Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tidbits From The Daily Grind
An interesting array of small news items have been cropping up lately. This according to the NY Times June 23rd, 2006 edition.
For instance, in Japan nearly 31% of people between 16 and 49 have sex only once a month. So, does that one timer make up for all the other sexless nights? Well, we wish we could say so, but apparently when couples did have sex, they did so for "no particular reason."
Sounds fabulously sexy, no?
No. The Japanese are increasingly worried about this trend. Figures show that the population rate fell to an all-time low: 1.25. It should be 2.1 to keep the overall population from declining. So, start crackin' and eat your spinach.
In this regard they are right up there with the Italians, who are also de-populating themselves at an alarming rate. No one wants the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing. The single guys can just as easily live with mom. As we all know, mom is still the ultimate goddess in the Italian home.
Up in Canada in the same Times' edition, it was reported that the country has raised the age of consent from 14 to 16. This was done primarily to curb older male predators. But the Canadians wisely decided to put in a key exemption to the law, which allows kids of say 14 or 15 to still have sex with someone up to five years older than they are.
Would we devise such a loophole down in the USA? Of course not, silly. We are still trying to get out from under the delusion that children that age should not be doing anything at all of a sexual nature.
Unless you want to just show off your new fetish wardrobe. Which brings us to the third Times' story of the day, the fact that the Style section is running a story on "Kinky Chic Extends Its Dominance." The paraphernalia of the BDSM crowd is now going mainstream.
Those little black collars? You see a fair number of chic women wearing them out at night. And I don't think they are dominatrices on their way to a rendezvous with a client.
Got a yearning to play an extra in "Braveheart" in the scene where they all moon the Brits? Well, just hang onto your Scottish garb. That's a fetish thing too and it is one of the hotter outfits around now. I remember fondly one of our early experiences at a sex party, where one of the participants was running around in a kilt. "Do you wont to have a wrestle," he would inquire of people, in a charming brogue. We declined, but we thought the outfit was snazzy.
Good to know you can hang on to your old chains, leather and whatnot and it will be back in fashion. Sooner than you think. Or may want it to be.
- - - - - - - -
For instance, in Japan nearly 31% of people between 16 and 49 have sex only once a month. So, does that one timer make up for all the other sexless nights? Well, we wish we could say so, but apparently when couples did have sex, they did so for "no particular reason."
Sounds fabulously sexy, no?
No. The Japanese are increasingly worried about this trend. Figures show that the population rate fell to an all-time low: 1.25. It should be 2.1 to keep the overall population from declining. So, start crackin' and eat your spinach.
In this regard they are right up there with the Italians, who are also de-populating themselves at an alarming rate. No one wants the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing. The single guys can just as easily live with mom. As we all know, mom is still the ultimate goddess in the Italian home.
Up in Canada in the same Times' edition, it was reported that the country has raised the age of consent from 14 to 16. This was done primarily to curb older male predators. But the Canadians wisely decided to put in a key exemption to the law, which allows kids of say 14 or 15 to still have sex with someone up to five years older than they are.
Would we devise such a loophole down in the USA? Of course not, silly. We are still trying to get out from under the delusion that children that age should not be doing anything at all of a sexual nature.
Unless you want to just show off your new fetish wardrobe. Which brings us to the third Times' story of the day, the fact that the Style section is running a story on "Kinky Chic Extends Its Dominance." The paraphernalia of the BDSM crowd is now going mainstream.
Those little black collars? You see a fair number of chic women wearing them out at night. And I don't think they are dominatrices on their way to a rendezvous with a client.
Got a yearning to play an extra in "Braveheart" in the scene where they all moon the Brits? Well, just hang onto your Scottish garb. That's a fetish thing too and it is one of the hotter outfits around now. I remember fondly one of our early experiences at a sex party, where one of the participants was running around in a kilt. "Do you wont to have a wrestle," he would inquire of people, in a charming brogue. We declined, but we thought the outfit was snazzy.
Good to know you can hang on to your old chains, leather and whatnot and it will be back in fashion. Sooner than you think. Or may want it to be.
