sexeteria has moved!

Come visit me at the new and improved Sexeteria

2008-03-01T21:04:00.000-05:00

I moved my blog to another url a while back. You should be automatically redirected there in a few seconds. If you aren't, click the link below.

http://sexeteria.net/

Looking for Me?

2006-10-04T00:41:00.000-04:00

I haven't left you--I'm just over at the ***NEW PLACE***. I'm so excited!

It's pretty. It's COOL. Come look and hang out. Literally or figuratively.

Here's the new url: http://www.sexeteria.net/. Please update your links and come over and visit.

Can't wait to see you there.

Turn and Face the Strange Ch-ch-changes...

2006-09-30T17:34:00.000-04:00

I'm attempting to move the blog over to a new server, new (easier) url, and a new blogging client this weekend. So things don't get too confusing, I'm going to have to turn off all comments for a bit, until I can move it all over. Stand by, and I'll let you know when everything's up and running at the new place.

Cross your fingers for me and I'll see you soon in my new digs.

Sugasm #48

2006-09-29T12:58:00.000-04:00

Here's this week's best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Spotlighting the top 3 posts voted by Sugasmer participants. Want in Sugasm #49? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the linklist within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks
The Luckiest Girl in the World (http://alwaysarousedgirl.blogspot.com)
“Would he have the energy, the stamina, to make me come as much as I need to come?”

I Want To Shave You (http://makemycopcome.blogspot.com)
“That luscious plum, that erotic ridge around it, the enticing veins tracing their way up that cock I am so engrossed in…”

The Rum Raisin Compromise (http://talktovanessa.com)
“My husband did not understand why I couldn’t live the rest of my life without the taste of a woman passing my lips.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
How to Give Away Porn (http://sugarbank.com)

Editors’ Choice
Rope Bondage Images (http://www.lumpesse.com)

Sexy Audio & Video
Hear My Name (http://anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
How to Give a Blowjob in a Car (http://myhotbox.blogspot.com)
Sex Inspiration, Study & Dream - Video Blog Entry (http://www.seska4lovers.com)
Slave Girl: Part One (http://fuckingtheministersdaughter.blogspot.com)

Sex News and Sexy Reviews
Craigslist User Publicizes Private Correspondence (http://www.tarasnaughtyshop.com/blog)
Do Video Games Effect Our Sex Lives? (Survey) (http://sugarjoy.com)
The Five Best Tera Patrick Scenes of All Time (http://blog.johnqafterhours.com)
Inflatable Vibrating Penis (http://www.orgasmarmy.com)
Tire Paddle HNT (http://radicalvixen.com/blog)

NSFW Pics
Adela & Susana (http://hotboxbabe.thumblogger.com)
Ass Masterpiece (http://www.internetisforporn.com)
Consolation Eye Candy, or What a Wild, Wild Month! (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
Featured DDGirls Covergirl Sunny Leone (http://www.ddgirlsblog.com)
Put on a Shirt HNT (http://texasspitfire.blogspot.com)
Roxy in booty shorts (http://phatbootysolos.ilovejulienight.com)
Two Bad Girls in a Prison Bed (http://adelehaze.com)
WebMistress Feature Gallery: Scenic Silver Reef (http://www.taratainton.com)

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Adult Webcam Humor (http://www.model-chat.com)
Boobies (http://edinerotica.blogspot.com)
Erotic Rather Than Fucking (http://orgasmcurious.blogspot.com)
Phain’s Tasty Specs… (http://wetbeyondbelief.blogspot.com)
Science of Sex - Sense of Smell (http://www.seskuality.com)
Sex Goddess??? (http://thegooseandgander.blogspot.com)
“Three sex acts enter, one sex act leaves.” (http://sexeteria.blogspot.com)
The Vagina and the Douche (http://shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)

Erotic Writing and Experiences
2. Greet (http://junohenry.wordpress.com)
Dreaming of a Dark Odyssey (http://viviane212.blogspot.com)
The Eternal Hotness of Hanna (http://theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
Get Caught Looking now! (http://lustylady.blogspot.com)
My Taxicab Confession (http://dirtydetails.blogspot.com)
Room 304, Part I (http://www.chillivanilla.com/blg)
Teresa (http://nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com)

BDSM and Fetish
Happy HNT-Cheerleader Paddling (http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
Lions, Tigers, and Spankings! Oh my! (http://spankingkatiespades.blogspot.com)
A Long Awaited Erotic Very Sexy Spanking Session… Finally (http://lizzietush.blogspot.com)
Melinda Makes a Discovery… (http://www.blog.sex-mad-witch.com)
Pajama Party (http://thebinside.blogspot.com)
She was like a wild animal… (http://everythingoze.blogspot.com)
Switching My Bottom On (http://spankingwriters.com/blog)

Join the Sugasm

"One-way ticket to Paradise Island, please."

2006-09-28T16:21:00.000-04:00

SOME people say they hate meme quizzes, but then keep taking them and FORCING other people to take them. Some people need to be punished for their evil, green, monosyllabic ways.

Okay, maybe the word should be "tempting" instead of "forcing." But still.

Nontheless, the results are okay with me. Though I'd rather be Catwoman. BUT I'd like to point out Catwoman doesn't even BELONG on a superheroes list, anyway. I demand a supervillainess test!

You are Wonder Woman

You are a beautiful princess
with great strength of character.

Wonder Woman -85%
Superman - 80%
Hulk - 75%
Spider-Man - 75%
Supergirl - 70%
Robin - 60%
Batman - 60%
Green Lantern - 60%
Catwoman - 60%
The Flash - 40%
Iron Man - 40%

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

The Persistence of Memory

2006-09-28T02:13:00.001-04:00

The other day, someone sent me a link to an online photo slideshow. I was coursing through it, and then suddenly noticed that the subtitle under one photo indicated that a man in it was an old lover of mine. This person was someone who at one time understood me more and meant more to me than anyone else in the entire universe.

If the caption hadn't been there under that photo, I would have never recognized him. I would have just passed it right by.

He could have been standing right next to me the day before I saw that photo, and I would have never known.

I don't know anymore if my visual memory of him is warped, or if he has really changed that much. And it makes me wonder about the veracity of my emotional memory of him, too. If I met him today, and we were to talk, would I encounter a similarly unrecognizable person, or would we instantly connect, two neurons across a synapse, the way we always used to in the past?

Though I have long been out of contact with this person, part of me has still been walking around feeling as if the world is still okay because he is out there, and he knows I am out there, and he knows me, and I know him. But now I think maybe I don't, and he doesn't. Not anymore.

And if that is true, and we are now entirely absent of knowledge of each other, does that make the world less okay than it was the day before I saw this photo? Or does it make it more?

Good question.

And if I put that part of his I shared to rest and say it is no more, does it mean that part of me that I gave him, that girl I was then who only he knew, has to die, too?

Another good question.

Open Up That Golden Gate...

2006-09-24T21:52:00.000-04:00

So next month I'm being sent to San Francisco on a business trip. I'm very excited, because I've always wanted to go there. It's consistently the one city besides New York that people have always told me they felt I "belong in." So I have high hopes to really like it.

As I've never been there before, though, I was hoping for some advice from any of you who have visited or lived there.

What advice do I want? Well, when I visit other cities where I have friends, I always tell them not to take me to any tourist attractions, but instead to take me to all the out of the way, eclectic, comfortable, amusing, etc. spots they love the most--the places they go to relax, play, and remind themselves that life is good. You always end up with a much cooler vacation that way, and you get a "local's eye-view" of the city.

One other thing to note: I'm the only one going on the trip and I have no friends who live in the city, so unless anyone in this training I'm attending is really cool and wants to hang out, I'm going to be all on my lonesome the whole time. So I'm looking for places that are single-person friendly and also at least reasonably safe for a woman traveling alone.

So--any suggestions along those lines for me? I'm open to anything.

Oh, and also, the city I'm living in is really low on the cool indie/hipster scale, so if there are some neighborhoods that are better known for that in which I could do some good clothes and shoe shopping, that would rock, too.

Thanks if you can help!

Here are a few other details to help with suggestions:

I've got 2-3 weeknights and one entire Saturday free to experience the city.
I'm not wealthy, but not so impoverished that everything I'd have to do would have to be under $10 or something. I could probably afford one or two extravagances.
I don't mind going to some tourist spots if they're interesting, or help me to get a "big picture" view of they city overall, but I'm also just as happy hanging out in cool spots and observing life around me.
I'm not big on sporting events, but otherwise anything artsy, cool, friendly, culinarily (?) exciting, music/entertainment related, beautiful, unusual, or quirky usually pleases me immensely. Places where locals are actually friendly enough to talk to you a little is nice, so you can learn some stuff about the city.
I'm staying close in to Chinatown and the theatre district.

"Three sex acts enter, one sex act leaves."

2006-09-22T01:09:00.000-04:00

Time for an Oral-Anal-Coital cage fight. Can you handle it?

Today I've got a fun little survey for you, based on a few throw-away lines I heard in a B-list romantic comedy I watched earlier this evening.

Let's say you were presented with this choice:

For the rest of your life, you can receive ONLY oral sex , ONLY coital sex, or ONLY anal sex.

Which would it be? (And why.)

I'll add this stipulation to make the choice more difficult: Let's say this act you choose would be (heaven forbid!) the ONLY sexual act you get to experience. No masturbation, no manual stimulation from others, no vibrators, etc.

Oh, and please feel free to share the thought process that led you to your decision, regardless of what it is. I'm really interested to hear that part. To me, it's no easy choice.

I'm also interested if responses will skew very different by gender. We shall see...

How are you?

2006-09-20T00:40:00.000-04:00

I can’t answer that.
Any one-word response I could give you
Would make me die of shame.
Any lengthy answer I could give you,
You don’t really want to hear.

And anyway, you never really ask.

It’s okay. Forget it. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.
Liar.

A long time ago,
Someone asked me, “Does this hurt you?”
And I said no.
(I could hear the rend.)

Since then,
I wait for the hurt,
So that I can tell you
Just how much it doesn’t.
Come on, I can take it.
And fuck you, anyway.

Liar. Liar.

How am I?
I’m living clenched.
Invisible fists balled.

Not to strike back.
To bear it when it comes.

come into my solitude
welcome to the wheel
come into this wonderland
of wounds that will not heal
walls that do not speak
steps that do not sound
come into my solitude
burn this building down

--Janis Ian, "Breaking Silence"

Can't Hold Back Much Longer...

2006-09-15T11:29:00.000-04:00

Four years is a long time to wait to get some satisfaction. In October, I'm finally getting me some. I can't. fucking. wait.

Back in 2001, I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch and it affected me in a way no film had for a long time. The film was like a love letter to outsiders everywhere, looking into our hearts and telling all us misfits, losers, and strange rock and rollers, "You know you're doing all right/So hold on to each other/You gotta hold on tonight."

Well, I've been holding on. And I've been desperate to see what the next creation of Hedwig's inspired conceiver, writer, director and actor John Cameron Mitchell was going to be.

Somewhere around 2002, a friend who knew of my obsession with this sent me a link to a very sparse website called thesexfilmproject.com (the link is now deactivated). It was an open invitation from John Cameron Mitchell for real people to audition for his next film, which would be a story about real people, with real sex lives--but he didn't want the sex to be simulated. He wanted to capture all the beauty and grittiness and mess and joy and awkwardness and that comes with human beings loving and lusting and being and experiencing real sexuality. Not antiseptic, sans-members-and-moisture, aesthetically approved Hollywood sex. Not silicone enhanced, prosthetic wearing, emotionally disconnected porn sex. The real thing.

It was a daring prospect, really. Such a thing has probably never been shown on film before. I was sure if JCM was doing it, it was going to be genius. I was dying to see it, and it was only in auditions. I wanted it NOW.

And so began the long wait. There was some buzz early on, some mention of the audition process in the press, but then in the past couple of years, it all faded away. I heard nothing.

Just last week, in fact, I found myself wondering as I listened to the brilliant Hedwig cover CD, Wig in a Box, whatever had happened to the Sex Film Project? I wondered if it had turned out to just be too damn hard to accomplish, and if he'd given up. It made me sad; I'd so wanted it to happen, to see this kind of film unfold in front of me.

And now--here it is. It's coming on October 6. And I'm pretty damn sure I'm going to be, as well.

It's been re-titled Shortbus. Just look at these trailers (content is different in all three):

NSFW trailer (more visual than thematic):

Safer for work trailer and teaser (more thematic):

Film description:

SHORTBUS explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. A sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a dominatrix who is unable to connect, a gay couple who are deciding whether to open up their relationship, and the people who weave in and out of their lives, all converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus: a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality. Set in a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City, SHORTBUS tells its story with sexual frankness, suggesting new ways to reconcile questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh and imperatives of the heart.

"Art, music, politics and polysexual carnality." "It's everything you need to get through the next two years of George Bush." I so want to be there. Now if I can just hold out until October.

I hope it's all it seems to be. Knowing the source, I'm guessing it will be. People don't wait five years to have their next creative orgasm unless they're sure it's going to be really good when it does happen.

The BILF and the Fury

2006-09-14T22:07:00.000-04:00

I've been feeling grumpy and self-pitying over the past couple of days and anything I've contemplated writing has made me feel ill with its wafting scent of Eau de Despair, a misted cloud of which I somehow accidentally walked through in the cosmetics section of the Life Shop a few days ago. I'd rather spare you lot from having to read about that at the moment, and spare myself the memory later on that I'd written something so soppy. So instead, I'll point you to something nice from someone else.

I've wanted to give this BILF a nod for quite a bit now, because I accidentally left it out of my original BILFs post.

I am a devoted reader and listener of the mp3 blog To Die By Your Side, and you should be, too. Why? Because the blog's owner, Coxon Le Woof is a man of exquisite musical taste AND writing skill. Feel like you're not keeping up with new indie stuff? Really miss that obscure britpop band from the '90s? Chances are Coxon's got the goods. And he'll also serve you up things you didn't even know you wanted to hear, but once you read his posts and listen, you'll realize it was just what you needed.

Coxon's knowledgeable, he's clever, he's got those HOT geek specs, and he's got a music collection that wakes the twin cobras of arousal and jealously within me and sends them dancing slinkily up out of my soul basket. And not only that, but his blog entries always perfectly evoke the feel of the music he's posted for you at the end of them. And that, my friends, takes real talent. Words and music. May they always copulate so beautifully.

Go give him a visit and a listen and tell him I sent ya. Or don't, but visit and listen anyway. Let me know if you like.

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

2006-09-13T14:08:00.000-04:00

I can't even explain why. But if you find yourself in uncontrollable hysterics at the close of this video, you are one of my people. I may have to start using this as a litmus test.

All hail yongfook. He is one of my people. And a hot piece of man ass, to boot.

Photograph For Her

2006-09-12T15:00:00.000-04:00

When I think about people I care about, their actual real-life images aren’t what I see in my mind. I mean, the physical image flashes through, but it’s specter-like, fading in and out under what I really see.

What I really see is this other thing, which is hard to explain. I don’t see the person as a body, but more the essence of what they are made up of. It’s a mixture of image and sensory impulse and emotional instinct/impact. Each person, as I get to know them, comes to look like something different. A walled fortress, a lily stem, a purring cat in front of a fireplace, a finely honed, shining blade, a gathering of white pillows on a dark wooden floor.

There's this woman I know. To me, when I imagine her, she’s made up entirely of the flecks of light reflected off of moving water. Her image is solid in outline, but everything inside is moving and changing and swirling around—lights dancing and whirring like electron clouds around the denser nuclei of her heart and brain.

It’s stunningly beautiful. The thing is, she can’t see it.

A lot of us are like that. Maybe we fear the chaos of our inner makeup makes us too scary, no matter how luminous each individual element within it may be. Maybe we are so worried about whether conditions will erode—about if we can manage to hold on and maintain the precisely perfect confluence of water and wind and motion that will keep the light of who we are from dimming or going out—that we are always only looking outside ourselves to what isn’t working, and forgetting to stop and really look inside at what is. Maybe it’s just our own luminosity, looked at at such close range, burns our own eyes and blinds us from ever being able to see ourselves properly--our own personal Greek tragedy.

There are a lot of reasons why we might not be able to see ourselves as we are in the world.

Sometimes I have trouble knowing what I actually look like. When this happens, when feel I can’t grasp what I look like out in the world, sometimes I take a photograph of myself, so I can see.

This post is me taking a photograph for her so she can see what she looks like.

And it’s me saying to her, yes, this image I’m showing you, what’s inside you, it’s crazy and confused and dependent on conditions that don’t always come through. But it’s also so bright, and full of rare luminosity that it fascinates and delights everyone who encounters it; people are drawn in and can not look away. And I'm showing in this photo how even at night, even when the hours are darkest, even when the water runs cold and black, there’s still the reflection of the street lamps and the moon and the stars, all glancing off the surface and dancing inside you, shooting up like like silver-scaled flying fish and fireflies and fairy lights and sparklers on the Fourth of July, slicing through the dark night.

Hold on to this photograph and look at it whenever you're not sure.

And my friend, this is for you.

And so is this.

And so is this.

And so is this.

(Photo credit: Starry Waters by southernangel7345)

Zen and the Art of Pubic Hair Maintenance

2006-09-08T00:42:00.000-04:00

A short (and curly) and sweet one for you all today:

1) When I rule the universe, everyone will come to their senses and realize that pubic hair is pretty. MUCH prettier than an unnaturally shaved pubis.

2) A fully shaved pussy on a woman weirds me out, but an inch wide "landing strip" (a.k.a., Hitler mustache on your pussy) looks even stupider to me. Stop it.

3) A fully shaved pubic area on a man might also freak me out, but I've never seen one up close and personal. I don't care if I never do. I like my men with hair down there. And no, it doesn't impede my ability to give a blow job, thank you very much.

4) Why, oh why do people think they look better hairless?

5) That said, as someone with sensitive skin, and who prefers to trim for swimwear and underwear-wearing purposes, has anyone found a good solution for the whole red bumpy irritated skin thing that happens after you shave or wax or depilate? Don't say "loofah." That's bollox. Doesn't help at all.

6) Has anyone who's reading electrolysis-ed away their pubes? How did that work out?

7) I'm not for Brazilians, but I am for public hair celebratory adornment. Like dying it, for instance. Maybe with Special Effects. How do we all feel about cupcake pink pubes?

8) Has anyone reading ever dyed their pubic hair? There are a lot of "don't sue us" disclaimers surrounding this kind of procedure when you look for tips on how to do it. So how did it go for you? Did you end up wanting to sue someone?

9) For those with gray hair: did your pubic hair go gray or silver much earlier, much later, or in relatively the same time frame as the hair on your head? Do you think silver pubic hair looks prettier? (I think it might.)

10) Every person who reads this post is hereby required to write a celebratory poem in the comments about pubic hair. Length and genre are entirely up to you. Though I'd love it if someone managed to pound out a sonnet on the topic.

Midway to Here

2006-09-06T01:17:00.000-04:00

For BB

You were so big and I was scared. I could not get past the mass of you. To me, you were like the buildings in the city where we met: giant, hulking, immovable. All thickness and brute strength; their very presence a silent, epic boast against the elements, inspiring awe and fear.

And I did feel both about you, though I never let on.

The others, though, they had no trouble showing you. I watched as they were drawn in and then drawn back, night after night, into our little sideshow world of smudged light and strange music and carnival freaks. Every night, I stood in the back and held the tent flap open. I watched them file past, their eyes already on you—a massive presence, standing on the stage, axe in hand, ready to pound solid rock into ash. I saw how they looked at you. The men’s admiration and jealousy and need to connect with what you were; what you stood for. The women’s small, wringing hands pressed against their bosoms, gasping at every feat of strength. The strategically placed flowers. The “accidentally” exposed ankles and slips of dresses off shoulders. The breathy exclamations of love and desire.

I saw it all and I cannot say I was unaffected. But there was also the fear.

It was your want. So obviously visible on your face as you stood there above the crowd. Your eyes, searching for my face, as you lifted impossible weights, crushed coal into diamonds with your bare hands. Your gaze fixated on me, every night, so intensely held, so unflinchingly steady, making me feel exposed. As if you could see through me; as if you knew what I was hiding underneath my flimsy, shapeless muslin dress and big workboots.

Your eyes; your want, it made me feel…too much like a girl. Small. Weak. Sweet and shaking and untouched.

I didn’t want to be that. I wanted to be an iron bar. Hard, unbreakable.

But you. You bent iron bars like they were willow branches.

Others told me I shouldn’t be stupid. That I should know this meant you would always protect me.

I wanted to make myself believe this. But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t look at your arms and not imagine my bones being crushed. I couldn’t look at your massive shoulders and imagine the head that rested on them might be as gentle and sensitive as my own. I couldn’t look at the roughness of your fellow carnies, the men you spent your days with, and not imagine you were like them. I couldn’t imagine that if I let you know me, you wouldn’t tell them all my secrets, my body, my taste, my smell. I couldn’t imagine you wouldn’t have a good laugh telling them.

Yet, there was something that wouldn’t quite let me run away, either.

So instead, I became your first-aid administrator. At the end of every show, once the tent emptied, you would sit on the edge of the rough wooden platform, and quietly wait as I tended to your cuts and bruises. We would talk. And I could feel you wanting, and wanting, and drinking in every touch of my hand to your skin; every kindness I’d bestow on you. You were a lion, laying down before me. You wanted me to know you could do this.

But every time I heard that growl in the back of your throat, I jumped back.

And then the next night, I was there again with cotton and linament.

We settled for this pattern, you and I; this uneasy balance. We each half had what we wanted. We waited to see which of us would gain the other half, if we ever would. We occasionally let the scales tip a bit, to test…but never enough. For both, something never started was better than something ended.

But we knew the rules of our world well. No show can last forever. A finale is demanded.

And so eventually, it was time to play ours out.

It was a night when we allowed ourselves to break the balance of our routine just a tiny bit. We stayed too late acting out our little care ritual, talking, pretending it needed to go on longer than it did. When we left the tent, the lights and noise the midway had gone dead. It was pitch dark. All the sleeping carriages had been locked shut.

Except yours.

I could not go to my bed at that hour without disturbing others, so you offered me a place to sleep. I accepted as if it were nothing, but felt full well the weight of what we were setting in place. Whatever happened, we both knew it would all be different from here.

We went inside. You offered me the couch in the front and some of your underclothes to sleep in—soft, worn white cotton undershirt, boxer shorts. I knew I would be swimming in them, but accepted the offer. You politely turned the lights off and pulled the curtain around your bed in the back to give me privacy. I turned my back when I changed even so; afraid you would look; and afraid of what you might think. I listened, but I didn’t hear the curtain move at all.

But I couldn’t hear you breathing, either.

I lay down and waited in the dark, for either sleep, or you, to come.

Sleep came first.

I was roused by light coming through the windows, stale and gray and discomfiting, the way it always is, for those of us who are used to making our living at night. I could hear the early, early morning sounds of the troupe—animals being fed, waste being hauled away, motors being tested for the next move.

I heard you stir.

I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. It was still very early. Most performers were not up at this hour.

I heard the curtain slide open.

You walked to the front of the trailer as if to get something. I heard you pour some water into a cup.

I heard you turn around and look at me.

I lay still, my dark hair a tousled mess about my face on the pillow, pretending to still be asleep, hoping that you couldn’t tell I was faking. Trying to keep my breathing soft and even.

You stood there for a long time. Watching me.

Through my closed eyes I could see the look of want on your face. That look I’d come to know so well. But I could also sense something I hadn’t realized before. Your own fear.

And I knew for the first time that perhaps I was not so powerless after all. And perhaps, in the end, it was all down to me.

You were still standing there, wanting me to want you. And I was still feigning sleep.

I had a choice: open my eyes and welcome you in or stay sleeping behind my iron bars.

When I return to this city, it’s that early morning I always come back to.

You standing over me,
The world’s strongest man.

Me lying still,
The world’s weakest girl.

(photo credit: in person by techne)

I should mention...

2006-09-02T23:45:00.000-04:00

I'm on the road for the holiday weekend and will have pretty much no 'net access. I'll consider myself lucky if this post even gets out there. So, be surprised if you see something before Tuesday.

What WILL you do to fill the gaping void?

Well, in the meantime, you could:

1) Avail yourselves of some mighty fine writing from the folks on the right over there.

2) Write me a comment about how much you miss me so that when I get back I feel, much to my surprise, just showered in love and adoration from afar.

Top Three Signs Your Life Is Not What It Should Be

2006-08-30T01:02:00.000-04:00

1. You are lying alone in bed at 1 a.m., listening to your new neighbors who just moved in below you having sex. You hear the woman moaning repeatedly through the floor.

2. Your ridiculously loud air conditioner fan shuts off. You realize the sound is actually your cat snoring through her nose.

3. You turn on the computer and write a blog entry about it.

Not Happily A Victim Ever After

2006-08-27T20:20:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about fairy tales this past week (Western fairy tales, that is). A lot of little things all converging brought it on. Happening upon the excellent film Finding Neverland on television this past week and watching it again. Reading this post by Susie Bright about this incredibly cool sounding and beautiful looking graphic novel by Melinda Gebbie and Alan Moore called The Lost Girls about the adult erotic lives of Alice (post Wonderland), Wendy (post Neverland), and Dorothy (post Oz). (Aside: Here's what my future husband Neil Gaiman had to say about the book.) And, deciding to re-read one of the favorite novels of my childhood, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, where the theme of telling fairy stories to oneself to bear the harsh realities of life figures largely into the story.

Anyway, as some of you may remember from older posts, I've have had a very difficult few years of late. For those of you who aren't long-time readers, or for those who are and who don't tend to read between the lines too much, this year I finally acknowledged a sexual assault that happened to me in my childhood and began working through that, and recognizing all the ways it (as well as other things) has affected my life. To get to that point, though, my life pretty much had to go on a downward trajectory until I was at rock bottom and had nothing left, at which point, if I didn't want to destroy myself, I had no other recourse left but to face up and ask for help. So there was a lot of crash and burn, burn, burn in this very cold hellfire made of dry ice over the course of a number of years. And even this year, as I got help and slowly began pulling myself out of the black pit I'd thrown myself down into, it was a hard, hard struggle. Some days it still is, though, as the man once said, I have to admit, it's getting better.

It's been very difficult for me to even explain to myself what this "lost period" of my life has actually felt like. I really have no words. But as I was watching the end of Finding Neverland (and crying...I dare you to tell me you didn't cry at the end of that film) and thinking about fairy tales it struck me. Hard. I realized that what it felt like was under some sort of dark spell.

I hadn't realized until that moment how for all this time I had been walking around feeling exactly the way I imagined as a child that all those women in the fairy tales who were put under spells would have felt like. Alive, but not really. Breathing, but emotionless. Unable to respond. Where the person I really am--the joyous, animated, creative person full of childlike wonder, curiosity, and good, pure, unadulterated, unashamed love, was put to sleep, and some shadow person was walking around, operating my sleeping body like a puppeteer, sending my cloudy brain and heart just enough of a signal to allow me to vaguely exist, but feel not much of anything. Like Sleeping Beauty, if she were in a zombie coma.

And my next thought was, "I want to break the spell." (You see, though I've been making strides, I don't think it is broken, fully, yet. I've not completely woken up into myself.)

And then the next thought was, "In every fairy tale, there's always only one thing that can break the spell. So what would break your spell, then?"

And all that got me to thinking about the messaging we get as little girls through the fairy tales we're told and watch on film. And why perhaps so many of we little girls (while still girls, or grown) become victims. And why, even after that may happen to us, and we survive, when we want to move forward from that, we keep playing this victim role over and over again, almost despite ourselves.

Little girls are raised on fairy tales. And though there are a few exceptions to this rule, the most famous, most popular Western fairy tales involve a few key ingredients:

The girl is good. She is beautiful. She does everything right, behaves beautifully, is passive and kind and giving, and is in every way the perfect reflection of the "ideal female."
She is acted upon by evil or angry forces. The dark spell is cast (this can include non-magical, cruel imprisonment/enslavement). The reason for the victimization of the girl is never in revenge for something the girl did. It's always for reasons the girl has no control over: anger at the girl's natural beauty and goodness (e.g., Snow White), anger at her family's behavior (e.g. Sleeping Beauty), anger at the fact she just exists (e.g., Cinderella).
She is rescued. Someone breaks the spell and frees her to live happily (ever after). Usually the enchantment is broken by some representative act of love, like a kiss. She is rescued by someone else's acknowledgement of and desire for her perfection.

So, in steps 1 and 2, we have a good vs. evil power play. A pretty classic theme. But note how different it is from male-based good vs. evil fairy tales. In fairy tales where the main protagonist is male, when the evildoer makes his/her presence known, the hero is expected to fight the evil, and overcome it. It's understood that this is what he will ultimately have to do.

Where is this expectation in female-protagonist fairy tales? It just isn't there. From the start it is assumed in a female-centered fairy tale that the good girl is weak. Far too weak to withstand the evil person. She is acted upon, and she falls prey. There is no fight, or even an attempt at one. And it's also interesting to note that in most cases while the spell-casting/enslaving characters are certainly portrayed as "bad," their behavior or motivation is generally not presented as strange or exceptional. The stories seem to imply it stands to reason that the victimizer would hate the beautiful, innocent young girl and want to harm her. And, that it stands to reason that she would simply not have the wherewithal or strength to even think of fighting back.

