I normally try to keep my comments "on track"; it is, after all, a kink blog. In spite of that today's entry isn't incredibly kink-related. It's really more along the lines of a "life lesson" than a "kink lesson" (or opinion, or advice, or whatever you consider my entries).
Recently I've talked with a couple of new girls, and I've talked about them a little before. I talked about Maria before, but - due mostly to circumstances beyond both our control - we have almost entirely fallen out of touch. It's manifested in an unpleasant way - not a hostile one, at least as far as I've seen, but an unpleasant one. Still, I will just leave her alone until such time she wants - if she wants - to talk to me again. I'm not happy about it, but... If it's what she believes she needs right now, I choose not to argue the point.
There's another girl - Sarah, let's call her - I haven't talked about yet. I met her on OkCupid and we started talking; we hit it off very well. We have a lot in common and a number of mutual interests, including a number of geeky games and books and such... And including bondage, dom/sub play, sadomasochism, and a common understanding of poly relationships. After speaking for a couple of weeks we agreed to meet, and it would have been last Tuesday; unfortunately, it was cancelled. However, she had something else come up out of her past - something that made her decide she needed to pull away from me - from us, or whatever potential we might have had as a couple. I've gotten comments from a couple of friends that she's lying just to step away from me... But it doesn't matter either way. If she's interested in picking things up again at some point, she'll contact me; and if she isn't, it doesn't matter much whether she was telling the truth or not.
Something else happened this weekend which follows the same pattern - of a sort. I was woken up at 2:30 this morning (Sunday morning) by a phone call from my father; he's in Hawaii, and had been waiting until early morning UK time to call my uncle. Because he was very upset he managed to confuse my number and my uncle's in his phone (our last names are the same, and first names are the same length with the first two letters, so it's not completely outside the realm). Since we were on the phone anyway, he told me that my Great Aunt had died. She was old - almost 90 - and was recovering from having broken her hip. She'd even been released from the hospital, when she died - very suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. I've always had a small family, and I was close to her. She was the last person alive in the generation before my parents on either side of my family; she was one of the tiny number left in my line on that side, which has shrunk greatly in the last three generations. We were in the process of arranging plans for her to visit this coming summer, which would have been her first time in this country in more than twenty years... And the first time she'd ever met my son. And me? I've broken down twice - once this morning when I realized I'll probably never find out whether or not she ever got my Christmas letter; and once this afternoon when I stopped by work to pick something up and found the voicemail from my father, who hadn't yet realized he had the wrong number and was trying to leave a message for my uncle.
My point? My point is... Things aren't always in your control. Life happens, whether you want it or not. It can be a rude shock - it can be terrifying - it can be depressing - it can be even occasionally be good. But it's never what you expect.
2014/12/30
2014/12/26
I was listening to the Savage Lovecast - as I am wont to do when a new episode comes out. This week's, #426, was a live Christmas episode recorded at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle with special guests Rachel Lark and Derek Sheen, and it was a lot less serious and more fun than most. Still, they had their typical phone calls, all across the board. One was from a girl talking about her boyfriend and her boyfriend's other girlfriend and what to do at the holidays, which I very well may come back to in the near future for a post... But the one that really struck a nerve and that I'm going to talk about today, however far off my normal beaten path it is, was a mother who called in to ask something about her daughter. The problem was that here daughter is uncertain about her gender identity, and the mother called up the Lovecast to ask what the best way to ask "What gender she was that day". Rachel Lark's advice amounted to "stay gender-neutral and avoid the subject as hard you can".
...Both of these bothered me a great deal, and one of the easiest ways to explain why is to tell you Derek Sheen's answer: that the mother was asking the wrong question... And instead she should be teaching her daughter that gender isn't a binary. The problem here isn't "figuring out what gender the daughter is that day"; the problem is the mindset that there's only two choices... And someone who hasn't chosen one of them isn't okay.
This is a problem all over the spectrum, and it's one I tend to worry about more in my day-to-day life as it applies to sexuality. This directly relates to things like the Kinsey scale - after all, I'm something like a 0 or a 1 but know people all over the range. It's hard enough to convince some people that there's more than one option in sexuality; convincing them there's two - heterosexuality and homosexuality - is impossible with the bigoted. Convincing people there's a whole spectrum including homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, pansexuals, and everything else? It's... An uphill fight, shall we say.
And gender... Gender is harder. Gender is fixed by biology, right? Of course it is! You're assigned a gender at birth and it never changes... Except for all those little differences. Like people born with genetic gender disorders - XXX, XXY, XYY, XXYY, XXXX, XXXXX... But far more subtle and far more insidious are those people whose gender doesn't match their body.
It's not as simple as some people who are born male but identify female or some people who are born female but identify male; it's about people, no matter their biological gender, who don't fit society's rules. It's about people who don't know what they are... They just know they aren't a male or a female.
I know where I fit on these spectrums... Most people really do. But not everyone does. And this poor girl, even with her mother's good intentions, is being set up to be confused and depressed and conflicted and lost.
...Both of these bothered me a great deal, and one of the easiest ways to explain why is to tell you Derek Sheen's answer: that the mother was asking the wrong question... And instead she should be teaching her daughter that gender isn't a binary. The problem here isn't "figuring out what gender the daughter is that day"; the problem is the mindset that there's only two choices... And someone who hasn't chosen one of them isn't okay.
This is a problem all over the spectrum, and it's one I tend to worry about more in my day-to-day life as it applies to sexuality. This directly relates to things like the Kinsey scale - after all, I'm something like a 0 or a 1 but know people all over the range. It's hard enough to convince some people that there's more than one option in sexuality; convincing them there's two - heterosexuality and homosexuality - is impossible with the bigoted. Convincing people there's a whole spectrum including homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, pansexuals, and everything else? It's... An uphill fight, shall we say.
And gender... Gender is harder. Gender is fixed by biology, right? Of course it is! You're assigned a gender at birth and it never changes... Except for all those little differences. Like people born with genetic gender disorders - XXX, XXY, XYY, XXYY, XXXX, XXXXX... But far more subtle and far more insidious are those people whose gender doesn't match their body.
It's not as simple as some people who are born male but identify female or some people who are born female but identify male; it's about people, no matter their biological gender, who don't fit society's rules. It's about people who don't know what they are... They just know they aren't a male or a female.
I know where I fit on these spectrums... Most people really do. But not everyone does. And this poor girl, even with her mother's good intentions, is being set up to be confused and depressed and conflicted and lost.
2014/12/25
Somewhere between "oops" and "ooh noooooo"
So, it's Christmas. Good ol' December 25th. I'm not a fan, but a lot of people are, so let's not dwell on that.
What today's date also means is that I'm basically a hair's breadth away from being 31 years old. I've changed a lot over the past few years (a lot of it for the better, I'd say), and one thing I thought I had gotten over was my ability to completely and utterly embarrass myself to the point of not being able to replay the situation over and over in my head until I collapse. It's useless in terms of damage control and it isn't particularly kind to my mental state, but I had managed to lose that part of myself a while ago.
At least, I thought I had.
Last week, late in the evening, Mike's exwife stopped by to grab something their son had left at our place. Our place, the tiny mess. Our place, where you enter in the living room and can see my command center of a computer in its entirety, the monitors readable at a step or two from the door.
On the main screen was Facebook, and in the corner was a conversation with my friend Rex. In that conversation was the phrase "whenever Mike starts talking to new people on OkCupid."
Fuck.
So the exwife came into the apartment, took a few steps toward the table/desk we spend most of our time at, and, I fear, read the conversation. The one that points toward a non-standard relationship. The type of relationship she has hinted at being unacceptable and worth hauling his ass into court over in the hopes of taking his parental rights away.
Nope, that panicky embarrassment is still there, front and center.
Fuck.
I tried to figure out if coming out to people about my sexuality and facing rejection was worse than accidentally coming out as poly/open to a potentially hostile woman whose existence in our lives is dictated by the existence of the stepson I adore beyond reason. Maybe it's the fact that I'm now half a lifetime away from the days I admitted I "like girls," but this actually feels more painful. The harassment back then was awful, but this? This potentially carries more weight.
Mike's response to the situation was, initially "fuck her" (not literally) and that, if it came up, we would deal with it. He didn't blame me or say I fucked up (that's all me), and his feeling was, if she says anything, he has no problem pointing out that she shouldn't have been reading my screen, regardless of it being out in plain view.
