Phrasing

Today at Curves the mailman brought in a copy of Women's Health Magazine. So I browsed through to see if there were any handy tips or such to share with the ladies who work out at the club. Although there weren't any this time around, I did find this fantastic little tid-bit in their "sex" section. (Also, random question, is it just me or does like every single magazine have a "sex" section in it now? Like a designated section just to talk about sex.)

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Serious Attraction

Lust and love aren't all that different, a recent study says - at least not to your brain. Researchers reviewed brain scans of people looking at photos of their significant others and at pornography. Both types of images activated bonding mechanisms in the brain, indicating that sexual longing and long-term relationships share similar chemistry - and that initial sparks can transition into something serious. "When you're feeling like you could be in love, sex can turn that into a reality of actually being in love, if you are open to it," says study coauthor Jim Pfaus, Ph.D.

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At the get-go, this excerpt makes my brain go all, "heyyy, I see what you did there.

You appropriated research that essentially said people don't show a huge difference between love and lust on a neurological level, and turned it into a fucking support analogy for monogamy." Although it also appropriates the idea that women are incapable of having sex with somebody without falling in love with that person. It also is sort of creepy the implication that you need to test your relationship with sex in order to somehow validate "love feelings."

Mostly, I wonder how long the "significant others" had been together. Was the number of years of commitment standardized in some way? Were at least 75% of participants in relationships for more than 3 years? Were there requisite previous tests that each couple had to take in order to prove happiness together? (I like to imagine this testing involved something like a version of The Newlywed Game - I have two good things to post for this internal joke, so you get both of them. NPH and his hubby, and the chick that likes it up the butt.) Did they scan each person for like...an optimal amount of "bonding" neurological response so they knew what type of reaction they could count when they did the scans with porn and stuff?

Although I do like the implication that the subjects could have possibly been shown the porn at the exact same time as photos of their significant others. Like a sort of brainwashing association task. "Now whenever you look at your girlfriend you will be unable to disassociate her with deep anal penetration. It should make things very awkward, unless of course she was already into it."

So...I did a little bit of leg work on this, and found this elaborated version of the snippet from WHM. Which, the main thing missing from the first little paragraph is the connection to drug addiction.

The brain treats love like a habit that has been formed over time. So, after lust may come love, and those feelings of love move to different part of the brain that processes habits and reward patterns. The same brain pattern occurs when people become drug addicts.

By having casual sex with people I am actually just being a better controlled human being and not getting addicted to something harmful. Checkpoint, people that form committed relationships.


*Note: This blog entry was almost completely derailed because Now-hubby got me the James Deen dildo for Christmas and I literally fucked myself with it until I felt like I was levitating off the bed with how intense my orgasms were.

An open letter

So, things are going shittily between my younger sister and the guy she married a few months ago. In terms of divorce papers have been signed and she came here for Christmas because she didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of people in our family asking about what happened and such. Which just meant she spent a lot of time here crying. Which means I am plotting various ways to now inflict pain on this person she married because it makes me very angry when people treat the people I care about carelessly.

In reflection of this, Now-hubby took it upon himself to message Frisbee and tell him that I am in a bad mood but could use people to care about me. Which ultimately makes me feel appreciated and loved but also on the other hand slightly pissed because when I am angry the first thing I want is people to care about me. Which means it's the last thing I'll actually admit to wanting.

In addition to all this, I went to a very good friend from college's wedding this past weekend. He is one of those rare platonic exceptions in my pantheon of male friends. Which is not to say that instances have not arisen. It's more to say that if I had been raised slightly different (see: with a penis):

 I might have possibly been this person, so the mental image of the two of us existing in a genital-touching sort of way is either really awkward or too awesome to handle. Which means his wedding was pretty alright, actually. If I had ever decided to be married in a monogamous sense of the word (which I did, sort of, once), it's probably a lot how I would have done it.

One of the things that happened during the ceremony was a wine box thing. I haven't seen this before in a wedding ceremony thing, so it was interesting just in that right. The point is people getting married (I changed it from "bride and groom," wanna fight about it?) write love letters to each other and then seal it in a box with a bottle of wine. This box is to be opened either on the first anniversary of marriage (if things go well), or sooner if things seem not to be going so well. (Me to Now-hubby during the ceremony: "So, the wine could be opened like...as soon as this is over, right? And then you just hold onto the letters like, 'well, we love each other even though we're clearly alcoholics.'")

Which, in the long and the short of everything, made me want to write love letters. Caché this away for the future and fucking make note of it. I don't do this type of honest expression of feeling often.

To Now-hubby:


I love that you've stuck by me. More than anything else I love that you knew me back in 2003 and you haven't at any point given up on me even though sometimes I revert back to that version of myself even now. I love that you are my "normal," even though my therapist frowns upon me using that word. I like that you are the one I can turn to and ask, "is this something that normal people do?" and you will give me a genuine answer. (i.e. Think about morbidly random things that could happen to you? "normal" Obsess about minute flaws in your personal appearance? Possibly not normal.) Although I know you are not the standard definition of "normal," you offer a tipping point for my perspective, and are endlessly patient with me while I try to figure out what "normal" for me entails. When we fuck, I love how enthusiastic you are; the way you describe things to me without turning it into a creepy narrative. I love how you've been willing to try a lot of the things I wanted to experiment with, just because you knew it would turn me on. I like how you will give me space when I am angry, even when your first instinct tells you to hold onto me and not let go. I love that we are into fairly different things as far as everything is concerned (art, music, movies, etc), but there is enough of an overlap that I know we belong. When I look at the examples you've been set - your parents and your grandparents on both sides - I know that you wouldn't have committed to this unless you were in it for the long haul.