- - - - - - - -
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sans Degree, Sans Wife
Apparently life in the good old US of A is going to continue to be tough for men. For instance. A lengthy NY Times article from August 6, 2006, entitled "Facing Middle Age With No Degree, And No Wife," reports on a growing trend in this country. (The link unfortunately only takes you to a Times' article that you have to pay for). For men nearing middle age, roughly from 40-44, over 18% of them will never marry if they don't get college degrees.
These men are still single, and likely to stay that way. The reasons for this are complex and probably more numerous than the Times' story detailed. But in broad terms they looked at the fact that women are now quite independent in many ways from men, not the least of which is economic independence.
Reproductive biology has also made it possible for women to live lives that can be totally removed from significant male others, if they so choose. Single mothers are a pretty common norm nowadays.
So, from the women's standpoint, there is not such a big rush to get married. From the men's standpoint, there are also many reasons to stay single. Everyone is catching on to the fact that, in spite of how we like to trumpet the clarion call of happy marriages, not everyone out there is happy being married. People feel they don't have to do it anymore to be a decent, Godfearing person. Single can be good.
People are also not marrying because shacking up is proving quite satisfactory in many cases. A lot of men and women are choosing just to avoid the fray of marriage altogether.
I for instance have never really seriously considered getting married in my life, even to Dave, who I have been with over 15 years now. Mostly because I so enjoy using the phrase, "We choose to live in sin" with people. The reaction I should add is nearly always highly positive. I know I am with him because I want to be with him, not because I have some stamped piece of paper saying I am yours and you are mine. The prospect of having a lovely white wedding and walking down the aisle never ever appealed to this broad.
I am not alone.
But what the Times' article unfortunately did not go into was the simple reason that people in general are not marrying so much. Let alone those single guys who aren't college-educated.
They are not marrying because they cannot hook up with other people. It is a real problem in our society. Sure, we have our independence, economic and social, we are free to come and go and do pretty much what we want. But we can't hook up.
Look at how we live these days. Who has time for much of anything? We love to work like dogs to keep running with the Joneses, we love our computers, the Internet, the things we find there. Including some rather nice porn.
Who needs to go out? Well, we do, especially if we would like to meet some new swimmers in our local pool of available sex partners. But our life habits are taking us further and further away from opportunities - which used to be quite plentiful, I can even remember them - for basic, decent human interaction.
It just doesn't happen that easily anymore, or all that much. Whether you have a degree or not. Whether you are an ugly puss of a guy or a Brad Pitt type. It just is not that easy anymore.
Not that guys should rush out to college in new droves, with the idea of finding a bride. They are not. In fact, college itself is turning into a province of the female. They stay in school in greater numbers and graduate more easily than do males.
There are still reasons why everyone, including males, should probably consider some college, at least. Whether you snag a woman or a man or not. College is still a finishing school of sorts, you learn more social as well as intellectual interaction with your peers. That is a good thing.
If nothing else college will offer ideas on how to use your leisure time. To do things other than just hanging out with a few beers and a few boys on a Saturday night.
- - - - - -
These men are still single, and likely to stay that way. The reasons for this are complex and probably more numerous than the Times' story detailed. But in broad terms they looked at the fact that women are now quite independent in many ways from men, not the least of which is economic independence.
Reproductive biology has also made it possible for women to live lives that can be totally removed from significant male others, if they so choose. Single mothers are a pretty common norm nowadays.
So, from the women's standpoint, there is not such a big rush to get married. From the men's standpoint, there are also many reasons to stay single. Everyone is catching on to the fact that, in spite of how we like to trumpet the clarion call of happy marriages, not everyone out there is happy being married. People feel they don't have to do it anymore to be a decent, Godfearing person. Single can be good.
People are also not marrying because shacking up is proving quite satisfactory in many cases. A lot of men and women are choosing just to avoid the fray of marriage altogether.
I for instance have never really seriously considered getting married in my life, even to Dave, who I have been with over 15 years now. Mostly because I so enjoy using the phrase, "We choose to live in sin" with people. The reaction I should add is nearly always highly positive. I know I am with him because I want to be with him, not because I have some stamped piece of paper saying I am yours and you are mine. The prospect of having a lovely white wedding and walking down the aisle never ever appealed to this broad.
