[Savage Love] 'What Are You Talking About, Lady?'

I'm writing in celebration of the California decision to allow gays to marry. I'm thrilled—I've always thought that the idea that gay marriage could hurt or affect straight people in any way was ridiculous. But a year ago, I found out I was wrong.

I'm a straight woman in her late 20s dating "the one," by which I mean the man whom I'd be happy to wind up married to. We've been dating for about two years, very happily, but one year into the relationship, he informed me—he didn't ask—that he was going to be the sperm donor for a lesbian couple who wanted to start a family. I had an immediate, visceral, physical reaction to the idea of another woman bearing his child. That's an experience I hope to have with him!

What shocked me was the range of reactions among my friends. My gay friends and my boyfriend insisted it was "none of my business"! They also accused me of being selfish and called me a homophobe! My straight friends, female and male, agreed that doing this without my consent was outrageous!

Ultimately, hedidn't do it, but this conflict very nearly ended our relationship. So going forward, I think we straights and you gays have to talk about this question: If gays have a right to marriage and family, do they also have a right to start those families with my boyfriend—no matter what I think or feel about it? Wouldn't it, at the very least, be only polite to ask thegirlfriend orwifefor her consent and blessing, too?

Questions About Gay Marriage

So, QAGM, you're thrilled that gay people won the right to marry in California even though you realized a year before gay marriage was legalized in California that you had been wrong to support marriage equality because it would lead gay people to believe that we have a right to your boyfriend's spunk—the position that lesbian couple and all your gay friends arrived at before gay marriage was legalized in California.

What the fuck are you talking about, lady?

I've read the Supreme Court of California's decision legalizing gay marriage, all 140 pages of it, twice, QAGM, and I can assure you there's not one word in it about your boyfriend's spunk. The gay-marriage decision and your boyfriend's aborted decision to serve as sperm donor for this lesbian couple have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, and your efforts to link them only make you look like a nut case.

And that's a shame, QAGM, because you're actually in the right.

Setting aside the legit mystical crap—the fact that most breeders regard having children by their spouses as the ultimate expression of their magical heterosexual love—you had every right on purely logistical grounds to object to your boyfriend fathering a child by these women. Was your boyfriend planning to be involved in the life of this child? If so, time he spent with this child would have taken time away from whatever children you might have together. And what sort of relationship did he imagine this child would have had with your children? Could he have wound up on the hook for child support, which would've impacted you financially, too? And what if this lesbian couple had died in a car wreck after this child had been born? Would the child then come to live with you?

Your boyfriend should have been able to see how donating sperm to a lesbian couple would impact you and that you had a right to be involved in making this decision. The fact that he didn't involve you—and still doesn't think he needed to—should make you think twice about marrying him.

And finally, QAGM, a question: When you say you had an "immediate, visceral, physical reaction," does that mean you threw a punch? If you did, a word—or an initialism—to your boyfriend, if he's reading this: DTMFA.

A few months before I graduated, a friend revealed that she had been lusting after me for as long as she'd known me and wanted to hook up. The trouble was that she's in a long-term relationship. She didn't see this as a problem—she was willing to cheat—but I didn't want to be a part of that and turned her down. She then played some silly games and convinced me to kiss her when I was drunk, and later flat-out propositioned me (again while I was drunk), and I refused again. Then we graduated and moved hundreds of miles away from each other, which I expected would be the end of it.

Now, though, a month later, she wrote to tell me that she's "not over" me. Was I right to turn her down, or should I, as she argued, let her make her own mistakes? Should I let her boyfriend (and likely fiance) know about any of this?

Not An Adultery Helper

Can we please—all of us—resist the urge to define adultery down? To commit adultery, a person has to be married, not just dating or going steady or even engaged. This girl, if you fuck her, may be a lying, cheating sack of shit, and you may be a cad, but she won't be an adulteress, NAAH. She can't be one until after she's married.