So she is acted upon to be victimized. But in number 3 above, she is also acted upon to be saved. After the girl has been put under the evil spell, she does not overcome what has been done to her. She remains passive. Sometimes for years. Someone other than herself intervenes and saves her. In most instances, her salvation comes via some demonstration of love by another--a kiss, etc.

So, she is lovely and innocent and good, as all girls are encouraged to be, and she is victimized. For no reason. With no assumption she is allowed to fight back. It stands to reason.

And after this happens, she cannot save herself. She must wait for someone else to save her. She must hope that someone else will find her desirable enough to be worth saving. It stands to reason.

So, taking it into the real world, a girl is good and innocent and she is victimized. As she learns, it stands to reason. And after her victimization, to ensure she'll be saved, she keeps behaving good and lovely and innocent and passive and pleasing, as a girl should, and she waits under her bad spell, for someone to kiss her and save her and take her away, make IT all go away, and make her finally happy ever after.

But we all know what the stories tell us happens to girls who are good and lovely and innocent. Again. And again. And again.

These are the stories we (girls AND boys) are taught as children. They are the first things we learn. And then we wonder why so many innocent people are sexually assaulted. We ask why the victims didn't fight. We ask how the victimizers can think the way they do.

And we, those girls, who were good and innocent and perfect, and who were made to suffer for it...

We, the living dead girls, just barely managing to survive one more day in the dark, blurry world of the spellbound, our shoulders heavy, our breath labored under the shameful weight of the enchantment cast on us by others, for just being ourselves...

We wonder why we keep finding patterns of victimizaiton to fall into, whether big or small.

And we wonder, and we keep walking onward, lids heavy with exhaustion, hoping, hoping, someone will come and break the spell for us. Praying that someone will know the right thing to do. Will want us enough to save us.

And we keep running into someones who look like they've got the answer. And in the end, all they've got is another poisoned apple.

No one ever taught us we were allowed to fight our own fight. No one taught us we were allowed to rescue ourselves.

It's only now that I'm learning this, finally. But I have no model. There isn't one story I know of that can show me how to lift my own spell.

And to all my sisters out there, I'm sorry that there isn't one. I'm sorry no one ever taught us. I'm sorry we have no model to follow.

But I want to say, we can write our own story. A new one. A better one. Where we fight. And we find allies, not saviors. And we work together, and separately, to lift our own spells for ourselves. We become our own saviors. WE stand up and proclaim ourselves lovely and whole and worthy of love, and that is enough to save us. And we seal it with our own fiercely beautiful kiss--to ourselves.

To that good and innocent and beautiful girl who, of her own power, has saved herself and embraced her strength, and walks with no shame, because she deserves none. And who will never be unhappily ever after, ever again.

"Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda. "If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country."
--The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Love is a Backwards God from Hell

2006-08-18T12:29:00.000-04:00

Oh. my. god. I...

fucking.

love.

this.

song.

I heard a tiny clip of it the other day on the season premeire of the fabulous Showtime series Weeds, downloaded it, and now I can't get it out of my head.

I adore songs that sound all melodic and pretty on the surface and then you actually listen and go...wow. Dirty, filthy, nasty underneath.

The artist is Jenny Owen Youngs. I don't know anything about her, but go Jenny! (And nice schoolgirl costume, too). Buy her stuff and read her very cool little write-up here.

I see there she's from New Jersey. Ha--explains everything. I can pick one of my sisters out of the crowd, no matter what part of the world we cross paths in.

"Singing sweet and drinking hard since 1981." God, I may have to marry this girl.

Update: She's also got another site besides the myspace site here.

Well, O.K. then.

2006-08-17T23:40:00.000-04:00

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

Just a little postette to say yeah, I know, I haven't posted in a while. I've been getting some stuff together, literally and figuratively, that's been eating into my time--some of which you'll most likely see or read about at some future point, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'll be back soon; promise. Maybe even tomorrow. For now, I leave you with a little Sylvilistic music/mindset.

Music credit: "joyful girl" by Ani Difranco, from the album Dilate. Buy it.
Photo credit: Riflessioni introvabili by Z79.

Sugasm #41

2006-08-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

Sorry people, I'm a little behind the curve posting Sugasm this week. Some really good reading. Check it out.

This week’s best of the sex blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Want to be in Sugasm #42? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

Oh, and also go to the main Sugasm page to see the new "weekly top three" vote thing they're trying out for next week.

Mr. Sugasm himself
73% of American’s Hate Porn (http://sugarbank.com)

NSFW Pics (and a Podcast)
Amanda (http://hotboxbabe.thumblogger.com)
It’s Thursday! Happy HNT! (http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com)
Nora Marlo self portraits (http://eroticandy.blogspot.com)
Splish Splash (photos/podcast) (http://bedroomradio.blogspot.com)

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Does Size Matter? (http://sexeteria.blogspot.com)
Insatiable: How to Date a Nympho (http://sabrinainstockings.com)
Oh Kegels, How I Love Thee (http://blog.babeland.com)
On My Way to Sex Rehab (http://theholidaylife.blogspot.com)
Rockin’ – Not Humpin’ – In the Free World (http://cuntinglinguist.blogspot.com)
Straight, Male, Talking About My Sexuality (http://www.realadultsex.com)
Take Naked Pictures of Your Girlfriend (http://myhotbox.blogspot.com)
The thinky and the kinky: qualities of attraction (http://junohenry.wordpress.com)

Humor
Film Fridays 33 - Internet Dating (http://shayssexcolumn.blogspot.com)
The Top 30 Most Annoying Things About Porn (http://www.msnaughty.com/blog)
Why Don’t I Ever See Porn Stars On the Golf Course? (http://sugarjoy.com)

Sex Work
Crossover Fetish Subs are Twice as Weak (http://www.ladyevilsdungeon.com/evil_domme)
Dumb Ass white boi! (http://www.spoiledebonyprincess.com/princess-blog )
Smoking Fetish (http://radicalvixen.com/blog)

Sex News and Sexy Reviews
August Contest - Story Time (http://sin.typepad.com/shauna_by_night)
Half-Nekkid and Loving Himself (http://www.TarasNaughtyShop.com)
Review: The Wolf Summers By ElSol (http://anawtymouz.blogspot.com)
Straight Porn Review: Briana Banks… a.k.a. Filthy Whore 3 (http://blog.johnqafterhours.com)

Erotic Writing and Experiences
8/1 by Rex: That Wonderful Ass (http://rexandroxy.blogspot.com)
Aerosmith (http://totalsensuality.blogspot.com)
Clothing Optional (http://tangysweet.blogspot.com)
The First ‘Threesome’ (http://lumpesse.com)
F♥ck Bunny (http://femmefataleteen.blogspot.com)
Last night (http://orgasmcurious.blogspot.com)
A Most Proper Text Message (http://damnjezebel.com/diary)
No Niceties (http://fourstate.blogspot.com)
Statuesque (http://www.asstr.org/~gentlebutfirm)
Through the Green Door (www.TaraTainton.com)
Voyeuristic Dream (http://dawnndirty.blogspot.com)
Yes. I Like Girls. (http://xantasia.blogspot.com)

BDSM and Fetish
The Honeymoon Part I (http://redvelvetropeburn.com)
Introducing people to rubber kink (http://www.dangerousfemme.com)
Open Panties (http://natalieslingerie.blogspot.com)
Pain Slut- A Fantasy (http://designingintimacy.blogspot.com)
Webcam Session with an Old Man (http://www.caramelvixen.com/vixen-blog)

Join the Sugasm

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Blogger

2006-08-08T23:50:00.000-04:00

Ned: I want adventure. I want romance. 
Bill: Ned, there is no such thing as adventure. There's no such thing as romance. There's only trouble and desire. 
Ned: Trouble and desire.
Bill: That's right. And the funny thing is, when you desire something you immediately get into trouble. And when you're in trouble you don't desire anything at all. 
Ned: I see.
Bill: It's impossible.
Ned: It's ironic.
Bill: It's a fucking tragedy is what it is, Ned.
--Simple Men

I’m really pretty new to this whole blogging thing. I started in January (not counting a very short stint the month before when I was testing the waters before I did it “for real”). So I’ve only been writing as a blogger for 7 months—just over half a year.

Before that, there wasn’t much I knew about blogging. I can honestly say I’d never read a blog before, unless you count aggregator-style blogs like Metafilter or Fark. I’d glanced at a few friends-of-friends’ poorly written LiveJournal pages. That’s it. I didn’t “get” the whole blogging phenomenon.

So it’s still kind of a surprise to me that one day this past winter I suddenly signed up for a Blogspot account and started writing a blog. I’m still not sure what prompted me to do that. And now I find myself wondering just what I wanted from it. What I thought would happen.

I find myself wondering quite a lot these days, and not only about the blog, what it is I really want.

And it kills me to realize that I still just. don’t. know. Which is so entirely frustrating. I have a feeling of what I want. This feeling is set deep in the core of who I am, and I feel it all the time. It manifests as this certain kind of yearning. But I don’t know FOR WHAT. Sehnsucht. I’ve written about it before.

I was talking about it with someone again just today, in fact. You know that feeling you get when you run into a place or a person for the first time and it’s like you already know that place or person? It has a feel, a scent, a something that just clicks in in this very primal way and suddenly you feel, “I know this. I’m home.” This is what I want. But how do you go after something like that? It’s so intangible, so indefinable.

I’m not actually getting off track here. What I’m trying to say is—I don’t know the reason why I started to blog. I don’t know the reason why other bloggers did. But I suspect what I’m describing above may have something to do with it.

In every blog I read, I notice this often unspoken constant. No matter how funny, how erotic, how practical the topic of the blog is, there’s this same feeling, this something underneath that sets off my nerve center in this very instinctual, sensory way.

There is this underlying yearning. A sort of undefined loneliness and want.

I think all bloggers are lonely. By this I don’t mean bloggers are all lonely losers, outcasts, and social misfits (though some of us proudly wear those tags and make them damn cool). Most bloggers I read have (or have had) good friends, family, lovers, etc. We have lives that are often, at least on paper, rich and full and interesting, even if sometimes we hit roadblocks and difficulties.

No, this thread of loneliness that weaves itself for the blog world, it’s something else. It’s more this feeling of unrequited yearning. For some kind of connection we are just not getting. For some kind of reality we just can’t seem to create. Perhaps for others, not just me, we long for what feels right, but we don’t know what right LOOKS like. We don’t know how to get there.

I think many of us hope the blog is a way to get there. To create a world defined by us, by our own thoughts and needs. To see if others get it; get us. To search for and to finally be able to experience the feel of that familiar click into place that we’re just not experiencing in our daily lives, regardless of whether or not all the parts of that life appear to be fitting just fine.

I think this is why bloggers have these love-hate struggles with their blogs. Their blogs, no matter how overt or cleverly disguised, are their want, their yearning made incarnate. The blog is the part of them most needing to be nursed and loved and acknowledged and adored and unconditionally accepted. The stuff they just cain’t get at home, even though they feel (or are told) they “should” be able to.

And so they keep writing and writing…and does it ever click? Do they ever get to clearly define their want, and then have it met? To eradicate their loneliness and need? Does the blog help them get to there, wherever there is? I don’t know. It may just be another temporary panacea.

You know how it goes. The drugs are so good the first time. And so you keep at it, doing it more, pushing your limits. And then eventually, the drugs just don’t work. You can never get back that first high.

Or can you?

I think this is what makes it so hard for people to give up on their blogs. The blog is the last great battlefield of desire and longing. It’s an altered reality, where there’s hope that if you fight the good fight, say the right things, reach and gather the right people, all things can eventually look bright and beautiful, the way you feel them, in the deepest parts of your being, where you’re waiting for them to come true.

Is this unrealistic? Probably.

But man, doesn’t everyone burn bright like stars while they try?

And for this reason, I don’t want them to stop. And I don’t want to stop.

In the true pagan sense of things, it’s the trying that is heroic. No one can predict the outcome of the battle, so whether you win is irrelevant. It’s how bravely, creatively, and honorably you fought, all the way through, until the end.

---

So, I know it's the age-old question, but... Why do we blog? Why do we read blogs? What's the gain? Why bother?

(photo credit: MacBook by Ricky Romero)

Some Days

2006-08-08T00:15:00.000-04:00

You just can’t.

You try, you know. You always try. But.

I’m tired.

And I won’t tell you what this means, ‘cause you already know.

…and you’ll find what you find when you find there’s nothing.

(Music credit: “American English” from Idlewild’s The Remote Part. Buy it.)
(Photo credit: "Abstract Clinging Hands" by Hans Voralberg)

Quick opinion poll on erotica/porn resources. Your feedback needed!

2006-08-06T20:02:00.000-04:00

Hi. I need your help, all you fellow sexy thangs.

Could you please suggest your favorite resources for quality online written erotica and video porn?

I want to use these suggestions for an upcoming post where I am suggesting people search out these resources to help them build their "dirty talk" skills. I have a few favorites, but would like more suggestions for people to pick and choose from, and am a bit too busy of late to do lots of independent research (fun as that would be) to uncover more choices.

If you need a bit more guidance, I'm looking for your suggestions of favorite:

Online journals for high-quality written or spoken word erotica (or paper journals, too)
Online sources of quality amateur erotic writing
Sites that rate/recommend/describe the contents of porn flicks (sort of like porn IMDB sites)
Sites that help more mainstream people decide which porn is best for them.
Online sites where people can easily access good, quality couples porn (gay or straight) at reasonable prices (or for free--if it's a legal download).
Porn films with good verbal interaction between the actors.
Bloggers whose erotic writing is top rate, and would give good examples to a neophyte of how to talk dirty.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the comments so far. As far as the porn goes, I wanted to clarify: since I want to use this to give good examples of how to talk dirty, any porn suggestions should be audio/visual (as in video, or straight audio clips). I'm not looking for still photo suggestions.

The more suggestions you can give, the better. My only stipulation is that all suggestions be GOOD examples of erotic expression--nothing super unskilled and amateurish. Thanks, everyone!

Also note. Though honest suggestions from real people are extremely welcome, advertisements are NOT. So just a warning to any commenters who might want to use this as a promotional opportunity for their own for-pay site or blog--don't bother. Such comments will be deleted. Kisses.

How to Talk Dirty: Lesson 1 - Introduction

2006-07-31T22:06:00.000-04:00

One of the top searches that brings people my blog (after “blowjob tips” and “cunnilingus tips,” surprise, surprise) are phrases like “how to talk dirty,” “what to say in dirty talk,” “how do I talk dirty to boyfriend in bed,” “how do I get her to talk dirty,” etc.

So, I’m starting to get the hint that there are a lot of people out there who are looking for some practical advice on how to talk dirty. Unfortunately, however, when they search this term and my blog comes up, they don’t get a post on how to talk dirty. Instead, it takes them to a post about the worst things that people have been told in bed.

For some reason, every time I see this happen on my stats, it dismays me. I keep imagining all these earnest people, all hopefully looking for some practical advice, and landing on a page where they’re only shown all the things they might already be doing wrong. So I feel as a pretty damn accomplished dirty talker and a reasonably accomplished teacher, that I should bow to my readers’ needs and do a little series on how get your filthy-tongued mojo working.

This post will be just an introduction to the subject, and then others will follow. We’ll begin with a few FAQs.

Why do people want to talk dirty or have me talk dirty to them? What’s the benefit of it?
Quite simply, it adds a little spice, and gets the person you’re talking to more highly aroused. There’s nothing like having the right person murmur, growl, moan, or scream the right thing in your ear at just the right time. It can make the difference between good sex and mind-blowing sex.

Plus, for many, besides being an aural stimulant, dirty talk can also be a big ego booster—a.k.a. aphrodisiac. For most guys, hearing how big and hard their cock is in the midst of fucking is going to make both their pride and their big, hard cock swell. For most women, hearing just how much you love fucking her is going to make her love fucking you.

As to why people talk dirty to you, probably because they think you’ll find it sexy, and because it makes them feel sexy to say certain things in bed that they imagine saying in their fantasies.

But isn’t it belittling?
Not if you know the person likes it and wants to hear it, and if you say the right thing for that person (and for you). Keep in mind that there is a wide range of dirty talk, from the mild (“Oh please, harder!”) to the hardcore (“You’re daddy’s little cum slut, aren’t you?”). Every individual’s preferences for dirty talk falls somewhere on that continuum, and wherever that point is for that person, anything you say lower on the scale will generally be a turn on, and anything higher will potentially be belittling or just too extreme. As a responsible partner, it’s your job to figure out where on the scale your partner’s preference falls, and not to go beyond that into turn-off or humiliation territory. (I’ll give you tips on how to figure out your partner’s threshold in a future lesson.)

In the same way, you will have comfort zones for what you want to hear or say. Your partner’s responsibility is to learn those—but it’s also your responsibility to communicate them gently and respectfully, but firmly. Never feel you have to say or be told anything that makes you feel bad, or that takes you way out of your comfort zone.

But I’m shy. Just the thought of talking dirty takes me out of my comfort zone.
That’s not unusual. Many people are embarrassed by dirty talk. That’s probably because they’ve been taught it’s wrong, or that nice or loving people don’t talk like that to each other. And some people are embarrassed because they don’t know what to say or how to respond, and think they may sound stupid.

But keep in mind that being embarrassed and being turned off or freaked out by it are two different things. If you’re merely feeling shy or embarrassed but you wish you could do it or try it even so, don’t worry—you’re ready to do it. With a little practice and adopting the right attitude (which again, you’ll learn how to do in an upcoming lesson), you’ll be able to be talking dirty with the best of us.

Now, on the other hand, if the thought of doing it or hearing it makes you feel sick to your stomach and as if you never want to have sex again, talking dirty is just not for you, and you and your partner will just have to just accept that. Everyone likes different things. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Why won’t my girlfriend/boyfriend talk dirty to me? How can I make her/him?
As stated above, if your partner seems to have difficulty talking dirty, it’s probably because he or she is embarrassed by and/or inexperienced with dirty talk and is afraid of sounding stupid if he or she says the wrong thing. No one wants to look stupid or turn their partner off in bed. Plus, many people were never taught to be verbal in bed, and so the impulse may not come naturally to them.

In answer to the second question, you should never “make” your partner do anything he or she doesn’t want to. But if your partner seems willing to participate but hesitant about how to do so, that’s another story. In that case, you should treat the situation the same way you would treat having sex with a virgin. Your partner is a dirty talk virgin, and he/she’s afraid he’ll/she’ll come off bad in bed. It’s your job as the more experienced lover to gently tutor him/her and help him/her along slowly and patiently, step by step, until he/she feels comfortable going "all the way."

And speaking of which, listen and listen good: if you try to make your partner feel bad or guilty for not doing it, or criticize his or her technique when he/she tries to, they’re going to shut down and you’re never going to get any. And you’d deserve it. So they key is to praise what they’re doing well, and don’t force or criticize technique.

Isn’t talking dirty sort of a natural talent thing—either you have it or you don’t?
Not really. Like any skill, some people are born with a natural gift for lascivious lingo, and it just rolls off their tongue with no conscious thought or effort. But if that’s not the case for you, never fear. It’s a skill that can be learned. It’s all in getting comfortable--and hot, and confident in your own sexual self. Like any other skill, you study up, you practice, you make a few false starts, and eventually you get good at it until you're one of the people who looks like he or she’s been doing it naturally all along.

That’s all for tonight.

**Next lesson: Embracing Your Inner Dirty Talker**

For the time being, I’d love to hear if this post/series seems useful or interesting to anyone who’s reading, or if anyone has any advice to add to any of the FAQs above.

(Photo credit: [Talking Dirty] by jehza)

Does Size Matter?

2006-07-30T22:35:00.000-04:00

I have a confession. I have never dated a fat guy.

There are probably a wide variety of reasons that I haven't--ranging from simple reasons like, "I just never found a guy I liked 'in that way' who happened to be fat," to more insidious reasons like the fat hatred I heard regularly from my family growing up, and societal attitudes that may have influenced my attraction to big guys.

All that's fodder for other posts related to fat and body image. But this post isn't about that.

It's about the fact that I've never dated or had sex with a fat guy. And lately, I've begun to wonder if I've really missed out by limiting myself in this way.

I've been thinking a lot about it lately, because suddenly, and for no predictable reason, body types that I was never much attracted to before suddenly seem incredibly appealing. For most of my life, I've gone for the tall (over 6'), thin types: sleek biker bodies, skinny emo rock boys, gangly geeks, the occasional broad-shouldered but lean type. I was fairly predictable in my taste. I still like all these looks, but now it's as if my attraction vistas have just gone panoramic, and now everyone's body is looking hot to me, and like a new opportunity that needs to be crawled all over. Big, muscle-bound guys; square, solid husky rugby types, and yep, fat guys.

In fact, there's one particular fat guy I see pretty regularly who, shall we say, tips my scales in a major way. Unfortunately, he's not available to me. But it does get a girl thinking.

So I was talking to a friend about this the other day; about the potential advantages I might have been missing out on not having included fat guys on the roster for all these years. And, in the physical arena, we were discussing if and how sex with a fat person is/might be different, and what some of the potential advantages might be--as well as if society at large is really pretty dumb for eschewing fat sex.

Some possible advantages I imagine to having a larger partner:

1) Even better physical affection and warmth. There is nothing like being embraced by a big person. You somehow feel so much more protected and well...held--in a very good way.

2) Softness and curves. Sure, taut skin has its appeal, but there's something nice about the thought of the more cushioned, voluptuous feel of a well-padded naked body against yours. Stroking your hand along it, feeling the curves unique to that person, soft and giving. Having more body to explore and touch...

3) Intensity of thrusting. As a hetero girl, one wonders if the poundin' would be all that much better with some extra weight behind it. I mean, really, just imagine. Mmmm. And as a guy, maybe the pushing in would feel different with a fat woman (or man), more full and padded, increasing the pleasure sensation.

4) Well, if it's on a woman, fat usually means bigger breasts and ass. And who doesn't love that? The potential pleasure in them there regions is multi-faceted. I'm sure I don't have to explain further.

5) Less fear the person's gonna break. When someone's too skinny, you sometimes wonder if you're going to hurt them if you get too enthusiastic.

Those were some of my ideas, but of course I have no basis in reality for them. So now I'm asking: Have any of you had experience with both thin and fat partners? How is it different (if at all)? What are some of the advantages or potential disadvantages? Is the world missing out on a major amount of pleasure because they don't realize the benefit of fat sex?

It may be no different at all. As a person who has been both underweight and overweight, I haven't noticed much difference in my own sexual sensations between the two states. But in terms of what it was like for the people having sex with me at different sizes, I'm not sure.

I'm curious to hear others' opinions about the relative benefits of bigger partners. Or, if you have varied in body type over time, if you have enjoyed sex differently as a larger person.

NOTE TO ALL COMMENTERS: Please keep your answers to the topic at hand--a shared, positive, respectful discussion about what some of the possible differences or benefits there might be in having sex with larger sized partners. This is NOT a debate about the relative physical attractiveness of fat people, or if people "should" be fat, or anything like that. Any comments even remotely resembling fat bashing (or skinny bashing, for that matter) will be removed.

(Photo credit: Lovely black and white portraiture by Laurie Toby Edison, from her series "Women en Large" and "Familiar Men." You can purchase her books or prints via her website at the links above.)

Beauty in Unexpected Places

2006-07-28T23:50:00.000-04:00

I know this ad has been circulating around the 'net for a while, but I was just watching it again tonight, and I still love it--it's so hopeful and humorous and somehow nostalgic and bittersweet all at the same time.

It's worth another watch if you've seen it. And if you haven't seen it, you must. It's a shame all advertising isn't this lovely and evocative.

In any case, it's the mood I'm in tonight.

High bandwidth version (recommended -- WELL worth the wait)

Low bandwidth version

Not A Dot Composite

2006-07-26T22:58:00.000-04:00

It’s got everything right. Kind wife, understanding husband, two nice kids. Minivan, high-end sedan. Gated community, in a high-end town. Swimming pool. Tennis courts. Families everywhere, smiling, waving. Clean house, very tidy, everything in the right place. Extra bedrooms, bathrooms. Comfortable furniture, big TV, matching dishes, matching towels. An entirely coordinated life.

I’m welcomed in time and again and when I am, I can see why people do this. I can feel the sensations. Safe, warm, comfortable happiness. Patterns. Familiarity. Reliability. Order. Coziness. Promise of stability. No bad surprises. Increasing accumulation (status, material, wealth). No ugly, unpredictable elements jarring the picture. Lulling, womb-like calm. Life as an Impressionist painting, all muted pastel and soft focus.

I fall asleep in this place, in the perfect quiet pixilated with the soft hum of the central air conditioner, in a room that’s dark but not so dark as to invoke fear. I wake up in the morning under a downy comforter emitting just the right amount of warmth, with the sun streaming in the picture windows, highlighting spotlessly clean white walls. I breathe in the entirely scentless air. And I feel…

Entirely nothing.

For all this, everything designed for my satisfaction and comfort, there is nothing here I want.

So now. I’ve walked out of the painting. No more wavering. Time to search out the new canvas, media.

A brash spot of graffiti on an unexpected surface? A brightly painted chair? Black, curved iron girders climbing skyward? A throne made entirely of recycled tin foil, jelly jars, coffee cans, and street trash?

I have no idea what it will be. I do know it’s time to face up that it won’t have a frame. I’m never going to fit all nice and tidy and clean in the middle of the square.

It’s time to stop moderating that to protect others from discomfort.

(Photo credit: Empty Frame by Andross)

Come Together

2006-07-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

I remember you.

It was a night where I could feel I was perfect. I was just where I was meant to be, surrounded by darkness and friendlove and murmurings of a crowd and the promise of music. I had bitten off more synthetic happiness than I could chew, and it felt, oh, so far beyond any variant of the word "good" that there's no use trying to search for one. My soul was shooting heavenward, giddily, recklessly, and exploding in showers of sparkling light. Divine fireworks, making me shine from the inside out.

And then all around us, the lights shot up like solar flares, blinding yellows and oranges. And there they were, the band, issuing their first soft, pulsing siren lure, calling on all of us to come up with them, higher, and higher, the singer leaning into the mic and whispering...

My brightest star's my inner light; let it guide me
Experience and innocence bleed inside me...

I've glimpsed, I have tasted, fantastical places
My soul's an oasis, higher than the sun...higher than the sun

And the music swelled and wound like a snake charmer's melody, and suddenly, in the luminous smoke filling the hall, I could see.

And what I saw was you.

Just the back of you, many lengths up ahead of me in the crowd. Mostly just an outline in the darkness. But it was as if everyone else in the crowd had disappeared for me, and all I could see was your dark hair, the span of your shoulders, the way you were moving to the music. And a voice inside told me, “This is the one.” And I understood that being near you meant happiness.

And I wanted that. I wanted you so badly. You were so far away, out of my reach, and the crowd was pressed around me and I couldn’t fathom how to get you to know I was there, ready for you. My friends were around me, and it felt unsafe to leave them, because if I did, we’d lose each other in the crowd. And you, you weren’t even facing me. You didn’t know what I knew.

But I wanted you, and so I told myself, “Keep wanting and he will feel it.” And I lost myself in the music and the singer crooned:

Kiss me, won't you, wont you kiss me
Won't you, won't you kiss me
Lift me
Right out of this world...

I'm free, you're free.
I'm free;
I want you to touch me.
So, come on, touch me...

It was exactly right and I felt only joy and saw only colors and raised my hands up to the lights in the sky and called for with the music and when I next looked down, there you were, right in front of me, as if all the people had been moved away to bring us together. You were still facing away from me, and the music was so loud, so very loud, too loud to talk over. I didn’t think you would hear me call to you. I could have easily reached out to touch you, but the crowds were pushing and jostling, so a touch would have gone unnoticed. And I was suddenly shy and unsure.

I want you, I called softly, inside. Turn around.

And you turned around. Your back to the band. Looking right at me. And I looked up at you, flushed with joy and dance and expectation, hoping you understood. And the biggest, most angelic smile I have ever seen on a man came across your face. We knew. We fucking knew.

I should have kissed you right then.

You came close. You grabbed my hand and held tight.
You would not leave me. I could tell you never wanted to ever again.

You whispered in my ear. And masked under the throbbing music, you told me things I’d been waiting for.

You were my perfect one. I was your perfect one. We knew. We said. We did things, pressed close and invisible in the crowd, and made it so.

And then the music got lower and the lights went up, and the world around us could see us again. We stood there together, vulnerable, clinging on.

And they closed in on us. There was an angry rain cloud of a girl on your side; concerned, protective friends on mine, a train you had to catch that night. We didn’t fight them. We conceded. We were so stupid.

You should have stayed in my city, gone home with me. I should have quit everything and gotten on that fucking train, gone with you wherever the hell you were going to end up. We talked about it. We said it. But we had only minutes to decide, and it was too fast. Too crazy.

You left. It was done. I pretended everything was as normal. You, on your way to the train, must have done so, too. Other music came back up. I danced, but it was never the same.

In my mind, I am still running to fix that mistake. Bending time so that this time, when my friends trundle me into that cab, attempting to take me downtown and farther and farther away from the you, I shout out. I tell myself the story of how instead of staring at the intense glow of a line of red traffic lights blinking off into the depths of the city, lulling me back into my familiar world, I screamed for Penn Station. How the cab had barely stopped before I was throwing open the door, running down the stairs and across the concourse toward your receding figure, calling out to you, until I was there, throwing myself into your open arms, feeling your lips pressed into mine, forever and forever and forever.