Frisbee:

I love that you are endlessly available to make me happy. Regardless of where I am or how I'm feeling you are there to ask me if I want to talk about things, and you ask it from a genuine place, which makes me feel more willing to share things with you. I love that you were honest about us from the start, which means you are willing to accept me for who I am and will be willing to do the extra leg work required if it means being with me. I love that I met you and you didn't question who I was or the type of relationship I happened to be in when you met me. I like that we met at an unconventional place (gang bang party), but you are okay with me telling people we met though "mutual friends" because I am uncomfortable admitting that aspect of myself to people currently. I like that whenever I am around you, you find a way to be close to me.  Whether I want it or not you are in cuddle mode, and that's invariably what I need.

The way things were

I've been listening pretty exclusively to Christmas tunes on the radio recently. Intentionally, as I browsed the stations until I found the one playing non-stop Christmas music. And that's difficult to do in my car, because my little LED display thing on my radio is totally broken and doesn't display what station I'm on. So I knew the station I was looking for, but I had no reference except for the stations I already had on preset, and then I just had to sort of seek until I found the Christmas one.

If you want your head to hurt, I suggest going to check out the YouTube comment arguments going on over Baby It's Cold Outside. Well, in general if you want your head to hurt I suggest going to YouTube and reading the comments. I think that's the actual outcome of throwing a bunch of monkeys into a room with typewriters. Perhaps they'll eventually get to Shakespeare, but in the meantime they'll waste a bunch of time having arguments on the internet.

The argument on this particular song boils down to whether it is date rape or not (hint: it totally is), with the "omg guyz this is totally not about rape" side picking the ever popular justification that, "that's just the way things were back then." As in, the woman in the song saying "no" multiple times and the man in the song pretty much ignoring it isn't a bad thing, because...c'mon...times were different then. Can't everyone just fucking relax and enjoy a nice holiday tune without having to make us hurt our already overwhelmed little brains with the idea of a possibly darker subtext?

The issue I have with historical white-washing like this is that it excuses behavior. It's taking something that's really not okay and just sort of winking at it like, "oh, you sillypants."

 It's the same idea of "boys will be boys" bullshit. (Well, despite the gender normativity of that statement alone, but that's a rant for another entry.) Just because a certain behavior or mindset existed in the past doesn't make it right, or doesn't mean we can't look back on it now and recognize that it was a shitty way to act.

I'm not getting militant about it and demanding that radio stations never play Baby It's Cold Outside ever again. I'm not starting a letter writing campaign or asking for a public apology. The song exists, the mindset exists/existed, end of story. I put both tenses of the verb, because I'm not fucking naive enough to think that they're aren't still guys out there who think it's okay to completely ignore a woman when she says she's not interested. I've had it happen enough times both to myself and to friends, as well as have sat in the same room sometimes with men having sincere conversations about how "no" is really just a placeholder word until you can get a woman to stop being coy and realize she actually means "yes." I've also read enough bullshit women's advice columns that tell women this exact same thing. It's perpetuated among women that they're supposed to play hard-to-get and keep themselves "pure" or some such bullshit, and it's perpetuated among men that it's their fucking imperative or something to overcome these objections. When the mindset still exists out there, it's not helpful to just completely ignore the subtext of a song that plays into it.

Fair Shake

I try my best to not be one of those high-and-mighty poly people who just can't believe that people still form monogamous relationships and expect them to work.

 
I don't espouse polyamory to everyone, or even recommend it to most people I meet. I do answer questions people ask me about it, and I answer them in the most honest way I can. Do I feel like monogamy is good for humans? No. Does that mean I'm going to tell everyone I meet that they should accept multiple lovers into their relationships? Also no.

I'm also aware that just because a relationship is poly doesn't mean the people involved in it are good people. A good friend of mine and I always say, "we don't hate you because of your race, your religion, your sexuality. We hate you because you are stupid." There's stupid in poly, and there's stupid in monogamy. I think the ultimate offense is when people get too caught up in the "supposed to" of their relationship and stop actually communicating with each other. Okay, so you're monogamous. That means maybe you don't tell your partner about the elaborate sexual fantasy you had about the new person at work. But it doesn't mean that you can't communicate other limits or expectations. When Now-hubby and I first got together, there was the negotiations about what would make "us" exclusive as opposed to any other relationship we might form with somebody else. In retrospect, totally monogamous discussion topic. Which is where the lines blur and why I think a lot of the BS about what type of relationship you have is so unimportant. It's whether you're invested in your relationship in some type of intellectual way that matters.

Absurdity

I was browsing porn the other day, and in general finding the sidebar ads amusing (cue Now-hubby talking about script blocker blah blah yes, I know).

Then this little gem popped up. Which, I feel like sometimes you hit the motherfucking holy grail of porn site sidebar ads - ones that actually make you stop masturbating because they are so completely absurd. We're not talking the standard ones about simple tricks to make your dick bigger, or those endlessly looping clip show ones. We're talking fucking out there weirdness.