Meanwhile, I'm just hoping it doesn't come up. I spend enough time feeling alienated in terms of being able to talk to people about how our relationship works that I don't need someone to know who will ultimately have a problem with it -- more than the average person does to begin with, I guess.
What's fun is that I'm totally in favor of people just being out and open about their sexuality and their relationships. But because I'm still not comfortable with the perception of certain flavors of relationships, it keeps me from actually engaging the part of myself that is polyamorous and bisexual. I'll admit to being a total wimp and taking the easy way out and hiding in the appearance of heteronormativity, sticking to admitting ladycrushes to my husband and a few friends and playing loops of sexy-girl-time in my head when the situation warrants it.
Standard stuff, I guess, for most married people. It just makes me feel like a fraud.
Ultimately, the panic has lessened enough that I can function again, but I'm still afraid. Thankfully we will be out of this apartment soon and you can be damn sure I will be hiding my computer screen better in the next place.
What today's date also means is that I'm basically a hair's breadth away from being 31 years old. I've changed a lot over the past few years (a lot of it for the better, I'd say), and one thing I thought I had gotten over was my ability to completely and utterly embarrass myself to the point of not being able to replay the situation over and over in my head until I collapse. It's useless in terms of damage control and it isn't particularly kind to my mental state, but I had managed to lose that part of myself a while ago.
At least, I thought I had.
Last week, late in the evening, Mike's exwife stopped by to grab something their son had left at our place. Our place, the tiny mess. Our place, where you enter in the living room and can see my command center of a computer in its entirety, the monitors readable at a step or two from the door.
On the main screen was Facebook, and in the corner was a conversation with my friend Rex. In that conversation was the phrase "whenever Mike starts talking to new people on OkCupid."
Fuck.
So the exwife came into the apartment, took a few steps toward the table/desk we spend most of our time at, and, I fear, read the conversation. The one that points toward a non-standard relationship. The type of relationship she has hinted at being unacceptable and worth hauling his ass into court over in the hopes of taking his parental rights away.
Nope, that panicky embarrassment is still there, front and center.
Fuck.
I tried to figure out if coming out to people about my sexuality and facing rejection was worse than accidentally coming out as poly/open to a potentially hostile woman whose existence in our lives is dictated by the existence of the stepson I adore beyond reason. Maybe it's the fact that I'm now half a lifetime away from the days I admitted I "like girls," but this actually feels more painful. The harassment back then was awful, but this? This potentially carries more weight.
Mike's response to the situation was, initially "fuck her" (not literally) and that, if it came up, we would deal with it. He didn't blame me or say I fucked up (that's all me), and his feeling was, if she says anything, he has no problem pointing out that she shouldn't have been reading my screen, regardless of it being out in plain view.
Meanwhile, I'm just hoping it doesn't come up. I spend enough time feeling alienated in terms of being able to talk to people about how our relationship works that I don't need someone to know who will ultimately have a problem with it -- more than the average person does to begin with, I guess.
What's fun is that I'm totally in favor of people just being out and open about their sexuality and their relationships. But because I'm still not comfortable with the perception of certain flavors of relationships, it keeps me from actually engaging the part of myself that is polyamorous and bisexual. I'll admit to being a total wimp and taking the easy way out and hiding in the appearance of heteronormativity, sticking to admitting ladycrushes to my husband and a few friends and playing loops of sexy-girl-time in my head when the situation warrants it.
Standard stuff, I guess, for most married people. It just makes me feel like a fraud.
Ultimately, the panic has lessened enough that I can function again, but I'm still afraid. Thankfully we will be out of this apartment soon and you can be damn sure I will be hiding my computer screen better in the next place.
2014/12/23
Conversations with a Polygamist
So the lovely and talented Ash found this link I enjoyed:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/caitlincowie/ask-a-polyamorous-person#.etMyMaBpm
which actually is mostly a wrapper around this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o1gsI3e0u4
and is eminently worth watching. I do find myself wondering actively whether BuzzFeed has that many openly poly people on staff, or whether they imported and/or substituted a few for the purposes of this; but either way that video was great. Anyone who has any questions or interest in Poly should go watch it.
No, I'm serious. Go on; I'll wait here. Look, I'll even pause the blog.
...
...
*taps foot, checks watch*
Okay, good? Good.
What I thought when I saw this was "Okay, this is like the ultimate how to answer questions after you come out" video. They hit so many good points, including a number I've harped on before. "What's the difference between Poly and Cheating?" Couldn't be simpler - cheating is against the nature of the relationship, but poly defines the boundaries of the relationship and sets the limits on what is cheating. Why isn't one person enough? You're asking the wrong question, or at least making an assumption. Why isn't one friend enough for you? Oh, you get something different out of all your friends? Do tell. How do you deal with jealousy? The same way most (healthy) monogamous relationships do, just not including the assumption that jealousy is the worst possible thing that could happen to two people.
The comments are worth reading, also - if for no other reason than the sheer lack of bitchiness and stupidity. Really reassuring to not have the ass holes out in force. For once.
All that being said... My favourite line was "Orgies aren't that common. I've been to one; and I spent most of my time in the corner eating Oreos."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/caitlincowie/ask-a-polyamorous-person#.etMyMaBpm
which actually is mostly a wrapper around this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o1gsI3e0u4
and is eminently worth watching. I do find myself wondering actively whether BuzzFeed has that many openly poly people on staff, or whether they imported and/or substituted a few for the purposes of this; but either way that video was great. Anyone who has any questions or interest in Poly should go watch it.
No, I'm serious. Go on; I'll wait here. Look, I'll even pause the blog.
...
...
*taps foot, checks watch*
Okay, good? Good.
What I thought when I saw this was "Okay, this is like the ultimate how to answer questions after you come out" video. They hit so many good points, including a number I've harped on before. "What's the difference between Poly and Cheating?" Couldn't be simpler - cheating is against the nature of the relationship, but poly defines the boundaries of the relationship and sets the limits on what is cheating. Why isn't one person enough? You're asking the wrong question, or at least making an assumption. Why isn't one friend enough for you? Oh, you get something different out of all your friends? Do tell. How do you deal with jealousy? The same way most (healthy) monogamous relationships do, just not including the assumption that jealousy is the worst possible thing that could happen to two people.
The comments are worth reading, also - if for no other reason than the sheer lack of bitchiness and stupidity. Really reassuring to not have the ass holes out in force. For once.
All that being said... My favourite line was "Orgies aren't that common. I've been to one; and I spent most of my time in the corner eating Oreos."
2014/12/22
Dear Women Who Talk to or Date my Husband,
When I explain to people how my marriage works, the main thing I'm told is how people are often too jealous to even consider such an arrangement in their own relationships. I'm here to tell you that I'm not going to be jealous of you.
Maybe it's strange. What most people would consider jealousy and would hold against the "other woman/man" would be something I would more likely hold against my husband. You can't control how he handles his time between us, so that's on him.
It's on me how I react to him getting to know someone else or getting involved with them, though. My first reaction is usually excitement for him, and then eventually there's the momentary anguish over the idea that he will find someone that makes him realize that every bad thing I feel about myself is true. That's not his fault, and that's not your fault, so I'll handle it myself and not get either of you involved in my mini self esteem meltdown.
What I want on your end, though, is this:
Be good to my husband.
Appreciate my place in his life, since I'm giving him the freedom to be involved with you.
Don't be afraid of me.
Be communicative, within reason.
Ultimately, I want to work together with you to make my husband as fulfilled as possible. We don't have to be best friends, but considering I'm more likely to be the one helping him get over you if things fall apart (and not the other way around), being cordial and on the same page with me is kind of important.
Maybe that's bitchy of me, but I figure I'm being incredibly permissive and have a right to expect a new person in our lives to be relatively sane and together. If not, I'll be the first one to point out to him how something isn't working or in the best interest of everyone involved.
I'll be fair, but I won't hesitate to keep my primary relationship as stable as possible. Otherwise, we are good if you are good.
Just saying.
2014/12/19
Not what it seems at first glance...
I've been on a roll with the FetLife links recently... So why let up now? I was totally prepared, based on the title, to be ravingly angry at this post:
https://fetlife.com/groups/14857/group_posts/6322050
Most of the time when this type of title comes up it's an arrogant chest-beating neanderthal who I'd be way happier punching through a wall than giving them the time of day. This person's post is... A pleasant surprise. Well reasoned, polite, and not full of the kind of entitled bullshit that drove me away from The Scene in the first place.