I am not alone.
But what the Times' article unfortunately did not go into was the simple reason that people in general are not marrying so much. Let alone those single guys who aren't college-educated.
They are not marrying because they cannot hook up with other people. It is a real problem in our society. Sure, we have our independence, economic and social, we are free to come and go and do pretty much what we want. But we can't hook up.
Look at how we live these days. Who has time for much of anything? We love to work like dogs to keep running with the Joneses, we love our computers, the Internet, the things we find there. Including some rather nice porn.
Who needs to go out? Well, we do, especially if we would like to meet some new swimmers in our local pool of available sex partners. But our life habits are taking us further and further away from opportunities - which used to be quite plentiful, I can even remember them - for basic, decent human interaction.
It just doesn't happen that easily anymore, or all that much. Whether you have a degree or not. Whether you are an ugly puss of a guy or a Brad Pitt type. It just is not that easy anymore.
Not that guys should rush out to college in new droves, with the idea of finding a bride. They are not. In fact, college itself is turning into a province of the female. They stay in school in greater numbers and graduate more easily than do males.
There are still reasons why everyone, including males, should probably consider some college, at least. Whether you snag a woman or a man or not. College is still a finishing school of sorts, you learn more social as well as intellectual interaction with your peers. That is a good thing.
If nothing else college will offer ideas on how to use your leisure time. To do things other than just hanging out with a few beers and a few boys on a Saturday night.
- - - - - -
Monday, August 14, 2006
Bad Boy Goats, The Enemy Within
Every so often a story leaps out at you from the smoldering morass that is "Mess-o-potamia" that seems to encapsulate perfectly how things in general are going to hell in Baghdad in a handbasket.
Take for example this tale of the goat. Well, a number of goats probably. We like to think that more than one critter could cause so much consternation.
A story recently on NPR about the continuing deterioration of the daily living situation in Baghdad involved Shiites and Suniis once again dukking it out. This time over what I guess we would call animal husbandry efforts. Now the Suniis tend to be the ethnic group who raises goats, mostly in western Baghdad. The Suniis are regarded generally as a more affluent group than are the Shia, who in turn seem more religious in ways.
Problems arose because it is apparently the rutting season for the goats, and they are doing what male goats do everywhere during that period. Consequently their sexual organs are prominently on display at times.
This annoys the hell out of the Shia, and now that Saddam is gone they feel they can start to throw their weight around after years of oppression under his rule.
So they want, and are demanding, that the Suniis who own goats put diapers on them.
Or else we kill you.
I kid you not. I find it interesting they want to kill the goat owners, not the goats themselves. I guess we should say that's decent of them.
Meanwhile, in other, even more depraved corners of Baghdad, certain vegetable sellers in the markets are getting death threats.
Why? Because one happy wag arranged his zucchinis in what the offended Shia termed a "provocative manner," so that the produce resembled erect penises.
Hey, from my happy girlhood discoveries about the power of zucchinis, you don't need to preach to me, I am there already. No displays needed.
I suppose when record numbers of people died in sectarian violence this month in the country that it is no time for frivolity.
On the other hand, it is probably exactly the time for frivolity. When the world is crumbling around you, isn't it time for a little thought turned towards erections? As a way of contradicting the madness around you?
But will it be enough. Don't know. We'll see how many goatherders survive the rutting season in Baghdad.
- - - - -
Take for example this tale of the goat. Well, a number of goats probably. We like to think that more than one critter could cause so much consternation.
A story recently on NPR about the continuing deterioration of the daily living situation in Baghdad involved Shiites and Suniis once again dukking it out. This time over what I guess we would call animal husbandry efforts. Now the Suniis tend to be the ethnic group who raises goats, mostly in western Baghdad. The Suniis are regarded generally as a more affluent group than are the Shia, who in turn seem more religious in ways.
Problems arose because it is apparently the rutting season for the goats, and they are doing what male goats do everywhere during that period. Consequently their sexual organs are prominently on display at times.
This annoys the hell out of the Shia, and now that Saddam is gone they feel they can start to throw their weight around after years of oppression under his rule.
So they want, and are demanding, that the Suniis who own goats put diapers on them.
