Help,
Horn toad

To Whom It May Concern,

My boyfriend and I were making love and he didn't have a condom. He said he pulled out in time but now I have a little blood when I go to the bathroom. It feels like I have to pee like every 10 minutes. Could I be pregnant? If you could send me as much information as possible it could put my worries, not all the way to rest but a little. Please help me. I know that I should have told him no but my hormones were "raging."

Sincerely,
me

"To Whom It May Concern"?!? I rang my good pal Abigail and asked her if she received letters with the salutation "To Whom It May Concern." She said, "Why, of course not, dear, they all start 'Dear Abby.' What kind of brain dead morons write to you?"

Okay, I didn't phone Dear Abby, but I'd be willing to bet that she doesn't have this problem. I'm waiting for "Dear Sirs."

Or maybe I could decide they don't concern me and pawn them off on Tristan or Ken. That could lead to some interesting advice. "Red, oozing pustules on your penis? Nah, I never saw a doctor either and I'm fine now. Just take some aspirin and get shitfaced. By the time you go home with that 2 AM beer-goggles skank, they'll be scabbed over and you can tell her you just have dry skin."

Perhaps my readers don't believe Mistress Rowena is a Real Person® but merely a figment of the collective imaginations of the Webstaff. Ha. You give them far too much credit (see above).

Next in our rant is the mystery of why every query (however addressed) that I have received in the last four months is A QUESTION I HAVE ANSWERED IN A PREVIOUS COLUMN. (Side note to Mom and Dad: Please stop using this address to email me; it just gets way too Freudian.)

I can see how, if you have been in the advice biz as long as Dear Abby, or even Dan Savage, you are going to get repeats. But, for fuck's sake, this column hasn't even toddled to its first anniversary yet and the complete archive is available on the site. Is it laziness? Illiteracy? (You should see the spelling in the letters before I fix 'em, but let's not go there.)

Let's take the above as an example. Two earnest enquiries on the well-trodden subject of Help!-Could-I-be-pregnant-from-pre-cum? (I blame this ignorance on the conservative abstinence-only sex ed policies but THAT is a rant in itself.) Now, let's have a look at my most recent column. It's on the subject of—wait for it—risks of getting pregnant from pre-cum. I just love it that my readership consists entirely of future Darwin award nominees. I sure hope none of you are pregnant because you definitely should not be breeding.

The only way to remedy this sad state of affairs, short of a lobotomy, is to give the column its own directory, arresting it brutally from its natural home in Sex and other Mindfucks. Look for it on the left-hand side of your browser screen. For those of you with flippers, tentacles, or no sense of direction, that's the side with the blue stripe with all the little links on it. No, not the scroll bar; the other side.

Final word to "me": Whereas it's highly doubtful you are with child, there is some possibility that you are with UTI (urinary tract infection). Getting that checked out mightn't be a terrible idea.