All too often on dating sites, you get the horror stories of some jackass messaging a woman and saying "Hey R U DTF?" or "Show me ur tits" or something similarly intelligent. The equivalent of that on kink/BDSM sites and Fetlife is "Kneel, slut, and worship your Master!" as an introductory message. It astounds me that people ever think that's a good idea. It shows an arrogance, a lack of respect, a total lack of understanding of basic humanity... And it's common. It's everywhere. These people are in your house!!!
Okay; in the vast majority of cases they aren't in your house, but my point stands. If you spend any decent amount of time in the lifestyle, you can't avoid them. They may get blacklisted, they may get shunned... But somewhere they get enough encouragement to keep going. Go figure.
Back to the actual post, though... With only minimal amounts of allowance for variations on a theme, these could all apply to me.
Her specific examples aren't quite to my taste, but her central point stands: the most important measure of whether you're a good sub is whether you and your Dom are both happy with your behaviour and your relationship. If you can get that far, where you two are content? Other peoples' opinions just don't matter, so screw the rest.
https://fetlife.com/groups/14857/group_posts/6322050
Most of the time when this type of title comes up it's an arrogant chest-beating neanderthal who I'd be way happier punching through a wall than giving them the time of day. This person's post is... A pleasant surprise. Well reasoned, polite, and not full of the kind of entitled bullshit that drove me away from The Scene in the first place.
All too often on dating sites, you get the horror stories of some jackass messaging a woman and saying "Hey R U DTF?" or "Show me ur tits" or something similarly intelligent. The equivalent of that on kink/BDSM sites and Fetlife is "Kneel, slut, and worship your Master!" as an introductory message. It astounds me that people ever think that's a good idea. It shows an arrogance, a lack of respect, a total lack of understanding of basic humanity... And it's common. It's everywhere. These people are in your house!!!
Okay; in the vast majority of cases they aren't in your house, but my point stands. If you spend any decent amount of time in the lifestyle, you can't avoid them. They may get blacklisted, they may get shunned... But somewhere they get enough encouragement to keep going. Go figure.
Back to the actual post, though... With only minimal amounts of allowance for variations on a theme, these could all apply to me.
- Devotion. I won't go so far as to say "Devoted only to me," but that's because I'm naturally poly and sortof assume any slave I have would be as well... And even then exactly what limits there are would have to be carefully talked out to make sure neither of us got a nasty shock.
- Willingness. A desire to please, and an openness to trust that things I introduce them to are worth trying.
- Patience. I'm... A trying person to live with, and I'm aware of that. Life with me is frequently not easy. This is a big one, on way more levels than my kink life.
- Generosity. A willingness to give.
- Honesty. This is my big hot-button issue; without honesty, full honesty in both directions, our relationship stands no chance. I wish more people saw that.
- A sense of humour. The ability to smile and enjoy your life as well as our life.
- Independence. The ability to think and act for yourself... Even if we agree we don't always want you to.
Qualities of a good sub/slave? The qualities her/his Owner wants in his/her sub/slave.
Some (femDoms especially) only want an owned who is totally devoted to them. It means the only duty or desire of the Owner is do as I want, don't tell me about your life, don't care about anything about you except what you can do for me. Some Doms want to micromanage and don't want the owned to think on their own at all including when to pee, when to eat, every little move.
So what is said here is good for this Dom but may not be for some others. Most of what she said is good in any relationship IMO.
<snip>
What is most important to me? FIrst...finding someone who sees this life and my part in it similar to his. Then listen to him and do as he says including carrying through with things I know he needs/wants without having to tell me each time.
Her specific examples aren't quite to my taste, but her central point stands: the most important measure of whether you're a good sub is whether you and your Dom are both happy with your behaviour and your relationship. If you can get that far, where you two are content? Other peoples' opinions just don't matter, so screw the rest.
2014/12/18
Selfies and Struggles
Okay. So. Mike and I are in the process of moving -- we have three weeks to get our current place packed up and whatnot, and last night we were looking through a plastic tote full of miscellaneous tech-bits. Alright, maybe he was going through it and I was half-paying-attention while binge-watching The Flash. Either way, as I said: miscellaneous tech-bits. Several keyboards, lots of Apple cords, some mice, and a bunch of old external hard drives.
Like...a bunch.
We weren't sure which ones still worked and which ones didn't (to say nothing of what was on any of them), so Mike plugged one into his computer for a bit of a look.
It was mine, one I purchased almost a decade ago when my iBook G3 started to go a little wonky. It was small, but apparently held some interesting things -- mostly pictures...and every episode of Star Trek you could ever want, provided you weren't looking for the original series.
Anyway. Mike started looking through the pictures, like one does. And there were a lot.
Like a good early-20s lady, I took a lot of photographs of myself. Most of them were in varying states of undress, and I can't even tell you who I was sending them to -- because I was, for sure, sending them to people. Most of them were taken in my bedroom at my mother's house before I moved out for good, and most of them have some kind of filter on them.
Move over, Instagram, let Ash show you how sexy selfies are done. I probably have more experience in this department than you. You might think of me as a bit of an artiste.
Except, it occurred to me: I don't take pictures of myself anymore.
I was single back then and actually got off on making myself appear attractive in photographs. In my head, that wasn't what I looked like in person, but damn if I wasn't able to ramp up the good-lookin' on the other end of a webcam (and later, the iPhone). It was so strange that people appeared to want me. My standards for partners (for both relationships and hookups) was much lower, and what I wanted was someone to find me so attractive that they would stop at nothing (relatively speaking) to have sex with me. Now I'm almost 31 and often walk out of the house without even so much as a glance in a mirror.
The selfies have gone by the wayside as well, except for the sporadic boob-shots taken in my office bathroom. I used to take more of these, sending them off to Mike's phone in the hopes of getting him hard at his desk or in a meeting with his coworkers. But that didn't really happen, so I gave it up after a while. Understanding Mike's sexual nature (that is to say, some flavor of asexual) was hard, and it took a long time to come to terms with it. I started to feel like I was assaulting him with naked pictures and explicit text messages, all of which received little feedback.
It was hard to understand that I was essentially doing the thing that guys online have done to me and every other woman online for years -- sending unrequested pictures of their junk to an unreceptive recipient. Like them, I wanted a reaction. I wanted to turn someone on. I wanted encouragement, appreciation...anything. Instead, most of the time Mike responded politely, other times he said nothing. While he appreciated the thought, it was more common for the pictures to show up at the worst times possible, making him feel neglectful for not being able to respond the way I wanted, to say nothing of the fact that he wasn't in the mood in the first place and wouldn't necessarily be turned on by some bare skin.
Now, several years in, sexuality doesn't stress our relationship to the same level that it did toward the beginning. Maybe knowing I'm not bound to Mike exclusively allowed my sex drive to cool its heels. Maybe stress and life have made me too tired to even want sex in the first place. Maybe it's just a defense mechanism so I don't spend more time disappointed in something that won't change. Whatever the reason, though -- things aren't perfect, but none of this seems as imminently problematic as it did previously. It took time, it takes work, and sometimes issues STILL come up. It's normal, it's expected, and it's all possible to be dealt with.
Just, you know...be prepared to work your ass off for it. Hopefully it'll be worth it.
Like...a bunch.
We weren't sure which ones still worked and which ones didn't (to say nothing of what was on any of them), so Mike plugged one into his computer for a bit of a look.
It was mine, one I purchased almost a decade ago when my iBook G3 started to go a little wonky. It was small, but apparently held some interesting things -- mostly pictures...and every episode of Star Trek you could ever want, provided you weren't looking for the original series.
Anyway. Mike started looking through the pictures, like one does. And there were a lot.
Like a good early-20s lady, I took a lot of photographs of myself. Most of them were in varying states of undress, and I can't even tell you who I was sending them to -- because I was, for sure, sending them to people. Most of them were taken in my bedroom at my mother's house before I moved out for good, and most of them have some kind of filter on them.
Move over, Instagram, let Ash show you how sexy selfies are done. I probably have more experience in this department than you. You might think of me as a bit of an artiste.
Except, it occurred to me: I don't take pictures of myself anymore.
