Sad Bastard of the Week: sad bastards need safe words, too

Posted at 11:22 AM Dec 02, 2008

By Andrea Grimes

The holidays must really be getting the advice-seeking world down, because this last week was a real doozy when it comes to sad bastardry. The world's problems are manifold and varied, no coherent thread with which to tie them together other than, perhaps, a be-lotioned box of Kleenex.

In Dear Abby, a man in an eight-year marriage pines for his ex, while Dear Margo deals with a 26-year-old freeloader daughter who's keeping the sex out of a middle-aged marriage. The New York Times Social Q's has sofa angst, and unabashed favoritism causes grandchild woes in Annie's Mailbox. But this week's saddest bastard of all is in, no surprise, Savage Love.

Dan Savage no doubt hears it all, but this letter is shocking to the point of being vom-worthy. This is a letter with a twist. As in "twisted." "Needs Her Boundaries" is a rape survivor, and her boyfriend knows it. And yet somehow:

"Lately, though, he has expressed a desire to explore rape scenarios. His ideal setup would be to obtain my consent in advance, then, sometime when the mood struck him, he would "attack" and take me, and I couldn't say no or use a safe word. Once the "rape" started, he could do whatever he wanted, and I would not be able to stop it."

Dan's on it: DTMFA. Honestly, isn't sex without a safe word, uh, rape?