In my mind, I see us getting on that train and going to that place. Still. Even today.

Do you think about it? Do you still remember?

Do you think about that first smile we shared in the dark, our hearts full of fire and light and want? How my mouth touched your ear, and you hand touched my back, drawing me closer to you? About what we said to each other? How just as we were about to be perfect, untouchable, and sure, the tyranny of the "reasonable" got in the way?

Do you still think about what it would have been like if we’d left everyone behind, gotten lost together in what we wanted and woken up somewhere the next day, wrapped around each other under a blanket of what could have been?

I don’t have to ask. I know you do.

So I just want you to know I haven’t forgotten you. I remember you and who you were that night in your perfection.

That, and also, wherever you are now,

You're set free
To me you're precious
May you always
Shine like stars

Photos:
1º song of Primal Scream by Tania.Paz
Primal Scream by Toni Blay

Songs:
"Higher Than the Sun," "Come Together," and "Shine Like Stars" from the album Screamadelica by Primal Scream. Go buy it.

Violent Fucking: A Survey

2006-07-20T01:07:00.000-04:00

Just a fun little survey where we can amuse each other with stories (and/or gain bragging rights).

They say it's never a party until something gets broken. I posit it's never a sex life until something does, either.

In an ideal world, sex would always be perfectly executed. But sometimes in our enthusiasm, things go awry. You accidentally stumble over stuff, you fall on top of something you left on the couch, your makeshift toy can't stand the pressure, you pound very hard on a very un-sturdy surface.

The result? Sexual collateral damage.

So, let's tell some good stories about what's gotten destroyed at YOUR personal parties. Ever get so enthusiastic (or at least so distracted) during sex that you broke, damaged, or totally obliterated something beyond repair? Do tell. The more extreme or amusing, the better. But little things count, too (china, a stuffed animal, a thesis paper...it's all good).

And note: I'm talking damage to material stuff in the surrounding environment, not to humans.

I'll start, in the comments. And remember, you can post anonymously if you don't want to tell the world that you broke your rafters when you were yanking too hard on the hanging restraints.

Go!

Nothing Much...?

2006-07-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

I'm having a "nothing much" day. As in, I'm down; thinking I'm nothing all that much. I feel invisible. It's sort of that "that's just Joe over there" feeling I mentioned yesterday. And along with that, also feeling as if no one will ever find me attractive, and I will never feel in love, or that someone wants me ever, ever again.

I've always kind of done this. Even in the best of times, I've always thought no one saw me as anything particularly special. I've written about it before, here. I'm not sure what I've been basing this on. I guess on some level of mistreatment/devaluation that I've experienced with certain boyfriends/lovers. I make a list: this one cheated, this one lied...put it all together, and it all leads up to proof of "not good enough; not exciting enough; not pretty or interesting or cool or artistic or (fill in the blank here) enough."

And I was driving around today feeling sorry for myself in this way. And then for some reason, I remembered a story I was telling a friend earlier this week about a guy I once kissed in a weak moment, and then I started making up another list around that, and it really just jolted me. Here is this list.

Over the course of my life (in no particular order):

I have received a series of anonymous love letters in the mail.
I have had two men travel across oceans just to meet me.
I have had one man I only knew marginally when I lived overseas (friend of a friend) track down my number once I moved back to the US and then call me regularly from another country just so he could talk to me.
I was once told by an ex-boyfriend that if I didn't do him a favor and go out with a friend of his, he was going to be forced to go insane listening to the guy go on and on and on about my eyes and how beautiful I was.
Actually, similar events to the last item above have happened several times with other male friends
When I suddenly had to switch universities mid-undergrad degree, one man who had lived in the same dorm as me my freshman year (and whom I didn't know well and barely saw through sophomore year, except at a few parties), somehow tracked down my new address and started sending me long letters and gifts.
Along with the above situation, I have had other men who were not old friends or current lovers (and some who were) buy me presents, sometimes sent over long distances, just to make me smile.
I have had male friends of roommates phone our house when they specifically knew my roommates were out and I was in, in hopes that I'd stay on the phone and talk to them (they didn't tell me this, I found out through the roommates later).
In a moment of weakness, in a dark, hidden location, I kissed a man I shouldn't have. And he called me constantly for a year after that, saying he had never experienced such a passionate kiss before and he just couldn't stop thinking about it or let it go without having more (which never happened).
I have had rock stars (and slightly lesser known indie musicians) choose me out of a crowd to talk to
For more than two years, a man traveled regularly across the entire country so that he could see me.
A different man moved across the country when I moved, just so that he could be near me.
I have had at least two adult men mobilize their friends to perform massive public relations campaigns for them in hopes I would go out with them ("Do you know how much ________ likes you? He's a great guy. You should go out with him. Are you interested?")
I have had someone call me as a result of merely having a conversation with me in an elevator
I have been asked out by men while we're filling up our cars at gas stations.
I have had multiple men tell me that they've dreamed (and daydreamed) about me
I have had men write me poetry and erotica.
I have had men I was not with tell me they longed for me.
I have had men call me beautiful to my face (as opposed to it being shouted at me on the street, which doesn't count).
I have had men I was with tell me that I have no idea how beautiful and/or hot I am/
I have had men tell me that being with me was the best time in their lives and that they don't expect anything in future to match up.
I have been told by men (in retrospect, when they stood to gain nothing anymore by the info) that I was the best sexual experience they ever had.

This next reaction is going to sound fake, because most of you don't know me. But those of you who do will know I'm being genuine.

I have just put this together for the first time. I've never seen it in a list. And I am genuinely shocked. If some other woman showed me this list, even if she gave me all the disclaimers I could give to counterbalance each item, I wouldn't be able to come to any other conclusion except one.

So, it's freaking me out, but I'm looking at this for the first time and I think this may actually mean that I'm...god, I can't even say it...(covering my face)...

hot. (?!?)

Or is this kind of list above the norm for most women? I really have no fucking idea. Somebody tell me.

Update: NotCarrie's comment below made me realize I should probably qualify. I didn't solely mean "hot" in terms of physical appearance, though I did mean that, too. I more meant hot in *all* aspects of the word, put together.

In Defense of the Honest Lie

2006-07-15T15:31:00.001-04:00

I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're lovely
And you're perfect
And that somebody wants you
I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're priceless
Yeah, you're precious
Even when you are not new

Before I begin this post, look at the sentence below, and tell me your INSTANT reaction to what you filled in the blanks with. Don't think about it. Just your gut reaction. Okay, go:

Who ____ you think you ____?

Okay, hold on to that. Now:

In my last post I answered a question about what makes me angry, and many of the words I responded with can be boiled down to "dishonesty."

I hate lies. I hate lying to people, and I hate being lied to, whether blatantly, by omission, or by a disingenuous ass kiss, designed to "get" something from you via false flattery.

And yet, in the last 24 hours, after reading posts by two incredibly smart and talented bloggers, I was reminded of something that is going to make me qualify that statement. I think there is one kind of "lie," which both is and isn't really a lie, which is completely acceptable, and in fact should be told as often as possible. It's what I'll call the "honest lie." And here's why I think everyone should start telling this lie to everyone they care about.

This world is designed to grind people down and make them feel unspecial. From the moment you enter this world, someone is evaluating your behavior and "grading" it on some level; often comparing it against others. "Judy doesn't misbehave at the table/at school/etc. Why can't you be good like Judy?"

We learn it early. We're not enough. Someone is always better at it--whatever "it" is. And we carry this message with us, and tell ourselves it even when no one else is around to tell us. And then we even start telling it to (or thinking it about) other people, too. It's a kind of cyclic trap--one person is made to feel less special, and then starts replicating that pattern on someone else. This was the reason for the fill-in-the blank exercise above. Did you fill the sentence in with some version of "Who do you think you are?" This is what I mean. The world pounds this into our heads. We carry this message around, without even realizing it. It's instant, and it's always there, in the back of our heads, playing in an endless loop: "Who do you think you are? You're not special. You're not cool. You're not good enough." And then we see someone who attempts to act as if s/he doesn't believe that about her/himself and we think, "Who the hell does s/he think s/he is?"

It gets into your bones. Because on one level, you know it's true. No matter who you are (or who s/he is), you WILL never be the most beautiful, the most masculine, the most interesting, the sexiest, the smartest, the coolest, the most desired, the most respected.

Why? Because it's all relative, of course. You could strive all your life to be the coolest person in some sort of scene, and to another person in another scene, you're just an idiot. But sadly we spend more time thinking about all the scenes where we aren't cool/pretty/manly/smart than the scenes where we are.

So, you know, it's nice to be reminded when in someone's scene, we are those things, even if in the greater world at large, we may not be. And even if in the greater world, the person reminding us knows we might not be all those things.

What I'm saying is, we all need a nice ego stroke from time to time. And we're ashamed to admit it, or accept it. And we're also loath to give it to someone else, for fear of being called full of shit. And that's sad.

Which brings me to the point of the honest lie: subjectivity. If I tell you, for example, you are the hottest, most desirable man in the universe, knowing full well you don't look like Brad Pitt (or whomever wins those "hottest man alive" polls these days) and don't get laid like Casanova, does that make me a liar? If you tell me I'm fucking gorgeous and the most whip-smart woman on earth, knowing full well my body isn't anything near Angelina Jolie's and I can't do quantum physics to save my life, are you a liar?

Sure. And yet, no. Not if you feel it. Not if "to me" is added into the equation of your statement.

We all want some adoration. We all NEED some adoration. Just to get through this fucking chore of a life. Or rather, to make this fucking life not a chore.

So please, go on and give people the honest lie. And feel okay about asking for and accepting the honest lie from people. You deserve it. It's okay to need an ego stroke.

So what if it's a little unrealistic? Do you know how good it feels for that average Joe to come home from his mind-numbing job and be told he's an adonis? Do you know how good it feels for the average woman who's just left a party to be told she was the hottest woman there and you couldn't keep your eyes off her all night? I'm not talking about saying it to the guy or woman you just met and haven't fucked yet but really, really want to--everyone says it to that person. I'm talking about saying it to the one you have fucked, many times. Or saying it to the friend you adore. Or the family member you love. The people all around you, who you see or connect with regularly. The one who isn't jumping out at you. The one who probably thinks everyone looks at him and says, "Oh, yeah, that's just Joe over there."

Which, by the way, is everyone. We all think on some level we're "just Joe over there."

So give someone the honest lie. And NOT just when they're down. Randomly. Apropos of nothing. Because it's a lie, sure. But the lie is honest. Start looking at the people in your life. The people you see all the time, but don't really SEE. The people without whom things would be just a little duller, or harder, or less bearable. And then think about what you could say--an honest lie--to make their day. Let them know they're the best--TO YOU.

Tell that woman when she asks "Do I look fat in this?" that she never looks fat to you. Tell that man to you he's incredible and deserves everything he wants. Tell that kid s/he's super talented to you. Go on, exaggerate a little. Just to let that person you value have one moment where s/he gets to turn off that "Who do you think you are?" voice for just one fucking minute. To feel that for even just one split second that someone SEES them, and that they are special--a shining light in this world of dullish mediocrity.

Because, on some level everyone is that. And even if the brain, the eye, the tongue of the outside world would tell you what you're saying isn't true, if you feel it in your heart, it's true.

We don't get much in this world. But we can get this; we can give this. We can do it for each other. And we can break this trap. We really can. We don't have to replicate the "Who the fuck do you think you are?" pattern. ALL patterns are replicable, not just the bad ones. If we did the opposite, people would start copying that instead. We just need to get enough people behind it, and make a little bit of effort to get the ball rolling.

Think. If we stopped. If we just walked around and randomly said, "Have I told you today how _______ you are?" (fill in the blank with whatever your heart feels), and kept doing it, until others got so used to it they started imitating it themselves? Think of how much lighter life would be. Think about how much better everyone would feel about themselves, and how loved they'd feel. Think about what they might be able to BE and DO if they walked around feeling that special all the time.

That's what I want. I want everyone to walk around feeling like this, me included:

So, my darling readers, let's get started.

I think you are the most interesting, smart, sexy group of people on earth. And have I told you lately:

I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're lovely
And you're perfect
And that somebody wants you
I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're priceless
Yeah, you're precious
Even when you are not new

(Video is "The First Day of my Life" by Bright Eyes. Lyrics above from F.N.T. by Semisonic.)

Uzis and Memes and Blog Proms, Oh My

2006-07-13T03:38:00.000-04:00

I've been really tired for the last week. Between puzzling over how to switch this blog over to an MT format (and realizing for all my skills I seem to know fuck all and it's taking me FOREVER) and dealing with some personal life stuff I'll not get into here, the energy is just low. So I'm walking around a bit zombie-like, and yet I can't seem to fall asleep before 2 a.m. on any given night.

I need to find someone who's a night owl like me who'd be willing to talk to me late at night and help lull me into sleep. Volunteers?

Not speaking of which, I came across some lame article today (too tired to find it again) on Blogger about how to use your blog as a dating tool. Can this stuff really be used for that? I've seen no evidence. I mean, not ONE person who reads this blog has ever tried to woo me. I think I must come across as un-woo-able. Do I appear to be sans woo?

Hey, I've got woo. I've got lots and LOTS of woo. Come see for yourself. It's stored right here in this trunk at the foot of my bed, just under the Big, Fat Uzi I was issued by Gail when I moved here to be one of the Old Town girls.

Hm. You think maybe the Uzi's putting the guys off?

Hey, a girl needs her defenses. Doesn't mean she doesn't have some stellar woo tucked into her bustier that's just under her ammo belt.

Anyway.

I'd started a post I think is a great idea (though maybe it's just lack of sleep that makes me think that). But I'm too tired to actually have the creative energy to finish it right now. Still, though, I feel like writing something, just to keep my writing brain somewhat active. So instead of the "real" post, today you get the ramblings above, and a meme that I swiped from Karl Elvis's blog. You can go to his place to read who he swiped it from.

Read on, and comment at will.

1. If you could be doing what you really want to be doing for a living, what would it be?

I wouldn’t want to be “doing something for a living” at all—I’d want to be just living, with no regard to earning. Which for me would mean things like travel, music, reading, living in a really cool place (or places) in a house (or houses/flats) I love, having elaborate, excessive dinner parties and late night drinking and conversation with smart, interesting, creative, funny friends, film, art, dancing, writing all sorts of things—novels, screenplays, poetry, erotica, radio essays, children’s books, whatever I like, and having people read it and connect to it. It would be even more excellent if they paid me well for it. Being near water. Spending lots of time listening to and watching the ocean hit the beach. Never having to worry about money. And having time to volunteer for any cause I wanted to support. (And if this was attained via having lots of money, I would add “donate to” to the last sentence.)

If I have to "do something for a living," as in a JOB, I’d like to make a living with my writing as described above. If I can’t, the kind of writing work I do right now for a living isn’t too bad, really.

I’ve also always wanted to try voice over work. Lots of people have said I should, and I think I would like it, but I have no idea how to break into it. Anyone out there who has any tips for how to do it, or who wants to hire me, email me.

2. If you could slap the shit out of any famous person, alive or dead, who would it be?

W.

3. What’s the dumbest decision you’ve made in the past 5 years?

Um…I actually can’t think of any. I’m not big on regret. I just tend to absorb and move on.

4. Give up one for a year: (good) sex or (good) music.

Music, I guess. But really these two are the same to me, and inextricable. I can’t picture them as separate. Sex feels like music to me. And good music feels like sex. They need to be together.

5. Dudes, would you rather have a big dick or a great sense of humor?

I don’t respond comments that begin with “dude.” Ever.

6. So you’ve been invited to an all expense paid Blogger Prom in The Bahamas. You’re sitting at the bar on the beach. Which blogger do you want to join you for hours of good convo?

Why the hell would they have a Blogger Prom on the beach? Like, there’d be no wireless access, man. People would lose their minds.

If I have to be at a Blogger Prom Convention (and I’d ONLY be there due to the “all expense paid” thing), I would probably go someplace darker and more dive-bar like and hang out with Hiromi, exchanging snide comments about all of the people who actually paid to go to a “Blogger Prom.” Suckers.

7. Which blogger would you most like to cuddle with on the beach? (and don’t defer to your current signif other either. Infidelity won’t count against you. Duh.)

Grrr. I don’t cuddle. I own an Uzi, dammit!

IF there was a blogger who was powerful enough to be able to sweet talk me into lowering my very sexy and metaphorical submachine gun so that he could then disarm me in my moment of weakness, leaving me so overcome by with his quickness and skill that I'd suddenly feel compelled to purr and rub up against him like a little cuddly kitten (which would never, NEVER happen, EVER, I tell you), you’d never see it out on the beach. It’d be like a WMD in Iraq--there might be rumors of its existence, but you’d never have the evidence. No one would ever know what didn’t happen with the blogger whom I never cuddled with in that secret location that doesn’t exist. Because most likely this non-existant blogger would keep mum about it, too, if he knew what was good for him (and his future sexual happiness).

(But then again, I’ve never really found men who knew what was good for them to be particularly appealing.)

Of course, I’d also never let that blogger know if I thought he was powerful enough to disarm me. Either he’d know his own power or he wouldn’t. I’m not gonna surrender before the battle even begins. What’s the fun in that?

Wondering if I’m “not talking” about you, hm? As well you should.

8. You’re going on a 5 hour road trip: which 5 CDs do you bring?

This changes every single day. But today:
Two new CDs I’m listening to--Wig in a Box (a Hedwig covers compilation) and Giant Drag's Hearts and Unicorns. And three perfect driving CDs that I take on every road trip, regardless of what else I bring: The Best of Blur, Ramones Mania, and…wait for it…South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Best. Driving. Cd. Ever.)

9. Would you rather bury your children young or have your children bury you young?

Seeing as I don’t have kids, I’ll choose to bury the spawn. Then no one’s actually buried at all.

10. What’s your biggest insecurity?

That I’m not enough.

And also, letting people see that I’m insecure about that.

11.What’s the first blog you read every day, or however often you read them?

I don’t have a “first.” I kind of just go through the favorites on my blogroll. I usually start with all the Moronosphere folks first (Circe, Buck, Ray, Hiromi, Karl Elvis, in no particular order), then go through the others on my daily reads list, as well as those mentioned in my BILFs post (who should be on the daily reads list by now but I’ve just been too lazy to redo the code).

12. When’s the last time you peed your pants?

What the hell kind of question is this? Do most people pee their pants beyond early childhood?

Um, I think it was 2nd grade. Because some bitch friend of my mother’s who I was staying with while my parents were on vacation wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom before she made me walk to school.

13. Which was better, your first kiss or your first pay check?

Neither is particularly memorable to me. Both weren’t nearly enough.

14. Do you have kids? Want kids?

No. Define “want.”

15. You get dropped off at home after the office holiday party by your bitch azz boss that you can’t effing stand… you exit the car and he peels out, runs a red light at your corner and rolls up an unsuspecting midget. The next day the midget watch groups are on TV outraged at the heartless hit and run, and are calling for any witnesses to please come fwd: that half dead midget has a family at home waiting on C-mas presents. Would you take $1000 hush money? $500? $100? A six pack?

So this question is assuming after I witnessed my “bitch azz” (ugh) boss hit a human being in the street, I wouldn’t call an ambulance right away to report it, but would instead wait till the next morning and only think about whether I should report it after I listened to the news?

Please. I would be on the phone to an ambulance the moment I saw a person got hit. So the question is totally moot.

But IF I am going to entertain this “stupid azz” question, no, I wouldn’t take hush money of any amount.

For the record, and because I’m difficult like this: I also wonder why the example uses a midget. Why not just any person? And why is the midget “unsuspecting?” Isn’t that kind of redundant? How many people suspect they’re going to get hit by a car?

16. Live the rest of your life without your eyebrows or your fingernails?

No fingernails sounds painful, so eyebrows. And then I’d have them permanently tattooed on like this lady I know down the street.

17. What makes you angry?

Dishonesty. Deception. Lying, both blatantly and by omission. Fake people. Poseurs. People who won’t own up to their own mistakes and always blame someone else to cover their own asses. Lack of integrity and honor. Infidelity. Snobbishness. Xenophobia. Racism/bigotry/prejudice. Willful ignorance. Blatant stupidity. Narrow-mindedness. Judgmental pricks. Bullies. Crooked politicians. Zealots of any sort. Bullshit. Bullshit excuses. People who make up their mind about something without ever trying to experience that thing first.

18. What makes you horny?

Hearing the sounds a man makes when I’ve made him feel so good he’s gone non-verbal.

Reading really good erotica; especially erotica that someone I desire wrote specifically for me.

Writing good erotica (yes, I admit it, my own writing can get me very hot as it’s coming out of me); especially writing erotica aimed at someone I want to turn on and imagining his reaction when he first opens it, and as he reads it, and…

Dirty talk, moaning, and/or growling in my ear. During actual sex, AND over the phone. You can make me explode on the spot if you do this right.

Listening to the sound of hetero or male/male or male masturbatory porn. (I like this even better than watching porn—you get to imagine more).

Kissing my neck. Running the tips of your fingers lightly over my skin so I can only barely feel it (makes me want to scream for more).

Should I go on? A lot of things make me horny.

19. What makes you nervous?

Infants holding balloons (*shudder*). My 1984 torture would be me sitting in a room surrounded by toddlers squishing balloons.

Being aggressively flirted with by someone who I secretly want to flirt with me. I blush, lose the ability to speak or be clever, feel completely off balance, hide behind my hair, and in general have no idea what to do with myself. (But secretly I like it.)

Loud, sudden noises. The suspense of knowing a gun or cannon is going to go off (for instance, in a play or memorial service). Really loud thunder. Being woken up by gunshots outside my window in the middle of the night (hey, I told you I was an Old Town chick.

And Karl Elvis and I share the same one in this category. I HATE when people sneakily try to peek over my shoulder to see what I’m writing on paper or when I’m doing ANYTHING on the computer (unless I’ve invited them to look at something).

20. What makes you smile?

Being flirted with by someone I like (even though it also scares me). I try to keep a cool poker face and not to show they’re getting to me, but if you do it right I can’t keep hold of my cool and end up all pink and smiling like a total schoolgirl goofball.

Getting a cool present from a friend that shows they really “get” me.

Random absurdity.

My nephews, just being who they are.

Thinking about something he said to me the night before while I’m sitting in a meeting at work.

That moment after you’ve both just come and your bodies move from the stiff pulsing of orgasm into release and you’re both still feeling the waves as your bodies let go and come down though you’re still a little out of breath; and your bodies are separating, coming down, but you’re both still wanting to hold onto it a little bit longer, so you reach out to touch in some way…and when you feel that touch and you look right in that person’s face for the first time since your orgasm and see that person looking back at you…yeah. That’s when you’ll see the biggest ass smile you’ll ever see on my face.

And

This song

This song

This song

This song

And

This song &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;

Okay, there's that done. Now I really must be off to bed. I don't know how I'm making it through this week at work, given the hours I'm keeping lately.

Somebody tell me sumthin'.

The Way Things Add Up

2006-07-12T02:30:00.000-04:00

Two brilliant photos I found in different places, at around the same time. Sometimes life's just like that. (Click them to really see them well).

#1, from Postsecret, anonymous.
#2, Hope by Mark Burdett, is a shot of street art done by the mysterious, brilliant, and beautiful graffitti artist Banksy.

The Pursuit of Happiness On Thunder Road

2006-07-10T21:10:00.000-04:00

Over the July 4th weekend, I heard a rebroadcast of a This American Life show called "The Pursuit of Happiness." As with all TAL shows, it's great, and you can listen to the whole thing here. But I'm going to talk specifically about some things that came up in the introduction to the hour.

In the introduction, the host talks to a historian who's written a book about the Declaration of Independence. They talk about the phrase "the pursuit of happiness." They comment on how extraordinary it is that one of a country's founding documents seems to "care about how we feel about things in some way."

The show's host suggests this promise of an "unalienable right" to pursue our own happiness is almost "like the promise you hear contained in a rock 'n' roll song." I get this. For some reason, early Bruce Springsteen songs came to mind immediately when he said that. Basically, it's the political equivalent of declaring, "Someday, girl/I don't know when/We're gonna get to that place (life)/Where we really want to go (liberty)/And we'll walk in the sun (happiness)."

It really is quite extraordinary in its way. That one small, unusual statement somehow implies that we have the right to optimism, despite the odds. It's like the Declaration itself is asserting it believes in us--that it believes we have a good chance to actually become happy, if we pursue it, and there's no shame in our actively believing that, either, or in involving ourselves in that pursuit.

And yet...

The historian also explains how, of all the many things stated in the Declaration, and of the many things she has written about it in her book, these four words are the only ones most people ever remember or want to discuss. They actively puzzle over its meaning. After all, as she says, being told you have the right to a trial by jury is pretty clear cut--you know exactly what you're getting there, what you should be "allowed." But the right to pursue happiness? What that "allows" you to do or have is simply not concrete.

The historian said she believed that Jefferson "left it to people to decide what gave them happiness." She says happiness is a very private and personal thing, and Jefferson probably felt every person had to define it for him or herself.

But if you look at the sentiments in the two paragraphs above, you notice something funny's going on. In an incredible display of respect for the right to individual freedom, Jefferson left it open and limitless for us--we can define our happiness and the pursuit of it as anything we want. And yet this isn't what people want to hear. Instead, the historian says that people want to know what this phrase, this right, means exactly.

It's interesting, this need we have to understand the boundaries of what we're "allowed" to pursue in terms of our own happiness. (I'm including myself in that "we" in a big way.)

We're not comfortable hearing, "It means anything YOU want it to." We're afraid of hearing, "You can have it all (whatever "it" is...you decide)." We don't want such vast openness--such opportunity for diving into the chasm of the unknown with just our own inner compass for a guide. So instead of "it means anything you want it to," we beg to hear "I'm telling you what it will mean for you." And instead of "you can have it all," we demand to be told "here's exactly how much you can have, and no more."

Why? Why? We are told, we can pursue our happiness with absolutely no limits put on it. And we assume there must be limits. In fact, we demand them. We insist we haven't the right to limitless opportunity for optimism, for trying again, for believing in our vision of personal happiness and peace. We want Jefferson to come back and draw our little line in the sand...to define the limits of our hopes and dreams. And when he won't, we use the nearest substitute--teacher, parent, sibling, friend, lover, husband, wife, etc.--anyone who will tell us we can't go beyond a certain point and see our vision grow to fruition. Anyone who will stunt our growth, who will save us from our own pursuit before we do damage to ourselves.

Because as we know, to stand up and say, "I believe I can have it all," is the ultimate act of hubris. We're challenging the universe to knock us down.

Aren't we?

Or has someone (teacher, parent,...) sold us a bill of goods? Or even worse, have we sold it to ourselves--voluntarily stepped into cages built by our own fear of the unknown, and drawn in the appropriate people to serve as our jailers?

We let the voices in; and with them, the doubt and shame. As the host astutely points out toward the introduction's end, "...for a lot of us, the notion that we're just going to pursue happiness...it seems frivolous; it lacks dignity; it lacks moral seriousness."

That's definitely what we've been told. It certainly accounts for the shame and embarrassment I feel when I contemplate telling someone I belive in happiness.

But is it true? Where is the factual evidence?

I grew up in an environment where I was told there were definite limits on what defined happiness. And I was taught it was more or less indecent to go after what made you happy if it pushed the boundaries of those limits.

I wasn't told I couldn't have dreams. Instead, I was told you could pursue your happiness to a point. You could have the dream and find some path that sort of approximated that dream. Say you wanted to be an artist, for example--a painter. Well, you could paint houses. You could become a graphic designer. You could become an art therapist.

So, you could have your dream...sort of. But not really.

And that was life, and you accepted it. You took your dreams with limits, and you were happy. (Sort of. But not really.)

I'm so fucking done with that.

I'm ready to stand up, shoulders back, chin up, and look straight in your face, and say, "I can have it all."

Yeah, I'm nervous as hell about doing it. I'm scared shitless.

I realize when I stand up and say that confidently; when I assert my right to say it and believe it, some of you are going to say (or at least think) I'm arrogant, or stupid, or selfish, or misguided. And that will hurt me.

I realize some of you, who have a vested interest in not having to question your own limits, will try very hard to hold me back, shut me down, or shut me up. I realize some of you will make fun of me either to my face or behind my back, and will try to make me feel or look foolish and ashamed. And I realize, whether consciously or un-, some of you will be angry at me and hope I fail. And all that will hurt me, too.

And I realize if I accept that "the right to pursue happiness" means anything I, and I alone, want it to, then it means I have to make all my own choices, without regard to others' input. (For the record, this DOES NOT mean I won't consider others, just that they don't get to tell me how to consider them.) And that is very chancy, because if I ask others to help set my limits, when (NOT IF) I fail to reach my dreams, I will be able to blame it on someone else. But if I make all my own choices, and pursue my definition of happiness, and I fail, I have no one else to blame for the failure except myself. And that, my friends, will hurt most of, most of, most. of. all.

But if I do this. If I say, "I can have it all," and instead of all of the above, I turn out to be right?

What then? (Think of the vista...how it all opens up...how all that stuff you're agonizing over now becomes miniscule, ant-like, just a distant speck in the rear view as you're speeding away, and the night's bustin' open and those two lanes'll take you eh...nee...where...)

