the path of porn?
Baffled By Teenaged Boys
If your son wants old-fashioned, preinternet porn — do they still publish Playboy? — he can acquire it in the old-fashioned, preinternet manner: He can get his ass to a bodega or a convenience store or a truck stop and steal some porn mags. My brothers and I learned important life lessons shoplifting porn when we were your son’s age: to be watchful, to seize opportunities, and to run like hell.
I am one of those straight girls who like to make out with other girls when I am drunk. It’s fun to get the attention of men by kissing girls! What’s so wrong with that? Why do so many lesbians and bi women disparage this behavior? I guess it could be said that my behavior encourages men to objectify women who kiss other women. But I feel like that shouldn’t be on me! Why all the hate? I am just an adult having sexy fun with other consenting adults!
Drunk Straight Girl
I can’t believe there are still queers out there hatin’ on drunk straight girls (DSGs) who make out with other DSGs to attract the attention of drunk straight boys (DSBs). Same-sex marriage is making significant gains — hurray for Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, Uruguay, France, and New Zealand — but it remains illegal in 38 states, Congress has yet to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the HIV-infection rate among young gay and bi men is up, and trans people who just want to use the toilet are being attacked in schools and state legislatures across the country. (Google “rape” and “public restroom,” and tons of stories come up — but they’re all about straight men attacking women. Want to make public restrooms safer? Ban straight men from using them.) The queer community has 99 problems — at least — but DSGs making out with DSGs ain’t one.
This week on the Savage Lovecast: Tales of open relationships gone horribly wrong. All at savagelovecast.com.
