By Dan Savage - Feb. 22, 2024

I've recently discovered that I am a panty sniffer. Though since I'm a gay man, maybe I'm a briefs breather? I discovered this when a fuck buddy left his shorts behind, and for the next few days I jerked off sniffing his shorts. 

That brings me to the young millennial techie guys at my work. They're always leaving their underwear and socks on the floor of the company's gym in our office. The janitor picks them up and puts them in a lost-and-found bin. I started checking the bin, and no one ever claimed their shorts. I started taking a pair every now and then. 

First question: Am I stealing? I assume the guys aren't missing them, since they've been in the bin for a week or more. Second question: Have I become one of those perverted panty sniffers from those old Chester the Molester comics?

— Singleton Now Inhaling Funky Funk

First answer: technically, yes. But a case could be made that you're reusing and recycling. If there were a Green Building Certification program for kinks, SNIFF, yours would qualify.

Second answer: Chester the Molester was a disgusting comic strip about a guy, Chester, “who was interested in sexually molesting women and prepubescent girls,” according to Wikipedia. It ran in Hustler in the ’70s and ’80s (because of course it did) and made child rape look like harmless and hilarious fun. Dwaine Tinsley, the creator of the strip, wound up going to prison for molesting his daughter. I'm guessing his kid didn’t experience being raped by her father as harmless or hilarious.

I don't think you're a pervert in the Chester the Molester mold. But a case could be made that your actions have a whiff of the nonconsensual about them — your coworkers would most likely object to how you're reusing and recycling their abandoned underpants — and, if you want to be scrupulously ethical, you should probably knock it off. 

There are plenty of guys selling their used underwear and jocks online. If you work at a place with a private gym, SNIFF, you can afford to buy a few pairs.

Vanilla straight guy here. As a fellow Washingtonian, I feel proud to live in a state that was among the first to legalize marriage equality by a popular majority vote of the people. I avidly follow the NFL and eat fried bologna sandwiches and do lots of other manly things. However, I have always loved musical theater. 

Is it socially acceptable for me to good-naturedly say, "I'm totally gay for musical theater"? Or is it a slur that I shouldn't say, no matter how playful or well-intended?

— The Cautious Joker

When someone says, "That's so gay," but means, "That's so stupid," they're being homophobic. But a straight guy who says he's gay for musicals isn't saying he's stupid for them, TCJ, he's saying, "I love something that many gay men are passionate about." 

Not all gay men are passionate about musical theater, of course, just as not all straight men are passionate about football. Your saying, "I'm gay for musical theater," or a gay guy saying, "I'm straight for football," amounts to a humorous acknowledgment that the majority of people interested in musicals or football are gay or straight, respectively. 

While I think you can continue to say that you're gay for musicals, TCJ, some gay men (or our more annoying "allies") may take offense. You don't have to pay attention to those people — they're just super gay for taking offense.

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