Please ask yourself the same thing, too. Is not taking the chance worth it? Can you afford NOT to stand up and declare your right to pursue your happiness?

Because as Jefferson said:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal enmity against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Or, in the words of his as his rock 'n' roll interpreter:

"Together we could break this trap
We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
'Cause baby, I'm just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl, I want to know if love is real"

Whaddya say? Are you with me?

(Hey, I know it's late, but we can make it if we run.)

The Internet is Not a Truck. It's a Series of Tubes. (And Some Stuff About My Ass.)

2006-07-04T20:13:00.000-04:00

My ass is deeply bruised and aching.

No, I didn't get a spanking because I was a bad, bad girl. Sorry. I know that first line was so promising. But you sex-crazed folk will need to check out Sugasm to find some spanking erotica today. The reason my ass hurts is because I had a massage yesterday, and it turned out I had all kinds of knots there that I didn't know about, and the masseuse attacked the problem with gusto. It was painful, but in a good way.

(Okay, maybe the sex-crazed among you can get a good mental image out of that, come to think of it.)

But now my muscles are complaining. In a big way.

Anyway, while the masseuse was working me over, she started talking to me about some mind-body-healing theory called "somatics" or "body psychology." It's all about how pain in certain areas of the body refer to certain kinds of emotional/mental struggles. So she tells me the buttock region usually relates to dealing with intense frustration, and disappointment, especially with relationships (of all kinds--including family and friends). Check. And the abdomen (front and back), where I had most of my other tension, generally related to repressed anger and creative/emotional block--to have had one's voice silenced, or been blocked from being oneself or expressing oneself as one needs to, leading to self-esteem issues. Check.

I should also mention that this masseuse had never met me before, so these "diagnoses" were based on nothing, and yet were incredibly accurate. It's all very interesting. I came home and tried to do some light research on the topic, hoping to find a simple corollary chart (your ear hurts, you're struggling with abandonment issues), but alas, no go. Anyone else ever heard of this school of thought?

Anyway, I should have asked which needed to be fixed for the other to go away. If the masseuse works all the kinks out of my ass, do my relationship frustrations go away? Or is my ass doomed to continue to hurt until I work out my emotional issues related to relationships?

My guess is it's the latter, but wouldn't it be great if we could just pay someone to work on our body and it would suddenly open up our bodily "flow" and make us see things in a new light, so that all our problems go away? One can only dream.

And now for something completely different...

Did you ever try to get your grandfather or father or some post-aged-sixty person to understand some new piece of technology? Remember how well that went? (Ahem.)

It's always heartening to once again have it brought to your attention that these older dads and grandpas are also running our US government. And they're trying to regulate new technology. The result? This. Be very, very afraid.

And listen to the audio, it's even worse than the transcript, if you can believe that. AND the audio gets cut off, which means there was more, which is also very frightening. AND it seems to me like he's basing his opinion on the whole matter based on his frustration with having not received an email (a.k.a. "an internet") on time (apparently because Netflicks and the iTunes streaming media store is fucking up the whole "tube system").

Thanks to the always lusciously snarky Bitch PhD for pointing the way.

(Oh, and yes, the Bad Ass Cafe is for real, and you can eat in it when you go to Dublin. Pretty good pizza--for Ireland.)

The Perfect Dessert for a Holiday Picnic

2006-07-04T17:07:00.000-04:00

Miss Syl --

[noun]:

An erotic popsicle

'How will you be defined in the sexual dictionary?'
at QuizUniverse.com

Hot out, isn't it?

Thanks to Artful Dodger, that steamy, steamy shower of a man, for the heads up.

An Inconvenient Meme

2006-07-02T15:57:00.000-04:00

It's Fourth of July weekend. I'm sure readership will be abysmal, at least coming from the US, which is where a big percentage of my readers seem to come from. So I may just do some posts of light whimsy instead of anything that requires vast concentration. Stuff I've found online that's amusing to me, memes, etc.

With that in mind, two things for you.

First, a movie. Then, a meme.

MOVIE:
I just saw the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. If you haven't seen it, I really encourage you to. It was really good--and thought provoking. If you've ever wondered what "all this global warming stuff " actually means for you, this film helps you "get it" fast, explains the immediate and projected consequences based on hard science, and gets you to begin thinking about ways to start resolving the problem. Kudos to Al Gore for a job well done.

Even though it would seem a film on such a serious topic might be a bit heavy and dull, or alarmist in a reactionary way, it wasn't at all. Unlike Fahrenheit 911, which I was sorely disappointed in, this film didn't rely on a higher percentage of emotional manipulation and cheap shots at the current administration than it did on hardcore facts to make its point. In fact, while very occasionally there was a subtle, tongue-in-cheek comment targeted at past and current US governmental disinterest in environmental policy, An Inconvenient Truth's tone overall is very measured, and focuses on the issue at the global, not just national, level. It was clear that Al Gore wanted to make sure any point he made that represented US policy in a bad light (or any other country's) was based on fact, not personal vendetta. This approach, in my opinion, is the strongest one of all for an issues-based film: build your argument with facts, not name calling. This film certainly does that.

And even though it was clearly done on a shoestring budget, it wasn't boring at all. In fact, I and the person who went to see it with me both wished it had gone on a little longer, and that even more things were discussed, so obviously we weren't bored. The film is interesting, it dispels a lot of spin around the issue, and it's very easy to watch and comprehend, even if you don't have a scientific background. And there's a cartoon by the Simpsons creators in it. How can you go wrong?

Go see it.

MEME:
I found this on the splendiferous Brooke's site, and the questions seemed a little more unusual than the norm, so thought I'd give it a go. If you're desirous of being tagged, then YOU'RE IT. Let me know if you did it on your site so I can check it out.

Also note, as every meme I do makes obvious, I can't seem to EVER follow the rules. Forgive me. It's just my way. The girl can't help it.

1.You are in the Witness Protection Program and must invent a new first, last, and middle name. What is it?

Pret A Porté

2.You are in a threesome with two famous people, alive or dead. Who are they?

Captain Will Kidd and his somewhat lesser-known brother Mad Jack.

Heh. Just a joke to make a friend laugh.

Okay, seriously now:

Vātsyāyana and Mae West.

Although, actually, a pirate/girl/biker threesome sounds pretty damn good, too. Can I have both choices?

3.You are in charge of naming your new band. What's the name of the band?

Vermiscious Knid

4. You are going to get a free tattoo. What would it be?

A cherry blossom branch, just starting to bloom. Either around my arm or on one side of my back near my shoulder. But kind of abstract. More like these than a literal depiction:

5. You are being forced to listen to one song over and over, ad infinitum, as a form of torture. What song is it?

This one.

6. You are leaving your state/province. What state do you move to?

Upstate NY (specifically Ithaca) for the summer. And maybe Hawaii the rest of the year--but only if it’s combined with lengthy visits to lots of hipster cities I like (Portland, LA, NYC, San Francisco…). I can’t sit still. Obviously.

7. You are leaving your country, where would you move?

I’d split time between Scotland (warmer months), and Italy (Florence or Cinque Terra) or maybe France (Paris). Close runner-ups would be Portugal, Spain, Japan, and Iceland in the summer (I’ve never been to the last two but I have the feeling I’d really like both).

8. You get to choose one book as the best ever written. What book do you choose?

Toss up: Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky or Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

9. You get to choose one movie as the best ever made. What movie do you choose?

Christ, I can’t answer this. WizardofOzEternalSunshineoftheSpotlessMindAnimal CrackersWillieWonkaWestSideStoryMagnoliaTrust

10. You get to spend one day each as a bird, an insect, and a mammal. What bird would you be? What insect? What mammal?

Bird: One of those black water birds that can fly AND swim on top of and under the water. I don’t know the name, but I see them all the time around here. I want it all.

Insect: Tarantula.

Mammal: Dolphin. (Yeah those last two conflict in every way. Welcome to my brain.)

Why no reptile? I want to be a reptile! I’d be a Gravid " Edelbrock " longtail boa constrictor.

11. You must relive one year of your life. Which would you like to relive?

Either September 1989 - September 1990 or 1991.

12. Which year(s) would you least like to relive?

The year in which I was assaulted (I can’t remember exactly which one it was).

Of course, that’s just one moment I’d like to erase in an otherwise okay year. If it was a whole YEAR of moments to erase, maybe any year between 2001 and 2005.

13. You have a time machine that will take you backwards anywhere from 1800 to the present. What decade do you most want to visit?

Only to 1800? That sucks. I want to visit eras way before that.

Um, the 1920s sounded cool. I’d like to be in Paris in the 1920s.

Second choice: NYC or London during the early years of punk. So, 1970s. (I was actually alive then, but nowhere near old enough to be able to be a scenester.)

14. You must choose to go skydiving or very-deep-sea diving.

Deep-sea diving. Love the ocean. Hate drops.

15. You get to return to the past (using that handy dandy time machine we were talking about before) and have a sexual encounter with a rock star who is no longer alive. Who do you pick?

Up until recently, it would have been John Lennon. But then I carefully watched a video of him and Yoko making out, and he seemed like kind of a bad kisser.

He’s not dead, but I’d like to fuck the memory of Jimmy Page from when he looked like this.

I don’t even like Led Zeppelin (yes, I know, I'm the only person on earth who doesn't appreciate them). But I just always thought JP was hot. I like his face.

16. You get to be a contestant on any game show, airing today or in the past. What show do you want to be on?

None. I want to be on Iron Chef, but as a judge. (And the original show, NOT the American version)

17. You are given $1 million dollars but you must give it all to one charity. What charity do you choose?

I'd set up a grant program for unpublished writers so that those selected would be able to have the funds to write for a year without financial worry.

18. You must ban one word from the dictionary and all usage, to be no longer uttered or written. What word do you ban?

This isn’t actually in the dictionary, but I would like to ban anyone--ESPECIALLY any adult--from ever calling vegetables “veggies.” Gets on my last nerve.

19. You can have 100 million dollars tax-free but if you take it, you'll die at the age of fifty. Do you take it?

Nope. I no longer accept gifts with conditions. Ever.

20. There is no number 20.

Well, all numbers are really 42, anyway.

Is anyone who reads this blog single?

2006-06-30T23:34:00.000-04:00

As in not married or seriously attached?

I just thought I'd ask. Seems to me sometimes the blogging world is overrun with married or LTR people.

Or is it just me?

(photo credit: Half Empty or Half Full by Justin/Leslie Shearer)

Please Help! Last-Minute Appeal from Planned Parenthood to Help with Legal Funds for Supreme Court Case

2006-06-30T13:07:00.000-04:00

For those of you who haven't heard, the Supreme Court has just recently agreed to hear a Planned Parenthood case against the federal abortion ban, which Planned Parenthood has been fighting in the lower courts for a couple of years.

However, to afford the legal funds and expenses they need for the case, they need to raise a certain amount of money BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, when their fiscal year ends. I encourage anyone out there who believes there should be no federal restrictions on abortion and who has the wherewithal to donate to please do so.

Their costs for the case are about $150,000, according to a recent email I received from them. They put out a call on Wednesday and have already received more than $50,000 and are doing a last-minute push to reach a goal of $100,000 from individual donations by midnight.

Even if you can't donate personally, if you want to help, please post this information on your blog or email it to people you know so we can make as many people aware of the issues and get as many donations as possible before the deadline.

To make a donation online, go here.

To learn more about the case, go here.

Thanks for listening, and for helping where you can.

"At Least Rocks Don't Taste Like DESPAIR."

2006-06-30T10:33:00.000-04:00

I have a new god. And it is this guy.

The three best videos in that link, IMHO, are "muffins," "love letters," and the absolutely brilliant "shoes," which I've been singing constantly to myself since hearing it last night.

Those of you who live in LA, I say get the hell out of the house and go see this guy perform. And give him a TV show.

Enjoy.

Found through a twisted path initiated by schmutzie and jaschu. Thanks, y'all.

Different for Girls

2006-06-29T19:10:00.000-04:00

When I was a high-school-aged teenager, I was vacationing at the beach with my family. Though I didn't know this then, I do now, and so I'm not ashamed to say it: At the time, I looked pretty damn hot, especially in a bathing suit. As a result, a swarm of teenage boys from my hotel would hover around me wherever I went. I was clueless, of course. I thought we were all just buddies.

Anyway, all of this is really neither here nor there. It's just a preface to set the scene for the memory I'm about to describe. I remember I was sitting on the patio that housed the hotel pool, me the only girl, surrounded by about seven teenaged boys. It was that time just before it's really sunset, where the sun's still up, but you can feel its heat getting weaker and the tourists have all left the beach for the night to clean up and you know soon that dusk will be there and the boardwalk rides will light up in the distance, luring you there.

But it was not quite that time yet. And so we were lazily waiting on the patio, me and all those boys, our legs hanging over a wall that dropped down to the mostly abandoned beach below, listening to the waves hit the sand.

Not surprisingly, considering my company and their age, the conversation gravitated over to girls vs. guys and how they were different, dating, and broad jokey teenage hints at sexual topics, and what have you. And suddenly, prompted by nothing specific in the conversation, one of the guys sitting closest to me said in this very solicitous, I'm-your-friend-and-I'm-just-trying-to-help-you kind of tone, "You know, Syl, rape is really bad. But I have to say that best advice I can give you if a guy ever attacks you is to not try to fight. Just let it happen and get it over with. Then at least he won't hurt you or kill you."

The boys around him all nodded seriously at this sage advice.

I'm sure I must have looked at him like he was insane, because he then said, "No, really, if I had a sister, I'd tell her the same thing. It could end up so much worse for you if you fought back."

I said, "Oh really? Okay, let's say a man was about to rape you. Would you stay there and just take it and get it over with?"

This prompted many protestations from the boys about how they'd never be in that situation. Not them. No. Still, I pressed the issue. I wanted an answer. Finally, the guy who'd initiated the discussion said, "Are you kidding? I'd do whatever it took not to have a guy rape me. I'd beat the hell out of him."

I said, "What if you ended up hurt or killed?"

He said, "I'd rather end up dead than have a guy stick something in my ass!"

I said, "So for me it's better to be raped, but for you it isn't?"

To which he said, "Come on, Syl, no guy could live with knowing that happened to him. It's totally different for guys. It's way worse for a guy."

And all the boys nodded again.

I know you're all reading that and thinking, "Idiots." And maybe, "They were just too young to know any better."

But you know what? Those teenage boys, they didn't spontaneously come up with that belief; they were getting it from somewhere. And those teenage boys, they're now grown men. And you have to wonder how many of them ever changed their minds. My guess is probably not many. They may have learned not to say it so stupidly, sure. But most of them probably still think rape is far more awful of a prospect for a man than it is for a woman.

You know it's true; because they're far from alone in this belief. You can see it in the way it's discussed in the media. In the reactions you get from people when talking about a male versus a female rape. In the comments about "how hard it must have been" for a man to come out and "admit" he'd been raped.

Admit it. Some of you out there probably still think that yourself. Measure the reaction you have when you hear a man's been raped on the news against your reaction when you hear a woman was raped.

It's time to lay this fallacious logic to rest.

This post and the memory I described above cropped up because I was just reading an excellent post on myths and misconceptions about rape called "Natural Victims" on Pinko Feminist Hellcat. PFH so simply and clearly sums the whole fucked-up logic behind this phenomenon, it's almost breathtaking:

"I have seen in the comments of different blogs and articles, and heard in conversation, that rape and sexual assault is worse for men because they are men. Men aren't supposed to be raped or victimized; being raped and sexually humiliated makes them feel like women..."

And I just want to say, brava. The woman is right.

And I want to stress what a fucking double insult that is to women. Not only does it minimize our own assaults, but it also minimizes us as a gender.

It's worse for men because being assaulted equates them with women. Read: it lowers them, lessens them; makes them less valuable, more the kind of thing that should "stay there and take it" than a full-fledged human being with feelings and worth who doesn't deserve that sort of treatment. A human being who has the right to value himself enough to feel he is worth fighting for.

Now, please don't misunderstand. I am in NO WAY minimizing the horror of a man being assaulted. That is indeed a horrible and reprehensible thing, and my heart and all my empathy (and I do mean empathy, because I've been there), goes out to each and every man who's been raped or assaulted.

But don't anyone tell me any man's assault is worth more consideration and sympathy, or is more horrible than any woman's. We are not lesser human beings, and we don't feel the terrible impact of assault any less than any man.

And don't tell me that social stigmatization of male rape makes it that much harder for the man than it does for a woman. Yes, stigmatization makes it hard for a man to admit to or talk about his rape. But stigmatization for having been raped is not the sole domain of men. Ask any woman who's been raped. Ask her how comfortable and unstigmatized she felt in trying to tell people what happened to her. Ask her how easy it was for her to admit to herself, let alone others, what happened to her.

Female rape is reported more than male rape because there are more female rapes than male rapes. It's not because it's easier for one than the other. Many, many, MANY women do not report their rapes. Ever. Why? Fear of stigmatization.

Just about every rape victim is subjected to the worst kind of behavior not only during their rape, but after. The blaming responses, the faulty assumptions (many described in PFH's post, so I won't go into them here). It doesn't matter if women hear them MORE OFTEN. They're equally as damaging to either gender. As a result, many vicitims choose to stay silent about it. Both male and female. It's for the same reason. The impact is the same.

And please don't tell me male assaults have more impact exactly because percentage-wise they're less common. That doesn't matter. As with a man, when you're one woman, alone, being assaulted, the percentages aren't there. You're a percentage of one. And percentages don't minimize the post-traumatic stress disorder you will personally experience after the assault. Percentages don't hold you and comfort you and make it all better.

The horror of rape is the horror of rape. Period. For any person, of any gender, of any sexual orientation.

Don't tell me to stay still and take it, you fucker. Don't you dare tell me your violation counts more.

Learning to Cope With the Emotionless Mediocracy of Day-to-Day Living

2006-06-26T21:33:00.000-04:00

Love love love love love love love

Songs.

Just about everything I am is a contradiction. Case in point:

As you know, I'm an only half-hearted girl, afraid of intimacy and sentimentality.

And yet I'm also passionately, poisonously romantic.

It's a dangerous and possibly lethal combination to have roiling in my blood every day.

Oh, last night, and today...it's at a boiling point, and the fumes are curling all around me like vines of purple and red smoke, overwhelming me and making me swoon.

And it's at want want need need times like this, that I have no alternative but to pull out the big guns to help cope. I must conjur up the soul and spirit of the inimitable Daniel Johnston.

Oh baby, I need it bad. Do you need it, too? Daniel and I are gonna give it to you.

Need a girl singing you the most stunnigly simple, perfect love song ever written? Yes, I do. Yes, you do. It's here, covered by Kathy McCarty.

Need a boy singing you a song about how you'll find true love if you don't have it now? Yes, I do. Yes, you do. It's here, covered by Beck.

Now, c'mere and kiss me. Hard.

(Note: You can buy stuff by all three of these artists on iTunes. Or, you can get Daniel Johnston's art--like the piece "Voila!" pictured above--and music, books, posters, shirts, etc. directly from his website. Go do it.)

Blow Hard: A (Somewhat) Detached Assessment of the Great Cocksucking Debate of 2006

2006-06-25T13:23:00.000-04:00

[On opening: Thanks to the lovely and talented AlwaysArousedGirl for guilting me into writing this, and for sending me all this extra traffic. Here's the post, finally. Hope everyone who visits, both regulars and newbies, enjoys and can manage to slog through it. I seem to have gone for broke on this one.]

Okay, so should you be completely out of touch lately, there's been this huge blogtroversy going on that began on I Blame the Patriarchy. It's related to blowjobs and if this act is...well, let me allow the always opinionated Twisty to speak for herself:

Flame me if you will, but I posit nevertheless that no woman, since the dawn of the patriarchal co-option of human sexuality, has ever actually enjoyed this submissive sexbot drudgery. There’s a reason that deep-throating a funk-filled bratwurst makes a person retch.*

How dare I presume to impugn the sanctity of a woman’s right to the blow job? I do so mostly on accounta I will get a big bang out of the impassioned arguments defending it.

*Reason: It’s fucking gross.

WELL. The furor this set off! Which I'm sure delighted the author. Actually, I don't have to postulate, she says it herself.

Initially, though I did read all Twisty's posts and others comments on them, as well as many other reaction posts around the Web, I didn't weigh in.

I would have spoken up. But you see, unfortunately my mouth was too full of penis at the time.

Yuk, yuk, yuk. Okay, you gotta allow me one sarcastic, pseudo-grumpy joke (after all, Twisty got to have loads of them), and now I'll get all sincere and serious. Stick with me folks, and I promise another bad cock joke at the end.

Okay, seriously now, I decided I wasn't even going to bother to weigh in on the initial debate for a couple of reasons. First and foremost was because my response would merely be nothing more than an amusement to the author of the post. People, pay attention--despite whether at root the author believed her statements to be true or not, the tone screamed out "this is not a serious assertion" and therefore it didn't deserve a serious debate.

Credit where credit's due. Ya gotta hand it to Twisty for knowing how to tweak people's figurative nipples and get them all in a huff so they forget what they're about and just start screaming. It appears very few others managed to do this before reacting, but I actually read and paid attention to the whole original post. Twisty's sarcasm from the start shows it's not an issue she considers worth serious debate. I mean, hell, she SAYS it at the end of the post--she's only saying it because she wants to get a "big bang" out of the controversy she knows she'll stir up. Why other people have risen to this kind of baiting is beyond me. And also, it's amazing to me that no one noticed that the post itself is--I will assume deliberately, since Twisty is no idiot and a stickler for good writing--faulty in the structure of its argument. It's designed intentionally to lead people down the wrong path. I won't get into the mechanics of composition and rhetoric right now; but trust me on this one. Look closer and you can see for yourselves.

So. My primary reason for not weighing in was that I didn't see the use of contributing to a trumped-up debate designed to get women defensive and angry at each other so they start thumping their tits and yelling, "Me good feminist!" "You bad feminist!" at all the others around them. I've seen this kind of crap before, and I don't appreciate that type of holier-than-thou, divisive shit that can go on within the community--or those who delight in instigating it. Haven't we got outside problems enough to battle without deliberately trying to piss each other off and creating a whole bunch of in-fighting? We need to be fighting the inequities of a patriarchal system, not each other over stupid issues like blowjobs. If people would show HALF this much passion about what's been going on lately related to abortion or women's reproductive rights, we might actually be getting somewhere.

And by the way, no, Twisty, if you actually have the time to read the billions of response posts you've gotten at this point and are actually reading this, I'm not saying you should "shut the fuck up." I'm saying you should say whatever the fuck you want, but don't call bear baiting "radical feminism."

My other reason for not bothering with the original debate was that I'm a feminist who's straight--and also a sex blogger. It should be pretty obvious where I stand on the issue of heterosexual oral sex. I think oral sex is a wonderful part of any sex life, gay, straight, or other, so long as it is done with consent and done equitably. And personally, I see no need to defend that stance. Particularly to someone who states right in her post that she's only writing this to get a rise out of those who would defend it. However, if you want to know how I feel, Amber Rhea's discussion here pretty well matches my overall view on this, so I don't even have to do the work. Thanks for rocking the house, Amber. Update: Also check out O's great post here about the concept of calling any act "perverse" or "degrading." Her thoughts are also very much in line with my own.

So I ignored the brou-ha-ha. But--sigh--nobody else did. And since the first post there's been a second one, and a third, and people have been throwing around a lot of bile in the comments sections of all three, and writing about it around the blogosphere--and those people were taking it seriously. And I saw a lot of fallacious logic out there that wasn't intended just as an incitement to argument, so now I have a few things I want to comment on.

But before I begin, I'd like to state for the record that none of the following is an "impassioned argument defending my right to suck cock"--or anyone else's right to, for that matter. Twisty wasn't even debating someone's right to suck cock, so I sure as hell am not going to. Suck cock, don't suck cock, I care not. If you think keeping a penis out of your mouth is going to save the world, be my guest--keep your mouth cock free.

So again, this is not a defense, it's about getting the facts straight, and defining feminism appropriately. In short: I'm not angry; I'm just right. Read on.

1) A real feminist does not discriminate based on sexual orientation. ANY sexual orientation.

A number of people expressed sarcastic bemusement that women who do engage in oral sex with men would defend themselves so adamantly. Is this such a surprise? I'm guessing not, but just in case anyone is a little slow, here we go. If you talk about women who engage in oral sex with men, and then imply that this is "submissive sexbot drudgery," we all know which group we're condemning the actions of here, and it ain't lesbians. Whether overtly stated or not, the context of those statements implies heterosexual women are doomed to oppression by their own basic biology--and not only that, but their sorry asses are too damn stupid to even realize it. Or, stated more succinctly: Straight women's sexual orientation empowers the patriarchy, and is therefore wrong.

Unless you're generally surprised when GLBT folks take issue with being told their basic sexuality is a bane to society, I don't see how you can be surprised by the same response from a heterosexual woman when she's told the same thing.

2) Heterosexuality is not slavery; the overthrow of the patriarchy begins at home.

Some commenters compared straight women who said they got pleasure out of giving pleasure to their men to antebellum slaves who sang songs and told stories in praise of their masters. Ignoring the sheer insulting nature of such claims to those in healthy, egalitarian heterosexual relationships, let's move on to why such a claim is based on entirely shaky, pedantic logic.

We live in a patriarchal society, yes. This means, as Twisty says here:

We all know that in a patriarchy, (and by ‘patriarchy’ I mean a social order in which all women are subject, by universal agreement, to all men), on accounta the power differential, all relationships with men are inherently inequitable.

Yes, patriarchy means men (as a group) are more empowered than women (as a group) in toto. Including in the area of sex. Therefore, by this logic, any sexual act a woman performs on a man that gives the man pleasure, blowjob or otherwise, would be interpreted as being subservient and therefore contributing to her own oppression. Therefore, to be sexual or have a relationship with a man at all, regardless of how that particular man interacts with her as a human being, is invalid.

Ideologically, yes. In theory. It all sounds nice and tidy.

However, ideology is not based in reality. In reality, this theory is simply ridiculous. Here's why.

Assuming we want to combat patriarchy (and we do) and assuming the above statements are true (which they are in the abstract), there is only one solution. We must ask heterosexual women to all give up their basic biology and stop having heterosexual sex/relationships. Unless you're living in a dream world, it's pretty damn obvious this is never going to fly. People have been telling gays and lesbians to change their sexuality and/or just stop having sex for eons--it's never happened. It's not going to happen in reverse either.

So, in reality, we have to look for another solution, that accepts the continuing existence of heterosexuality. The solution is an obvious one: heterosexual women forge egalitarian relationships with men who don't agree with the current system, therefore subverting the system at the grassroots level.

There has never been a human or civil rights movement that has been advanced solely by the oppressed group itself without a percentage of other concerned, enlightened people who happened to have been born into the dominant oppressor's group contributing and supporting the oppressed group's goals. In every case, both such groups always work together at the grassroots level to forge change. This is exactly how slavery was repealed and how the civil rights movement gained the advances it has to date. And, yes, though some of us radical feminists may hate to admit it, it's also how the suffrage and early feminist movements advanced--by the work of both dedicated women and men. (And yes, I know the men were a much, much smaller percentage. That doesn't entirely negate their contribution.)

Saying that heterosexual women are enslaved by the men in their personal lives who love them and support their feminist principles, merely because those men were born men, is like saying William H. Baldwin and Booker T. Washington should have refused to work with Julius Rosenwald to set up African-American educational institutions across America, because Rosenwald was white and therefore of the oppressive race, and therefore an oppressor to all African-Americans--despite his full ideological and philanthropic support of their cause.

At first glance, shouting "enslavement" and "oppression" at any feminist-friendly heterosexual couple may sound logical. In fact, it's the direct opposite of logical. A heterosexual feminist doesn't choose an oppressive relationship. She chooses one with a man who, despite being part of the overriding patriarchy by default, rejects the suppositions that patriarchy was built upon, acts as such in his home and community, and serves, along with the feminists in his community, as a supporter of the cause and as a model of the way things should be.

If a woman has an egalitarian relationship with a man in the microcosm of her own home, or her own bedroom, that is not slavery. That is an important grassroots step toward the overthrow of the overriding, problematic macrocosm.

3) The rules keep changing as to what is "okay" sexually for women, on both sides of the political spectrum. Limiting choice and assigning blame and guilt on women for their chosen sexuality is a patriarchal behavior. It is not a feminist behavior.

All the derision and "it's disgusting" commentary that is being thrown at those women who enjoy oral sex with their male partners in this debate is decidedly anti-feminist. And we feminists need to be supremely careful of not falling into the patriarchal trap of instilling the same nonsensical, morally-based arguments to limit women's sexual choices. Feminists have always had a difficult time in this area.

Back in the even more extreme days of the patriarchy, women were considered sluts if they engaged in any sexual act besides the missionary position. Women were made to feel guilty and dirty and "wrong" if they enjoyed sex too much with a man, or enjoyed sex at all with a woman. When the second wave of feminism hit, women were told they were "wrong" if they weren't enjoying sex enough and/or if their sexual repertoire was too narrow, and they were told they "should" branch out. They branched out, grew braver, allowed themselves to try and enjoy new things. The result? Now being told they're "wrong" for having done so and having come to enjoy it so much that the heterosexual women among them might actually enjoy creating an environment of mutual pleasure with the man they're having sex with.

