Savage Love

[4] In 1991, Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and working as a manager at a local video store that specialized in independent film titles.

[5] There, he befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, who announced that he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper titled The Stranger.

[5] Savage "made the offhand comment that forever altered [his] life: 'Make sure your paper has an advice column – everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em'.

[9] Using this word worked when the readers were LGBT, but as the column grew popular, Savage changed to a generic greeting to better match the expectations of the general public.

He has also debunked several sexual neologisms for sex acts, including the "donkey punch", the "Dirty Sanchez", the "pirate", and the "hot Karl", concluding "they're all fictions.

The "campsite rule" includes things like leaving the younger or less experienced partner with no STDs, no unwanted pregnancies, and not overburdening them with emotional and sexual baggage.

The rule is a reference to a line in the play of the same name, in which a much older woman asks of a high-school-age boy, right before having sex with him: "Years from now, when you talk about this – and you will – be kind.

Savage often uses the expression "dump the mother-fucker already" (DTMFA), at the close of a response, recommending that the writer immediately end an abusive or worthless relationship.

[20] Originally Savage suggested that "lifting my luggage" refer to listening to the speaker expound on the "desirability" of converting oneself from homosexual to heterosexual.

After multiple nominations and a reader vote, the verb "peg", popularized by the sex education movie Bend Over Boyfriend released in 1998,[25] was chosen, with a 43% plurality over runners-up "bob" and "punt".

Savage reacted strongly to statements made about homosexuality by former United States Senator Rick Santorum in an April 2003 interview with the Associated Press.

"[31] Savage set up a website to spread the term, inviting bloggers and others to link to it, which caused it to rise to the top of a Google search for Santorum's name.