Or else we kill you.
I kid you not. I find it interesting they want to kill the goat owners, not the goats themselves. I guess we should say that's decent of them.
Meanwhile, in other, even more depraved corners of Baghdad, certain vegetable sellers in the markets are getting death threats.
Why? Because one happy wag arranged his zucchinis in what the offended Shia termed a "provocative manner," so that the produce resembled erect penises.
Hey, from my happy girlhood discoveries about the power of zucchinis, you don't need to preach to me, I am there already. No displays needed.
I suppose when record numbers of people died in sectarian violence this month in the country that it is no time for frivolity.
On the other hand, it is probably exactly the time for frivolity. When the world is crumbling around you, isn't it time for a little thought turned towards erections? As a way of contradicting the madness around you?
But will it be enough. Don't know. We'll see how many goatherders survive the rutting season in Baghdad.
- - - - -
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Life With Dave
Today I want to explore a bit more how polyamory works between my partner Dave and I. This I will attempt to do in the context of the question, how do we fight when we fight?
We really haven't fought in any significant fashion for a while, even though Dave has been in town from working on the road since last Christmas. We have managed actually to be quite cordial for the most part during this time. Usually he goes out to work three-month gigs at a time, with occasional weekends home.
For myself, it is no problem when he goes. Much of my earlier life was pretty much spent living alone. I still like it and gravitate towards it when Dave goes. It's the little things I especially like when he's gone. Like turning on the radio at night without needing earplugs. I have somewhat insomniac habits; I like hearing voices babbling to me at night, preferably suave-sounding voices with British accents. Often I end up hearing the BBC. That can put me right out. I also love hogging the bed. I don't sleep well physically with people. Ideally I would like twin beds pushed together. He feels the same way. But we sleep together when he is home.
The other night he and I got into a good, hostile fight. Over sex, I think. But other things factored in. We were a bit stoned, and I got a bit confrontational. As I tend to when I am stoned.
The argument started actually over a tennis match I wanted to watch, and it happened to fall during Dave's beloved BBC news broadcast. As this was a week that was chocked full of potential terror threats and gummed up flights, war in Lebanon and a close Senate election in Pennsylvania, Dave wants to get the latest. Because of these same things, I want to lose myself in tennis. It is the only pure thing that seems left in life, sometimes.
So he and I started off fighting over that. He accuses me of being selfish (quite true). I say he can read the BBC online. By the time we see it on the TV, it is often hours out of date anyways. We often end up talking together over the television anyway.
Somehow we quickly segued from TV into sex. Before I knew what I was doing, I was voicing a certain anxiety I have been feeling of late. D has been saying how attracted he feels right now to men, and since he is home from the road he runs down to the Water Garden bath house here in San Jose.
Usually I am fine with Dave when he gets this way with guys. Because he is always still interested in boffing me, so I am happy. But for whatever reason lately I was not feeling so secure. Hence, this little set-to.
All sorts of strange thoughts flit through my head in vulnerable moments like this. Could our relationship evolve to a point where Dave may want to be more with men than women? Where would that leave me? Would that leave me finally in a position where I would want to find another woman? Or another man? But still have Dave? Because I always want Dave. I keep coming back to that very basic fact.
Just how many people do I need on my own personal poly train?
I get anxious in the conversation about this and start wondering outloud if I should not look for "reinforcements." What if you keep on going with this interest in guys, I say to Dave, and you just...keep on going with that. Should I be worried? Will you come back, I wonder.
That is kind of how my mind works the issue. I get emotional and anxious over sex. It's a very important issue in our lives. I like having sex. It improves my disposition a ton to get boffed on a regular basis. I love my pleasure sources and become inordinately attached to them. Any thought of my little train being disrupted puts me in somewhat considerable angst.
So, all this stuff came out. It got to be quite contentious. I kept sounding nastier, Dave got more defensive. Our roles seem to switch. I fight like the male in this situation, he gets teary-eyed. This unpleasantness lingers, and since we started this at night, it went into the night.
Into the next morning, when usually we can both climb down off our high horses, make amends, and patch things up.