In short: Feminism should never offer "shoulds" when it comes to sex. It should offer openness, choice, and options--stressing the need for those qualities within an equal, supportive sexual environment (regardless of the sexual orientation involved). And we should be working to show all people how to create that sexually supportive, egalitarian environment where choice and open communication--not shame or guilt politics--is the operative factor. That's where our focus should be, not on who's blowing who, or rimming who, or 69'ing who, or who's sticking to nothing but missionary, or what have you.

4) "Pleasure" has been ill defined in this debate. Pleasurable sexuality is about choice, respect, and balance, not the particular acts involved.

Not everyone has to like giving head. Those who don't shouldn't do it. However, that you as a woman personally don't feel good about the act doesn't mean others can't.

Let's look at the concept of pleasure as it's being thrown around in this debate. If you assume that sensation due to physical contact/stimulation is the only definition of pleasure during sex, then yes, bestowing oral sex on another would not usually be defined as a pleasurable act for the person giving it. It would be done strictly to please the one who is receiving it. However, without trying to sound too judgmental, those whose definition of pleasure is based strictly on physical sensation have had a limited experience of sexuality AND a basic lack of understanding of the actual definition of the word "pleasure." Please look the word up in the dictionary. You'll see that the definition says nothing about physical sensation at all. It's all about mental/emotional states.

With this actual definition in mind, it is entirely possible for one partner to get pleasure out of giving another partner pleasure. It is a shared "happiness, delight, joy, glee...etc." And that, my friends, is not oppressive. It is powerful---a shared power--regardless of which gender is doing the giving and/or receiving.

The only time this would be untrue is if there is some inequity or lack of choice involved. If, for instance, one partner insists on receiving head, but refuses to give it to the other partner (assuming the other partner wants to receive it). This would be an oppressive and inequitable situation. And in a heterosexual relationship, if the woman was the one expected to give without return, it would be patriarchal.

And obviously, when any woman is forced to perform any sexual act, oral sex included, without her express consent, this is not just patriarchal subjugation, it's also rape.

Well now! I think that's about all I can manage at the moment, and probably more than enough for all of you to chew on. Thanks to anyone who made it through.

Again, my last comment on all this is that while I am all for open and honest debate on all topics, be wary of those who are more concerned with rabble-rousing that awareness-building. We women have got more important goals to achieve together than wasting time fighting over who puts what in who's mouth.

But then again, Twisty, blow 'em if they can't take a joke, eh?

(See, I told you all I'd get one more in.)

With love and cocksucking to all (even those who have a thing about bratwurst),

Syl.

Beautiful Ferocity

2006-06-22T14:34:00.000-04:00

It’s not that the world is full of pain, or that it’s unjust. It’s not that timing and fate and biology often make us feel as if we were created to be the universe’s personal in-joke. Or worse, its whipping boy or girl.

It’s that there are sometimes these people in it. So many more of them than you realize.

Born with minds quick and clever and delightfully odd, hearts purer and more perfect than the most rarified air. Good beyond even the limits of even their own imaginations. Beacons of light, born into a world of dark mirrors and hulking shadows.

They start out, innocently, openly displaying all that they are, unaware of their own magnetically attractive qualities, of how darkness is drawn to envelop light. They’re not given a warning, a lesson; they’re put out there, untrained, unprepared for the desire and jealousy, the angry neglect and disregard their perfection can inspire.

And so it begins. They stand there, gleaming china figurines in a bull shop. Feeling the ground shake beneath them as hulking, brutish figures stomp by, reach out, handle them far too roughly, until the cracking begins. The chipping, the breaking in half and gluing back together. The shattering into many pieces and left alone to reassemble on one’s own. So hard to do, near impossible—resulting in their putting back their own pieces all mixed up, confused, so that they’re still there, showing some kind of resemblance to a whole, but one so jumbled and confused and so apparently unlike where they started that they begin to not even recognize themselves.

They forget where they began, who they are, truly, at the core. They begin to believe that they are ugly. And that it’s their ugliness that continues to allow them to be crushed and broken. They begin to believe their definition has only ever been ugly and broken.

So they revel in that. They glue themselves back together each time, a little more en mass, a little more confused and disordered, but in a way that appears to be more solid, less likely to allow for major damage. They deliberately make themselves more dense, more grotesque, to perhaps make it so no one will see anything good anymore; no one will pick them up again, call them beautiful, and then smash them into the ground. It becomes a matter of pride. Who can be the most grotesquely damaged? Who can be the hardest? Who gives a fuck? You can’t make me worse than I already am. Bring it on. Throw me. Break me. Just try. If you do, if you don’t…it means nothing.

And behind all of this, this callousness, anger, bravado, deliberate ugliness, pride, challenge…behind it all, only two real things: the fear of yet another rough, unlovely hand leading to rough, hard floor; and the painfully strong longing, despite it all, to be picked up, caressed, valued as the thing they started as, still hidden down there somewhere at the core. To have some observer hold them, look closely, gently, and say, “I see you. Love.” And lay them back down again, gently, like the rare, precious thing they are. To not let them fall.

Those people. The way they fight, despite only lingering memories of what was good and right in them, to not give that old, vague hint of their own perfection and worth up. That tiny glowing nucleus of intense power inside them, that makes them keep building themselves back up, despite the odds, just in case…maybe, maybe. That un-nameable thing that ensures, even should they be smashed into powder and stomped into the ground, that they push themselves back up from under the earth again, as something new, pale, wet, and green…always rising up.

That beautiful ferocity, the refusal to give up hope of recognizing themselves again; of being recognized. This, for me, is the closest evidence that the word “miracle” has meaning.

These people are all around you. You’re one of them. You’re that fucking beautiful.

And I guess by default, that means I am, too.

(Photo credit: Sapling, by scragz)

It's Just Wrong

2006-06-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

And yet, so totally right.

Dadaism

2006-06-18T20:20:00.000-04:00

Pre-college, I had two best friends. Let’s call them Aiko and Marcy.

When we were just beginning high school, Marcy’s father suddenly came down with very aggressive spinal cancer, which quickly spread to other parts of his body. His chances for survival were not good, but Marcy’s family pulled out all the stops and did everything they could to try to keep him alive. They moved him out of state and into Sloan-Kettering in New York City, probably the best cancer research hospital in the country.

Unfortunately, however, despite all the doctor’s best efforts, Marcy’s father died. It was a horrible time for my friend, but she and her family did get through it, and in time they recovered, as families do.

For years, that was pretty much the basic summary I carried around in my head regarding this time in my friend’s life. That is, until years later Marcy and I were talking, and she mentioned something additional, which she’d assumed I’d known about, but which came as a complete surprise to me.

My father used to work in New York City, and he took the train in to work every day. When Marcy’s dad got sick, Marcy's mother sometimes used to catch the same train to go in to the hospital to be with Marcy’s dad. Marcy told me that often when her mother was taking the train, my father would see her and sit down with her to keep her company for the ride. It was a nice gesture, because although Marcy’s parents and my parents were friendly to each other due to their daughters’ friendship, they really didn’t hang out together socially, and my father didn’t know Marcy’s mom (or dad) very well.

At the time this was going on, my father occasionally mentioned to me that he’d seen Marcy’s mom on the train, so that wasn’t really a surprise to me. But what came next was.

Marcy told me that at some point during those rides, her mom explained to my dad that things were looking bleak for Marcy’s father, because due to whatever procedure he was going through, he needed some sort of transfusion (I can’t remember if it was blood or tissue), but he had some kind of extremely rare blood or tissue type that needed to be an 100 percent match or it could cause major harm. This blood/tissue type was extremely hard to find and Sloan-Kettering did't have any available and didn’t know when or where they’d be able to get any. Needless to say, Marcy’s mother was despairing of hope. My father couldn't do much but just listen and offer sympathy. When they got to New York, they parted ways.

Marcy told me that suddenly, two days later, Sloan-Kettering was informed randomly via their computer system that there was a blood/tissue bank somewhere that had collected a donation of the exact type of blood/tissue that matched Marcy’s dad’s type, and they were going to ship it to the hospital for her father’s procedure. The procedure was done, and her father was able to live for a few more months before he ultimately passed away. The family felt it was a miracle.

After the fact, Marcy’s family eventually looked into how this blood/tissue donation was found. And they discovered that my father had found it for them. My dad was a computer/IT-type guy, and he did systems support for a medical college/hospital. He used the college’s computer network to do a search of the entire country’s teaching hospitals to see if a donor for or reserve of the blood/tissue could be found. He found one place in the entire country that could help, he contacted them, and then sent the information to Sloan-Kettering. He never said a word about it to Marcy’s family, to me, or to anyone. The only reason they found out was because they asked the hospital. The only reason I ever found out was because Marcy told me years later.

It was only for a short while, it's true, but I can say this about my father: he saved my friend’s father’s life. And he never even thought it was worth mentioning to anyone. He didn’t need thanks or praise or recognition of any sort; he just knew he could help, and he did. It was an act motivated solely out of kindness and good will.

I love that story about my father. It’s probably the best story I could tell about who he is at the core, under all the complexities of his humanness (which we all have).

I talked about some of the negative aspects of my upbringing yesterday. I was in the mood to share one of the good stories today, on Father’s Day.

And it does make me think…what if the world had been less traditional back in my parent’s day, and my father could have stayed home and raised me and my sister, and my mother could have worked? It’s a situation my parents couldn’t have even imagined for themselves and one that I know they would have never chosen—it just “wasn’t done,” and my parents are big on following what’s “done.” But I wonder.

My dad was involved in our upbringing, but he deferred to my mother’s opinion as the primary caretaker. When he took care of us without her, though, he tended to be slightly less clued in to our every emotion. He assumed if we needed him, we would come to him. He also sometimes let us get away with things that my mother never would. And as a person who needed a lot of privacy himself, he wasn’t over concerned if we weren’t being constantly social. Clearly, the story above shows he wouldn't have needed the constant feedback, recognition, and gratitude my mother needed from us for every thing he ever did. My dad never had the impulse to play martyr, much.

My dad has a master’s degree. My mother, on the other hand, never got to go to college, something that I think she's always had a little bit of an inferiority complex about. I think perhaps to make up for what she saw as a “lack” that other women around her had, she may have decided to make motherhood her “profession”--something she had to excel at. She put all her time and energy into proving she could be the ultimate mother and wife--someone who everyone would acknowledge was much better at what she did than anyone else. She needed to show she was the most concerned, the most aware, the most involved.

That was hard on me, because to me it felt over concerned, aware, and involved. But it’s clear that really what it boils down to is that my mother wanted—desperately needed—praise and recognition. And we, her family, her kids, were the only source through which she could gain that praise or recognition; and so she used that source passionately to get what she needed. I wonder if she’d had another outlet for that passion, what she might have accomplished; if it would have allowed her to get the real societal recognition and respect and admiration she desired, and that unfortunately she had to use her kids as tools and conduits to get.

My mother and father shared many of the same values, and they both were pretty solid on thinking there was a “right” and “wrong” way to live, so I don’t know…but I wonder if my father (the low maintenance parent) had stayed at home and my mother (the high maintenance parent) had been able to have the career, if we would have all been able to maintain a more healthy in-between balance that would have made it so the post I wrote yesterday wouldn’t need to exist.

Probably not. But it’s an interesting thought, anyway.

Anyway, a good Dada Day to those who wish to celebrate it. To those who aren't, can't, or don't wish to, as an alternative, happy Dada Day. Either way, certainly lots to celebrate.

Halfhearted, the Third Half

2006-06-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

So this is the third (and for the time being, final) part of the posts I began here and here, in which I’ve been thinking about why I always feel slightly cut off from fully being able to experience the feeling of love. As in, not be able to quite. get. there. “There” being a place where I’m overwhelmingly sure I love the person beyond any reasonable doubt, or, in the case of romantic relationships, be able to say to myself with full certainty that I am “in love.”

I wrote at the end of the second post that I think in order to understand this, I really need to look back at the roots of how “love” was taught to me. And of course, as with everything, that starts with childhood and family upbringing.

Since some of the below may end up sounding pretty harsh, I will preface all of this by saying I wasn’t constantly miserable growing up (perhaps because at the time I didn’t know there was any alternative, so just went with what I had). I had a nice, comfortable childhood that many people on the outisde would envy. I laughed. I had good times with my family. I wasn’t abused by a long shot, and my family has done some wonderful, supportive things for me. In short: I do think my parents loved me, in the best way they knew how. I just think they had some faulty messaging about love, themselves, which it’s become evident they transmitted to me, much as I thought all these years that I was fighting it.

Okay, on with it.

I once went to a seminar where they were explaining how to utilize one of those personality assessment tools they often use in corporations. The presenter there said there were generally two types of messages people got from their families: 1) “You help the family by learning how to help yourself,” (be independent) or 2) “You help the family by learning help everyone else in the family” (be interdependent).

In general, I hate when things are boiled down to two options. (I like to say, “The world has two kinds of people: those who think the world can be divided into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. Heh.) But in this case, my family falls solidly into category #2.

In my family, “love” meant (and still means) giving. You were expected to think about what those around you needed, and how to give it to them. And if your individual need meant that you were inconveniencing someone else or everyone else, you were supposed to give up that need for the betterment of group unity. If you insisted on seeing your need met despite the other’s inconvenience or discomfort (whether actual or merely imagined), you were “selfish,” “ungrateful,” or were subjected to hearing things like, “We do so much for you, and you can’t do this one thing to make us happy?” The fact that my parents “lived first for their children” was pointed out fairly often in word and deed. We kids were expected to give recompense for this sacrifice by making my parents happy via behaving “well” (as defined by them). In essence, we were supposed to be model children.

Love was most freely given out when you achieved something toward this goal--when you performed well, and according to expectation. Though it was clear my parents never stopped loving me or my sister regardless of what we did, there was nothing that was rewarded with as much affection in my home as excelling publicly in the areas that my parents felt would raise the worth of the family “profile” in the eyes of those around them. Doing well in school. Having neighbors praise my parents for us girls being so smart or responsible or pretty or “good” or “nice.” Having lots of “appropriate,” "nice" friends. Getting into a "good" colelge. Getting a “respectable” career, that paid appropriately. Getting a “respectable” boyfriend, who also had a respectable career, and who would eventually ensure you ended up respectably married. Having children. You get the picture.

When we followed the path of what my parents had defined as the “right way” to be, and succeeded at some marker of significance they’d set up in their minds, we were rewarded with much affection and celebration. We were publicly praised and held up for admiration. When we deviated from their idea of the norm (a.k.a., “did poorly”), the information was hidden from others as if it was shameful if at all possible, and if it was too obvious to hide, it was presented to others with, "Of course I don't think it's right, look at how misguided she is/how she's hurting us" eyerolling or sadness, depending. We'd also be questioned incessantly about our "bad" choice and why we'd made it/continued to do it, and were often criticized incessantly about it as well. We were told about others’ children who were doing better by taking the other route. In general, we were made to feel guilty, until we felt entirely miserable. And then, once that was achieved, we were told, “See, the way you’re choosing to live your life is making you unhappy. We just want you to be happy.” (And yes, at times both my sister and I have given in to this on some significant decisions, because it got to the point where it did feel as if just to have the pressure stop would be easier than the constant judgement and guilt.)

So, lots of love and affection for being the perfect, 1950s-style clever but obedient, sweet, pure, blandly attractive, compliant, perfect middle-class girl. For anything else, "Well, you know we love you no mater what you do, but...how could you do that? What is wrong with you? How could you do this to us? Do you know what people will say about you? Sigh...you used to be so pretty; why did you do that to yourself?" Etc., etc. So no, they never said, "bad choice = no love," but you see how subliminally, a kid might start to think deviation from the mold meant blame and witholding of love. And how these kinds of judgmental questions could be used as manipulative methods of getting the person to leave behind the choice they made and get back on the "right track."

Along with that, there was a weird inequity going on in that we as kids were told (primarily by my mother, who was very emotionally needy) that love meant having no secrets. My mother set it up from early on that she was The Family Confidant who everyone had to come to to get their emotional needs met. Every emotion we ever felt needed to be shared with and processed through her. She stressed how important it was for families to help each other, and to tell each other everything. She was hyper aware of everything we were doing at all times, so that in a sense, even if we were in a closed room in the house, we never really had any privacy. She knew where we were and who with all the time when we were out of the home. And the minute an emotion crossed our face, it was leapt on and we were asked what we were feeling.

From the outside, this seemed nice to a lot of my friends, who often felt their parents didn’t really notice them and their needs all that much. And it was nice to have a mother who cared. To an extent. But in my mother's case, it just went way over the line. For me, and I’m only beginning to realize the depth of this, it was often sheer torture. I had no mental privacy. At all.

(I feel both guilty and selfish having said that. "My mother tortured me by loving me too much." I know it sounds bizarre, and that some people who are reading this who had inattentive or emotionally absent mothers will say I'm a whiner and I don't know how good I had it. And I also know hearing this would hurt my mother and make her cry; and she'd be horrified I was saying this in public. But I'm sorry, it's true. Sometimes loving too much is damaging, too.)

And yet, even as I was always getting this constant message that people who love each other share everything, my mother certainly didn’t do the same in return. She kept plenty of her emotional stuff to herself--which was appropriate, seeing as she was an adult and I was a child. But nonetheless, you see the inequity here. "Share everything" meant my brain and heart were up for ownership; hers were not. And as such, she knew exactly what made me happy, sad, insecure, willing to help, unwilling to participate, etc. And, when she deemed it necessary (when I stepped out of line), she would use that knowledge to get me to do what she or my parents needed or wanted; or, as I got older, to at least make me feel horrible for doing it so that I couldn't enjoy it. And, it being imbalanced, I could never get enough ammunition to fight back in kind.

So you see what I was left with in terms of messages about love, moving into adulthood. Love meant:

Meeting or exceeding expectation; if you aren’t perfect, you’ll never be fully loved.
Always thinking of the other person before yourself.
Giving up everything to that person should they need it, whether or not they requested it, and without expectation I could get full return.
Giving up all secrets and vulnerabilities, which could then be used to manipulate emotions and behavior.

None of these definitions of love were EXPLICITLY stated during my childhood, of course. They were just instilled through learned behavior. Punishment and reward.

It’s really quite shocking how deeply such messages can get wired into you, even when you think you’re negating them.

These days, I’m asking myself, given this list above, is it any wonder, that I can only see people's behavior toward me in relationships as either punishment or reward--confirmation or negation of my loveability and value? Is it really all that surprising that I’m suspicious of ever letting myself be fully vulnerable to anyone? The whole mythology of giving all of yourself—sacrificing the core of your being—to the one (or ones) you love is very romantic, very noble. But is it actually really a loving act? I mean, in a way it’s a bit like emotional terrorism. If you want the kind of love that means each person must surrender themselves to the other; give up all that they are to make some kind of holy, spiritual fire-bond…well, isn’t that asking your lover, child, or friend to erase him or herself from being for you? Aren’t you in essence dehumanizing them?

In any case, that list sure as hell seems like one reason why I might have a pattern of picking out people who will fuck up, lie, cheat, or be unavailable to me. Choosing those people allows me to always be a little unsure, a little suspicious or worried; and that gives me a reason why I can keep a little distance; why they can't demand I surrender myself because they have. Oh, I'll still feel sad that I can’t fully connect, too. But I think secretly maybe I don’t want to fully connect, because that would mean surrendering myself to someone; and disappearing.

I’ve often said I’m far happier and saner out of a relationship than in it.

Now I realize why (I think). It’s because I don’t know how to fully love emotionally without loving sacrificially. And I don’t know how to accept emotional love from others without expecting sacrificial love from them to prove the emotional love.

Because, yes, despite having thought I’d beat the pattern, I see now it’s beaten me.

I did things I thought would stop it. I eschewed the kind of traditional relationship my parents had, in both type of partner and in setup. I made friends with people completely outside of the types my family thinks are the “right” people. I’ve made choices for me alone that they still give me shit for even now, and I stuck to them.

BUT. Now I’m looking closely at what I do. And what I see is shocking and disappointing. Even after all that running away and trying to change, after years of hating how love had been defined in my household, after telling myself I'd never be like them, it’s suddenly obvious that I’m still playing out the roles I’ve learned. When I’m in relationships, and even to some extent friendships, I over-give. It makes me ashamed to acknowledge this, by the way, because it seems so base and manipulative, and makes me seem so fucking needy and I HATE that. And I didn’t realize all this time, and that makes me feel stupid.

I don’t consciously over-give to manipulate or fill a need. In my head, I'm doing it simply to show the person I like and value them. But often, people tell me I give so much that they feel overwhelmed and can’t possibly keep up or match my level of giving. They feel guilty; as if they OWE me, though I've never SAID they did. And yet, this sounds all too familiary to what I described above. I'm doing something that my parents did to get something in return. Am I subconciously doing it for the same reason? To be able to say, or MAKE the person to say to him or herself, "She does so much for me, how could I not do for her?"

So I may be doing it to get someone to give me something.

Looking back to how I was raised, I see this over-giving stuff is a dual-edged sword: I give because I’m afraid the person won’t give me the full measure of their love if I don't. And I give because I want to manipulate the person into giving me the full measure of their love. And yet it's a trap, because I’m making it so they CAN never equal up—which of course, once again, is also what was done to me. Ask for everything from the person, but never be satisfied with what they give, because it doesn’t meet your vision of how it “should” be given, or because there's always another thing that needs to be met. Appear to sacrifice everything, but don’t share all of your emotional information, lest the balance be toppled and you lose power and lose yourself.

I’m thoroughly ashamed I’ve been so blind. In love, I’ve become my parents; and the people I love, I’ve made the child me. I felt so confined as a kid; so trapped. Trapped by fucking love. Smothered. Unable to breathe. Unable to relax and be myself. Not even time to think about who "myself" was; because the other person needed me so badly. And this is what I’m doing to other people. It make me want to hurt myself, it’s so awful to recognize. And it’s no wonder I’m such a fuckup at relationships. What rational adult would put up with that kind thing for long, regardless of how charming I may be on some levels?

So I'm playing the parent love role to others. And then, on the flip side, I choose men who will keep playing out the parent love role for me. I find men who will tell me they love me, will move the moon and stars for me, think I'm the hottest thing on the planet, whatever, but when it comes down to it, they just…can’t…commit. Too scared, too far away, too already involved with someone else. Or they tell me it’s been the best relationship they’ve ever had, but they’ve decided they really need to be with this other woman, who they always assumed was “out of their league” and they’d never thought they could ever get, and by the way did they mention they’d been fucking her already? Or they need huge amounts of help or nurturing or emotional support, and they suck all that out of me, so I’m so busy helping them fix their lives and succeed at their dreams, I can ignore ever dealing with my own—and they never notice I’m doing that, or that I even have any dreams they ought to be supporting. And then once they’re “fixed,” they realize they're more "marketable and need to go out there and see if they can find someone who is, in their minds, more socially exciting and validating than even I am.

I’ll choose anyone who I have to give and care for until I disappear, and/or who will validate that I didn’t come up to standard, wasn't quite perfect enough to win his full measure of love and admiration.

Does all this feel like a trap inside a trap inside a trap, and I’m doomed no matter which direction I turn? Oh yes, it sure as hell does.

So.

How to love emotionally without loving sacrificially, and how to be able to accept the same in return, and believe that is love. That seems to be the solution.

I have no idea how to get there. Yet.

I am going to try to figure it out. But it feels so late to be realizing all of this. I’ve been holding off on getting involved with anyone until I feel more clear on how to love more healthily and more completely. But all these messages have been so deeply woven into my being. Looking at it all, everything I’ve been doing to myself...it's so twisted and complicated. It just looks like there's this huge knotted mass of yarn where my heart should be. It looks exhausting to take on and unravel. It feels like it will take ages to undo all the knots until the yarn runs smoothly. And I don’t want to wait that long to have some emotional connection with someone. It’s already too fucking lonely. Much longer, and I'm afraid I'll forget how to feel altogether.

I hope to god there’s someone out there who IS emotionally, physically, and logistically available to me AND who has enough patience and affection for me that they might take me on before I'm done. And who might stick around and love me for who I am, even if I sometimes slip. So far, I’ve not had much evidence that person exists. But you never know.

I have no idea if anyone's going to get anything out of this morass of verbage. But if you do, comments most welcome.

Now, That's My Kind of Ambivalence

2006-06-17T00:12:00.000-04:00

To lighten up the mood and divert attention away from the "post'o'gloom"--which I can't stand seeing at the top of the blog anymore--I bring you:

Dr. Rajkumar.

Come, friends. Join me! All you can say is "Aaahhhh"! [sic]

Very sic, in fact. Hit play and jam like the fruit is in season, people. Listen to the brilliant chorus; and then let me know which of the four options you're voting for.

P.S. I will "do" the first person who memorizes this song, takes me on a dinner cruise, and sings it to me in front of a crowd of frighteningly anemic looking white people.

Thanks to Screenhead for the heads up.

Horror Head

2006-06-15T22:05:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: If you're not a fan of self-pity (and you'd be smart not to be), stay the fuck away from this post.

I don't even know how to write what I want to say.

I want to talk about being completely alone in struggling with something, and how hard that is. I want to talk about shame, and what it feels like when it's eating you alive, from the inside out.

I have no words for these things, which is only making me feel worse, because it means I'm an utter failure at even the one thing I'm supposed to do well.

I'm not good at allowing myself to be vulnerable. My greatest fear is I'll let someone know my weak spots, and they'll use the knowledge to destroy me. That they'll treat me like a subhuman speck of filth.

I revealed something today, said something out loud in the presence of others, that I'd never said to anyone, and that I thought would help me. I think I thought it would free me, bring me release. And maybe, as a secondary impulse, I thought sharing it would somehow make me feel less alone in struggling with it. Maybe I also secretly thought my bravery in revealing it was going to get me points and draw people to me out of admiration. I don't know.

It didn't work. Instead, what it ended up doing was make me feel even more utterly alone than I'd felt before I'd said it.

And then I had to walk away from this group, alone on my little path of shame and humiliation. Or rather, they absorbed themselves with each other so they conveniently didn't have to notice what I was doing, so I had no choice but to walk away, or stand there alone and ignored, like an idiot. So I walked. No one said goodbye. I was avoided. I felt like a big, hulking monster. Quasimoda. The Elephant Girl. Repulsive.

I went home, completely mortified, and cried the way you do when you're four. That loud, wave-after-wave body-wracking kind of crying--the way you do before you've learned it's not okay to cry like that anymore. That kind where every time you stop, you can't catch your breath before another wave is smacking you. I haven't cried like that in years. I thought maybe that would give me some kind of release. But it doesn't.

And I thought, I need to talk to someone; call someone. I just need one person out there to let me give them the full-on blast of my humiliated misery, the depth of who I am with all my flaws and disgustingness (and goodness), and have them love me anyway. Tell me I'm good and pure and that I light up their life.

And I just had no one to call who'd be able to do that for me. I mean there are people, but none of them can give me what I need in this particular situation. Or, I just can't bring myself to subject them to what I need. And anyway, if I tell them what I need, then it won't count. They'll be saying it to make me feel better, but they won't mean it. They'll just be doing it because I asked.

I don't know.

I've never been in this situation before. What do you do when there's no one you can turn to?

I guess you write a sorry-ass, non-specific, completely loserish post like this one. Because at this point, this is all I've got left.

Which makes me feel ashamed in and of itself.

If anyone out there has anything genuinely positive to say opinion-wise that would help me to see that this whole enterprise I call myself isn't completely useless, now would be the time to say it. As ashamed as I am to ask for this, again, it's all I've got.

But for god's sake, no pity comments.

Just. Right.

2006-06-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

Every morning, in the first moment of waking, I turn my face to the other pillow…and you are lying there next to me.

And I get to reach over, warm and still sleepy, languorous and cat-eyed, and lightly cup my hand against the roughness of your cheek, run my thumb against your always surprisingly soft lips. And the white, clean light of morning spills all around us like the fire from some sacred halo, and I can feel how any moment, you’re going to open your eyes and look at me. A look that says, “Baby, everything is just. right.’

And then you’re gone.

I want you to stay. I want what comes after.

Abre los ojos.

(photo credit: In bed by Xena B)

Exercise: Connecting to the Evolved Observer

2006-06-11T12:24:00.000-04:00

(View larger)

This is less of a post and more of a marker--a reminder to myself of something I need to keep with me. Something I want to try. Feel free to try it too, if you like.

Look at a space in the room where you're sitting where a person might stand and be able to observe you.

Now imagine yourself standing in front of you as the fully evolved person you've imagined you could be. Not the person who you think (or have been told) you "should" be. I mean the real, ultimate ideal for you--the dream person, who you imagine, in the deepest parts of your soul, you could be. The true person you know yourself as, if you could get past all the crap and negativity. The you who would exist if your world were without fears, worries, any of the outside or inside motivations or needs that hold you back or push you forward.

Imagine it all, what your ultimately evolved self looks like, feels like, is wearing, does with her or his days, all of it. Imagine that person as if she or he is corporeal, standing in front of you. Imagine she or he is looking right at you--calmly, affectionately, and without judgment--just looking at you, connecting with you, as you look back. Imagine this person taking you in visually as you are RIGHT NOW in this moment, whatever you are doing, wherever you are sitting, whatever you look like, wherever you are in your life; absorbing you so you are each sharing the other's thoughts and feelings.

Now connect to what the evolved observer version of you is seeing and feeling towards you as she or he is looking at you, and what, right now, in this moment that version of you would say to you, and/or do. How would that evolved person communicate or interact with you, looking at you at exactly this moment, with only affection and the desire to make the best, warmest connection with you possible as you are right now?