This was one of those times. I actually stopped flicking through the L.L. Bean catalog to screen cap this bad boy.

Ringer

I spent a lot of time this morning learning about ASMR, which I thought was a fairly common thing until Now-hubby saw me watching a whole bunch of YouTube videos where people were role-playing eye exams and stuff and was like, "what the fuck are you doing?" And then I tried to explain it to him like, "you know, it's when something is really relaxing and you sort of get goosebumps over your whole body for extended periods of time." To which he gave me a look sort of like this, and I realized ASMR isn't a universally experienced thing.

I spent a little bit of time yesterday being high and sort of staring at this picture like, "dayumm you fine piece of work." 

 There is something incredibly magical about men's necks, and especially in this position. Just...I want to put love nibbles all over that thing.

I spent a bit of Friday night talking with one of Frisbee's friends about open relationships in general, and mine specifically. I appreciate this person because, although he approaches relationships differently than I do, he answers pretty much any question you want to ask him completely honestly. Which is refreshing. I recognize a bit of the Brian Kinney philosophy in it, so I appreciate that. We wound up talking about the jealousy thing; the myth that you somehow become immune to jealousy when you're in an open relationship. About the "sex without emotion" thing - also mostly a myth, although more possible to do than completely eradicating jealousy. And about the ultimate relationship fear: that your significant other will find another person who somehow is a better "fit" for them and abandon you. Which, the moral of the whole story is that open relationships are not all that completely different from monogamous ones, there's just a bit more actual acknowledgement of feelings and introspection about said feelings in the former. On the abandonment thing. It's entirely possible no matter what type of relationship you're in. There's always the probability that the person you are with is going to find somebody else to be with. I equated it to the fear of death. You know it's going to happen, and you can either try and ignore it but still be afraid of it, or you can face it head on and say, "what about this makes me afraid?" In monogamy, you would never say, "I'm going out to a work dinner tonight, and it's entirely possible I'll meet somebody who I will click with on a level you and I don't." Because you love the person that you're with, and although it's a possibility you might love somebody just as much, if not more, you can't actually say that out loud. In non-monogamy, you can say, "I'm going out to a work dinner tonight, and it's entirely possible I'll meet somebody who I will click with on a level you and I don't. But I promise to come home to you and talk to you about it, and consider your feelings about it, and the way I feel for this new person will not change the way I feel about you." That's the main difference.

Pros and Cons

In addition to the whole not worrying about normal vs. not thing, therapy lady and I spend a lot of time on feelings. Not just how I was feeling, but how I felt about the feelings I was having. Real meta shit.

In my little bag of hilariously charming issues lies the inability to decide for myself whether I really like the way I behave. It's partly inconsistent reinforcement for behavior when I was growing up. One week it would seem like I could get away with anything, and the next week it seemed that everything I did warranted some type of lecture, reprimand, or physical punishment. So therapy lady and I do a lot of talking and rationalizing about things that have happened in my world, how I feel about them, and then how I feel about my feelings about that thing. To make it a bit more concrete: I'll have a conversation with Now-hubby, something stupid about like where we're going to dinner, and I'll actually voice an opinion about where I'd like to go. This means I will go to therapy lady and be all, "I had a good moment where I actually said what I wanted!" Then therapy lady and I will have an in-depth discussion about how this makes me feel (generally good, if not a bit anxious because now I have to follow up and might have to do it again at some point). And then how I feel about feeling that way (completely anxious, and a little guilty because I feel like I shouldn't feel that way about it).

One behavior thing that took me a really long time to come to realize as a definite pro for myself and stop feeling guilty about was the way I judge people. I'm actually fairly good about not generalizing about people. I've had very little luck meeting Brittanies that were anything other than annoying twats, but that doesn't mean I automatically discount every Brittany I meet. However, I am a very quick judgement maker, and once I have a judgement in place about someone it tends to stick and influence all other interactions with said person. At the beginning of therapy lady time, this used to make me feel not great about myself. I'm alienating myself from people and such and such blather. Then lots of discussion and rationalization happened, and now I actually sort of like that attribute about myself.

Passion for the with-it and hip

On the way home today, an Evanescence song came on the radio, which generally makes me feel about like this:

Evanescence was one of those unfortunate bands who: 1. did not have very good music to begin with and 2. had an incredibly annoying fan base among some of the people around me when the band first started getting popular.

I mention the second thing because I want to illustrate that I already didn't like some of these people to begin with, and their exuberance over Evanescence was the final nail in the coffin. Those who I sort of got along with got a temporary pass for liking Evanescence as long as we still got along on some other fundamental likes and dislikes.

When it comes to things that people are into, I'm a very live-and-let-live sort of individual. Which is not to say that I never disagree with anybody. I'm just more the type of person to let people have their own opinions about things unless it's in some way directly threatening me or those I care about. Maybe it's a bit because I'm fairly hard-headed myself, and dislike people trying to "sell" me on their interpretation of things. So if I have a differing opinion from somebody else, I approach it by rolling my eyes and internally monologize about how  they're wrong because x, y, and z.