The patching up part is especially important. But for me, I see it as an opportunity to clear the air. We talk over what happened, how it came about, and as we talk we can see already the storm has passed. It's good to talk this out, because you want to see the clouds recede on the horizon.
It is never good to just sweep things aside and assume everything is nice-nice. There is a lot of good work between couples that can emerge when you sort out the detritus of the battle later on.
Back to tennis, in a sense, because you are akin to a player after he's come off the court from a tough loss. He can take a shower and relax a bit, but then his coach has to sit him down and talk to him. You pick the effort apart. You want to be more on top of things next time you go out.
Dave and I try to adopt that spirit, because it is healing, it is cleansing; it is a learning experience. And once we've done this work, we can kick back and relax. It gives us both a wonderful burst of energy to carry on.
Tennis, anyone?
- - - - - - -
We really haven't fought in any significant fashion for a while, even though Dave has been in town from working on the road since last Christmas. We have managed actually to be quite cordial for the most part during this time. Usually he goes out to work three-month gigs at a time, with occasional weekends home.
For myself, it is no problem when he goes. Much of my earlier life was pretty much spent living alone. I still like it and gravitate towards it when Dave goes. It's the little things I especially like when he's gone. Like turning on the radio at night without needing earplugs. I have somewhat insomniac habits; I like hearing voices babbling to me at night, preferably suave-sounding voices with British accents. Often I end up hearing the BBC. That can put me right out. I also love hogging the bed. I don't sleep well physically with people. Ideally I would like twin beds pushed together. He feels the same way. But we sleep together when he is home.
The other night he and I got into a good, hostile fight. Over sex, I think. But other things factored in. We were a bit stoned, and I got a bit confrontational. As I tend to when I am stoned.
The argument started actually over a tennis match I wanted to watch, and it happened to fall during Dave's beloved BBC news broadcast. As this was a week that was chocked full of potential terror threats and gummed up flights, war in Lebanon and a close Senate election in Pennsylvania, Dave wants to get the latest. Because of these same things, I want to lose myself in tennis. It is the only pure thing that seems left in life, sometimes.
So he and I started off fighting over that. He accuses me of being selfish (quite true). I say he can read the BBC online. By the time we see it on the TV, it is often hours out of date anyways. We often end up talking together over the television anyway.
Somehow we quickly segued from TV into sex. Before I knew what I was doing, I was voicing a certain anxiety I have been feeling of late. D has been saying how attracted he feels right now to men, and since he is home from the road he runs down to the Water Garden bath house here in San Jose.
Usually I am fine with Dave when he gets this way with guys. Because he is always still interested in boffing me, so I am happy. But for whatever reason lately I was not feeling so secure. Hence, this little set-to.
All sorts of strange thoughts flit through my head in vulnerable moments like this. Could our relationship evolve to a point where Dave may want to be more with men than women? Where would that leave me? Would that leave me finally in a position where I would want to find another woman? Or another man? But still have Dave? Because I always want Dave. I keep coming back to that very basic fact.
Just how many people do I need on my own personal poly train?
I get anxious in the conversation about this and start wondering outloud if I should not look for "reinforcements." What if you keep on going with this interest in guys, I say to Dave, and you just...keep on going with that. Should I be worried? Will you come back, I wonder.
That is kind of how my mind works the issue. I get emotional and anxious over sex. It's a very important issue in our lives. I like having sex. It improves my disposition a ton to get boffed on a regular basis. I love my pleasure sources and become inordinately attached to them. Any thought of my little train being disrupted puts me in somewhat considerable angst.
So, all this stuff came out. It got to be quite contentious. I kept sounding nastier, Dave got more defensive. Our roles seem to switch. I fight like the male in this situation, he gets teary-eyed. This unpleasantness lingers, and since we started this at night, it went into the night.
Into the next morning, when usually we can both climb down off our high horses, make amends, and patch things up.
The patching up part is especially important. But for me, I see it as an opportunity to clear the air. We talk over what happened, how it came about, and as we talk we can see already the storm has passed. It's good to talk this out, because you want to see the clouds recede on the horizon.
It is never good to just sweep things aside and assume everything is nice-nice. There is a lot of good work between couples that can emerge when you sort out the detritus of the battle later on.