I was single back then and actually got off on making myself appear attractive in photographs. In my head, that wasn't what I looked like in person, but damn if I wasn't able to ramp up the good-lookin' on the other end of a webcam (and later, the iPhone). It was so strange that people appeared to want me. My standards for partners (for both relationships and hookups) was much lower, and what I wanted was someone to find me so attractive that they would stop at nothing (relatively speaking) to have sex with me. Now I'm almost 31 and often walk out of the house without even so much as a glance in a mirror.
The selfies have gone by the wayside as well, except for the sporadic boob-shots taken in my office bathroom. I used to take more of these, sending them off to Mike's phone in the hopes of getting him hard at his desk or in a meeting with his coworkers. But that didn't really happen, so I gave it up after a while. Understanding Mike's sexual nature (that is to say, some flavor of asexual) was hard, and it took a long time to come to terms with it. I started to feel like I was assaulting him with naked pictures and explicit text messages, all of which received little feedback.
It was hard to understand that I was essentially doing the thing that guys online have done to me and every other woman online for years -- sending unrequested pictures of their junk to an unreceptive recipient. Like them, I wanted a reaction. I wanted to turn someone on. I wanted encouragement, appreciation...anything. Instead, most of the time Mike responded politely, other times he said nothing. While he appreciated the thought, it was more common for the pictures to show up at the worst times possible, making him feel neglectful for not being able to respond the way I wanted, to say nothing of the fact that he wasn't in the mood in the first place and wouldn't necessarily be turned on by some bare skin.
Now, several years in, sexuality doesn't stress our relationship to the same level that it did toward the beginning. Maybe knowing I'm not bound to Mike exclusively allowed my sex drive to cool its heels. Maybe stress and life have made me too tired to even want sex in the first place. Maybe it's just a defense mechanism so I don't spend more time disappointed in something that won't change. Whatever the reason, though -- things aren't perfect, but none of this seems as imminently problematic as it did previously. It took time, it takes work, and sometimes issues STILL come up. It's normal, it's expected, and it's all possible to be dealt with.
Just, you know...be prepared to work your ass off for it. Hopefully it'll be worth it.
2014/12/16
A Brief Rant...
I keep up, in my own quaint little way, on kink in the world. I follow a number of groups on Fetlife; I listen to Dan Savage; I follow a couple of blogs; I follow news stories and follow some events as they happen... There's certainly much more I could do to be up-to-date on kink news and culture, but I keep a toe in. And recently, quite a few times, I've come up against someone that has been pushing my buttons; people talking about the fact that they're "Poly" because they have sex with a lot of women. Let me release a small amount of bile; if that's what you're saying, YOU AREN'T POLY.
One definition of polyamoury found online is the following:
To be blunt, if you sleep with a lot of women, you may be open; it's possible you're poly; it's quite likely you're a slut (said in the most friendly, loving way possible); you may be a big stud... But poly is different. Poly is actually maintaining multiple, honest relationships... Not having a huge list of women to call up when you're horny, or being good at picking up men in bars when you're out.
I refer to myself as poly, and I suppose it's a little unfair of me to be so grumpy without differentiating. Fine; I'm poly by nature, without being actively poly right now. There's nothing inherently wrong with having sex a lot - with one person or dozens of people. There's nothing wrong with having one relationship, or five relationships (if you have the energy for it). But for the sanity of those of us who care... Learn what your terms mean? Please?
One definition of polyamoury found online is the following:
The practice, state or ability of having more than one sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved.
To be blunt, if you sleep with a lot of women, you may be open; it's possible you're poly; it's quite likely you're a slut (said in the most friendly, loving way possible); you may be a big stud... But poly is different. Poly is actually maintaining multiple, honest relationships... Not having a huge list of women to call up when you're horny, or being good at picking up men in bars when you're out.
I refer to myself as poly, and I suppose it's a little unfair of me to be so grumpy without differentiating. Fine; I'm poly by nature, without being actively poly right now. There's nothing inherently wrong with having sex a lot - with one person or dozens of people. There's nothing wrong with having one relationship, or five relationships (if you have the energy for it). But for the sanity of those of us who care... Learn what your terms mean? Please?
2014/12/15
Bonus Links!
Asexual humour!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/the-21-realest-tumblr-posts-about-identifying-as-asexual
I'm particularly a fan of #21... But most of them amused me a great deal.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/the-21-realest-tumblr-posts-about-identifying-as-asexual
I'm particularly a fan of #21... But most of them amused me a great deal.
Asexuality, for those even more removed
So here I am, tacking my two cents onto Mike's previous post. I'll be honest and say I didn't read the page he linked -- I deactivated my Fetlife account a while ago because I couldn't for the life of me feel like I fit in -- but I was thinking about how hard it is to explain to other people about how asexuality works and why I'm okay because married to someone who falls in that spectrum.
Let me lay out the scene for you:
I'll admit that, at times, I complain about it. I'll be at work and one of my raunchier coworkers (I love you guys) will make some sort of reference to some winked and nodded implied sex act, leaving me to comment that I didn't know what that was like anymore. Do I do that all the time? No. But I'm bad at pretending things are any different than they are (I used all that up back when I still lived at home with my mother) plus I am entirely too open about certain things at the best of times. The people I say things like that to are often aghast or offended, or like to think terribly of Mike because of some societal belief that all men are led solely by their gonads, therefore, clearly he must be defective.
One of them actually told me, "maybe if you lost some weight and put some effort into how you look, he'd want to fuck you more." It's weird to say, but she wasn't actually trying to be a bitch. She just not only doesn't understand asexuality but she doesn't understand that I'm not the type to dress a certain way or wear makeup not because I'm lazy -- I actually just don't think there's anything wrong with the way I was put together. I don't believe in God, but my reaction to people doing things to change how they look is often along the lines of, "So you're saying that God made a mistake and you have to fix it?"
Anyway.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would meet someone who I would want to spend the rest of my life with and we wouldn't be particularly sexually active and I'd be okay with it, I'd consider it another reason to never venture out in the real world because people who think they have psychic powers are creepy and often wrong. But here I am, and here is how things have shaken out.
I understand that it's hard to wrap one's mind around. It's why I don't bring it up much with other people, but I also don't go out of my way to hide it. I'm of the belief that, in a world where people are often so self-motivated and always on the prowl for anything that furthers their agenda, when two people (or three, or four...) can get together and work together for mutual satisfaction and enjoyment, it's the most beautiful thing those people can do together. It can relax tensed muscles, it can help ease headaches and body pain, it can create life and deepen existing bonds between partners. But I can also understand that some people just aren't into it and have other ways of dealing with headaches. Over time, I've learned to find other ways to enjoy Mike's company. As anyone in a relationship knows, it's almost impossible to find someone who feels the same way as you do about everything across the boards. So if you won't break up with someone because maybe they like tomato soup and you prefer New England clam chowder, can't sex be handled similarly if everything else is going well?
What it comes down to for me is that life's too hard to throw away a good thing over a lack of mind-blowing mutual orgasms, even if some of my friends think it's ridiculous. I just do my part to convince them otherwise by speaking well of my relationship and not only bringing Mike up in conversation when he's driving me crazy. And ultimately, they're not the ones putting in the work every day in this marriage so I appreciate their concern, but that's as far as I'll take it.
Let me lay out the scene for you:
I'll admit that, at times, I complain about it. I'll be at work and one of my raunchier coworkers (I love you guys) will make some sort of reference to some winked and nodded implied sex act, leaving me to comment that I didn't know what that was like anymore. Do I do that all the time? No. But I'm bad at pretending things are any different than they are (I used all that up back when I still lived at home with my mother) plus I am entirely too open about certain things at the best of times. The people I say things like that to are often aghast or offended, or like to think terribly of Mike because of some societal belief that all men are led solely by their gonads, therefore, clearly he must be defective.
One of them actually told me, "maybe if you lost some weight and put some effort into how you look, he'd want to fuck you more." It's weird to say, but she wasn't actually trying to be a bitch. She just not only doesn't understand asexuality but she doesn't understand that I'm not the type to dress a certain way or wear makeup not because I'm lazy -- I actually just don't think there's anything wrong with the way I was put together. I don't believe in God, but my reaction to people doing things to change how they look is often along the lines of, "So you're saying that God made a mistake and you have to fix it?"
Anyway.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would meet someone who I would want to spend the rest of my life with and we wouldn't be particularly sexually active and I'd be okay with it, I'd consider it another reason to never venture out in the real world because people who think they have psychic powers are creepy and often wrong. But here I am, and here is how things have shaken out.