When I was in college, there was an individual we called the "Wells Hall Preacher," and he was the best version of a literalist I have ever seen. Everybody was going to hell according to this guy, and it was fucking hilarious. Some people would try to stand up to him and argue points, and I always just thought what a fantastic waste of breath. Now, the girl who I happened to be sitting next to one day listening to the Preacher who told me that homosexuality was just a challenge God gave people. Like, everyone has challenges. Her challenge was that she doesn't trust people enough. Her I snapped at. "So you can't trust people and I want to bury my face in other women's labia? That seems equitable." It wasn't like what she was saying was hurting my feelings or physicality in any way, it was just obnoxiously cliche, and she wasn't backing it up with the completely insane vigor that the Preacher had behind his arguments.

I feel similarly when meeting new people now. Either they're completely nuts-o Wells Hall Preacher, in which case I can usually just avoid them. Or they're at least knowledgeable about the things they like and can speak intelligently about them; then we might get along to some degree. But the Evanescence people who are all, "durr it's like any other shit pop-rock band except with a hot chick for a singer, so that's why I like it." Or the people who are going to get a little sound byte of quotable information ("it's just the challenge God's given you") and then throw it around like it's fucking truth. That's not a justification for anything. That's just a buy-in to why they think they should like something. And it means absolutely nothing as far as actual personality is concerned.

I have a degree in dick-ology

Not really. I just happen to know a lot of random facts about dicks. And about sex in general. Attribute it to having to essentially "learn" about my own sexuality, and having a lot of random facts about other sex things in some of the books I chose to read.

Such as: if you want to have nightmares for a few years, you'll watch a video of a duck penis becoming erect. Or the fact that panda dicks, fully erect, are only about the length of the human thumb. And not like one of those people who have like real long thumbs. We're talking maybe an inch maximum. For a fairly big animal, that's a decidedly tiny wiener.

Here's some other fun sexy facts about the animal kingdom for ya'll to enjoy.

Open to Interpretation

The question was raised this weekend (outside of my earshot, I heard about it later) on what the "end plan" was for Frisbee and I. I'm not even entirely sure that was the wording, he was telling me about it later and I may have been tired and/or drunk at the time of retelling. In any case, the general gist behind the question was what exactly Frisbee and I have as far a future is concerned.

Answering this question from a poly perspective is an interesting conundrum. First, you're never really sure if the people asking are genuinely interested in the continued success of your relationship, or if they're just asking in hopes that you'll say something really fucked up like, "we'll be moving to the commune in Los Angeles where we'll have our commitment ceremony officiated by the Frog King." Second, answering questions like, "what is the long-term plan for this relationship?" involves a lot of discussion and negotiation because you've got the possibility of other people being in the relationship. It's not possible to just say some variant of, "well, I guess we'll get married and then move in together and then maybe think about getting pets or house plants or maybe even a tiny baby thing."

I mean, those were all the things I said when people asked me the same question when Now-hubby and I first got together. Because at that time, that's what we weredoing, and it wasn't really necessary to open things up and have the big explanation time about, "and maybe we'll have other people that we have sexytimes with or maybe even other awesome relationships with." I'm not a big one on explaining maybes to people who aren't directly involved in the relationship. Now-hubby and I had talked a lot about how we were going to format our relationship, we knew the eventual "maybe" of having other partners was out there, but it wasn't important for everyone else to know about it as well.

Going outside the set narrative makes it difficult to define exactly where you'll be in the status of a relationship at any given time. Even if I was to find some other V out there in the world (read: relationship between a woman and two men where the woman is involved sexually with both men but the men are only friendly/platonic with each other) and try to get advice, there would be different aspects to the relationship that would make comparison or advice almost impossible. It becomes just a sort of wistful hope that if that relationship's made it successfully, maybe somehow mine will as well. Hypothetical situations can be raised, and discussions can be had about, "what if x, y, or z?" until you have exhausted every possible situation that could arise within a relationship. Ultimately, though, the only way to know if something works is to just try it. And that can be scary as fuck.

'Tis the Season

Hello, intrepid blog visitors. Today I have exciting news. I have a new background on my computer:

It makes me quite happy in the genital region every time I turn on my computer. Also, it is all to benefit a good cause or something. If the cause is increasing my genital arousal, done and done.

Positivity

Back to work today - an entire day of sleeping and chugging an entire gallon of orange juice has done the trick.

I'm keeping panels 5-11 of this comic in my head for the foreseeable future. Although I dislike spiders, I do like feeling awesome. 

Stayed home sick today...

Just woke up out of a Nyquil coma to have some breakfast/lunch type stuff. Then I'm most likely going back to bed because it hurts my body to be upright right now. But before I do that, here is a comic thing to look at. (I tried posting the actual image, but it was too big and I couldn't get it to fit and I am too sick to care about it right now.)

Link to actual comic site is here.

I.O.U.

This past weekend I went back to the gang bangs after an absence that had a lot to do with my student loans coming back into repayment and me not being able to afford to do anything fun anymore.

It was nice to see some of the more regular guys who I'd missed. (In this instance, I am using "regular" to mean "attends the same gang bang parties as myself on a frequent basis," not to indicate some sort of normativity.) There was a decent amount of new guys as well, some of whom turned out to be okay representations of human beings. One particular with a handlebar moustache was pretty awesome. (Men can go one of only two ways with handlebar moustaches - actually cool dude or total and complete hipster asshole.) Then of course there was the guy who tried to stick his dick in my ass without warning (none of the girls were doing anal that night, so it's not even like a, "oh, I thought you were the one who was doing anal" excusable faux pas). The guy I had to actually slap away because he would not stop pushing on the back of my head during oral, even when I was giving oral to other men. And then there was the particular disaster that was The Man Who is Owed Everything from Women Everywhere. (Hereafter abbreviated to TMWOE, for brevity's sake.)