Back to tennis, in a sense, because you are akin to a player after he's come off the court from a tough loss. He can take a shower and relax a bit, but then his coach has to sit him down and talk to him. You pick the effort apart. You want to be more on top of things next time you go out.
Dave and I try to adopt that spirit, because it is healing, it is cleansing; it is a learning experience. And once we've done this work, we can kick back and relax. It gives us both a wonderful burst of energy to carry on.
Tennis, anyone?
- - - - - - -
Monday, August 07, 2006
Do You Know Where The Kids Are?
We're sucking up culture today here, folks, in the form of writer Mary Gordon on Bill Moyers' PBS television show. The show was already under way when I tuned in, so it took a little bit of figuring out to realize where they were at in the dialogue.
Ms. Gordon was apparently speaking about Osama bin Laden, and the sense of disgust he developed toward western culture in general and American culture in particular. A disgust that Ms. Gordon shares to some degree with him.
She was speaking of the social mores in America at large, and decrying how so much in our culture seems on a downward spiral. Take, for instance, the state of our Feral Youth. As Ms. Gordon explains it....
"...There are some things in the world that disgust me to the point of despair...some of the things that kids will do on the Internet now. Somebody was telling me about young girls from very good schools who will photograph each other having sex, and put it on the Internet, so that people can, you know, see them having sex. Thirteen, fourteen year-old girls are doing that. And I see something like that, and it makes me despair. And I think there is something so wrong with this culture that, wipe it out. Start from - start from zero. It's too corrupt."
The first part of her statement had me on her side, but the more she spoke the more I felt an unpleasant tone creep into her voice. The lady finally protested so much that she gutted her own argument.
Methinks the heavy hand of nunneries is nigh.
Now American civilization may indeed be going to hell straightaway in a handbasket, but I am not sure that the sexual antics of thirteen-year-olds are going to be the proverbial last straw, as it were. You could read the kids as being like kids in any generation - ready to stick it in the eye of the older folk. Kids rebel.
Maybe what those teenaged girls are rebelling against is that they don't want to end up like mom and pop, at least in America, where married couples on average have a miniscule amount of sex every year. Not that playing a numbers game is any solution, but it may be fuelling some of this youthful behavior.
After all, these are the girls who will probably grow up to be better educated than the males in their lives, since that is what women are doing nowadays, they are surpassing men in all sorts of ways. Soon the gap between the sexes will be even wider, fewer people will be hooking up compatibly, marriage will continue to decline.
Hell, no one will probably be having sex. So, bring on the kiddies and their truncated version of Internet porn. Because this may be the only idea of sexuality that we get.
After all, most adults are telling kids pretty much non-stop, to NOT be rushing headlong into sexual connections. The kids obviously just tune them out.
Ms. Gordon was apparently speaking about Osama bin Laden, and the sense of disgust he developed toward western culture in general and American culture in particular. A disgust that Ms. Gordon shares to some degree with him.
She was speaking of the social mores in America at large, and decrying how so much in our culture seems on a downward spiral. Take, for instance, the state of our Feral Youth. As Ms. Gordon explains it....
"...There are some things in the world that disgust me to the point of despair...some of the things that kids will do on the Internet now. Somebody was telling me about young girls from very good schools who will photograph each other having sex, and put it on the Internet, so that people can, you know, see them having sex. Thirteen, fourteen year-old girls are doing that. And I see something like that, and it makes me despair. And I think there is something so wrong with this culture that, wipe it out. Start from - start from zero. It's too corrupt."
The first part of her statement had me on her side, but the more she spoke the more I felt an unpleasant tone creep into her voice. The lady finally protested so much that she gutted her own argument.
Methinks the heavy hand of nunneries is nigh.
Now American civilization may indeed be going to hell straightaway in a handbasket, but I am not sure that the sexual antics of thirteen-year-olds are going to be the proverbial last straw, as it were. You could read the kids as being like kids in any generation - ready to stick it in the eye of the older folk. Kids rebel.
Maybe what those teenaged girls are rebelling against is that they don't want to end up like mom and pop, at least in America, where married couples on average have a miniscule amount of sex every year. Not that playing a numbers game is any solution, but it may be fuelling some of this youthful behavior.
