Politics & strange bedfellows

Q: My future husband is running for political office in the Bible Belt. He has a good chance of winning, but campaigns can become ugly and personal. Before I met my husband, I dated women, posed for naked pictures, was into drugs, and even appeared in a “Girls Gone Wild” video. I do not regret this; I just don’t do it anymore. My husband doesn’t know and wouldn’t understand — neither would the community. I never planned on telling him about any of this. Should I try to prepare him in case it is brought up? —Very Over These Events

A: While my column was picked up by a lot of papers in the Bible Belt after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, I doubt that the fiancee of a conservative politician would seek out my advice — even if she had once been a bisexual, drug-abusing, girl-gone-wild kinda gal. Unless you’re not only a reformed girl gone wild, VOTE, but also a log-stupid one, you have to know that the appearance of your letter in my column is likely to attract the attention of your future husband’s enemies. Every Democrat running against a conservative in a Bible Belt state — particularly the ones running against conservatives with hot fiancees — is going to order his staff to start digging up dirt on his opponent’s future wife. So writing this letter is as good as telling the world. And that’s why I don’t think you actually wrote this letter.

But I do think it’s possible that you exist, VOTE, even if you didn’t write this letter yourself. There was a great deal of identifying information in your letter, VOTE, and I thought your future husband’s political enemies might have written it themselves. If they know about your past, sending me a letter about your problem and packing it with identifying details is a pretty good way of outing you while making it look like you accidentally outed yourself. On the off chance that this is the case, I’ve deleted most of the identifying details.

As for my advice, what’s going to be more upsetting for your future hubby, VOTE — that incriminating information surfacing in the middle of the campaign, with forewarning and the opportunity to prepare his response in advance? Or that incriminating information surfacing in the middle of the campaign without him being ready to respond? The latter, I think. So tell him now. As for the reaction in your community, didn’t conservative voters recently elect a man who groped women, posed for naked pictures, got into drugs, and did all sorts of wild things on video? If someone who behaved as badly as Arnold did can get himself elected, a man engaged to a woman who behaved as badly as Arnold did should be able to get himself elected too.

Q: Today I was fooling around with my boyfriend and I decided it would be fun to break out the chocolate frosting. He became really excited, looked down at his chocolate-covered piece and remarked how it looked like we had just had anal sex. This was meant to be a joke, I suppose. Well, it freaked me out and I no longer desired to do it, so I left him to clean it up himself. Was I wrong?—Feeling Grossed Out

A: Absolutely not, FGO. Any guy about to get his dick sucked who makes a crack like that doesn’t deserve the blow job he thought he had coming. “My dick looks like it’s covered with shit!” is only a sexy statement to a small, select number of people — and the less said about them, the better. For the rest of us, it’s a mood killer. Your boyfriend has no one but himself to blame for the blue balls dangling under his brown dick.

Q: When the Senate Finance Committee voted down an amendment that would have added $11.25 billion for child care to welfare for the next five years, your nemesis Rick Santorum argued that the government shouldn’t coddle welfare mothers. “Making people struggle a little bit is not necessarily the worst thing,” he said. I think it’s time for another English lesson, lest we all forget the true meaning of the word santorum. —F.U.R.S.

A: While Santorum (the senator from Pennsylvania) continues to make an ass out of himself in public, santorum (the noun) continues to spread far and wide. Here are two letters from Savage Love readers who are doing their part to spread the word:

• The term “santorum,” the frothy mixture of fecal matter and lube that sometimes results from anal sex, is in general circulation within the first-year class at Harvard Law School. I had been a student here for about two weeks when one of my classmates hosted a barbecue. The conversation naturally turned to sex. Soon we were discussing anal sex and the logistics and occasional messiness thereof. The same synapse apparently fired in multiple minds, because suddenly, in virtual unison, five or six of us yelled “santorum” and started laughing. As this was happening, three other people wandered over to join the conversation and they independently mentioned santorum, providing further evidence of its spread. I thought you would be happy to know about this, as many graduates of this school end up as senators, judges, and other cultural big shots who can help get a new word into the official record. —Academic Santorum Spreader

• I have been an English teacher in China for about a year. I thought you would find it amusing that the new meaning of santorum is catching on in China. I don’t know how much of the actual substance is in China, considering the fact that officially, “there are no homosexuals in China.” What I do know is that all of my coworkers and students have been taught the word and have actively been using it and passing it on. Think of it — santorum on the lips of 1.3 billion people. —Savage Love Adjectives/Neologisms Gaining

For everyone following the Santorum saga, I offered a case of lube and a selection of santorum-themed T-shirts from www.extraugly.com to anyone who could get a comment from the senator on the new meaning of his last name. (He won’t take my calls.) The nice folks from Down There Press are now offering a copy of Anal Pleasure & Health, the buttsex bible, and The Big Book of Masturbation to anyone who can get a quote from Sen. Santorum on lube-and-fecal-matter santorum. Come on, Tucker Carlson, you know you wanna ask him!