Readers across the Pond, unlike us Brits, I suspect, are no doubt well aware of Dan Savage. For the uninitiated, therefore, this book is a wonderful introduction to one of America’s best-known sex-advice columnists.
Hey, Faggot:
Why is it, do you think, that straight people especially are so obsessed with airing their seedy sexual activities through your advice column? And, why do you take so much pleasure in highlighting your correspondents’ perversions while at the same time ramming your own twisted queer opinions down our throats?
-- A Fag-Hating Straight Guy
Hey, AFHSG
Why is it, do you think, that straight guys like you can’t get enough of the things they claim to hate? My advice to you is, if you don’t like my column then don’t read it. I suspect, however, that you will continue to get your fill while at the same time denying it.
Dan Savage’s column, “Savage Love”, is a US-syndicated sex-advice column that is read, loved and despised by more than 4 million people each week. It has been running in newspapers throughout the US and Canada since 1991. As the book-cover blurb says, “Savage Love is a hilarious collection of over 300 of the sharpest and wittiest columns ever written about sex.” For years, Savage used the salutation “Hey, Faggot” because, when he started writing his column, gay activists (on both sides of the Atlantic) were debating whether to reclaim those hate words – such as queer – used by homophobes as terms of abuse towards us. Of course, nowadays, all that has become rather passé and, so, “Hey, Faggot” has been replaced by the more risqué “Hey, Dan”!