I understand that it's hard to wrap one's mind around. It's why I don't bring it up much with other people, but I also don't go out of my way to hide it. I'm of the belief that, in a world where people are often so self-motivated and always on the prowl for anything that furthers their agenda, when two people (or three, or four...) can get together and work together for mutual satisfaction and enjoyment, it's the most beautiful thing those people can do together. It can relax tensed muscles, it can help ease headaches and body pain, it can create life and deepen existing bonds between partners. But I can also understand that some people just aren't into it and have other ways of dealing with headaches. Over time, I've learned to find other ways to enjoy Mike's company. As anyone in a relationship knows, it's almost impossible to find someone who feels the same way as you do about everything across the boards. So if you won't break up with someone because maybe they like tomato soup and you prefer New England clam chowder, can't sex be handled similarly if everything else is going well?
What it comes down to for me is that life's too hard to throw away a good thing over a lack of mind-blowing mutual orgasms, even if some of my friends think it's ridiculous. I just do my part to convince them otherwise by speaking well of my relationship and not only bringing Mike up in conversation when he's driving me crazy. And ultimately, they're not the ones putting in the work every day in this marriage so I appreciate their concern, but that's as far as I'll take it.
2014/12/13
Random
2014/12/12
Asexuality - Another Outsider's Perspective
Here's a post on FetLife from a guy whose girlfriend identifies as asexual.
https://fetlife.com/groups/7247/group_posts/6316062
I won't bother copying it, because the meat of it is the long string of comments afterwards, not the initial post; but it's definitely worth reading through. I respect him for posting this; he simply didn't understand what she meant or what she was going through, and reached out to figure it out. You can ding this guy for not talking to her and for going to FetLife for answers, which one can argue is a terrible plan... But based on his comments they've definitely talked about it, and that's better than a lot of people do.
The entire asexuality spectrum can be devastatingly confusing, both for the people on it and the people around them. It's a difficult hurdle to cross, because it can be very hard for people to create a romantic relationship when the sexual relationship is so... Estranged.
There have been windows where I feel like I need a sign saying "Special Care Instructions Not Included" anytime I go on a date.
I think, though, that my favourite part of this post is one of the comments a ways down:
This person gets it, and what they say is critically important. It's way too easy for our loved ones - even those who mostly get it - to be bothered or upset by or misunderstand or view towards sex. Some asexuals are squicked out by sex... And for some, it's not that we dislike it; it's that it simply doesn't have the meaning to us that other things might. Either way, we understand how you feel - intellectually if not emotionally. We get that you enjoy this. We still love you and we want you to be happy. We just... Express it in different ways.
https://fetlife.com/groups/7247/group_posts/6316062
I won't bother copying it, because the meat of it is the long string of comments afterwards, not the initial post; but it's definitely worth reading through. I respect him for posting this; he simply didn't understand what she meant or what she was going through, and reached out to figure it out. You can ding this guy for not talking to her and for going to FetLife for answers, which one can argue is a terrible plan... But based on his comments they've definitely talked about it, and that's better than a lot of people do.
The entire asexuality spectrum can be devastatingly confusing, both for the people on it and the people around them. It's a difficult hurdle to cross, because it can be very hard for people to create a romantic relationship when the sexual relationship is so... Estranged.
There have been windows where I feel like I need a sign saying "Special Care Instructions Not Included" anytime I go on a date.
I think, though, that my favourite part of this post is one of the comments a ways down:
I find it to be like an automtic[sic] door opening to a store. Most people walk by it and the doors magically open, and they are drawn inside. I, however, have to make that choice to push the door open. Or someone holds it open for me. Once I'm in there, there will be things I like and don't like, but I'll never have that experience of just strolling along the sidewalk and BAM , wow! that door opened for me and I want in to buy stuff NOW!
There is a lot of variation within the asexual community. I think you re right that too much questioning of her without researching first might seem like you were challenging her. But, here more than other areas, I think there is much variation.
From personal experience, I would recommend that you keep in mind that certain things might work well for her, even though it is in a context you might not expect. For example, she might like sex without orgasms, or giving without receiving...which might seem pointless to some, but is very meaningful emotionally to others. She might also just like sex with you now that she has bonded with you. That's "demisexual", and it will usually seem just like typical sexuality, it just takes longer to develop. Any number of the things you mentioned could be true. Or all of them. Or none of them. Sorry to be so confusing...but the thing to remember is if she is having a good time, it's fine.
This person gets it, and what they say is critically important. It's way too easy for our loved ones - even those who mostly get it - to be bothered or upset by or misunderstand or view towards sex. Some asexuals are squicked out by sex... And for some, it's not that we dislike it; it's that it simply doesn't have the meaning to us that other things might. Either way, we understand how you feel - intellectually if not emotionally. We get that you enjoy this. We still love you and we want you to be happy. We just... Express it in different ways.
2014/12/11
Bah-humblog
So, I have a confession to make, and I hope none of you hate me too much for it.
Here goes.
Okay.
So.
I hate the holidays.
Phew. Okay. Big weight off my chest. I feel better now.
I mention this because this revelation, plus why I feel the way that I do, are closely linked to the same "it's like no one understands me" undercurrent running through this blog. We have talked about how having non-standard relationships can make holidays problematic, but what about on a more singularly personal level?
I've been inundated with "the perfect gift for the (oddly specific human subtype) in your life" articles on various bits of social media lately. While I understand that stereotypes exist for a reason, and that statistically, people generally fall into standard behaviors and interests that match up with their born genders, being on the outside of that can really hurt when people try to give presents to your gender and not, you know, your actual personality.
"Your pre-tween girl will love washi tape and brightly colored pens!"
Will she?
I'm being difficult. I know this. Chances are, yes, she will love tiny strips of patterned craft tape and purple pens and beauty supplies and posters of cute boys and even cuter animals. But the assumption can drive home the idea that deviancy is a problem, leaving plenty of non-conformists feeling unwelcome in these situations.
It's a fight I feel like I've been fighting for my entire life. Not all girls day dream about their perfect wedding. Not all girls like Barbie dolls and try on their Mom's high heels. We don't all like purses or want to own "the perfect clutch." So are you more willing to tell me that I'm not actually female or that not falling in line means I'm wrong?
I'm thankful I don't deal with seasonal affective disorder in the winter (I get it in the summer, once again bucking the trend) because being reminded at every turn that I'm apparently not putting my vagina to proper use can really drag a person down.
Please, when you're buying gifts, buy them for the person and not their assumed gender identity stereotype. That's not a sentence I really ever thought I would write, but we live in the future. We don't have to be so old fashioned about this kind of thing anymore.
Buy Sally a kitten doll because she likes cats, not because "all girls love cute things." Buy Bobby a blue shirt if it's his favorite color, not because he's a boy. Take two seconds to pay attention to the people in your life.
If you did, maybe someone like me would be less inclined to hate the holidays do thoroughly if they didn't feel like they were wasting everyone's money and generosity by not using or appreciating ill-suited gifts year after year.
I guess what I'm saying is you don't need to have a live-in slave to feel weird around family at the holidays. Sometimes you just have to not like dresses and fancy girl things and eventually be really bad at graciously saying "thank you, I love it" to family members who can't afford to buy presents in the first place.
Is it April yet?
2014/12/10
2014/12/09
The Past Is... Well, Something.
I'll be honest and say I don't remember the last time I mentioned Sunshine, my former sub. She's popped up here and there in the blog, but I hadn't actually talked to her in more than a month and a half - since October 17th - until today. She sent me an e-mail yesterday saying she'd seen one of my old messages while going through her mailbox and wanted to say hello.
We didn't part on the best of terms. She was, in fact, incredibly upset at me. I had told her I was not prepared to take her as a submissive; she felt betrayed; I was not in a mood to deal with the additional stress in my life; and she stopped talking to me. I'm not about to go back and analyze what happened. I could go into a lot more detail justifying my side of it, but it just doesn't matter - I was not willing to handle the way she was acting, she took exception to my deciding that and how I presented it, and there's not much more to it.
So we talked a bit today. She explained part of why she acted that way, told me she doesn't want to not talk to me forever... And then she asked me what had happened to our contract, the copies of which I had when we stopped talking. She had demanded of me, at the time, to send them back or destroy them, and I'd never responded to her; and she wanted to know what had happened.
What had happened is that I'd totally ignored her. Both copies are still in my correspondence in my bedroom. There are two very good reasons why I still have them.
