Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Book Report: Savage Love by Dan Savage (1998)

I bought this knob-licker's book from the three-for-a-dollar rack outside the Hooked on Books in Springfield. The book's cover and pages are kinda wavy and the book has a sort of sweet odor to it. I don't know if some Southwest Missouri State student, steeped in openmindedness and something sweet and smoky, dumped the book before moving from the stifling confines of the Bible Belt for a big city or if someone received the book as a gift and ran it through the dishwasher because it's dirty. I can only speculate, but I didn't practice safe reading and read this book without protective latex.

I've read Dan Savage in the local tabloid and on Salon in the middle-to-late 1990s. His columns tend to have the message that if it doesn't hurt anyone (unless they want it), sexual practices are okay. He's right, of course, but focus on the physical pleasure disservices participants who don't know or expect anything more thank a hook-up.

Savage writes as a know-it-all, slightly an ass, and it's hard for me to take any more than a couple of pages or letters in any one sitting. Because it will undoubtedly offend Mr. Savage, I'd like to point out that his voice reminds me a little of Rush Limbaugh. There's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek in the voice, as though Savage is playing the part of being more ass than he really is. It's that quality that makes Rush Limbaugh amusing, but Savage is more, well, savage in his assishness. He calls names, casts aspersions, and belittles those whose sexual aesthetics differ from his rather expansive set. So he's like Rush Limbaugh, but not as good or humorous. Maybe Dan's more like Michael Savage, who an Internet rumor I'm starting right here indicates is Dan Savage's estranged older brother.

So I'd recommend sticking to the columns and not investing any more than thirty-three cents on the book, and I don't imagine I'll buy any of Savage's other books of commentary.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 PM