When I interview sex columnist Dan Savage, he's not exactly psyched at first.

I'm a little wary because it feels like at the time I wrote the column that you sent to me about gerbils and gerbling, I would get that question every once in a while from a noxious teenager.

Somebody who was being homophobic would throw that at me with a lot of other insults.

And I actually haven't gotten a letter like that in at least a decade.

And so I think there's a risk here with you doing this podcast of reviving this urban legend about gay men and these particular rodents.

And is it okay for me to even be doing this?

Are you asking me? Yeah.

I think it makes sense that a straight guy would do this.

What kind of things have stuck out to you through, through the first couple games?

Yeah.

I, I think things have stuck out to me about all three of the guys that you mentioned.

Number one, just when you see, uh, Noah Penda in person, as some of the people have alluded to by seeing pictures and, you know, video of him, he just looks different physically.

Like, he's put in a lot of work this summer in, you know, changing his body and preparing for the NBA season.

And I think Jase Richardson said it in an interview with me where it's really allowing him to move his feet quicker and really be the type of guy that could guard potentially one through five if needed, uh, on a switch.

And I think we've seen that come to fruition.

That's what I thought, okay

[laughs]

But when you wrote about sex publicly, particularly if you wrote an advice column, you kind of had to switch into this s- s- kinda Sanskrit that was some combo of s- the science of sex, but also therapy, what then was therapy culture, or an ig- you know, showing fealty to what we all believed ought to be true about sex and what we all believed everybody else should be doing that we might not be doing ourselves.

Um, and I didn't make people do that.

And, uh, it was very rough and tumble, and there was a lot of pushback, especially because when I first started writing Savage Love, you know, now, like, a lot of people are like, "Oh, you're just gay cis men," and, "You like gay cis men, and gay cis men like you," and uh, uh, uh.

And, uh, the irony is that my first haters were gay men who hated my column because the gay rights advice then from the gay rights activists was if they ask you what you do in bed, if they ask you who the woman is, w- "What do you do in bed?" You were supposed to say, "I read, and I watch TV-"

Yeah.

I, I know gay trans men who are close friends of mine.

My husband's best friend is a gay trans man who's at our house all the time, and, [sighs] and I love him.

Yeah.

But the ...

So I don't think poly is a sexual orientation and I reject that.

I think there's gay, straight, bi, and asexual.

There's sexual orientations who people are, and then there's what people do.

And monogamy is something that people can do.

It's something most people do.

I agree.