I first experienced TMWOE in line for the bathroom. The party hadn't even officially started yet, but regardless. There's a strict rule at the parties about women having the right of way when it comes to the bathroom. There's only 5 of us to about 30 men, and I guess the rationale also goes that we've waited in enough freaking bathroom lines in our lifetimes. So I get to the bathroom, and there's a guy already in there. My little gender trump card doesn't extend to the point that I can just walk in and push the guy out of the way mid-stream, but TMWOE is the next one in line outside the door. I step in front of him, and he gives me a look. "I just have to piss quick, do you mind?" Which, of course, being the infinite sass machine that I am, I reply to with, "Yes, I mind. Ladies get dibs on the bathroom."

Me move on in the night to intros and rule reading. Who's a first timer tonight? Raise your hands. TMWOE's goes up, which doesn't make me feel any more sympathetic for him for not knowing the bathroom rule. It does, however, make me feel slightly bad for him a bit later when he's trying to fuck me and clearly not able to get hard because he's weirded out by all the extra turgid wangs around us. So, like I'm about to administer CPR or something, I tell everybody to give us space and lay him down on his back. He gets a little 1:1 attention, mostly in the form of a blowjob and me on top of him. Ta-da, erection, ejaculation, I get to move on to all the other guys who are still hanging around the perimeter of the action.

Then a bit later I decide to take a break. This is the point where TMWOE begins the cycle of being owed everything from women everywhere. I'm chatting with Handlebar Moustache and one of the more regular guys (again, see "regular" to imply "frequency" rather than "normality"). TMWOE comes up to me and asks, this is a direct quote, if he can, "get any contact information from me?" To which I tell him no. Which, there's also a rule at the parties about no meaning no. But I guess it's a bit confusing about whether no means no just when you're trying something sexual, or if no also means no just in general conversation. Because TMWOE pushes it. I have to say no at least 3 times before he gets the hint and fucks off.

Much later in the night, I'm taking another break and just sort of sitting on a couch in the main gang bang area. I'm resting, but not necessarily completely out of the action yet. TMWOE decides this is a great opportunity to come over and try again. Maybe if he tells me his whole sob story about how women everywhere haven't realized they owe him everything yet, I'll finally be the one to wise up and just give him what he wants. What exactly is it that he wants? He's not really sure, but it somehow involves a girl being both "nice" but also able to "fuck dirty." Multiple attempts by me to explain that girls like that are usually fairly difficult to find out in nature are rebuffed with explanations on how he's tried multiple dating sites online with no success. He's gone out to bars with no success. And he's got good pick-up lines. How does he know that? Because he's pretended to be a woman online before just to collect pick-up lines from dudes and weed out the "good ones," that's how. Seriously, if I'd just let him take me out for a few drinks, he'd show me a good time. (Words that actually came out of his mouth, I'm not extrapolating at all.) At this particular point I decide to give up on genuine advice, because it's fairly clear that TMWOE is not listening at all, and excuse myself to go talk to somebody else.


Men like this exist in other instances out in the world. I've met a few at other gang bang parties, also a few at munches. Sometimes just out there in general people world. One particular other example from the parties was the gentleman who tried to talk me into accompanying him to a clothing-optional camp site based only on the knowledge that I lived near his area and attended gang bangs. It was similar with TMWOE. He knew absolutely nothing about me except the fact that I was at the same gang bang party he was, and that was somehow impetus enough to come over and ask me for personal contact information. At munches, it usually takes the form of men offering to demonstrate toys (never to show me how to wield them, more often to show me how they'll mark my skin), or show me their dungeons, or otherwise just offer things that are creepy in any context beyond the fact that we're in an event-type thing where people are more or less guaranteed to be kinky. Which, the offers are creepy regardless. It all comes down to being owed something. The mentality that they are men, and I am a woman, and somehow just by showing up to this type of event have offered myself up for any type of attention they deem me worthy for. It's the shittiest justification for their behavior. It's not entirely "asshole top" behavior, but it's in the same related family. I once had a female Domme approach me at a munch and physically touch me in ways I wasn't comfortable with while she told me how she felt a compulsion to, "tame those she is with." That was a bit of a combination - those who are owed things typically keep the creeping to a verbal level. Making innuendos and offers that are fairly out-of-bounds considering how much they don't know about me. They also usually pepper their discourse with various complaints about women in general and how we don't make any sense or something and how it's all our fault. Asshole tops have a tendency to bring things into the physical realm - even little light strokes, pats, etc. If I haven't agreed to it it's not okay to do that. In either case, once I've said "no" that should be enough.

The main moral of the story is that it disappoints me how certain people are conditioned by experience to expect certain things from those they interact with. It frustrates me that I have to say no as repeatedly as I do to those people. But I am ultimately proud of myself for being able to say no, regardless of how many shitty attempts I receive at the same question I have already answered.

Picture pages

Now-hubby found this somewhere, and sent it to me. So I'm posting it here for the rest of you to giggle at. 

