Warning: Savage Love is an adult sex advice column. The contents of this article may be offensive to some people. And Utahns.
Hey, everybody: If you missed last week’s column, I’m taking a week off because, well, go read last week’s column if you care to know. Here’s an old column—from May 24, 1995—to tide you over until my return next week. It not only features my mother, but also my boyfriend’s very first mention in the column. And as you’ll see, last week wasn’t the first time I gave Mom the credit for my very curious career. —Dan
You recently wrote something about people who “are only attracted to amputees.” Well, I personally have been attracted to female amputees for as long as I can remember. Have other people written you about this amputee attraction phenomenon? I get very excited when I come across a single-legged girl crutching along, or encounter a pretty young woman with an empty sleeve dangling where an arm should be. Do you know of any clubs or organizations that cater to such an interest? Are there many others with this attraction, and where can I meet amputees? —AMP Fan
My dear old Catholic ma came to visit me from Chicago recently—for a whole week. Mom stayed with me at my new apartment, where she got to meet my new boyfriend, which went something like this: “Isn’t he a little young?” “He’s 24.” “Well, he doesn’t look 24.” “You got me, Mom. He’s 12 years old. I’m the president of NAMBLA. I met him at Baskin-Robbins. I’m going to jail for this. But before I do, I’ll sponsor him at his confirmation, OK?”
I bring up my mother not because she’s an amputee—just for the record, Mom still runs around on all fours—but because it was my mom who taught me everything I know about giving advice. During my formative years, I spent countless hours listening to my mother tell her sisters, her friends, and ladies from the parish to get their shit together. They came to her, she told them what she thought, and I drank it in. So, in honor of Mother’s Day, I let the ol’ gal have a go at this sex-advice thang. AMP Fan, here’s Mom’s advice for you:
“Go and do some volunteer work at a hospital. Work in a rehabilitation institute for people who’ve lost a limb in a car wreck or something.” Sounds like Ma’s on your side. Did she really mean to say people attracted to amputees should lurk around hospitals? “Well, no, of course not. I just thought he could meet an amputee that way. I guess he’d be volunteering for the wrong reasons, like a pedophile working for the Boy Scouts.” “Or going into the priesthood?” [Icy silence.] “Maybe he should go see a shrink and find out why he’s into this.”
Sound advice. If I may put in my own two cents: Amputee fetishism, while not as common as, say, leather fetishism, isn’t exactly unheard of. While I don’t personally have any knowledge of organizations for amputees and the folks who love ’em, perhaps someone reading this does and will write in. Meanwhile, what’s to stop you from taking out a personal ad seeking like-minded pervs and starting an organization of your own?
What is the medical explanation for the fact that the skin of the penis is often darker than skin that is not exposed to sunlight? Does the bacteria a penis encounters while fucking have anything to do with this phenomenon? —Ken H
“Ask a doctor,” Ma sez. “That’s what I would do. Or better yet, don’t worry about things like this and, you know, have a life.”