Whatever message that person has for you, whatever they feel compelled to do for you or tell you right now, do that for yourself or tell yourself that for the rest of the day.

When you wake up tomorrow, do this exercise again. Do it every day. Hourly, if you want. Until you are both the same person.

A connected reminder: You are not bad; or good. There IS no good or bad. There's only you, as you are, working toward your vision of the fully evolved you. There are no good choices, action or thoughts; there are no bad choices, actions, or thoughts. There are only choices, actions, or thoughts that will or won't get you closer toward being that evolved version of you who you dream of. When a thought goes through your mind or a choice comes up, don't think about if the thought is good or bad; don't think about what other people will think or say, or if they'll be critical of if you make that choice; don't think about if that choice is smart or stupid, possible or impossible. Ask yourself simply, "Will this help me evolve to where I want to go/who I want to be?" Then respond accordingly.

And if a choice turns out to not help you evolve as expected, don't spend time beating yourself up that you made "a bad choice" or "always make bad choices." Simply recognize that choice turned out not to help you evolve, and now you know. That's all. And then go on and try a new choice. Keep trying. Don't hurt yourself because every choice won't always bring you forward as hoped. You didn't do bad. You didn't do good. There is no score; there is no judgment or evaluation. There's only you, evolving as you go.

(Photo credit: Evolving Planet by sgtpepperzl)

B.I.L.F.s

2006-06-09T14:19:00.000-04:00

In the real world, I tend toward monadoramy. It's my new phrase, to substitute for monogamy. I want to adore someone and be adored by him, and I don't want to share. Mine, mine, mine. In the blogging world, however, I'm polyadoramous. And I've come across a few new bloggers recently (new to ME, that is) who I've been selfishly enjoying all to myself; and now I feel it's time to reveal my secret trysts and share the love.

(Stands up nervously in front of the room, straightens skirt, pats hair, adjusts sexy librarian glasses, opens mouth and says:)

I am the goddess of hellfire, and I bring you:

MISS SYL'S FIRST-EVER LIST OF BILFs.

Let's say the "B" in the acronym stands for "blogs," but y'know, if any of the people I'm writing about prefer to substitute the word "blogger," who am I to object? A shortlist of all my current blog-reading obsessions, each of which is pretty much a daily read of late, but which I've been too damn lazy to move up to my "daily sustenance" list yet.

None of these are "sex blogs," by the way. Reading only sex-themed blogs can get a little boring and repetitive, don't you think? I like people who mix it up and branch out.

So, they may not be sex bloggers, but all of them are smart, funny, lovely, talented, and built for pleasure, regardless. I'd do each and every one of 'em. And let you watch.

1) Neil Kramer at Citizen of the Month. Reasons why:

Because he makes me laugh almost every damn day, and on the days he doesn't, he makes me think. And then some days he makes me laugh AND think, and then I laugh to think of how surely, he must be destroyed, because to be able to unleash a firestorm of thoughtful-funny is the most dangerous power on earth. Isn't it? Well, it slays me, at least.
Because he is a MOTWA (Member Of the Tribe With Attitude).
Because he's the kind of guy who likes his women to have real bodies, and his goats to have full rights under the constitution.
Because he lives in LA and yet isn't an asshole (I'm beginning to discover this is more common than I once thought).
Because he didn't get insulted when I suggested his penis should be part of a roadshow.
Because he writes things like this:

Babies are like homeless
They beg and beg for more
They don't pay any taxes
They puke all over the floor.

2) The Communicatrix (aka Colleen Wainwright). Reasons why:

Because I wish I had thought up such a cool alter-ego.
Because she can do irony without doing bitter
Because she's another woman who understands how to do sexy librarian glasses right
Because she thinks about how to get to happy, and seems, despite some occasional setbacks, to be actually accomplishing it, which I find heartening.
Because she has a "Cheering the Hell Up" series, and she couldn't be more right. It'll slap you into perspective. In a very sweet slapping kind of way, dontcha know.
Because she writes things like this:

Anyone who doubts the multiculturalism and quick wit of small town America has not worn pigtails, walked down a main street and had two brothers in a bright yellow TransAm yell "Pippi Longstocking!" at her out the window.

3) Schmutzie at milkmoney or not, here I come. Reasons why:

Because when I read her I just, y'know, like her. She's cool. She's the kind of person I'd hang out with in real life. If anyone like her lived where I live now, that is, dammit.
Because in just one post (yesterday), she: 1) said she had an "inner goth teen," 2) used the word "ginormous," 3) included the phrase "proof that the world is not solely populated with trolls in human clothing," and 4) admitted one of her favorite things to do is to respond to people with, "Twat? I didn't hear you." I mean, really. How can you not love this girl?
Because she is yet another woman who knows how to wear her some sexy glasses, and she collects others who do.
Because I like the way she does photography, and the way she designed her blog.
Because she seems to have found an actual good relationship, with a cool guy who has a blog of his own and knows who Chris Ware is, all of which gives me hope that my quirky indie-girl-mixed-with-"nice"-girl-mixed-with-secret-sex-kitten ass will eventually be able to do the same. Plus, she's not annoyingly kiss-kiss, lovey-love, rub-it-in-your-face, protests too much about the fact she has a Happy Relationship™. Which leads me to believe she actually does have one, rather than is pretending she has one, like I sometimes suspect is going on with some bloggers.
Because she writes things like this:

People are not always sociopathic robots with crossed wires. Sometimes they are thoughtful and sweet and remind me that I, too, can be thoughtful and sweet. We can spread this shit around, people.

4) Ducky (aka Brando, aka Brandon) at One Child Left Behind. Reasons why:

Because the blog's name is enough of a reason alone
Because he's got a Journey boxed set, and he's not afraid to use it. Or ashamed to admit it.
Because he has a fine quarter of a face and has only one interest: wicked awesomeness.
Because he's been published in McSweeney's, making me insanely jealous...and yet strangely...tingly...at the same time. Oooh, McSweeney's. Oooh.
Because it's mysteriously difficult to figure out where his archives are, and this makes me want him more.
Because he can write beautiful shit that's sentimental without being sappy, like this post yesterday.
Because he can write other fucking amazing, too-damn-clever shit like this:

I would like to burn in hell for a little while (NOT VERY LONG), so that I might arrive in Heaven refreshed and appreciative. Like cooking with whiskey. You boil off the alcohol and what remains is evocative. I would like to smell ever so slightly of my horrid deeds.

(Ed.: Though "beautiful shit" maybe sounds not-so-nice to some, rest assured that when I resort to calling out obscenities to say how good something is, it's good.)

5) Brooke at The Babbling Brooke. Reasons why:
Brooke's newest to me, so I don't have a whole list for her, but I keep finding myself back at her blog lately. She's a teacher, and she cares about being one, and I find that encouraging. She's also a good writer, and clever-smart. And most importantly, Google sends you to her blog when you search "tattoos, bitches, and bikes." 'Nuff said. I'll be back at her place again.

Finally, I'd feel remiss somehow if I didn't mention two other blogs. I'm separating these two out because one's quiet at the moment and the other's in flux, and though they are more recent obsessions of mine than some, neither is a "new find" the way all those listed above are. But regardless, I just want to give them a nod, because I love them and read them constantly, and I don't think I've ever articulated that.

So, continuing my adoration of all clan Moronosphere:

First, I want to point everyone toward Buck Daruma, my ass, which has LONG been a daily read but which I am heartily ashamed to say I've taken far too long to switch over on my blog list. Buck's a fabulous writer and thinker, and he's all Zen and stuff, too. Buck's ass puts my over-effusive ass to shame. He may or may not be continuing the blog at this point (I'm rooting for "may"), but in any case the archives are muy interesante and give you plenty to hold onto, and I'd encourage you to check 'em out so long as he keeps them up.

Second, I want to point ya'll to The C Word, the blog of that smouldering avianatrix Circe. She, like me, runs on the effusive rather than Zen side, and so she helps me overcome my shame after reading Buck. And she writes about what it's like to be a freaky indie girl/woman in a conservative place, and to feel really damn alone as a result--and boy do I know how that feels. Another femme too smart for her own damn good, and yet, if the world were fair, that phrase would never even exist. When I am queen of the universe, I will change all of this, of course. Her writing style is light, fun, funny, and somehow not depressing even when it's sad. Not sure how she does that. Breezy. That's her word; that's what she writes like.

WELL. That's enough BILF worship for one day. Enjoy yourselves. And of course, avail yourselves of all the other wonderful people listed to the right. The blog world is an odd and beautiful place, full of odd and beautiful people. Go get you some BILFs of your own and send 'em my lustful way.

Yoko and Me

2006-06-08T08:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I received an email from a reader chastising me for not having been able to answer every comment that was made on my blog. Though I was already intending to address the particular post the reader was referring to in my own time and in my own way, now is as good a time as any to clarify a few things for anyone who reads this blog. Note I say this is a clarification, not an apology.

The main point: I like my readers. I'm glad you comment. But. I can not and will not always be able to answer every comment, no matter how good or erroneous or insightful or personal or etc. that comment may be. I have never promised to do so, nor should you expect that I will.

Your choice to comment on anything here, or to share any personal experiences, is just that—a choice. I am grateful for those of you who do make that choice, and for each and every comment, but that doesn’t mean I “owe” you or any other commenter anything for you having made that choice—in the same way I don’t think just because you’ve read a post of mine that you “owe” me a comment on it. I’m pleased when you do. I hope you will, if you feel you have something you want to share, and if you have the time and inclination. If you don’t, I understand and I don’t take it personally. Feel free to feel the same about me in reverse. But don’t expect I’m here to take care of you or that there are “rules” I have to follow on my own blog.

A second important point: I want to make one thing very clear. I sometimes choose to share personal, and sometimes difficult, emotional experiences here. This often results in others choosing to share personal experiences of their own. When anyone who comments make this choice, understand that what you are doing is the same as what I am doing when I write my posts—you are sharing it with ALL the readers of this blog including myself—you are not sharing it one-on-one with me. I am NOT a therapist and it is NOT my job to take care of anyone’s emotional health. If you have written something here and you feel upset that it has not been addressed, recognize this means the issue is bigger than something I am capable of addressing for you anyway, and please go find someone qualified who can help you address it. If you see someone ELSE has written something you feel needs to be addressed and you feel I haven’t addressed it the way YOU would like to, by all means, respond to it yourself and say what you feel needs to be said.

This blog was created for three reasons:
1) To encourage me to get in the practice of writing for me more regularly
2) To talk about issues of sexuality and other things that are important or interesting to me
3) To foster group (not one-on-one, blogger-to-reader) discussion.

I never intended this blog to be one where I talk to each individual reader, but one where we all talk to each other. The whole point was for this to be a community discussion, so whether or not I answered, discussion was happening. I happen to enjoy answering comments, so when I can, I do it. But I refuse to make this an exchange where either side is obligated to the other.

There are many reasons why I may not be able to respond to a discussion, which should be obvious. If I don’t, it’s not due to any disinterest, but things like the fact that I have a life outside of this blog that needs to be taken care of, that I feel you are all doing a good enough job on your own, or even that for personal or emotional reasons, I don’t feel like joining in the discussion that’s happening. Maybe I haven’t solidified my thoughts yet. Whatever the reason is, it is, and that’s that. I may give you an explanation. I may not. Please don't think you're owed one--I don't ask you for an explanation of why you don't comment on a post if I know you've read it. And in line with that, in the same way that when you read something I write and aren't inspired to comment you mean nothing personal by it, be aware my not reponding to any comment isn’t a personal commentary on you, any other person, or the quality or importance of comments made.

And if you find that annoying, please look around at other blogs. It’s extremely rare to have any blogger respond to every single reader. Most do not respond anywhere NEAR the level, or at the length, that I do. So again, I ask you to be happy I’ve been able to do it as much as I have, and leave it at that. And realize that as time goes on, it will probably be that I’ll have LESS time to do individual one-to-one responses instead of more. My hope is that even if this becomes the case, you will be able to carry on the discussion as a group. However, if you simply can’t accept that you or others may not always get a personal response from me, of course your other option is to stop reading the blog (or stop commenting). I hope that won’t be your choice, but everyone must do what works best for them.

And finally, please don’t send me emails telling me how I “should” write, manage, etc. my blog. “Should” is a very judgmental concept, and it says more about your own needs and issues than anything about me and my actions. This blog is for me, and I’m running it in the way that’s right for me. If you think I am--or this blog is--doing something wrong, by all means, start a blog of your own and write and run it the way that’s right for you. And I can promise you this: I may read it, and I may comment on it, but I won’t expect you to be me, and I won’t expect that you are responsible for me, or owe me or anyone else anything.

Thanks and affection to all,

Syl.

P.S. I'm keeping comments open as a matter of habit, but the above is not up for debate. And though you never know if I will be able to respond or not to any comment, I can tell you for certain that I will definitely not be responding to anyone who tries to make it a debate. I may even choose to delete such comments, though I generally don't like to do that.

Halfhearted, the Second Half

2006-06-07T21:26:00.000-04:00

So this is a continuation of yesterday’s post, examining my detachment from fully being able to feel the sensation of love, as I assume others feel it. I likened my experience of trying to fully connect to love to having sex but never reaching orgasm. It’s nice; you can have fun, you can feel good, you can connect, but you never fully get ALL the way there, exactly.

And I mentioned that I often work hard in relationships to make up for what I’m not feeling, so much so that the person on the receiving end is certain I must be feeling something strongly. In short, I fake my “love orgasm.” Why do I do this? It may be because I don’t want the other person to feel bad or inadequate, or to feel like I’m not doing enough for them. It may be because I want to feel the orgasm so much, I desperately need to pretend to myself that I do feel it.

I wonder about that last one. Some days, I think maybe the way I feel love IS the way everyone feels it, and I just think there must be more to it. But we all know what we think when someone inexperienced says, “Well, maybe I did have an orgasm, and I just didn’t realize.” No, darlin’, if you only think you had one, you didn’t. If you had one, you would know.

I’m guessing it’s the same with the love thing. I’m not really feeling it. If I were, I would know. Or would I? I wish someone would tell me. Getting people to describe what love feels like, what makes them certain they love someone, is--again--like trying to get someone to describe what an orgasm feels like.

Anyway, this whole faking it thing is ironic, because during sex, I absolutely refuse to fake an orgasm. I don’t believe in it. I think it’s unfair to both sides involved. One person thinks they’re having a better connection than they are, and the other person gets cheated. Resentment builds. And then think of the crushing blow your partner receives when they finally are told, or finally come to realize on their own that they’ve never made you come and you’ve been faking for the whole time. It’s crushing, it’s demeaning, it’s relationship ending.

And yet, what I just described above is a pattern I repeat over and over again in romantic relationships. In friend and family relationships, the pattern isn’t quite as obvious—but that feeling of slight disconnectedness is almost always there. And I fake it for as long as I can convince myself and the other person that everything’s okay. Until it’s not, and everything falls apart, and we’re both angry and disappointed, and I get to reinforce to myself one more time that I don’t know how to love anyone, and I am incapable of being loved.

It’s the worst thing you can say at the end of a relationship, isn’t it? You see it in movies. The last, cruel line no one has a comeback for—“You never made me come! I faked every orgasm!” It’s a power play. We all recognize the explosive significance when the actor throws out that line. It means, “You never really got all of me. I never really loved you. You never made me FEEL. No matter what you’re doing to me now, no matter if you have the upper hand in this breakup, walk away knowing that you were the failure—not me. You were the one who couldn’t perform, not me. You can’t hurt me, because you never really made me feel in the first place.” And the person is defenseless against this. They can’t prove you wrong. They can’t win. They lose the upper hand.

So maybe that’s why I do it. If someone leaves, or disappoints, I have the ability to say, well I never cared that much, anyway.

You know, I have to stop mid-post and say I’m writing this, and it’s true, and yet I also realize it’s total bullshit. This whole thing is total bullshit. It’s all so conveniently neat and tidy, all spelled out for you, isn’t it?

Faking it is total bullshit. It’s true. I mean, faking it is acting. And then continuing to reenact the pattern itself is bullshit—I know what I’m doing on some level, and I’m doing it anyway. Why? Clearly, because it serves some purpose for me. I’m getting something out of it. God knows what. I’m sure as hell not getting anything good. What could I possibly stand to gain by perpetuating this kind of thing? My ability to continue to feel victimized? To believe everyone is ultimately out to hurt me? To get to continue to play the role of the romantically sad, fucked-up girl, so I’m more interesting than my boring, suburban, Beaver Cleaver roots?

Even explaining the pattern to you is yet another level of bullshit. Putting all these metaphors together, making it all pretty and make sense and match up. All of it…it’s all this giant put-on, this cover up for some other, bigger, more important fact or truth that, in some really nasty irony, has been shrunken down and hidden inside a pill encasing so microscopic I just can’t even see it, so I can’t pick it up and break it open. And I am both so afraid and SO ready to break it open and find out what that more important truth is, and I have no fucking idea how to make that happen.

So. In the meantime, the pattern stays deeply ingrained, and the bullshit remains. And I have to wonder where it’s all originating from. I need to really figure out what creates this impulse in me to keep playing out this act, this blocking myself from feeling.

What I really need to do is go look at the roots of what I was taught about love, and what those messages were.

But I think the above is more than enough for me to process right now. I guess there will be a part three. Didn’t expect that one.

Halfhearted

2006-06-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

Love. What is it? What does it mean?

Really, I think I have absolutely no idea.

You’ll note back in my “Final Cut” post, this is something I struggle with. I’m not sure I’ve ever loved anyone, exactly. Or that I can ever feel anyone really loves me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve cared for a good number of people. I’ve had great friends who I adore and think are wonderful. I have family members who I share common bonds with and feel attached to. I’ve often felt a great deal of affection toward certain people. Many people have told and do tell me that they love me. I tell and have told people I love them.

And I guess on some level I do love them—to the extent I’m capable of loving. But for me, there always feels to be this---I don’t know what to call it—this cut-off point. The point at which if I begin to feel too strongly, it crosses over some line and I shut down; go numb. It’s not that I feel nothing, exactly, but that I can’t reach the end that I feel MUST be there to feel, though I have no evidence it is. Some final, my-cup-runneth-over sensation is just blocked off and inaccessible to me.

The best way I can get across what it feels like is to use a sexual metaphor. Imagine you can be stimulated, and it feels nice, and you can even feel the stimulation building to something, but you just can never, ever reach the orgasm. You can get really close--but then just at that key moment when you’re supposed to explode, you deflate instead. Over and over again—and no matter who you’re with, no matter what kind of a lover they are, you never, ever get to peak.

That’s what it feels like. I can’t orgasm on love. I can get close to people. I can enjoy the exchange. I can feel moved by them. But I can’t let myself go and love them without limit.

Most people I choose to love never seem to realize this. To keep the sexual metaphor going, maybe I’m making so much noise enjoying the sex, they don’t even realize I’m not orgasming. I go out of my way to make people feel fully loved—to make up for the small part that I think is dead inside me. Essentially, making the love experience SO good for them on their end that they can’t believe that I’m not orgasming. Or that it's so good and they are so overwhelmed with their own sensation that that they never even notice if I’m orgasming or not. Or if they do notice, that it’s so good for them that they don’t care if I am.

The problem is, at the same time this is going on, it hurts me deeply that no one notices or cares that I’m not orgasming while they are. I want to fucking orgasm. And I think, how can I really love this person if I'm incapable of coming for them? And, just like it is for people sexually, the fact that I'm hurt that they didn't notice only makes it more difficult for me to come. Once the person shows me what I believe is proof that he or she doesn't really notice or care all that much, it becomes even more difficult for me to ever trust them enough to let myself go to the extreme of giving all my love to them. Why? Fear, probably. Fear of what would happen to me if I did. Fear of having an orgasm and it meaning nothing to the other person. What could be worse? How empty, how foolish, to allow yourself to love someone fully who couldn't give a shit about you.

So I opt for no orgasm rather than having one that the person will then devalue, I guess.

But honestly, I don't know if this is a conscious choice, or it's just part of my makeup. I've never been any other way, that I can remember.

Sexually speaking, there are plenty of people who are non-orgasmic, and we’re told this is okay and that people can have fulfilling sex lives without orgasm being a part of it. Maybe. But, and apologies to the people out there who have not yet capable of having orgasms, but I’ve experienced partnered sex both without and with orgasms, and I’m gonna take with the orgasm every time, if I get a choice. I’d rather be alone and make myself orgasm than be with a partner who I could never orgasm with. I suppose I feel the same about love. I've been in a "non-orgasmic love" relationship more than once. It's just not enough for me. I feel lonely. I find flaws. I want more.

But I wonder if there are a lot of people out there who are non-orgasmic in love when it comes to romantic relationships. I suspect, based on some friends’ marriages and LTRs that I know of, that this is far more common a situation than the movies would have you believe. Could this be the rule more than the exception? Are most relationships only halfhearted (or seven-eighths-hearted, or whatever)? Is love just simply NOT like an orgasm at all, and my current state of not quite being able to love without limits is actually as close to full-hearted love as anyone gets? Am I expecting too much to think that I deserve to be able to access the full, boundless sensation of loving and being loved? Are you expecting too little if you think you don’t?

And how can you be sure that you love someone, really, anyway?

[This above mostly discusses my feelings of being unable to fully love others, but doesn't address the other part I mentioned--being unable to believe others fully love me. This is getting long, though, so look for a second part to this post sometime soon.]

(Photo credit: Half-Hearted - Fleet Week Airshow 2005 by remid0d0s0)

Travel/Reading

2006-06-01T09:05:00.000-04:00

First, just a quick note to say I'll be on the road for the next few days, and am not sure what my 'net access will be like. So things may progress as normal, or they may go quiet--we'll just have to wait and see.

Second, I've been wanting to point out that Playboy has created a list of "The 25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written." Go check it out and let me know what you think. Are these nominees valid? Should there have been others instead?

Personally, I think the title of the list is problematic. "Sexy" is defined as "arousing or tending to arouse sexual desire." I would agree with that definition; so I posit that a number of these books, while they talk about sex, are not sex-y. There's a difference, you know.

Actually, I often think the problem with most people is they don't know there's a difference. A frank discussion about sexuality is not the same as having sex or creating arousal--and yet many people treat it like it is; as if mere discussion of sex is taboo ("Sex education is condoning sex."), or embarassing ("How could you say that in PUBLIC?!?"), or meant to be deliberately stimulating when that is far from the point ("She's not embarassed to talk about sex, therefore she must be easy."), among other things.

Anyway, I have to say I'm surprised Playboy wouldn't differentiate. Portnoy's Complaint is a sexy book? Come ON. They say they chose it because it was the first book to talk about masturbation. But just look at the excerpt--there are plenty of ways to talk about masturbation that are FAR from sexy. Portnoy's Complaint is frank, yes. But sexy? No.

And of course, my all-time erotic lit axe to grind: Lolita. The book no one actually reads, but everyone insists is sexy. Lolita isn't sexy. Now please understand, I have nothing against seduction erotica, or May/September pairings (yes, I meant September, not December), but that is NOT what Lolita is. Read the book, people. It's about a pedophile who marries a woman in order to attain guardianship of the child he wants to fuck, then kills her mother so the child has no recourse but to rely on him and submit to his whims in order not to be entirely abandoned. It's a fascinating literary study of mental illness, but it's not sexy, and in fact hardly has any sex in it--it's primarily just Humbert's obsessive ramblings, with no actual action. In fact, even Playboy's write up of it says:

This novel has a reputation as a "dirty book" that it doesn't really deserve; its storied buzz is hotter than the text itself, which is why it doesn't even make our top 10.

So, they're naming it one of the 25 sexiest novels of all time because it's got a reputation of being dirty even though it's not actually very hot? What kind of crap logic is that? Come on Playboy editors, show a little literary cojones. Break the mold; call a non-sexy book what it is, and put an actual sexy book on the list.

I'd agree some others are certainly stimulating. I haven't read them all, so I can't judge the entire list; but Lawrence, Jong, Miller...these people made grand and often successful attempts at sexiness. And I can see how the Story of O could get some people all stirred up based on its subject matter, though personally I find the prose to be pretty simplistic and dull. No matter how many times I try, I can never finish it, and not because I need to go pleasure myself; I just get bored. And again, I love me a good non-consent story; but I need more than just a "...and then he did this and she did that and then this thing happened and then someone else said let's do that next, and they did."

So anyway, I say either change the list's name to "The 25 Best Sexually-Themed Novels Ever Written," or replace some of the non-sexy titles with ones that are sexy in the truest sense of the word (and I vote for #2). I wonder if the problem is there just aren't enough well-written, truly sexy novels out there?

Food for thought. Discuss at will.

I'll match your three Kates and raise you an Amélie

2006-05-30T23:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I lied, but this is a mindless post, so it doesn't count. But it's just too fun a toy not to share.

Want to know what I look like? Well, according to this genealogical site's funky, free face recognition demo thingie that scans a photo of your face and compares it against a database of famous people, I look most closely like:

(Photo scan #1)

Kate Bush
followed in close second by...

Amélie Nothomb---author of Fear and Trembling, which I've never read. Didn't know anything about her until today, though have heard vague mention of her book.

AND/OR

(photo scan #2)

Catherine Zeta-Jones

with a Kate Winslet chaser

But before you get all excited and I get a flood of proposal emails (and I get too much of an ego), realize that a few clicks down the line after Kate there, at some point I also inexplicably got Colin Powell. (?)

I guess all four of these women all kind of have similar faces, though I'd have never thought to put them together before. And I actually do see some similarities to me in coloring, hair, face shape, mouth, etc., though none of them are my clone by any means. I have to say, though, I've never once thought I looked anything like Kate Bush, but in the photo they were using to compare (above), I actually kind of do.

Anyway, go play, and let me know who it says you look like. Even if it's wrong, it's kind of cool to see the scan at work, and it only takes two seconds to upload and get the results.

Ebb Tide

2006-05-30T18:19:00.000-04:00

People. I'm exhausted. Bone tired. "Why are you telling us this," you ask? Just to say though the spirit is willing, I'm just too wiped out tonight to answer all of your great comments from over the weekend. Thanks for all of them--they were terrific. I apologize for the lack of energy, responses, and a more interesting post. I'll get to it soon. But tonight, I'm just closing my eyes and that's gotta be it.

"And then Mommy puts her finger in Daddy's..."

2006-05-28T10:31:00.000-04:00

A little while back, Steff at the Cunting Linguist wrote an interesting post about kids and sex education, related to how schools tend to focus strictly on the biological facts of sex rather than also include education on all the important emotional issues and other relationship skills that surround sexuality.

She certainly has a good point—maybe if we stopped teaching kids that sex was just about insertion, pregnancy (avoidance of), and STDs, and taught them how to actually have healthy relationships with people, there would actually BE less inappropriate insertion, pregnancy, STDs, and who knows—even fewer bad marriages/relationships and/or divorces later on.

But the point of this post is not about that, actually. Steff also stressed that these relationship skills also don’t get taught outside of school; and often, in fact, even the biological stuff doesn’t get touched by most family members and other responsible adults in kids’ life.

Right around the time she wrote this, I ended up in a group discussion where people were all sharing their childhood models of intimacy and their parents’ attitudes about sexuality when they were growing up. It's not the first time I've been in such a scenario, and it’s always weird for me. I sit there, and everyone talks about how they rarely ever saw their parents kiss or hug or tell each other they loved each other. They talk about how their parents never told them anything about sex, or one of their parents told them sex was terrible and at best just something to be endured until it was over. They talk about how they never even WANTED to see their parents as sexual beings, that it was too weird. They talk about the funny (but on another level, sad) myths they learned through friends or other faulty sources. They talk about some of the damaging mistakes they made because no one gave them any information.

And then it comes around to me and I have to share my experience. And I tell them how my parents taught me about sex before I’d entered kindergarten. How they’d read me this very comforting and age-appropriate book called “How Babies are Made” that showed how flowers, and chickens, and doggies, and humans have sex and reproduce (with images of paper cut-out art—hard to describe, but this allowed for the depiction of nudity without too much in-your-face detail). I explain how at every stage of my childhood, my parents were open to questions about sexuality and had reading material prepared and at the ready for when I would ask those questions. About how they didn’t make nudity a big deal or anything to feel ashamed about, and so I actually sometimes saw my parents naked when I was a kid. How saying "I love you" was standard at my house. How my dad used to grab my mom and kiss her in the middle of cleaning up after dinner. How as a teenager, when we were on vacations, my parents would ask me to watch my younger sister so they could go back to the hotel room and “have some privacy together” (“...And if you come back, don't knock or come in unless you see the shades are back up”). How when I was getting older, my mom told me that she thought I shouldn’t have sex until I was married, but if I ever decided I was going to, I should come to her so she could help me get good birth control. How I knew what kind of birth control my parents used, and that my dad actually showed me what my mom’s diaphragm looked like when I asked to see it. That my mom bought my dad a subscription to Playboy for a birthday gift--and they let us kids look at the magazines if we wanted to, because “the human body is nothing to be ashamed of.” How my parents insisted I take a full semester of sex education as an elective in high school.

All this is true. And when I tell this story, I usually get one of two reactions:

Horror (“You saw your parents NAKED? You knew when your parents were having SEX? Your mom bought your dad a subscription to PLAYBOY?”) -OR-

Envy (“I wish my parents had been able to be so straightforward about sexuality—that sounds so healthy.”)