The first isn't complicated; they're memories to me. I value my past a great deal. There are huge swathes of it which are sad, unpleasant, or extremely painful... And yet it's very important to me. I don't always like everything about myself, but I'm proud of who I've become. My past is a part of me, and every terrible event, every memory that makes me sad or cry or ache also brought me closer to who I am today and the place I am in life right now. I keep a lot of small things like that because of the memories they evoke, and I have no interest in losing that small tangible connection to my past.
The second is both very simple and far more complicated; those contracts are proof, tangible proof, of both of our involvement in case a... Problem arises. It's a sad truth, but there is enormous precedent for D/s relationships to end badly. It's a terrible idea to get into any such relationship if the people involved don't trust each other; but as my marriage proves beyond any reasonable doubt, you can go into a situation in good faith and absolute trust and still have it end far worse than you could possibly imagine. A contract written in no uncertain terms involving a discussion of BDSM, signed by her, in an envelope addressed in her hand and return-addressed to her, is about as strong a defense of at least original consent as you can have without multiple witnesses to support you.
I don't even mean defense necessarily against a legal dispute - an accusation of rape or assault, though obviously that's a concern; I mean just as much defense against the accusations of a loved one (a husband, a boyfriend, whatever)... Or against her.
My assumption, when she asked if I had, was that she was afraid I'd use the contract against her; and though I never would use it against her, it's not an unreasonable fear in general. She says, rather, that she asked at the time because she "didn't want me to have the part of her heart she put into it".
I can understand; that's part of why I kept them... And I'd do it again.
We didn't part on the best of terms. She was, in fact, incredibly upset at me. I had told her I was not prepared to take her as a submissive; she felt betrayed; I was not in a mood to deal with the additional stress in my life; and she stopped talking to me. I'm not about to go back and analyze what happened. I could go into a lot more detail justifying my side of it, but it just doesn't matter - I was not willing to handle the way she was acting, she took exception to my deciding that and how I presented it, and there's not much more to it.
So we talked a bit today. She explained part of why she acted that way, told me she doesn't want to not talk to me forever... And then she asked me what had happened to our contract, the copies of which I had when we stopped talking. She had demanded of me, at the time, to send them back or destroy them, and I'd never responded to her; and she wanted to know what had happened.
What had happened is that I'd totally ignored her. Both copies are still in my correspondence in my bedroom. There are two very good reasons why I still have them.
The first isn't complicated; they're memories to me. I value my past a great deal. There are huge swathes of it which are sad, unpleasant, or extremely painful... And yet it's very important to me. I don't always like everything about myself, but I'm proud of who I've become. My past is a part of me, and every terrible event, every memory that makes me sad or cry or ache also brought me closer to who I am today and the place I am in life right now. I keep a lot of small things like that because of the memories they evoke, and I have no interest in losing that small tangible connection to my past.
The second is both very simple and far more complicated; those contracts are proof, tangible proof, of both of our involvement in case a... Problem arises. It's a sad truth, but there is enormous precedent for D/s relationships to end badly. It's a terrible idea to get into any such relationship if the people involved don't trust each other; but as my marriage proves beyond any reasonable doubt, you can go into a situation in good faith and absolute trust and still have it end far worse than you could possibly imagine. A contract written in no uncertain terms involving a discussion of BDSM, signed by her, in an envelope addressed in her hand and return-addressed to her, is about as strong a defense of at least original consent as you can have without multiple witnesses to support you.
I don't even mean defense necessarily against a legal dispute - an accusation of rape or assault, though obviously that's a concern; I mean just as much defense against the accusations of a loved one (a husband, a boyfriend, whatever)... Or against her.
My assumption, when she asked if I had, was that she was afraid I'd use the contract against her; and though I never would use it against her, it's not an unreasonable fear in general. She says, rather, that she asked at the time because she "didn't want me to have the part of her heart she put into it".
I can understand; that's part of why I kept them... And I'd do it again.
2014/12/08
Now *I'm* the one in the majority...!
As anyone with a social media account has noticed lately, the word "privilege" has been thrown around a lot -- unfortunately, a lot of people who have some specific form of privilege often are completely unaware of it. That's what happens when you come to expect something as the standard and assume everyone is on the same page.
Privilege is sneaky like that.
On paper I'm a white, married, middle-class female, and I know I've had advantages in life (thanks for Catholic all-girls school, grandpa...*sigh*). In between the lines on that paper, though, I'm a queer-type person who falls somewhere in the space between cis and trans, who happens to be in an open quasi-companionate marriage with my best friend. I've felt varying degrees of "outside an acceptable range" in regards to almost everything for my whole life, which is why it was so strange to realize there are things even I take for granted.
A few months back, I was looking on FetLife (trying to find somewhere to fit in...which didn't quite work) and kept seeing ads on the sidebar featuring a heavy amount of ball torture. That was only one of many graphic pictures littering the site, but it was one that made me cringe the most -- I'm all for people doing things that work for them, but it'd be lying if it didn't squick me out a bit. It's just not my thing, and I'm okay with it being of interest to other people.
But to get away from the ball torture -- what about the other ads? Why did only that one bother me?
Oh. Because I'm more okay with the other images because they cater more to my interests and desires.
Oh.
Well, shit.
I asked Mike a few days later, "Do the ads on FetLife bother you?" and without any hesitation or need for me to explain further, he emphatically responded, "oh, yeah."
It was the first time I really sat down to think about how unfriendly the world is to the asexual crowd, to say nothing of non-straight white folks. Never before had I felt so much a part of the problem.
I had previously recognized that my own sex drive and interests caused some stress for Mike, which I handled mostly by stopping things like dirty texting and sending risque photos to his phone -- the timing was never right so it just seemed to be a waste of time -- but it had never occurred to me that society in general did a far better and more pervasive job of keeping my own partner outside his comfort zone than I did. So while I could apologize and take action to stop "forcibly rubbing my vagina all over him from a distance" (I'm great at saying I'm sorry), society just can't "take it all back" and stop making everything boil down to the state of one's erogenous zones.
The realization that I was one of the people these marketing traps were for certainly knocked me down a peg or two, and I wish I could do more than watch what I talk about or do. I mean, I *did* make sure to thumbs-up petitions on Fetlife to have better options for ad-choices...but it was just before I deleted my account, possibly negating the whole thing.
I don't know.
To everyone in the world more like Mike than me, I'm sorry that life in a lot of societies can sometimes make you feel like you're being slapped in the face by a sentient man-sized penis with breasts. I know what it's like to not be a target audience, and I'll do what I can to get people to stop assuming we all think about sex the same way or with the same frequency. It won't be much, but every little bit helps.
I hope so, anyway.
Privilege is sneaky like that.
On paper I'm a white, married, middle-class female, and I know I've had advantages in life (thanks for Catholic all-girls school, grandpa...*sigh*). In between the lines on that paper, though, I'm a queer-type person who falls somewhere in the space between cis and trans, who happens to be in an open quasi-companionate marriage with my best friend. I've felt varying degrees of "outside an acceptable range" in regards to almost everything for my whole life, which is why it was so strange to realize there are things even I take for granted.
A few months back, I was looking on FetLife (trying to find somewhere to fit in...which didn't quite work) and kept seeing ads on the sidebar featuring a heavy amount of ball torture. That was only one of many graphic pictures littering the site, but it was one that made me cringe the most -- I'm all for people doing things that work for them, but it'd be lying if it didn't squick me out a bit. It's just not my thing, and I'm okay with it being of interest to other people.
But to get away from the ball torture -- what about the other ads? Why did only that one bother me?
Oh. Because I'm more okay with the other images because they cater more to my interests and desires.
Oh.
Well, shit.
I asked Mike a few days later, "Do the ads on FetLife bother you?" and without any hesitation or need for me to explain further, he emphatically responded, "oh, yeah."
It was the first time I really sat down to think about how unfriendly the world is to the asexual crowd, to say nothing of non-straight white folks. Never before had I felt so much a part of the problem.
I had previously recognized that my own sex drive and interests caused some stress for Mike, which I handled mostly by stopping things like dirty texting and sending risque photos to his phone -- the timing was never right so it just seemed to be a waste of time -- but it had never occurred to me that society in general did a far better and more pervasive job of keeping my own partner outside his comfort zone than I did. So while I could apologize and take action to stop "forcibly rubbing my vagina all over him from a distance" (I'm great at saying I'm sorry), society just can't "take it all back" and stop making everything boil down to the state of one's erogenous zones.