Me Tarzan

Now-hubby sent me a text earlier today asking me, "what was that older book you read about 'masculine energy?'" Of course, dear reader, that book is Fascinating Womanhood (which I am seriously surprised has an "official" website).

I had read this book a few years ago because I saw it mentioned on an episode of Wife Swap. (Yes, sometimes I like to watch extremely trashy television shows, want to fight about it?) Besides the hilarious words, "masculine energy," the book is chock full of advice on how to be a real woman. You know, as opposed to just a wooden version of one like Pinocchio or some shit. Which, apparently, being a real woman involves doing things like stretching the budget by sewing your own curtains or clipping coupons before grocery shopping. Oh, and let's not forget blaming yourself if your alcoholic husband beats you. (You're just not trying hard enough, dearie. Did you maybe forget to put make-up on as soon as you woke up so he had something nice to look at when he left for work in the morning? Of course he needs an extra drink after work to deal with your hideous visage. You're going to need extra make-up now to cover that black eye, aren't you?)

In any case, it turns out Now-hubby was asking because he was going to be talking about "The War on Men" tonight during his podcast, and wanted the name of the book so he could reference it. I'm not sure in what way. Like the majority of things people I care about are into but I am not necessarily, I know as little about it as possible.

Since I'm feeling lazy tonight (and I have training stuff I really should be doing instead for a new job), I'll let the following articles do my take-down of the whole thing for me.

From the Washington Post

For a slightly more Swiftian approach, here's one from Salon

Being good enough

It's easy after being in "the lifestyle" for awhile to be able to talk the talk and pretend you're like...so over all that monogamous bullshit. You give advice to your friends like, well, duh, why haven't you thought of this way of imaging your relationship? Even if you want to remain monogamous, why haven't you considered honestly discussing your limitations and expectations as far as your relationship is concerned? It's very easy to get self-assured and cocky about the whole thing, and start thinking that you're definitely okay.

The realization that I'm not as all-together as I appear happens when one of my significant others is first expressing interest in another significant other. I take a lot of pride in being the one among some of my acquaintances who has been in an open relationship for the past ten years; who knew she wanted an open relationship since she understood the concept of "relationships" as they were supposed to be formed. And then Now-hubby or Frisbee will casually mention some lady that they've been hanging out or are interested in meeting with and they'll say something like, "she's pretty cool, right?" and I will completely crumble. Not outwardly, of course. I have more self-control than that. But internally I will be more or less a mess for the next few hours that it takes me to rationalize how I feel about them having feelings for somebody else.

It's partly that I wanted open relationships from the get-go. Before I even was in a "relationship" with anybody I understood that this was what I wanted and I wasn't going to be okay with one of those relationships where one partner is poly and the other is mono. So I understood also from the get-go that there was the possibility of somebody I was with expressing interest in somebody else. That's the way I wanted my relationships to function. So it's something that I had to internally work through by myself.

At first, they will say something about another lady being "cool, right?" and my internal monogamous monologue will kick in. In most cases, it will be somebody that I also think is fairly cool, so it's not a question of whether or not their assessment of "coolness" is accurate or not. It's more whether or not her "coolness" is a threat in any way to my "coolness." The usual, "what qualities does she have that are comparably better to my qualities?" argument. (Which, of course, is only my perceived self qualities versus another's...so...automatically skewed.)

A lot of my understanding of how poly works is based on what I think about the relationships I am in in addition to what those who are in relationships with me tell me about their feelings. So that's what I have to go on. And when I am rationalizing another lady's "coolness" in relationship to mine, I tend to come back to the fact that those who I have expressed love for I have also clearly expressed the need to know when they are in love with anybody else. I also think a lot about my "coolness" factor and how it's sort of relieving in a way to not have to be the entirety of everything for somebody all the time. Frisbee or Now-hubby loves me for the qualities I have that mesh with theirs, but it doesn't stop them from having other qualities that might mesh with somebody else. I can't encompass all of them, and that's okay. It's honestly sort of a stress relief to not have to try to be an entirety. Not to say that it means I can slack off on things, because the qualities that they do care about mean enough for me to want to maintain them.

And so this entry isn't an entire wall of text, here's a little ray of sunshine courtesy of the German (he showed me the first of this series, there's quite a few at this point).

Why I cut my own hair

I came across this article after clicking around from an article on a "female pick-up artist" (read, a moderately attractive woman who wants correlation to equal causation, even though it doesn't) a friend of mine had posted to Facebook. (Quick further explanation on the PUA article: The type of girl who was like, into drama club and D&D in high school so she's going to need like a serious transformation before any dude is going to want to date her.

Luckily, she gets into the PUA thing just around the same time she actually gets some self-confidence. Not that the former didn't contribute to the latter, but not to the ultimate "x, therefore y" that she attributes to it.)

Back to the hair thing. I get told a lot I don't have the right body for my chosen hairstyle. (The closest approximation to it I could actually find without posting a picture of myself.)

 
But it usually has nothing to do with my weight. It's always just the fact that my body is a woman's body. Women do haircuts like this when they're trying to make some sort of statement (I recently was cutting my hair at Frisbee's for the first time and made a comment about movies like Empire Records where the chick cutting her hair off is always having some sort of emotional crisis). Or they've cut it off for Locks of Love or it's fallen out because of chemo and they're just sort of living with it until they can grow it out again. I think I also get myself into a lot of trouble because I refuse to do things like wear a lot of make-up or jewelry or something to otherwise clearly indicate that I'm a lady person in spite of the haircut.