After all, these are the girls who will probably grow up to be better educated than the males in their lives, since that is what women are doing nowadays, they are surpassing men in all sorts of ways. Soon the gap between the sexes will be even wider, fewer people will be hooking up compatibly, marriage will continue to decline.
Hell, no one will probably be having sex. So, bring on the kiddies and their truncated version of Internet porn. Because this may be the only idea of sexuality that we get.
After all, most adults are telling kids pretty much non-stop, to NOT be rushing headlong into sexual connections. The kids obviously just tune them out.
Adults try any number of ways to separate kids from their sex organs. "It's better if you wait for that special Someone." Or, "It's better when you love the person." And if that doesn't work, then let's cut to the chase and just hammer them with, "You can catch diseases and die."
I find the Pleasure Argument especially insidious. To return to Ms. Gordon for a moment, she phrases it in terms of young people "having all sorts of sex that they can't possibly really connect to pleasure."
Of course they can't do that, but why should they? Finding the deep pleasure Ms. Gordon is talking about takes time, effort, luck, beyond just the basic compatibility of two people. But in the meantime, what's wrong with lusty, sweaty rolls in the hay? Do we need a heavenly choir going in the background every time we hit the sack? The kids don't think so, and good for them that they don't think so.
Is there a trace of envy in the grown-ups today as they view their offspring? So coddled, pampered and cocooned all their lives and into young adulthood. Do we wish we had lived childhoods where we were having sex more often, at least? Never mind about putting the pix on the Internet. We would be happy if we had the imagination - and the nerve - just to swap them among our friends, post them on our bedroom walls or try and sneak them into the class yearbook.
Kids have plenty of imagination still, and the fact it extends now into sexual realms that we did not experience in OUR growing up should not be a green light for us to beat them up for their behavior. Sorry, Mary, you are a good Catholic girl and a good person I'm sure. But your angst is misplaced.
After all, where there is libido, there is life. Keep your paws off my gonads, please. Now, where's the damned cameraman when you need him?
- - - - - -
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Sunday In The Park With George
No, not that George, not our Dear Leader. I am referring to another, happier George, namely George Michael, the Brit singer and entertainer. Lately George ran into more trouble with the police during his nocturnal roamings around Hampstead Heath in London. He was in the process of soliciting another man for immoral purposes when he was caught. He had a similar offense some years back, in a park in Beverly Hills.
I try to suppress my jealous feelings that he, as a male, can do this, while I, a female, cannot. At least probably not too safely. The public outrage over George's behavior was best expressed the other night on a television entertainment show, which featured a buxon, very straight woman interviewing George.
Her train of thought ran something like this. "But what about your so-called life partner, aren't you being unfaithful to him?" she queried. No replies George, his long-time male partner has no problems at all with George stepping out. Dare we suggest, he is probably doing the same. My friend N tells me there are numerous partnered gay males who do this, stay together as a couple while having hot sex with other people. Lesbians could take a page or two from them. Or a whole book for that matter, instead of getting all caught up in their knickers over non-existant issues of "fidelity." I admire the men their civility in sorting things out.
"But what about your safety?" continued our ever so feminine bastion of decent heterosexual values. "Aren't you putting yourself at risk?" Not at all, says George, trying to keep his cool. "I have been doing this off and on since I was a teenager, and never once seen violence."
You mean you are having casual anonymous sex with other men and nobody's like, ever clocked you one? In other words, NO repercussions? God, the nerve of some people! As if the public could allow this only if the man were beaten up afterward, tarred and feathered and maybe staked out on an anthill.
He probably should have whipped out his dick at that point in the interview, just to show her that his member was intact.
So you get the point hopefully, that what George was talking about was not nearly as reprehensible as the woman asking the questions. George in fact strikes me as a very cool guy.
He reveals this in his next breath, when he says back to the woman, "Talk to me about violence when you can't, as a woman, go into a club these days without holding your hand over your drink for fear of being drugged." Oooh, well said, baby. You go, George. The man has a well-developed female side, it would appear.