The realization that I was one of the people these marketing traps were for certainly knocked me down a peg or two, and I wish I could do more than watch what I talk about or do. I mean, I *did* make sure to thumbs-up petitions on Fetlife to have better options for ad-choices...but it was just before I deleted my account, possibly negating the whole thing.
I don't know.
To everyone in the world more like Mike than me, I'm sorry that life in a lot of societies can sometimes make you feel like you're being slapped in the face by a sentient man-sized penis with breasts. I know what it's like to not be a target audience, and I'll do what I can to get people to stop assuming we all think about sex the same way or with the same frequency. It won't be much, but every little bit helps.
I hope so, anyway.
2014/12/05
I read a lot of strange articles online...
I read a lot of strange articles online. Between blogs, Tumblrs, and the occasionally insane people I work with I get numerous strange links every day. And when my random online travels brought me to this article:
http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/11/electric-shock-study-suggests-wed-rather-hurt-ourselves-others
my first instinct was to laugh. Still, I saved the link because I wanted to think more closely about it.
The article is about a behavioral study. Many people are familiar with Stanley Milgram's experiment about obedience to authority (a subject I clearly never think about... *cough*), and this was apparently at least partially inspired by those experiments. One Molly Crockett, a psychologist, set up an experiment where volunteers were randomly paired, and then one of the pair was chosen as the decider. One of the two was designated as who would receive a series of electric shocks; and then the decider got to pick between between two deals, each presenting some number of shocks for some amount of money. The money stood in as proxy for how much they valued harming themselves vs. harming others and varied from $0.15 to $15, and the shocks were calibrated to be "mildly painful but not intolerable".
Based on previous experience they expected people to be averse to shocking themselves, and this was correct; people were on average willing to take $0.30 less per shock to experience fewer shocks. But where they were expecting people to be far less caring about inflicting shocks on the other person, the study found that people were willing to lose twice as much - $0.60 less per shock on average - to give the other, totally anonymous, person fewer shocks.
This is fascinatingly counter-intuitive to me. It's very easy to picture people as being immensely selfish, and that would imply people would be willing to hand out as many shocks as were necessary to get the highest amount possible; instead people were going out of the way, "suffering" monetarily to save anonymous, unknown people from pain they'd signed up agreeing to endure.
And I mean, that isn't a bad thing; as a rule a willingness to be restrained on causing pain to others isn't a bad thing. I'm not sure if I'd hold back or not. I'm incredibly big on consent, but it's hard not to take their having volunteered in the first place as consent.They knew what was expected to happen; it's not like it's against their will. So why not?
People are just so scared of causing pain to other people, and it's... Adorable. In my experience, most people have some level of pain tolerance when it comes to sex. Not everyone likes being spanked; not everyone likes having their hair pulled; not everyone likes having nails run down there back; certainly not everyone likes needles or whips or hot wax... But most people enjoy some level of it. And on the other side, people who actually like inflicting pain? They're harder to find.
How much of that is because those people really aren't out there and how much is just the fear of being exposed? There's not much stigma in enjoying a little rough sex... But the stigma in being rough is endemic. I suspect that's what happened in the study; and it's certainly what happens day to day in the BDSM community.
http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/11/electric-shock-study-suggests-wed-rather-hurt-ourselves-others
my first instinct was to laugh. Still, I saved the link because I wanted to think more closely about it.
The article is about a behavioral study. Many people are familiar with Stanley Milgram's experiment about obedience to authority (a subject I clearly never think about... *cough*), and this was apparently at least partially inspired by those experiments. One Molly Crockett, a psychologist, set up an experiment where volunteers were randomly paired, and then one of the pair was chosen as the decider. One of the two was designated as who would receive a series of electric shocks; and then the decider got to pick between between two deals, each presenting some number of shocks for some amount of money. The money stood in as proxy for how much they valued harming themselves vs. harming others and varied from $0.15 to $15, and the shocks were calibrated to be "mildly painful but not intolerable".
Based on previous experience they expected people to be averse to shocking themselves, and this was correct; people were on average willing to take $0.30 less per shock to experience fewer shocks. But where they were expecting people to be far less caring about inflicting shocks on the other person, the study found that people were willing to lose twice as much - $0.60 less per shock on average - to give the other, totally anonymous, person fewer shocks.
This is fascinatingly counter-intuitive to me. It's very easy to picture people as being immensely selfish, and that would imply people would be willing to hand out as many shocks as were necessary to get the highest amount possible; instead people were going out of the way, "suffering" monetarily to save anonymous, unknown people from pain they'd signed up agreeing to endure.
And I mean, that isn't a bad thing; as a rule a willingness to be restrained on causing pain to others isn't a bad thing. I'm not sure if I'd hold back or not. I'm incredibly big on consent, but it's hard not to take their having volunteered in the first place as consent.They knew what was expected to happen; it's not like it's against their will. So why not?
People are just so scared of causing pain to other people, and it's... Adorable. In my experience, most people have some level of pain tolerance when it comes to sex. Not everyone likes being spanked; not everyone likes having their hair pulled; not everyone likes having nails run down there back; certainly not everyone likes needles or whips or hot wax... But most people enjoy some level of it. And on the other side, people who actually like inflicting pain? They're harder to find.
How much of that is because those people really aren't out there and how much is just the fear of being exposed? There's not much stigma in enjoying a little rough sex... But the stigma in being rough is endemic. I suspect that's what happened in the study; and it's certainly what happens day to day in the BDSM community.
2014/12/04
On Doing Things (You Know...Things)
Everyday there come more new examples of people making bad choices based on desires they are told to ignore. Sometimes it's society, or parents, maybe peers -- even ourselves -- and the end result seems the same:
We want to do The Thing.
We are told not to do The Thing.
We agonize.
We stamp it down.
We forget, maybe.
The Thing comes up over and over.
We want to do The Thing.
We agonize more.
At the least opportune time, we do The Thing.
Everything goes to hell.
Self loathing comes into play.
We still want to do The Thing.
Everything is still hell.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I was raised Catholic, so this is normal. But should it be?
About a year or so ago, I started listening to a podcast focusing on serial killers and other assorted deviants, mostly in the form of interviews with authors of books on the topic. I find these things fascinating because I don't understand the motivation people have to do awful things. (I can hate people, but never enough to go on a rampage or to maim anyone.)
I only listened for a little while because the sound quality was atrocious and the interviewer mostly talked about himself, but in the process of listening,I heard the word "sadist" thrown around frequently.
So they would lay out these situations, and I would find myself thinking that, if there wasn't so much stigma about wanting to do things that most people would consider bad or evil when done non-consensually, a lot of people could be saved jail time if they could get their interests out in more healthy ways.
When you deny yourself something, it stays at the forefront of your mind. If people suggest treating yourself in small ways when attempting to diet, it makes sense that the same idea can be applied to other things with more importance. Want a dungeon? There are people who would clamor to fill it. Are you a fan of bloodplay? There are people who would love to share their blood with you.
You get my point.
I just wish people could be better at accepting themselves. I wish it were more acceptable to be oneself and it were easier to fulfill features in healthy ways. There are people into so-called "bad things," and there are people into having those "bad things" done to them. It's possible to get needs met when you take time and effort and sanity and patience and mix them all together instead of shoving down explosive material until it has no choice but to burst and take out nearby people at the same time.
Be careful, be good to people, but be yourself and don't ignore desires just because not everyone understands them. Or else you'll do something drastic and far worse than initially intended, with far more extreme consequences than would've come from just doing The Thing in the first place.
2014/12/02
A Little Bit Backwards
There've been a number of times I've listened to a Savage Lovecast and gotten an idea from it. I mean, he does advice and news day in and day out and it's hard to go through one of his podcasts without hearing something I feel is worth commenting on. This time, though, it was the other way around; I started writing about a topic and then listened to a Savage Lovecast that talked about the same topic. It was a funny turnaround, and almost made me feel like I should change it... Which I suppose doesn't make much sense. But either way.
I spent last week visiting family. Quite a lot of people did; it was, after all, Thanksgiving week. I mean, the day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year (apparently its being the busiest is a myth? It's still in the top ten) as people scurry to their parents' or childrens' or siblings' or in-laws' houses to eat to much and watch ridiculous things on TV (If you're curious, we watched a bunch of Cutthroat Kitchen; turns out I'm a sucker for Alton Brown.). You play games, you talk, you reminisce, you argue and get grumpy over stupid things... All the things families do.