Invariably I'm told how much prettier I'd look if I let my hair grow out. From people I have just met. That's interesting to me. I don't ever really experience that in any other capacity. People thinking it's okay to comment on a physical aspect of my body and then advise me how I'd look better if I changed it somehow. I did have long hair for awhile - all the way up to my sophomore year of high school and then for one year in college, actually. I wasn't constantly bombarded by people telling me how physically attractive I was just because my hair went past my ears. So it's weird that when my hair's short people think it's necessary to inform me that I'd be much prettier if it was longer.

To the title of this little post. The real reason I cut my own hair? It's because when you go the salon I'm a woman getting a man's haircut, but I still get charged the woman's haircut price. And that's bullshit.

Counterpoint

To the previous post, in which it was disputed whether or not men and women can actually get along, or if we're doomed to constantly miscommunicate and be alone because, you know, societal messages and all. (Which is also an interesting heteronormative way to look at things, and implies that maybe gay and lesbian relationships are happy and perfect?)

It's maybe as simple as all this. Which, I know is a lot coming from somebody that has some serious trust issues etc. etc. I think the important thing to take away from this is that you don't have to be completely happy all the time, but you definitely have to be able to advocate for yourself and explain things that don't make you happy. And if you're genuinely unhappy with a lot of things, looking outside of yourself to try and fix it is not the answer.

Thanks for all the fish

I stumbled upon this gem in the comment section of a Reddit post today.

It reminded me a bit about a conversation the German and I had awhile ago about pink microscopes. He had found a kid's microscope set in a store, but the entire thing was Pepto pink, and specifically marketed to girls. (I think it said something about "magic" on the box, like it wasn't even really science related. Don't worry girls, it won't make you smart or anything.)

On the one hand, it's nice that toy companies are even trying to acknowledge that girls could be interested in things like microscopes. On the other hand, it's incredibly insulting that the only way they've figured out how to do this is to dip everything in a nauseating pink color scheme. Maybe it's just because I'm not as sensitive to it, but I don't ever really see the reverse happening. As in, nobody's taking toys and making them completely blue in the hopes of marketing them specifically to boys. (For an interesting read on the whole gender/color thing, I point you here.)

In any case, there's this really weird idea out there now that since certain people are from Venus, others from Mars, it means that it's completely impossible for either one to understand the other or communicate in any meaningful fashion with each other. Maybe I'm just not that philosophical about the whole thing, but is it really that much of a brainwashing scenario as the original picture implies? It also implies that women who watch porn aren't affected by it at all, or form unrealistic expectations based on that. The picture could just as easily be reversed, with the guy thinking, "where's my fiery but ultimately subservient wife?" and the girl thinking, "where's my 8 inch pleasure stick?" (Yes, blah blah porn objectifies women. So do Disney movies. So does fucking everything ever.) Ultimately, I think it's sort of a cop-out to blame corporate representations of specific gender ethos. It's scapegoating at it's best. Giving either gender a fall back option like that to explain why they're failing is crap.

Nerdcore

Tonight is Star Trek night. Next Gen.

I'd like to begin this post similarly to my post on the Batman movie by saying that I am just a novice nerd in regards to this, so please nobody push your nerd glasses up and get ready to debate me on any of this. Relax.

So...awhile back I had made the allusion to Star Trek being the Playbody of sci-fi, and Star Wars being the Hustler. (You weren't there for that, I did it on my Twitter. It's okay because I'm telling you about it now.)

Tonight as we were watching the episode, "Q-Who?" Now-hubby started commenting about how he likes Star Trek now, but if I had met him when he was younger, I would have had to fight him on the supremacy of Star Wars. To which I replied, "of course, Star Wars is for boys."

My comment stems just a little bit from personal experience (I had a male cousin who I watched Star Wars with back in the day...like VHS tapes back in the day), but also from my general adult opinion that Star Wars is a more distinctly male-oriented foray into the sci-fi universe than Star Trek.

(I had to pause here to have a fierce internal debate with myself about the story lines of both series, and whether or not that was a justifiable reason for inclusion of lady characters.)

Regardless. The main discussion of the evening centered around character representation. Star Wars. I can count...3 really important female characters? You have Aunt Beru, who basically becomes a pile of on-fire bones for all she's worth to the series (spoiler alert, I guess). Then you have stupid kabuki face Amidala, who essentially is like...kinda smart? But also really just a love interest slash person to be knocked up. And cinnamon bun hair. Who when it comes down to it is really just more of a firecracker than anything else. You know. The type that you just need to tie down and get to accept your manly dominance on anything and everything, and then she'll stop being so gosh-darn uppity all the time.

Star Trek. We're talking even original Kirk Trek, where all the ladies where in outfits like this.

You still managed to have at least Uhura be much more than some sexy token. I present you also with this comprehensive list in a much better organized fashion than I am capable of. And yes, I'll concede counselor Troi. She's got one of the more useless skills ever aboard the Enterprise (really, what the fuck does being able to make vague statements about how somebody feels really add to your tactical advantage?). Even Seven of Nine managed to at least be an interesting character in addition to being a boner of the month contender.