Well, but he's not going to be lady-like now in regard to his interviewer, who finally gets chastised royally. "We should not be taking questions like this, from straight women in particular." Good bitch slap, that one. George goes on to wonder outloud why heterosexual women just don't "get" the idea of cruising. As if heterosexual men do. Well, they may get it intellectually at least, but the fact it's butt boy stuff they don't like.
Personally, I always thought cruising was cool. I realize I wanted to be a man - not so I could boff women - but probably chase after other men. They had more fun in life, and that included sexual fun.
If anything about George's little ramble bears commenting upon, it is his choice of partners. The guy he picked was shown on the TV too. A skinny older runt of a guy wearing awful shorts, with a pot belly, glasses and hair that has never seen the light of a good hair day. A working class bloke.
Why him, Dave and I wonder outloud. We can understand everything about the encounter except the weirdness of the guy, especially given that George is rather handsome and could boff anyone he wants.
And who he wants is this guy. Go figure. Maybe it's just the guy's averageness that appeals. Or the fact he is working class. Not exactly rough trade, but there is probably something appealing about having sex with someone like this. Was he the only guy hanging around that night? Did he have a big dick?
See, these are the questions that nosey female reporter should have been asking. Because all us inquiring minds out here really want to know.
Go George! Too bad you don't do women. Or do you?
- - - - - -
I try to suppress my jealous feelings that he, as a male, can do this, while I, a female, cannot. At least probably not too safely. The public outrage over George's behavior was best expressed the other night on a television entertainment show, which featured a buxon, very straight woman interviewing George.
Her train of thought ran something like this. "But what about your so-called life partner, aren't you being unfaithful to him?" she queried. No replies George, his long-time male partner has no problems at all with George stepping out. Dare we suggest, he is probably doing the same. My friend N tells me there are numerous partnered gay males who do this, stay together as a couple while having hot sex with other people. Lesbians could take a page or two from them. Or a whole book for that matter, instead of getting all caught up in their knickers over non-existant issues of "fidelity." I admire the men their civility in sorting things out.
"But what about your safety?" continued our ever so feminine bastion of decent heterosexual values. "Aren't you putting yourself at risk?" Not at all, says George, trying to keep his cool. "I have been doing this off and on since I was a teenager, and never once seen violence."
You mean you are having casual anonymous sex with other men and nobody's like, ever clocked you one? In other words, NO repercussions? God, the nerve of some people! As if the public could allow this only if the man were beaten up afterward, tarred and feathered and maybe staked out on an anthill.
He probably should have whipped out his dick at that point in the interview, just to show her that his member was intact.
So you get the point hopefully, that what George was talking about was not nearly as reprehensible as the woman asking the questions. George in fact strikes me as a very cool guy.
He reveals this in his next breath, when he says back to the woman, "Talk to me about violence when you can't, as a woman, go into a club these days without holding your hand over your drink for fear of being drugged." Oooh, well said, baby. You go, George. The man has a well-developed female side, it would appear.
Well, but he's not going to be lady-like now in regard to his interviewer, who finally gets chastised royally. "We should not be taking questions like this, from straight women in particular." Good bitch slap, that one. George goes on to wonder outloud why heterosexual women just don't "get" the idea of cruising. As if heterosexual men do. Well, they may get it intellectually at least, but the fact it's butt boy stuff they don't like.
Personally, I always thought cruising was cool. I realize I wanted to be a man - not so I could boff women - but probably chase after other men. They had more fun in life, and that included sexual fun.
If anything about George's little ramble bears commenting upon, it is his choice of partners. The guy he picked was shown on the TV too. A skinny older runt of a guy wearing awful shorts, with a pot belly, glasses and hair that has never seen the light of a good hair day. A working class bloke.
Why him, Dave and I wonder outloud. We can understand everything about the encounter except the weirdness of the guy, especially given that George is rather handsome and could boff anyone he wants.
And who he wants is this guy. Go figure. Maybe it's just the guy's averageness that appeals. Or the fact he is working class. Not exactly rough trade, but there is probably something appealing about having sex with someone like this. Was he the only guy hanging around that night? Did he have a big dick?
See, these are the questions that nosey female reporter should have been asking. Because all us inquiring minds out here really want to know.
Go George! Too bad you don't do women. Or do you?
- - - - - -