In either case, before these verbal responses, it usually results in people staring at me like I’m a freak. Which shows me my experience is pretty damn rare.

I was always comfortable and proud of my parent’s age-appropriate openness about sexuality. I feel in many ways it saved me from a number of sex-related mistakes many of my friends made growing up.

Of course, in other ways, it’s created other problems. Being someone raised with healthy sexual/relationship models in a world of people raised with dysfunctional ones still creates clashes for me. People don’t have my experience, so they can’t relate to me on that level.

But anyway, more to the point: In reading Steff’s post, I got to thinking. My parents certainly did better than most, if my discussions with others on the topic have been any guideline. I’m happy about that, and I give them real kudos for this. Most especialy, I give them kudos for letting me know I could ask them about anything and actually meaning it. They never made me feel ashamed or embarassed when I did ask them something.

From them, I learned about intercourse and love and menstruation and reproduction and birth control and shame-free desire. And for this, I truly thank them.

But after reading Steff's post, I thought about it some more. And after thinking about it, I realize that despite all of the above, there was still a lot of stuff they left out, or never said specifically, which I had to absorb for myself. For instance, they never told me specifically that:

People had sex for other reasons than having babies. As the title of the book they read to me at five pretty much implies, they taught me sex was something that “mommies and daddies” do when they “are in love with each other” and want to create a baby. This made sense at the time they read it to me--my mother was pregnant, and they wanted me to understand what was going on with her. They did make me understand that they had sex together as an expression of their love for each other. But there was never any clear discussion of the fact that people had sex all the time, whether they wanted babies or not. This became clear as I got older, and there was the implication my parents had sex and enjoyed it a lot despite being past wanting more kids, but it was never “taught” to me as a truism early on that sex was, well...just plain fun.

People had sex when they weren’t married. My parents didn’t believe in sex before marriage. I’m fairly certain based on things I’ve heard them say that they were both virgins themselves when they got married. Of course, through media I absorbed fairly quickly that people did it even when they weren’t married, but my parents always explained this to me as being a “not-the-best-choice” scenario. I could tell they thought the people who did that were devaluing what they saw as the sacredness of loving sex. And there was some sense they gave off, though they never said it out loud exactly, that people who chose to engage in pre-marital sex were stupid, misguided, and asking for trouble—and that the sex was meaningless and probably not as good.

There were sensations involved with sex besides feeling love for each other. I had no idea that the word “orgasm” existed was until I was a pre-teen and read the phrase “I came, and then he came” in a book (Judy Blume’s Forever) and asked about it. To my mom’s credit, when I asked her what that meant, she told me immediately. But I remember how surprised I was that she hadn’t told me this kind of thing before. And I also remember asking her to describe to me what an orgasm felt like (poor Mom, what an impossible question to answer!) and her floundering around for a few minutes without words, and then just blurting out “Good!” in this frustrated, I-can’t-do-better-than-that way. Heh.

People had other kinds of sex other than coitus. I can’t even remember when I discovered people had oral, anal, etc. sex, but it wasn’t via my parents. I can’t remember asking them about it, either, once I knew.

People you knew could possibly attempt to sexually assault you, and how to recognize the signs of that, and what to do when faced with such a situaton. Obviously, given some of my previous posts, this would have been a good thing to be educated on.

That homosexuality existed. Sex was presented to me as a straight hetero thing. And at some point growing up, after I discovered homosexuality existed and then asked my mother about it, I remember her telling me it was a psychological condition, and implying “those people” were confused and messed up. It was a fairly common belief at the time, and even presented as "fact" in contemporary adult sex books back then, so I guess it’s not surprising she said this, though it’s disappointing. Nowadays, she swears up and down she NEVER said that, but I remember it very clearly. And in truth, even now, though they try their best to be open and nonjudgmental about the topic these days, my parents are at least to some degree closet homophobes.

Adults masturbated, and how. It’s funny. I remember learning fairly early on (before grade school was out) about boys having "wet dreams." But when teaching me about that, no one actually told me that boys could induce the same effect when NOT dreaming. My parents never denied the existence of masturbation, and as I got older I’m fairly sure they acknowledged its existence to me and never implied it was unhealthy, but they never taught me anything specific about it, either. Learning to masturbate was a self-taught thing for me, and I remember being concerned as a kid that I might not be doing it the “right way,” because I didn’t know what the “right way” was, and I was too embarrassed to ask anyone to check.

So there were a few things left off the plate when I was getting taught the facts of life.

Honestly, none of this ever occurred to me before, because in comparison to everyone I knew, I’d always had the most information about sexuality, and my family had always been the most open. I guess I felt I couldn’t expect more if my parents’ level of openness already put me in the “freaky” category in a lot of people’s eyes. But looking at this list…well, yeah, even they could have done an even better job.

The one thing I will say is that they were always open for discussion of these things, which was great. But their way of judging age-appropriateness in many situations was to wait until the child had questions, and then be well prepared to answer them responsibly. It was a good method, but not foolproof, because some things you don’t know to ask until someone else tells you. And if no one tells you…well…

Most of the topics listed above I eventually got information on in that high school sex ed class my parents made me take. The teacher of that course was great and very open, and in retrospect I have to give her a lot of credit for what a terrific job she did. But even she didn't answer everything.

And Steff is right; though I had a fairly good model of a working relationship in my parents, no one at school OR at home gave me specific instruction on what makes for a healthy relationship. And that’s important information.

So now…what did your parents teach you? What did they leave out? Do you think parents should talk to kids, or is that just too uncomfortable a situation for kids, to be discussing sex with a parent? Did anyone have any good instruction beyond the biological aspects on things like how to build healthy relationships and handle the emotional aspects of sexuality? What do you think should be discussed with children when it comes to sex and relationships? At what age? Should you bring it up, or should they? How much information is too much? Too little?

And if you have kids, what do they think about/want from you in this arena? Have you ever asked?

Share and share alike.

I Speak the Truth

2006-05-27T16:49:00.000-04:00

Just in case any of you people ever wonder if I'm creating a fake blog "persona" rather than giving you the real lowdown...

Thus speaketh the blogger:

...I pretty much am Elizabeth Bennett incarnate.

Thus speaketh the meme:

Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?

You're Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen!
Take this quiz!

I'm just sayin'. As is my co-Elizabeth, Bitch PhD.

And yes, I *do* think if she was written today, she'd undoubtedly be a single girl with a sex blog. Ahem. Or at least, she wouldn't be Bridget Jones, for god's sake.

A real post later on (I think, unless I get waylaid).

Reasons for living

2006-05-26T03:25:00.000-04:00

Sleepless at 3 a.m., everything begins to make sense in this strange and beautiful way. Or begins to lose all sense in this strange and beautiful way. Either way, hosanna and namaste.

Thanks, Metafilter.

Words and Magic

2006-05-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
--Tom Robbins

Would you believe me if I told you that I could make things happen with my writing?

Don't worry, I wouldn't believe me either. But believable or not, logical or not, it's happened to me, many, many times. When I take the time to actually shape a particular need or want or hope into a fully crafted, styled piece of writing I can feel so close to me that I can hear it breathing and alive, shortly afterwards that thing just suddenly shows up in my real life.

Case in point:

Lately, I've been yearning for long-lost friends who I used to have my most intimate understandings with. In particular, I've been thinking about an old friend who, over a decade ago, was a huge part of my life--so much so that even now, I still can't hear certain songs or experience certain things without equating them with her and what we were doing together at that time.

Things happened. We both moved repeatedly all over the country, and touch was lost. I never thought I'd see her again, or ever find out what happened to her. But in the midst of everything that's been going on for me lately, I've thought about her. It made me sad, and nostalgic. And it resulted in me writing one of my favorite posts so far. It may not seem that great a post to anyone else, but for me, it had deep personal meaning, and captured just what she meant to me (and I hope I meant to her).

So I wrote that, wrote her up in a way that made her live for me again after years of her being just a ghost in my memory.

And today, she walked past me on my street.

Almost thirteen years since I last saw her, or knew anything about her. She lives in my fucking neighborhood.

(photo credit: ghost girl by jeffmclennan)

25 Words or Less

2006-05-24T23:34:00.000-04:00

There’s want. And there’s need. And there’s love. And then there’s you.

You figure it out.

Okay, so has ANYONE ever used a dental dam?

2006-05-23T22:34:00.000-04:00

If so, please 'fess up and read the post below and let me know what it's like.

I've been asking around since yesterday's post. No one I know has ever used them, so far as I can tell.

Really, is this just something people say you should do and NO ONE uses them? Surely there must be someone out there who has experienced sex with them?

Or is going down on a woman simply too delicious to give up, even if there is risk involved?

And speaking of which...had the iPod on random shuffle today and heard one of my favorite bands, singing what must be the singularly best song about oral sex, and one that surely should win some kind of award for best use of double-entendre. It's the kind of song where people who don't want to know will just think it's just a love song about a guy eager to see his girlfriend after having been away from her. The kind of song my Doris-Day-meets-Gidget mother would insist I was reading things into. But she doesn't read enough.

You can also go here to read the lyrics if you want.

Figured given the recent discussion, I'd share. Click the link two paragraphs above and enjoy (and let me know if you did). Ring-a-ding-ding-ding...

Hm, while I'm at it, ARE there any other songs specifically about oral sex? The only other one that comes immediately to mind is "Some Candy Talking" by Jesus & Mary Chain--and that one's fairly vague. (Lyrics to that one on this page, if you scroll down a ways.)

Oral Exam: Dam-med if You Do, Damned if You Don't?

2006-05-22T21:30:00.000-04:00

As someone who will probably be re-emerging back on the dating scene some week or other after a long hiatus, I've been doing some thinking and reevaluating how I want to handle sexual encounters in the future. And this brings up the issue of protection.

In general, I have been careful about picking sexual partners (as in, I would not be the kind of person you'd be able to term "promiscuous," unless you were an extremely conservative person). I've also been relatively careful about condom use when it came to sex. But what I mean by "sex" in that last sentence is coitus. Which I think most people have defined it as up until recently.

Now, oral, that's been a different story. With all my sexual partners, whether giving or receiving, I never used any form of protection. And I don't know, because I haven't been in other people's beds, but from what I hear out there in the world, this seems to be the norm for many other people, too.

And yet you read that really, we should all be protected during oral sex, too--that we should be using dental dams, flavored, unlubricated condoms, plastic wrap with lube, etc. while engaging in cunnilingus, fellatio, or rimming.

You hear all the time now that you can contract diseases through oral sex. But how likely are you to? It's nearly impossible to find useful statistics. In general, you mostly read that the percentage of risk is far lower, but still present. Here's a good site that tries to balance theory with actual documented cases of AIDS transmission--but of course AIDS isn't the only STD. It's much more difficult to find any fast data on other STD transmission through oral sex.

In any case, though perhaps extremely low, the risk is there. And I'm wondering in light of that, what are people doing out there these days? Particularly those of you who are sexually active but not in long-term relationships, or who are in a serious relationship but aren't sure if it will be your last and only sexual relationship--or if you are polyamorous, or in any other kind of multiple-partner situation.

Are most of you playing the odds when it comes to oral sex? Or have things changed and are many of you using safe sex alternatives during oral contact?

And if you are using safe sex alternatives, how are they to use? I've got to be honest, just the thought of giving oral to a banana-flavored-condom-encased cock sounds gag-worthy to me. And I wonder how it would feel to receive oral or a rim job through a dental dam (or to give it). I mean, I know I'm capable of coming with a barrier between my clit and whatever is stimulating it, but it's certainly not the same as direct tongue contact. Is a dental dam thin enough to feel not much different? And does it taste gross? Smell strongly of plastic?

If anyone out there has any information or experience with this, please do share; I'd really like to get some input (heh). (And remember, you can always leave an anonymous comment if the info is too personal and you don't want to identify yourself.)

Oh...and also...
Let's say you normally don't use protection during oral. If your next partner felt it was important to him/her, would you be willing to have protected oral sex every time? Or would you think that was just too sterile and decide to look elsewhere?

Do tell.

P.S. Though I know this is petty and probably unwise, I'll fess up that the thought of barrier-protected oral sounds entirely unsexy and unappealing to me. I like the intimacy and feel and taste of full-on mouth-to-skin contact. But I suppose that's rather short-sighted and obnoxious of me to say. I'd be really annoyed if a guy gave me the "a condom isn't natural, therefore I should get to have sex with you without it" speech. It really isn't any different for oral sex. And honestly, I really don't want to contract an STD of any sort, through any means. So maybe I just need to heave a big sigh and kiss my carefree, barrier-free oral days goodbye...

In any case, there might be a difference between what you're DOING and what you think is the right thing to do; so if this is the case, that would be good to know, too.

(photo credit: Bike Kill 2005 no105 (K kiss no1) by beigeinside)

Thanks, a Clarification, and Goodnight.

2006-05-21T23:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone who sent in a question and kept me typing rigorously through the weekend. It was fun, but I think it'll be a while before I do that again. It was way more labor-intensive than I thought it would be, and I didn't even have *that* many questions...

In any case, it's back to sex, relationships, and other life stuff for the next little while. (I know, what a relief, right? There's only so much "Dear Abby" shit you can take. Thanks for bearing with me.)

I also need to make a correction, and wanted to note it here. In my "The Final Cut" post a while back, I credited two quotes to Eleanor Roosevelt. I've since found my initial source was wrong and one of the quotes ("What is to give light must endure burning") was not from Eleanor, but from Dr. Viktor Emil Frankl, who was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor. It's still a great quote, but credit needs to be given where credit's due. I've corrected it in the original post, and sorry for the misinformation.

Today has not been a great day. Lately, as I've been working through some stuff, I have finally had some days of real optimism--which I'm grateful for, as it's been a while since I've felt like that. But I'm finding patterns are hard to break, and the non-optimism, no-way-out thing has become my pattern for way too many months of late. I guess it's easier to stay where you are, with what you've accustomed yourself to, than to suffer the exhaustion that comes with struggling every day to get yourself out of that. The result of this: it seems the minute I find anything optimistic, I then immediately find or do things to smash down and obliterate that thing. I think I'm afraid to hope for too much, so I'd rather destroy hope early than see it destroyed after I've actually begun to believe it's a reality.

I know this won't be the case forever. I *will* walk out into the light and open air eventually. And I'm committed to fighting until I punch my way through whatever wall I have to. But some days, you're just damn tired of bloodying your fists, y'know? Today, I felt like Beatrix waking up in that coffin in Kill Bill: Volume 2. She knows what she has to do, and she's going to do it, but man, is it going to be hard to get out above ground.

Let me tell you, I sure am waiting for the day I can walk on over to that empty diner and ask for my glass of water.

For the time being, though, I'll sleep on it and build my strength for another day's fight.

Until then...keep a glass out on the counter for me.

And last, but certainly not least...

2006-05-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

Answers for the Eeeevil (in a good way) Minx. Who deserves many strokes of her cat-suited back for being so patient.

1. If you were an animal (non-human) what animal would you be?

I have been told by many ex-boyfriends, and I tend to agree, that I'm very cat-like. Love lounging in bed/sleeping. Love having my back (well, whole body, really) rubbed/head scratched. Initially suspicious--you have to lure me to you through kindness and trustworthiness (and treats and other temptations). Once won over, though, I will be incredibly purry and affectionate. Like to rest my head on people I like. Have been known to give an occasional love bite. Am hyper-sensitive to changes in the emotional air. Seem harmless and warm and pretty-soft-soft, but get my back up and the claws come out and I'll fight to the death.

Funny thing is, I used to hate cats growing up. One attacked me when I was a kid and I was scared of them after that. I thought they were unpredictable, mean creatures. Then my housemate had one and I realized they were just misunderstood. Once you get them, they're the coolest. And I realized they think instinctively much like I do. Now cats lurrrrve me, and I love them. But I've sworn to own only one at a time--I do NOT want to become crazy cat lady in my old age, alone with 20 cats.

Hm, though you're not asking what animal am I like, you're asking what animal would I be.

Being a cat is appealing, actually, but I'd rather not be a domestic cat. If I could choose, I'd choose to be a lioness. I've had a number of dreams about lounging with or encountering female lions, and I always feel comfortable in the dreams--I'm never scared. (I'm also a Leo, so I guess it all makes sense, if you believe astrology--which I only do when it suits my purpose).

Other than that, I sometimes think it would be great to be a bird--one of the kinds who can really soar and dip up there--a hawk, for instance. Or one of the types who can both fly and swim underwater. That would be cool.

2. What 7 songs/albums would you want to have with you if you were shipwrecked on a desert island (that happened to have a very good sound system in full working order)?

This is an incredibly hard question. I love music and have too much of it to narrow it down, and what I want to listen to changes all the time with my mood. Sigh...if this were really true, I'd probably burn 7 CDs of my own full of hundreds of songs. Or I'd go for greatest hits CDs of my favorite bands, so I could have a little of everything they've done. But let me try to do this, thinking about which CDs/bands get most play for me over my lifetime.

Um, it turns out I'm gonna have to cheat a little. I'll do 7 bands, but multiple CDs.

The Stone Roses

Surfer Rosa

Doolittle

Debaser

Smile

Nowhere

Lunapark

Bewitched

Penthouse

The Bends

OK Computer

Ramones Mania

This feels entirely not enough! Seven? Seven? No way. Um, other bands I'd want to bring something of: Blur, James, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Bright Eyes, Pulp, Verve, Nina Simone, Bjork, Beck, The Waterboys, The Pogues, The Rolling Stones (pre--1985 only), The Frank & Walters, Lush, Jesus & Mary Chain, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, The Smiths, The Cure...

Oh god, forget it. I'm about to launch into my whole music collection. Note to self: never get stranded on a desert island. You'll be useless.

3. Which is/are your favourite piece(s) of underwear?

My favorite piece of underwear is the one I'm sliding my hand in under and then taking off of him, if he was foolish enough to have it on in the first place. Or, alternately the one I'm wearing that he's doing the same thing to, in reverse.

Easy Peasy

2006-05-20T17:30:00.000-04:00

From Shon, the kind of terrorist we could all use to be attacked by, comes my easiest response. Didn't even have to think half a split second for this one, and that feels mighty nice for a change.

He asks:

What's your comfort food book? The book you have read so many times you know it by heart but you keep coming back to it?

First off, I love the idea of a "comfort food book." I never would have thought of that phrase, but it's perfect.

So, what I read when the world is too much with me and I just want to escape and just enjoy and not think to much. I've got two definites, and then a runner up:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Never fails. Love everything about it. The flawless writing, the subtle sarcasm, the plot twists, the period feel, the romantic yearning, the desperate misunderstandings, the everything-rights-itself-in-the-end conclusion. And especially the mental and verbal sparring between the two main characters that substitutes as massive sexual tension in today's world.

Not to mention I pretty much am Elizabeth Bennett incarnate. Stubborn, too smart for my own good, guarded, clever, and desperately romantic underneath it all. Tend to not always know what's good for me in terms of men. Tend to assume I'll never find the love I want. Tend to keep hoping I will. That sort of thing.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend. The first two (and best) books in what eventually became a small series following the title character into adulthood. Adrian's (a boy, by the way) diary entries through his thirteenth and fourteenth year. Just absolutely hysterical. They still make me laugh every time I read them, and you can get through one in a single sitting if you have a little time. The books actually cover some really serious topics that were taking place in the '80s when they were written, both in America and in England (where the story takes place). Divorce, parental infidelity, political upheaval, the Falklands, welfare, social security, changing gender roles in the family, punk, teen sexuality...but it's all portrayed through the eyes of this incredibly precocious teenager (who has no idea he's precocious--he thinks he's a genius), so that it makes even the hardest things seem amusing and deal-able. They're just a delight to read, and though they can be considered "young adult books" on one level, they works equally well on an adult level due to the author's incredibly subtle, dry, well-honed wit. You can practically see the author waiting for your double-take so she can take the piss out of you for not being quicker. If you were a teenager in the 80s, or if you know anything about English politics at the time, it's a must-read. But I think anyone would find it funny. Coming of age has commonalities across every era, and these books are my favorite coming-of-age novels. It's nice to have a C.O.A. book where it's not all angst and darkness, even when there are angsty things happening. Sometimes you just want to look back on your angsty teenager self and just laugh at how dopey all your earnestness and presumed "depth" was. This book lets you do it without being too hard on yourself, or without making it seem like too bad a time.

If you want to read a little excerpt of them, you can here and here.

Those are my main two.

And the runner up would be...

The Harry Potter series. I love it to death. Every time a new one is about to be released, I read through the entire series again from start to finish. And sometimes, if the wait is too long, I grab one and read it just to relax. I love her writing, I love the stories, and I love the way they remind me of some of my favorite children's lit writers growing up.

I wonder--was anyone surprised these were my picks?

I bet you guys all thought it would be something darker, right?

She comes in absence of colors

2006-05-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

Time to answer Darkneuro's question--whose name, by the way, for my first couple of months of blogging, I stupidly used to think meant "dark 'n' Euro," but who in fact is a lovely, golden-haired American vixen who can cook up some mean recipes and write the hell outa a blog post. But despite her blondiness, she's still dark in her own lovely way.

And lovely darkness brings me to the answer to her questions:

What's your favorite color and why? How does that color make you feel, and how often do you use that color in your day-to-day life?

I kinda/sorta started answering this question in an older meme here, but not the follow-up questions. So, let me start ovah and bettah.

What's your favorite color?

In my head, I haven't deemed anything a "favorite color" since I was a little girl. When I was a little girl, my favorite color was pink. Or at least that's what I told everyone. I wonder now if I did that because I knew "good girls" were supposed to say they liked pink.

But in reality, the color I have always been most attracted to, and have surrounded myself with most often since I first left home for college, has been black. My parents never dressed me in black as a kid. And in fact, it was impossible to find black clothing in the lame suburb I lived in during the neon and pastel '80s. But at age 17, when I tried on my first black dress, every person in the store I tried it on in stopped what they were doing, looked, and said it was perfect. And I knew it was true, even if they hadn't. I could feel it the minute I put it on--I had come home. Black and I just go together.

So, despite what I might be telling myself, it's clear (or perhaps, more aptly, opaque) that my favorite color is black.

And why?

My childhood icons of ultimate female beauty:

1. Morticia Addams

2. Miss Scarlet from the 1970s version of Clue

3. Catwoman (Julie Newmar version), 1970s TV Batman series

Notice the clothing color of all three. Notice the attitude with it. Sexuality, confidence, power. It was appealing to me even at five. These women were slinky, mysterious, confident in who they were. They had the freedom to make their own choices. They weren't mere objects for men--they had their own thing going on. And yet they were exceptionally alluring to men...but also a little scary to them. Men respected them, couldn't quite figure them out, wanted to get close--they knew they could possibly fuck them, but that they couldn't fuck with them or they might end up tangled up in man-eating flora, scratched within an inch of their lives, or getting the candlestick in the conservatory.

(Plus, I'm naturally gothic in coloring. Pale skin, dark hair, dark eyes, high-pigment lips. So black just looks good on me.)

How does that color make you feel?

Safe. Protected. Dark. Mysterious. Alluring. Untouchable. Powerful. Sexy. Noticeable. Hidden. Stylish. Scary. Come hither-y. Venus fly trappy. Thinner. Curvy/slinky. Confident. Secret. Right. How I am, inside. How I want to be seen, outside.

And how often do you use that color in your day-to-day life?

HA! I have probably worn at least SOMETHING black every day of my life since I was 17. There was a time it was all I would wear. So much so that in college, I made some crack about trying to avoid someone and how maybe I should walk around like "the unknown comic" with a bag over my head, and my good friend and housemate instantly, sarcily retorted, "But it would have to be a black bag."

Black has felt like who I am since I can remember. It might always be that way, I don't know. But lately, I feel like maybe I'm done with that. Maybe I want more color. Maybe I'm sick of hiding and feeling dark and protected. I've been trying to add more color into my wardrobe. I look kick-ass in red and royal blue, for instance. I've been really into Tiffany blue/green, though I haven't hazarded wearing it yet. I love the color of leaves (in all seasons). I like orange. I want more brightness, boldness. That's what I've been craving. So I'm trying to um...retrain myself out of all black, all the time.

Right now, as I said once a few moons ago on Karl Elvis's blog, even when I try to wear pink, it still looks like black. Or at least it feels that way to me. Like I'm pretending--covering up the black, but it's still there. I'll probably always be a little gothy at the core. But who knows, maybe someday I'll wear aqua and silver and only look and feel all shimmery aqua and silver. (But underneath, I bet I'll still be wearing black lingerie.)

"Let me sleep. It's my favorite thing...to sleep."

2006-05-19T22:51:00.000-04:00

A favorite line from the movie "Mystery Train." May not make so much sense if you can't see it in context--a cute, sleeping, naked girl saying it in grumpily in Japanese as her boyfriend tries to wake her up. But I love the moment because it says it all. I love sleeping. It's my favorite thing. (Well, my almost favorite thing. But the other thing also can involve bed, too, so let's call it even.)

So, now some answers for the (apparently) very tired Tory, all about one of my favorite pastimes. (But I'm changing his "u"s to "you"s, because I've got a pet peeve about that.

1. On which side of the bed do you sleep?

It depends on where the bed is situated. I'm not tied to one side. I prefer not to sleep right next to a wall, so whichever side of the bed isn't, I'm usually there. Right now I'm sleeping on the right-hand side of the bed, sometimes in the middle-ish. But often, in the quest for perfect mattress alignment, after a period of time I'll be known to switch to the other side, just to even things out. I'd probably be using the whole bed more wide-rangingly instead of having one side, except for my damn cat is an enormous bed hog and I don't want to crush her in my sleep. I swear she takes up as much room as any human who's been in the bed.

2. How much can you stand clothes on your body when you sleep?

Well, I don't actually have any starch in the house, so I can't stand very much clothing on my body at all. It all just kinda flops over whenever I try--it's never stiff enough. (See below for more serious answer.)

3. What's your fav sleeping attire?

I don't favor sleeping attire at all, other than a sheet, blanket, or duvet. Sleeping feels best clothing-free, I think. But if it's exceptionally cold, I'll usually throw on a t-shirt. And, because whenever I say that someone always asks this: Yes, I do mean just a t-shirt. On a rare occasion I've worn a man's pajama top, or the top and bottom. But I have to be really cold, or I have to think I'm lookin' really cute in it.

I have other things I've worn in bed, but not to sleep in.

4. Have you been told you snore? Sleepwalk? Or talk in your sleep?

I've been told I snore and that person didn't live to tell me again. Ha. Actually I've been told, "You don't snore, you breathe heavy." Whatever that means. Other people have said they haven't heard me make any noise when I'm sleeping at all. So I guess it depends.

I've never been told I sleepwalk, though once I did have a waking dream, which was very creepy. No one has ever told me I've talked in my sleep.

5. Do you sleep with the lights on or off?

Off. I like things as dark as possible when I sleep. I HATE it when I accidentally fall asleep with the lights on and wake up a few hours later with bright lights in my eyes.

6. How many hours do you sleep on average?...And how many hours CAN you sleep?

I try to aim for 7-8ish hours of sleep. I rarely get it, though, because I'm a total night owl and hate going to bed early. If I had my way, all work would begin at about 2 pm. I usually clock somewhere between 6-7 hours.

Since mid-childhood, I've always been able to sleep a frighteningly long amount of time, and would every day if I could. Ten hours would be a cinch for me, and left to my own devices, I'd sleep that much every day. That's when I feel best, if I have at least 10. I could probably sleep 12 or 13 on a good day--though I rarely indulge myself in that anymore. Used to, though.

When I say that amount of time I mean in one, uncut length of time. I'm not really big on naps unless I'm really, seriously exhausted.

And I hate when I can't just sleep until I wake up naturally. When I was a teenager, my family would fight about who would be the one to have to wake me up if they needed to for some reason, because I'd always be in such a raging fury at whomever the unlucky culprit was who dared to disturb me. Now I just get angry at my alarm.

7. Can you share a bed? Or not comfortable? What size bed do you have?

I don't like sharing a bed unless I really, really like a person. If I've been getting close to someone but don't feel 100% intimate with them yet, I'd rather they went home (or I did) than slept over, because I get hyper sensitive to every sound and movement and feel all out of place. Even their breathing will bother me and keep me weirded out and awake.

However, if I'm really into someone, I have none of these problems when they're sleeping next to me, even from early on. It's weird how that is. But it's actually a good gauge for me of what I really feel about someone if I'm not quite sure, or am trying to talk myself into feeling something different. In any case, there have been a very few select people who I've been totally comfortable sleeping with in bed.

I also don't like cuddling when I'm trying to fall asleep. I like it fine before I'm ready for sleep, but when it's time to drop off, I don't need or want you to be draped all over me. I like some breathing room. I think most guys appreciate this. Saves them the pins-and-needles she-fell-asleep-on-my-arm thing.

8. Nightly rituals before getting under the sheets..what are they?

Um...well...I don't think of them as ritualistic, but here's some basic things I usually do:
1) Feed the cat her dinner.
2) Wash face, brush teeth.
3) Set alarm (which is currently my satellite radio attached to go of on my stereo).
4) Either:

5) Turn out the lights.
6) Pet the cat who always instantly crawls up on top of me after step 5, as she knows she has a captive audience and demands her five minutes of affection nightly.
7) Get the cat off the top of me. At this point she'll leave the room to go eat dinner.
8) Sigh. Enjoy the silence. Snuggle up into the covers.
9) Sleep.

