Savage Love is a syndicated sex-advice column by Dan Savage. The column appears weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free city papers in the U.S. and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger.
Since October 2006, Savage has also recorded the "Savage Love-cast", a weekly podcast version of the column, featuring telephone advice sessions. Podcasts are released every Tuesday.
The openly gay author uses the column as a forum for his strong opinions that disregard conservative models of love, sex, and family. He generally encourages advice-seekers to pursue their fetishes, so long as activities are legal, consensual, safe, and respectful. The tone of the column is humorous, and Savage does not shy away from using profanity. The cornerstone of his sexual ethics is consent; he is thus strongly opposed to bestiality, pedophilia, and rape. He speaks out against incest and social inequality, too. Though Savage encourages sexual experimentation, he does not encourage carelessness. He frequently uses his position to promote safer sex and awareness of AIDS. In political matters, Savage occasionally shows a libertarian bent. He does however vote Democratic because he believes that voting for minority parties gives votes to the Republicans.
For the first six years of the column, Savage had his readers address him with "Hey faggot", as a comment on previous efforts to recapture offensive words. He was criticized for this by some gay activists.
