I started doing drag in Seattle because I started doing my column before I moved here, and then moved here and wanted to be able to go out and do things as Dan Savage without being recognized the next day, because the column was just in Seattle and it was kind of a sensation and I was beating people up. I was really worried and I didn't want to beat somebody up in a column and have that person know what I look like when I didn't know what they looked like.

If sex isn't an important part of your marriage, you can't beef if your wife or husband does this unimportant thing with somebody else every once in a while, if you have no interest in it.

The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means that each of us is free to go our own way, even if the ways some of us may choose to go seem sinful or shocking to our fellow citizens.

Every American may have equal access to ice cream, but there's no guarantee that the outcome of eating ice cream will be equal.

My dad and mom were more like World War II-era parents, even though it was the 1960s, because they were both born in the '40s. They were young adults before the '60s even happened, and married, and already having kids. But by the time we were adolescents in the '70s, the whole culture was screaming at parents, "You're a good parent if you're open with your kids about sex." They attempted to be open with us about sex, and it made them want to die, and consequently, it made us want to die.

I feel like I'm a compassionate guy, but I also feel if somebody's grip on life or sanity is so tenuous that a joke in an advice column that usually is nothing but jokes pushes them over the edge, then if not me, it would have been a leaf blowing past them that did it, or something else. You almost have to feel that way, doing this.

Take me to the driest county in the most conservative state, and in two hours this determined hedonist will find you all the drugs, whores, and booze you'll need to pass an eventful weekend.