Dan Savage has announced an end to the web-based syndication of his long-running column Savage Love, noting “This isn’t a change I'm making lightly”. 

Carried by alternative weeklies and progressive publications across North America (including the Georgia Straight), the last syndicated Savage Love column will be written for the week of November 14, 2022. After that, readers will be able to read Savage’s famously blunt, opinionated, funny, and brutally honest sex advice on his website Savage.Love. 

In making his decision known to newspaper publishers and editors in an email, Savage started with “I want to thank you for running “Savage Love” and for rolling with recent changes. This has been an extraordinarily tough few years for alt weeklies (and for everyone and everything else) and I’ve deeply appreciated your flexibility as I’ve been attempting to adapt.”

In a telling gesture that speaks volumes about Savage’s affection and loyalty to print media (he was editor-in-chief at Seattle’s The Stranger from 2001-2007),  Savage Love will be made free to publications that wish to include it in physical papers.

This isn’t a change I'm making lightly,” Savage wrote in his email. “The truth is that the many publications that ran “Savage Love” did not survive the pandemic — margins narrowed, ad rates had to be slashed, people got laid off. I’ve seen this first-hand at The Stranger. 

“And that’s why I began giving the column to papers for free at the start of the pandemic, more than two and half years ago,” he continued. “I wish I could continue offering the column for free to appear on your websites. But I need to make this change—a change lots of other writers have already made. But, again, I will still be making the column available for free in print.”

The Straight began running Savage Love in the mid-’90s, with the Seattle-based sex columinist quickly becomes pre-Internet famous for advice that was as invaluable as it was combative, progressive, and, again, frequently funny as fuck. Over the years Savage gave the world no shortage of cultural touchstones that regular readers got instantly, including pegging, Santorum, and DTMFA.