There are other things I tend often to do or think about somewhere in between steps 5-9, but at the moment I don't feel like sharing them.

Thanks for the question, Tory-ador.

All of this sleep talk has made me tired. Think I'm gonna curl up for a while and rest. I'll answer the remaining ones tomorrow. Thanks for the questions, all. This is fun, and keeps my brain percolating along...

This is a post about a whale! NO! This is a post about being happy!

2006-05-19T17:05:00.000-04:00

Don't get the title above? Click on the picture. (Audio of it if you scroll.)

So. Question number two (only a few hours left for this special offer) comes from Spcknght (whose name I always seem to want to misspell):

What do you mean "IF anyone sends you one" (and that is NOT my question!)? OF COURSE we're going to write in! Who wouldn't want to know more about our wonderful Sexeteria lady?

Ok, my question's somewhat like Circe's...I'd like to know the most intensely happy moment you've experienced in your life--with the wish-rider attached to my question that you experience just as much joy tenfold after answering this.

Now see, this totally confirms Spcknght's claim the other day that he's a snow angel with a slightly tilted halo. Because aw, just read that--isn't he the nicest guy? And yet, his question really bothered me immediately after I read it. Because, dammit, I actually don't think I know if I've every had a moment that was SO intensely happy that it stands out above all others. And dammit, that just seems wrong, wrong, wrong. (I won't say it made me sad, because that would bum poor Spcknght out.)

I mean, I get happy. I laugh a lot more than you probably think I do from reading this blog. I swear to you people, I'm a goddamned delight to know!

Ergh. Before I protest too much...I'll just answer the question as best I can. Spck, I can't think of an overriding moment. I'm not happy about that. But looked at another way, let's just say it means I still get to have my supremely happy moment sometime in the future. I do have some moments I remember where I felt really good, though, most of which involve music, dancing, and travel--some of my favorite things. Here are a few:

1) I was living overseas (in Scotland). I had a passle of roommates from all over the UK and we all loved the hell out of each other (take L'Auberge Espagnole and make it an all English-speaking household, and that's a good comparison). I also had my ideal boyfriend (my ideal at the time anyway), a tall, lanky, smart-as-all-getout, socialist, literary, grungy, demi-alcoholic English prettyboy. And he had a bunch of similar friends who I also loved. And all of us converged on a ceilidh held in the city I lived in, where my one roomate's band was playing. (For those who need a definition: celtic music+square dancing+copious amounts of alcohol, whooping, and stomping=Ceilidh. In other words, ceilidhs are marvelous.) The band was spectacular, the place was packed, and the dances were romantic (waltzes) AND crazy wild (steps where men literally turned around so fast that the women's feet lifted off the ground, propeller style). There was even danceable bagpiping. I was in a country I liked better than my own, in a culture that seemed to be far more "me" than anything I had experienced in America at the time. I was away from all the crap back home I didn't want to be involved in, feeling great and adventurous, knowing that I'd managed to get out and get there and have my own life, surrounded by cool, fun, smart people who I adored. I felt I fit. And I was also feeling a bit like a coveted, exotic treat (British and Irish boys like American girls the way American girls here like their Brits and Irishmen). I never got to sit down the whole night--there was always someone who needed to dance with me (and as we know from previous posts, dancing is heaven for me--and so is getting propositioned to dance by men I like who insist romantically that they will die if I won't dance with them). All of us were together and we were sweaty and drunk and all a little bit in love with each other. And then of course, there was someone who I knew at the end of the night I'd be going home to have spectacular sex with.

In short, it was a good time. I won't bother to use superlatives to describe it--it's was beyond any form of "good" you could use, so why bother. And in that goodness, I was happy and beaming every single minute.

You know, my housemates and I actually took a camera with us and we filled up an entire roll full of film with photos documenting the night--and, then, in the last minutes, some drunken person accidentally opened the shutter and totally ruined the film. But though we were all disappointed, the next day, hanging out in our kitchen slightly hung over and cooking breakfast (probably at 2 pm), we all decided it was really the best thing. Some events, some feelings get lessened by a still photo. We all said, and I still agree, some things you just can't capture--sometimes the memory alone is better to have than the photos.

You know what, Spck, forget it. I don't need to give any more examples. I do have a happiest moment so far. That was it. That night and those people will have a place in my heart for the rest of my life, and I'll always be happy whenever I think about it and them. Thanks for reminding me. :)

Well, yay. Now I feel good and want to share. So, if you're reading this, here's a little chaser of happy you can share with me--my little gift to anyone else who might be having a hard day or week or month or year.

During my difficult last year or two, I've been happy to take any tiny perk of joyous relief I can get. And a few months ago, I heard this, and it made my day. I downloaded it immediately afterwards. Whenever I hear it, I can't help but get happy. Bless that adorable, silly, cheesy, clever Ringo Starr. He's got the right perspective--it probably IS as easy as 1-2-3. Having a bad day? Click to play and dance with me, people. Sing it loud.

To be or not to be,
I don't care...

Be Careful What You Wish For

2006-05-19T09:12:00.000-04:00

Okay, so five questions sent in so far, and the first two from Circe and Spcknght are REALLY hard! Which is good--it's good for me to be challenged. Somehow, I think I imagined myself having instant answers to everything, but instead I was kinda floored by both of these.

Here's Circe's:

It's always interesting to me to have someone write about something sexually pivotal. Not necessarily the best, the worst, the funniest... but a sexual something that sticks in your mind for some stubborn, indelible, possibly unknown reason.

This one was hard because though I've hand many experiences, nothing felt pivotal. Everything to me has felt kind of like a progression or continuum or something. I tried running through the mental file cabinet for memories/images that are stuck in my brain in a coupling sense, and came up with a bunch of stuff, nothing of which seemed pivotal...a couple of guys I'd really lusted after when I was younger who turned out to be disappointing in the "getting physical" department...what my first lover said to me the morning after I'd had sex for the first time...what I wrote in my journal about how I felt after I'd had sex for the first time...discovering a person I was dating was notably small in the endowment department and how I processed that...a lover and I breaking a bed frame when we were really going at it...or me waking up in his bed for the first time, naked under the sheets, on a sunny morning after a night full of amazing lovemaking and finding myself alone--and then him proudly walking in with half an avocado and a spoon to surprise me with "breakfast in bed"...the best oral sex I ever had...

Just a catalogue of some of the weird random memories that stick. But none of those felt particularly pivotal. And then it hit me that my most pivotal stuff had nothing to do with when I was with another partner. It's more about the images that sparked the initial flames of my sexual imagination when I was young, well before I was sexually active. You know, those written or movie moments that you come across and suddenly realize, "This is making me hot. This is what arousal feels like." And that starts a lifetime of fantasizing and (in my case) erotic storytelling and in some ways, forges your own sexual personality.

Anyway, thinking back, it's clear that my most formative arousal moments were all related to scenes of sexual seduction. Not nonconsent, exactly, though that theme skews off the seduction theme. But rather, situations where there is one experienced partner, and one innocent and slightly nervous but secretly curious/aroused/attracted novice who, finds that despite her/his better judgment ("Oh, but this would be so bad/so secret/so dirty/so wrong"), she/he finds her/himself slowly drawn in by the more experienced partner's erotically suggestive behavior, until she/he can't stop her/himself from surrendering her/himself to the seducer's (and his/her own) desire.

Mmmm, even writing about it and remembering all those images as a kid still gets me going. The whole, "It's wrong, but I can't help myself" thing, combined with the experienced partner's overwhelming desire for the person, and to get what he/she wants, yet the carefully calculated moves he/she takes to make it happen...hunter and hunted, but the hunter makes it so the prey wants to be consumed--willingly, swooningly offers its own throat up in the end, knowing that the pain will be goooood...

Here's a shortlist of these pivotal pieces of writing/imagery that made me realize what turned me on before I was even clear what really having sex would be like (in no particular order). Grouped together, they're my pivotal thing:

1) The two seduction scenes in John Jake's The Bastard (pulled off my dad's bookshelf). Experienced French serving wench seduces inexperienced son of the woman she works for in the loft of a barn. Later on, more experienced, but poor, French son moves to the American colonies and seduces rich society virgin--though she is promised to another! (gasp!)--outdoors in a hidden spot on her intended's estate grounds. I wrote more about this book here.

2) All the "first time" stories in the Penthouse "Forum." A couple I used to babysit for had copies of Penthouse all over their house. And a huge stash of them in their bedroom closet, too. (Yeah, I looked in their closet. I know, it was wrong. But listen, all of you out there, if you've got a pre-teen or teenaged babysitter, well folks, you'd better just resign yourself to the fact that she/he is probably rifling through your smut). After I'd put the kids to bed and was sure they were asleep, I'd pull the magazines out and read and read and...well, you know, do other stuff. Thank god it was the era before those hidden-camera clocks. Anyway--any teacher and naughty schoolgirl type fantasy was sure to get lots of re-reads. As did any story about the clueless delivery boy who walked in on the brunette and redhead sunning by the pool... And um, sure, the babysitter stories were good, too. Not that the couple I was sitting for had any idea I thought so.

3) Another babysitting moment: Found an anthology of Victorian erotica in a different couple's house. Can't remember the title. A lot of it was pretty bad. But there was this one voyeur story about two wealthy young siblings (of the opposite sex) secretly watching their father seduce and have sex with the maid. (And then the siblings had sex while they watched--but the master of the house/maid/"sir" thing was what really got to me).

4) The glass elevator scene in Class. MILF Jacqueline Bisset talks to Andrew McCarthy about whether he prefers "going up or down." He says he likes going up. She decides to show him how wrong his choice is, literally, and his eyes roll to the back of his head, as they sink to the floor in plain view of everyone else using the adjoining elevators.

5) Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon in The Hunger. Need I say more? Okay I will. Late at night, my parents in bed, me in the dark watching after-hours HBO. Deneuve's a vampire. Sarandon's human, a virgin, and as far as she knows, straight. Afterwards, she's none of the above. Highly erotic scene. Many people I know of my age seem to have good memories of this one...

6) A number of Eric Jong books. I never actually read any of the books all the way through. The overall writing and plots seemed pretty crap to me even then. But there were loads of seduction scenes, of all combinations. That lady had one good 'n' dirty mind.

7) The Thorn Birds (the book, not the made-for-TV movie). Two scenes: one was kind of a mutual seduction--priest is seduced by pure, beautiful young girl/girl is seduced by reticent, hot priest. They both draw each other in, even though they know it's wrong. And then I remember in contrast to that more gentle love scene, a scene with the girl being "taken" in a very masterful way by her eventual manly-man husband, which added a very nice contrast.

8) A whole bunch of teen sex flicks, forgettable except for the seduction scenes. It was pretty much standard to most of these in the early 80s that there was always some guy or girl character trying to lose it, and some salacious, more experienced person willing to help them figure it out...

9) Dangerous Liaisons. I was already more experienced by then, but Malkovitch does a damn fine job luring any number of pure young ladies into the flames in this one. (Valmont did it even better, but it was years later).

Okay, so there you have it: My pivotal sexual thing--the seduction scene. This kind of theme still fuels my adult fantasies quite a bit.

Anyone want to share a favorite seduction scene of their own? I love collecting good ones, even now.

More later. And the booth is still open for questions if anyone wants to send them.

---Update---
Oh NO. I forgot a hugely pivotal one!

10) The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Frank N. Furter sedces Janet. And then Brad. Oh Tim Curry, you hot piece of alien transvestite ass, you...

JANET/BRAD
You tricked me. I wouldn't have - I've never - never!

FRANK
I know, but it wasn't all bad was it? I think you found it quite pleasurable.
(He caresses Janet/Brad)
Oh so soft. So sensual.

JANET/BRAD
Ohhhhh - no - stop...

(and of course neither of them really means it)

Ask me. I won't say no...how could I?

2006-05-18T17:15:00.000-04:00

Coyness is nice, and
Coyness can stop you
From saying all the things in
Life you'd like to.

So, if there's something you'd like to try,
If there's something you'd like to try,
Ask me--I won't say no, how could I?

Since this morning, I've had something in my head to write that would be more of a "real" post. But for some reason, I don't feel like it. I don't want to tell people things today. Instead, all day I've just been sitting here wanting someone to ASK me something. Anything. I have no idea why. Maybe I'm just really overwhelmed with the amount of people in my outside life lately who have been calling me up to talk about their troubles or celebratory moments and forgetting to ask how I am or what's going on in my life.

I don't know. But all day I just keep saying to myself, "I wish someone would ASK me something good."

So I'm putting the offer out to any one out there who might read this. For the next twenty-four hours, write in the comments below or email me [sexeteria at that gmail place] any question you want, and I'll promise to answer it on the blog. It can be about anything--me, sex, the meaning of life, whatever. Every question (if anyone sends me one) will get an answer--though, I reserve the right for my answer to be, "I'm not going to answer that one" if I feel it's necessary. In other words, I won't guarantee an answer will be the exact one you want, but I can guarantee none of them will be untruthful. But I'll do my best to give good answer.

So. Have at it.

Ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me,
Because
If it's not love
Then it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together.

[Though the above wasn't inspired directly by this, I do want to give a nod to the fabulous Darkneuro, who did some kind of "send me a question" meme a while ago and some residue of it may have stuck in my brainpan. I know hers had guidelines, and I don't remember what they were, exactly...but there are no guidelines here.]

This one knows, she comes and goes...

2006-05-18T02:50:00.000-04:00

There are only two times where I can completely let go of myself and feel I am entirely whole, perfect, and beautiful, and close to whatever there is that is divine in this world. The first is in the midst of really good, really intense, really mind-blowing sex with someone who has won his way into my heart and my soul.

The second is when I'm surrounded by loud, swirling waves of music--music that is so perfect and all-encompassing that it makes my whole essence rise up out of me, taking me higher somehow, and each perfect riff, each flawless break, each exquisite lyric, just pours more and more joy into me and my body can do nothing but move, and I dance until exhaustion. And then past it. I never want to stop.

During those moments, I entirely lose awareness of what's around me--and yet I'm also hyper aware of every sensation lifting me higher and higher...That may sound contradictory, but that's how it is.

At these times, I no longer care about anything except connecting to the sheer perfection of sensation, and that sheer perfection, pulled into me, makes me feel perfect, holy, and unbreakable. I don't care who's watching me, I don't care how I look, I don't care what is going to happen later on--I'm just there, and nothing else matters.

I wish I could be there all the time. It's a state of almost religious ecstasy. Or actually, religious ecstasy seems mundane compared to it. It's a state beyond even that--ecstasy with no definition, no guidelines, no bounds. If I could escape into it forever, I happily would.

It's quarter to three in the morning, and I've just gotten home from hearing the most marvelous live band. They were so good I couldn't stop smiling. They were so good I wanted someone to rub against. They were so good that I wanted to grab the stranger next to me and kiss him passionately, just to share with him how perfect it all was. They were so good I got there.

My ears are buzzing. My head's a little dizzy. My right hand is stamped. And I don't. Want. To. Come. Down.

Please, please, just keep me there just a little bit longer...

(photo credit: charlatans by St Steve)

Sure, You Love Your Mom...

2006-05-14T12:59:00.000-04:00

But do you like her?

Not to throw cold buckets of water on Mother's Day or anything...parenting is an important responsibility that ought to be lauded and respected--assuming, of course, that the parent in question actually parents responsibly, in a way that is good for the specific, individual child or children they are raising. But I suspect for many people this assumption isn't always the case. Or may only be partially the case.

Most people I know have some ambivalence around their feelings about their parents. I suppose I do, too. My parents are Good People. They live a Respectable Life. They loved me the best way they knew how. They gave me a relatively safe and definitely financially secure childhood. There are qualities about them I respect, and some I even admire. There are other things about them I don't like at all.

As a result, I love them (or at least, I've been raised to believe I do--ha!). But I've often wondered, if I were not their daughter, and I met either of them randomly out in the world, with no reference or connection--say, I was introduced to them by an acquaintance at a cocktail hour--would I have any interest in knowing them further than a quick, "Hi, nice to meet you?" I honestly don't know. I often suspect maybe not.

And my case is mild. My parents and I may not have a lot of things in common as adults, but they were not extremely terrible parents. I have friends whose parents were horrible people in most every way to them throughout their childhoods, aside from managing to keep them from starving. And yet these parents expect their children to provide them with the same filial love they believe every parent is due. They don't assess how well or poorly they did their job. They were parents, and so therefore, the child must be involved in their emotional--or sometimes physical or mental health--care for the rest of their lives. That is one weighty, and possibly undeserved, expectation. But you know what? Every single one of my friends can't help themselves. They keep trying to create that filial love they so desperately want to give (and have given back) from their parents.

Love of one's parents is a complex emotion, which can be a straight-forward, freely-given kind of love at times, but in all honesty (though I know most would hate to admit this) is also often at times tied up with a sense of obligation and latent childhood dependency instinct that we learned early on. As a child, to be outcast or abandoned by a parent is a threat to our very survival--that instinct gets burned into us, and I don't think it ever really goes away. And--perhaps because of this very message burned into all of us--as an adult, the horror of being rejected by family (or you rejecting them) puts a stigma on you, not just in your own mind, but out there in the world. I notice people who have decided they don't want to be in contact with their family or openly admit they don't like their family are often looked at with suspicion. There is a sense that the person must have done something wrong to put him or herself in that position--he or she must be the one with the problem. I think this is why you see so many victims of incest choosing to continue to go to the family Thanksgiving when the family member/s who perpetrated the abuse is/are sitting right there, surrounded by all the other family members who chose to ignore (and continue to choose to ignore) the abuse as it was going on so as not to rock the family boat.

Of course, that's an extreme example. It's not always about abuse. In some cases, maybe it's just as simple as some people just can not get along with their parents as human beings. Their minds, philosophies, politics, beliefs, ways of living, whatever are just too different. And yet, most of us feel obligated to our families just the same.

Does the fact that someone raised you mean they deserve your care, attention, and loyalty no matter what? Does your parent deserve to demand your life-long respect and devotion simply because they had the ability to successfully get an egg and sperm to smack together or sign those adoption papers, regardless of how they treated you as a human being after that moment? If you wouldn't have been friends with the person your parent is, or even liked her or him if you'd met outside of a family unit, does it mean it's okay to let that relationship go once you're a fully realized adult individual?

I guess all I'm saying is that in every society, motherhood is given the big, conceptual capital letters. MOTHERHOOD. And in Christian-founded societies, there's a lot of Madonna-ization that goes on surrounding mothers. In the US, that Madonna-ization reaches its fever pitch today, on Mother's Day. Just look at the image up top there--it's not a religious painting, but it's damn near religious in its connotation. And yet, it feels like so much conceptual stereotype and not enough reality. If you are a mother, your role is elevated. You are the Great Caretaker, the Great Sacrificer--even if you really aren't. You are to be adored, worshipped. You are to be given a Day, like a saint, or a president, or a person who changed the world.

To be a mother is to be given holy stature. I won't even get into here what that makes adult women who have not become mothers, either by choice or not, in the eyes of this society--that's fodder for another post. But I will say this: mothers are not holy. Yours wasn't; mine wasn't. They are human. They fuck up. Some of them not so much. Some of them royally. Some of them were bad mothers. Some were bad mothers accidentally. Some were bad mothers on purpose. It's okay to admit any of that, even as we may feel whatever level of love we do feel for our mothers, great or small, conflicted or not.

I can only imagine for the people out there today who have mothers who have violated the conceptualization of MOTHERHOOD with all too much human reality, that Mother's Day is a pretty awful holiday to have to deal with. And for any of the rest of you out there, who might not feel horrible about their moms, but might feel at least a little ambivalence about them, or around this holiday, I just want to say to you that there's at least one other person out there who feels like that, too.

We're not bad people for feeling like that. We're just human, just like our mothers (and fathers) were/are.

And I'm pretty damn sure that you and I are not alone in our ambivalence, even if no one else wants to come out and admit it.

---
Note: this was a fairly serious post that derived out of a humorous origin, believe it or not. It all originated out of this very amusing, tongue-in-cheek top 12 list of "Gifts you should never give your mom for mother's day" over at AmericanInventorSpot. Note that as bizarre as these gifts are, they all actually seem to be for real--but can the #1 gift in the coundown really be legal?

Also, thanks to Davezilla for pointing the way.

Ha!

2006-05-14T02:38:00.000-04:00

I am the second-highest Google search for "I may not be the norm." (In quotes)

Reviewing the Situation--Early Morning Musings And Late Night Conundrums

2006-05-13T09:21:00.000-04:00

Well, so I'm back. Sorry for the unannounced absence. No dramatic reason for it--I just suddenly decided I needed a break for a day or two. And then each day turned into another day that I didn't feel like writing (on the blog at least--reserving whatever writing energy I had for what I had to do for work). And it turned into a week. Anyway, sometimes you just want to live without having to offer anything up to the gods or to an audience for having done it.

Interestingly, I've noticed my reticence to write of late seems to not be exclusive to me. A great many of my favorite bloggers seem to have gone almost, if not totally, quiet. Maybe we're all suffering from a similar virus--mindwillnottransmittokeyboardistitis, for instance. Or lifeistooverwhelmingtoarticulatitosis. Maybe it's seasonal--Spring fever. Or maybe we're making it look like we've all gone quiet because in reality we've all been together for one of our tri-annual meetings at a secret country mansion in Colorado known only as "The Meadows," where we have all been whispering our secrets only to each other and bonding in an orgiastic confluence of minds, words, and lickable body parts, along with the queen, the vatican, the Gettys, the Rothschilds, and Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. And we're just not telling you.

I'm not going to say which it is--but damn, people, am I tired.

(And how the hell did that Rod of Equity and Mercy get in there? Owie.)

Anyway, I've been thinking about some stuff while I've been away. Some of which will come up in future posts. But some of which is about the blog, and what next.

I don't know. I think I had a clear idea when I started with this thing. But it's been morphing into something else. And now I keep thinking of making changes. I already talked about redesign, and I'm pretty certain now that I want to do it. But I'm thinking about other things, too.

Okay, first. I've got to recognize that this blog just simply isn't going to be just about sex. That's what I thought it was going to be--that I wasn't going to share anything about myself, and it was just going to be a forum for discussing sexuality and issues related to it in the news and entertainment media, period. But it turns out I'm feeling too limited by that. I want to talk about what I feel like talking about--whatever, whenever it hits me. A great deal of that will probably still be about sex, because I like to think and talk about it. But it will veer off into other things quite regularly, I'm sure.

So, conundrum #1: Is it fair to keep calling this a sex blog? Is it fair to keep calling it Sexeteria?

I'm a bit sorry now I gave it a name that would imply such limitations. I wonder if I should change it. To be honest, I've kind of grown attached to the name. I don't really feel like changing it (or only kinda-sorta). But if only a certain amount of the talk is sex-related, is it too misleading? And if I change it now, is it too confusing? Should I just start totally over and leave this as a blogging elephant's graveyard? (I don't really want to do the last one--I see what I've written so far as an important part of the evolution into the blog being whatever it's going to be. It's more the name that's at issue, and whether you--or more importantly, I--think it's a bad idea to keep it or change it.)

And then there's this:

I made a quick and rash choice to go with Blogger when I first decided to make a blog. It was due to a total lack of knowledge. I had an urge one day to blog. Why? I have no idea. Before that I had pretty much never read a blog, unless you count non-personal, community blogs like Metafilter and Fark. It was a completely spontaneous choice, and I just googled "blogging" and came up with Word Press and Blogger, and Blogger just seemed easier and faster to figure out. I could be writing in minutes. And that was what I wanted to do.

But after that, I started looking around and reading and looking at other people's blogs. And I realized that all the blogs that had functions I really admired most were Movable Type blogs. For months now, I've been coveting these functions. I WANT them. And as I may have mentioned before on this blog, I have no impulse control.

Well, I sent my wish out to the universe, and shockingly, the universe sent me back someone very generous who has offered to give me exactly what I want. I can move my blog over to a Movable Type one. So now another fun fact about me--I get scared when someone offers me what I want. And even as I'm reaching for it, or sometimes am already up to my elbows in it and it is far too late to turn back, I am wont to think, "Is it really what I want?"

And then the trouble starts.

So now, I present to you conundrum #2. I can switch my blog over to Movable Type. I will get all kinds of cool functions that I will be far, far happier with. And I'd be part of a community of bloggers whose work I admire and relate to greatly. That would be good.

It would mean I'd have to learn a slightly more difficult interface, but I can handle that, because I think the benefits are worth it. There's a slight question about whether I can deal with the commenting interface there, given how my daily life works. I can't log on to the blog from work. So that's something to sort out--if it's possible to not be flooded with spam if I don't monitor comments or have word verification. But I'm sure there's probably a workaround for that.

BUT, here are some things I wonder about. It would also mean having to change my blog's URL. Which would mean lots of broken links on people's blogs that I would have to try to get fixed. And it might mean a that my stats would go back down to zero (does anyone know if there's a way to transfer over one's stats easily?). It might also mean some confusion or frustration on readers' parts, which means I might lose some readers, too.

I suppose all these last issues are totally ego related. But I like all the people who comment. I like that people are reading. And I don't really want that to go away.

So what do you think? Would it be too disconcerting if I kept the name, but varied my content a little? If I changed the name? If I moved urls? Would you follow me over? Would it be too much of a pain in the ass for you to update your blogrolls (if you have me on yours)?

Please feel free to weigh in on this; I'd really like to hear opinions.

Forever in Memes

2006-05-06T09:40:00.000-04:00

Money talks, people, but it don't sing and dance, and it don't blog.

I have been TAGGED, like a desperate elk on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, tackled and trapped via helicopter leap by the insane Jim Fowler (click on the roll-over that says, "Are You Insane?"), most likely while Marlin Perkins sat on his lazy ass back at the lodge, drinking hot chocolate.

In this modern-day scenario, however, spcknght is Jim Fowler. And HE can tackle me in the snow any day (oooh er, missus!).

I thought I was gonna get away from this one, folks, I really did. I was sneaky. I deliberately didn' t leave a comment on Hiromi's blog the day she did it and tagged "...every motherfucker who reads this. Mwaaahahahahahahaha!" I just looked the other way and whistled innocently...nope, I didn' t see nothin'. And I overcame my persistent guilt by employing convenient semantic logic to rationalize..."Well, um, technically, I have never fucked my mother. So..."

But no, the NEIL DIAMOND MEME has found me anyway and wrapped itself around me like a sparkly, open collar 70's shirt and way-too-tight black knit trousers.

I know this week has been nothing but lists about me. And though I know I'm just sooo fascinating to all of you (ahem), I don't blame you if you feel it's a little much all in a row like this. But the truth of the matter is, I love memes and stupid personality quizzes. I love reading other people's. I love doing my own. No, it's not deep. It's not important. But it's fun. And I sure haven't had a lot of that lately, so I'll do whatever I get even small enjoyment from, thank you very much. Think it doesn't count as "real" blogging? Well, to quote a certain wise and eloquent man, "Bite me." (Those who do so in a very sexy way, though, get brownie points.) I'll get back to the real blogging soon enough.

So, y'know, "cracklin' reader, get on board," and all of that...

I AM: More than I probably appear to be on this blog. (And also: currently trying to write a description of what a "good kiss" is and getting all hot and bothered by it, yet still thinking it's not nearly good enough to post.)
I SAID: “No pillow!”
I WANT: The above quote to mean the more interesting thing you probably began imagining it meant, rather than what it actually did mean.
I WISH: That all the people I wish I could hang out with weren’t all living so far away from me.
I HATE: Liars and poseurs and blowhards, oh my.
I MISS: Feeling like I and my life are cool and interesting.
I FEAR: I won’t get to feel like that again.
I HEAR: Birds (especially one very insistent mourning dove). Airplanes in the distance. A car driving past. Clicking of the keyboard. Wind blowing through a tree. Farther in the distance: lapping water (though that may only be my imagination).
I WONDER: Where I’ll end up. And what the origin of the expression “all that and a bag of chips” is.
I REGRET: That I’m probably boring you to death with this meme.
I AM NOT: a pushover.
I DANCE: really well, so I’m told--and not nearly enough lately.
I SING: Loudly in the car by myself to stuff on my iPod or the radio. Softly to myself when I dance.
I CRY: More than I ever imagined I would the older I get, at things I never imagined I’d cry at…like sappy TV commercials or deliberately emotionally-manipulative movies. Grrrr, hate that. But I still don’t cry at Lifetime TV shows! Kill me if that starts happening!
I AM NOT ALWAYS: As strong as I appear to be.
I MADE: Myself go to yoga class yesterday.
I WRITE: Every. Fucking. Minute. Of. The. Day. (Or at least it feels like that sometimes.)
I CONFUSE: Other people’s needs (and sometimes interests) with mine.
I NEED: A patron so I never have to worry about money and can just focus on doing the writing I want to do. Or a sugar daddy. Or a generous old lady who likes my blog and leaves me all her money and her fabulous city brownstone in her will.
I SHOULD: Get out of bed.
I START: To imagine staying in bed all day instead.
I FINISH: This slightly dull attempt at a meme.
I TAG: YOU (and let me know you did it so I can go read it).

Disclaimer: Mind you now, I said I loved memes, but that doesn't mean I want to get tagged every day of the week. Too much of a good thing and all of that. Be gentle and sparing, you lot. There are plenty of others who you can share the wealth with, too.