Thanksgiving is really the beginning of what is the biggest family season for a lot of people. There's Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Years, make-up or alternate holidays for split families, various school breaks, massive amounts of shopping... It's not uncommon for this time of year to be the only time you see more distant family members. The thing is, though, that you don't have just one family. Everyone has the family they're born into, but there's also the family you choose... And when the two groups aren't out to each other, that can bring conflict.
Most people have a chosen family separate from their biological family, even if that isn't how they define it. It consists of their friends, significant others and loved ones - the people they surround themselves with intentionally. Another term people use is "intentional families", but it really amounts to the same thing; the people you choose rather than the people you were handed.
The biggest conflict comes, like I said, when the two groups aren't entirely aware of each other. The common scenario is when you haven't come out as non-straight, and haven't introduced your family to the fact that your significant other is the same sex as you. Coming out as gay or lesbian or bi to your family can be traumatic; and yet from my own (probably selfish) point of view, coming out as poly or - the horror - kinky is easily as bad if not worse.
I mean, Ash and I currently do not have a third, and yet what if we did? What if I did have a slave who I did not want to leave behind? I was having a conversation with Persephone the other day about what I want out of a submissive, and the comment that stuck in my mind was that I don't want someone bound to me by a collar; I want someone who loves their collar because they love me. And it may be totally alien to someone who doesn't feel the same way, but that type of situation isn't one where I would want to leave my sub - part of my family - when I went somewhere for the holidays.
It's complicated, of course, by their family. With my family I could, if I needed to, bring along a sub or a girlfriend as a "friend", and whether or not my parents were suspicious they would at least not say much. With Ash's family, I suspect it'd be rather harder; I can't think of a graceful way to bring a friend along with most of them, though we probably could if we talked fast enough. And with this hypothetical sub's family... Unless they were remarkably open-minded, unless you're out to them, it would be hard to explain her bringing a *married couple* with her to her family at the holidays.
Honestly, in some cases there's just no good answer; no matter how it's handled someone is going to be uncomfortable or upset. Some families will turn it into a choice - your give family or your intentional family - and that choice is never good. It's not fair to you or your loved ones. To me, it comes back to that they are trying to love you for who they want you to be, not necessarily who you are; and that's an unsustainable situation in the long run. Dan Savage's advice is always, when you aren't dependent on them, simply tell them the truth; give them the ultimatum that they can either love you for who you are or hate you for not being who they wanted you to be. I agree with the advice... But it's scary. And it's advice that, for better or for worse, I haven't followed as of yet.
In this season, though, remember your families - both of them - and take comfort in them as best you can. My families - my given family and my chosen family - are both small... And I regret that most days. I miss them, and they should not be taken for granted... No matter how much stress they cause.
I spent last week visiting family. Quite a lot of people did; it was, after all, Thanksgiving week. I mean, the day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year (apparently its being the busiest is a myth? It's still in the top ten) as people scurry to their parents' or childrens' or siblings' or in-laws' houses to eat to much and watch ridiculous things on TV (If you're curious, we watched a bunch of Cutthroat Kitchen; turns out I'm a sucker for Alton Brown.). You play games, you talk, you reminisce, you argue and get grumpy over stupid things... All the things families do.
Thanksgiving is really the beginning of what is the biggest family season for a lot of people. There's Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Years, make-up or alternate holidays for split families, various school breaks, massive amounts of shopping... It's not uncommon for this time of year to be the only time you see more distant family members. The thing is, though, that you don't have just one family. Everyone has the family they're born into, but there's also the family you choose... And when the two groups aren't out to each other, that can bring conflict.
Most people have a chosen family separate from their biological family, even if that isn't how they define it. It consists of their friends, significant others and loved ones - the people they surround themselves with intentionally. Another term people use is "intentional families", but it really amounts to the same thing; the people you choose rather than the people you were handed.
The biggest conflict comes, like I said, when the two groups aren't entirely aware of each other. The common scenario is when you haven't come out as non-straight, and haven't introduced your family to the fact that your significant other is the same sex as you. Coming out as gay or lesbian or bi to your family can be traumatic; and yet from my own (probably selfish) point of view, coming out as poly or - the horror - kinky is easily as bad if not worse.
I mean, Ash and I currently do not have a third, and yet what if we did? What if I did have a slave who I did not want to leave behind? I was having a conversation with Persephone the other day about what I want out of a submissive, and the comment that stuck in my mind was that I don't want someone bound to me by a collar; I want someone who loves their collar because they love me. And it may be totally alien to someone who doesn't feel the same way, but that type of situation isn't one where I would want to leave my sub - part of my family - when I went somewhere for the holidays.
It's complicated, of course, by their family. With my family I could, if I needed to, bring along a sub or a girlfriend as a "friend", and whether or not my parents were suspicious they would at least not say much. With Ash's family, I suspect it'd be rather harder; I can't think of a graceful way to bring a friend along with most of them, though we probably could if we talked fast enough. And with this hypothetical sub's family... Unless they were remarkably open-minded, unless you're out to them, it would be hard to explain her bringing a *married couple* with her to her family at the holidays.
Honestly, in some cases there's just no good answer; no matter how it's handled someone is going to be uncomfortable or upset. Some families will turn it into a choice - your give family or your intentional family - and that choice is never good. It's not fair to you or your loved ones. To me, it comes back to that they are trying to love you for who they want you to be, not necessarily who you are; and that's an unsustainable situation in the long run. Dan Savage's advice is always, when you aren't dependent on them, simply tell them the truth; give them the ultimatum that they can either love you for who you are or hate you for not being who they wanted you to be. I agree with the advice... But it's scary. And it's advice that, for better or for worse, I haven't followed as of yet.
In this season, though, remember your families - both of them - and take comfort in them as best you can. My families - my given family and my chosen family - are both small... And I regret that most days. I miss them, and they should not be taken for granted... No matter how much stress they cause.
2014/12/01
Coming to terms with things
Had I been aware of websites like Fetlife five years ago, I would've labeled myself submissive: I appreciate knowing explicitly what is expected of me, having certain things I am responsible for, and I have a habit of keeping track of my partners to make sure they are as taken care of as possible.
Flash forward a few years to when I met Mike. Here was (is) a man who had had submissives and slaves, knew what we wanted from them, and looked forward to having then again. It made me want to complete him; it gave me the challenge of being his perfect and ideal partner. Like with most of my boyfriends, I wanted to meet his needs and be better than all the rest. I wanted him to love me and treasure me above all else. I wanted to be magical. I wanted to be irreplaceable.
I wanted him to keep me.
For a long time, I felt like a failure because he pushed that side of me away. I would try to engage the part of him that he admitted he wished came out more, but he would shy away. On top of that, my sexual advances were equally useless, which left me feeling like I was treading water but never quite going anywhere.
From me, Mike wasn't looking for a sub. I didn't have what it took, especially because I couldn't drop the need for sexuality in these potential scenarios. It was confusing and stressful, but I focused on what I could provide in his life instead:
Understanding. Support. Encouragement. Love. Friendship. Laughter.
It took dating someone who actually actively wanted a completely submissive partner in their life to realize I wasn't actually naturally submissive. When I could get his dom side to come out, I kept being uncomfortable with the ideas he Mike was suggesting. I could go for bits and pieces, but he couldn't get into things piecemeal like that, and I couldn't just jump in completely like he needed. It was frustrating on both ends because we were both invested in him being happy and fulfilled.
Then it hit me:
Thanks to my mother, I was raised with the idea that you did whatever you could to convince your partner to stay with you, since clearly no one would stay of their own accord otherwise. I was raised with the idea that oneself doesn't really matter, especially if being yourself means being alone.
So while the part of me that wants to take care of the people around me still exists, it isn't my main character trait anymore. For the first time in my life, I can basically be myself instead of doing what I can to twist myself to be good for someone else. It's still awkward at times, to be honest, and there's still that part of me that feels I'm letting Mike down by not being able to meet his needs entirely... But he isn't looking for me to do that, and I have no real problem letting him find someone else who can pick up where I left off. It takes some pressure off the part of me that still lingers from before, the part inherently feeling like a failure who worries so much about being abandoned.
I am starting to recognize my worth beyond my willingness to do anything for the people I love. It's difficult and stressful and painful at times -- and it's a long road to walk down on top of that. Thankfully I've got a pretty fantastic travel companion, so it's worth the trouble.
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