Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Family and Better Sex
About this episode
Klein and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage discuss how relationship norms have changed, drawing on Savage's decades of 'Savage Love' columns. Savage argues monogamy should be a conscious, revisable choice rather than an unexamined default, and that couples benefit from honest communication about desire, realistic expectations, and erotic autonomy. They discuss how gay and queer relationship practices — from chosen family to negotiated nonmonogamy — have cross-pollinated with straight culture, and how dating apps and shifting sexual ethics have reshaped courtship. Klein and Savage debate where candor shades into cruelty and whether Savage's frank, pleasure-centered ethic can coexist with the vulnerabilities of love, concluding that better sex and better relationships both require treating partners as full persons with their own desires rather than as means to an end.