He got me open like 7-11

Today when Now-hubby got home from work I was busy on the computer doing some random things. He gets home later than I do, and is usually in charge of dinner. So my first question was what we were going to eat. Second question was whether he wanted to have sex or not. I was particularly in the mood at the moment, so it was a relevant question. I don't know the last time we had sex; it was recently. I don't tend to keep track of things like that. It's a similar reason to why I have to count on my fingers every time somebody asks me how long Now-hubby and I have been married. If we've had sex at least within the past few days and/or nobody is raising immediate complaints about lack of sex, then it's not worth my time to keep some sort of tally about when was the last time we fucked.

Fast-forward to dinner being made (it smells delicious), and I find this little gem on /r/sex. Which is an interesting mixed-bag of stuff on the best of days. It ranges from seriously interesting discussions about relationship politics to total n00b comments more to the tune of, "omg I'm supposed to put a guy's weiner in my mouth? Guh-ross!"

At first, before I even clicked on the link, I thought it was going to be reminiscent of this giant turd of an idea, which I'll tl;dr for you right now. Some lady gave her husband 40 days of sex as a 40th birthday present (it's something her mom used to give her dad every year for his birthday, which doesn't make this creepy or weird at all). Standard story: her husband loves sex and she was getting to that point where she's too unoriginal to think of good birthday present ideas for the person she loves. A nice dinner out together is just so fucking unoriginal and boring, right? But then she realizes what she's agreed to and is like, "that's completely impossible to do."

 So she comes up with this completely bat-shit idea that she'll just put a little jar with 40 beads in it next to the his side of the bed. She gets a bowl of some sort on her side. Whenever hubby wants some, he takes a bead and puts it in the bowl. Within 24 hours she's got to seal the deal (as it were).

Honestly, I just like to imagine the negotiations that could arise out of that scenario. Like, what happens if he just continues to put beads in the bowl every 24 hours? Doesn't that just equate to the original birthday present? Is he allowed to put more than one bead at a time in the bowl? If so, what do multiple beads represent?

It turned out not to be about the bead thing, which was refreshing. However, it did turn out to be about another completely stupid conceit for couples to have sex with each other. Here are some of my favorite parts:

1. ...'How did we do it?' says Douglas Brown... ...Can you imagine?... ...barely imaginable bonkathons...

The way the author sets it up as being this completely unimaginable feat. You mean people had sex? For a year? Every day? Jumping Jesus Christ - that's possibly the most insane thing I've ever fucking heard of on this planet.

2. If we hadn’t done 101 days, I don’t think we’d understand the importance of sex in our relationship.

I like this part especially because it implies that they didn't just get sidetracked with boring adult life stuff (house, jobs, kids, etc.) and forget how fun sex is to have, they may have never actually put sex as an especially important part of their relationship. As though it's some newly learned fact that, "hey, when we put our genitals together on a semi-regular basis, it makes us both feel better!" Which makes me wonder what the excuses were before the boring adult life stuff.

3. That’s a bonus, especially for a man. “Before, there was always that pressure to perform. That’s distracting and it can be dispiriting. The feeling that you’re on stage, you have to perform. But when we did the 101 days, all that . . . melted away. You realise [sic] you can’t be on stage every day.”
Charla, who works in marketing, says Brad, a salesman, and she feel the same way. “You’re no longer in it to win it every time,” she says, on the phone from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Did they not have orgasms some of the times they had sex during this experiment? Is that what they're talking about? I'm not knocking that - I really, really enjoy orgasms but I can understand the fulfillment of sexytimes without them. I'm just curious what they're talking about when they say things like, "you can't be on stage every day" and, "no longer in it to win it every time."

4. the project was Charla’s gift to her husband for his 40th birthday

Can somebody please explain this to me? What is it about birthdays, and 40th birthdays in particular? I'd like to know ahead of time if I'm like...contractually obligated in some way to give Now-hubby or Frisbee some sort of completely insane sexual program on their 40th birthdays.

5. The other thing that year made me realise [sic] was that men don’t need it more than women. Men might want it for different reasons. But I learned that I wanted it, too.

Can we get a collective d'aww moment for this? It's fucking precious. Men and women really can get along, everybody! Three cheers for gender parity! The issue again is with the implication of that last sentence. She learned that she wanted it. Meaning that up to this point, she didn't know she wanted it. Or possibly did, but didn't know it was okay for her to want it.

6. But what I suggest is, whatever you’re doing, double it. Then in a month, double it again. 

And if you keep doing this, you'll eventually be having non-stop sex all day every day! Infinity sex!! 

 

Wish fulfillment

It's been long enough now that I can't remember exactly when I became "not normal." I also dislike debating nature vs. nurture, so for all intents and purposes I just sort of acknowledge in my day-to-day life that I don't approach relationships and sex in the same way other people do, and leave it at that.

For example, today one of my co-workers was talking about overhearing a high school student (male) talking to a friend of his (also male) about how he was going to get his girlfriend to blow him for his birthday. This leads to a conversation on male wish lists. Mostly centered around the idea that back in later elementary school when all the girls got pulled into the gym to learn about our periods, boys were taken into a room and given a list of ultimate sexual fantasies. Honestly, this is still one of my favorite things to imagine about. I've asked Now-hubby about the male version of the, "then you will grow boobies and be ready to make babies!" speech I got in the 4th grade, and it's pretty boring, actually. So I like to pretend that it wasn't, and that the boys actually had to sit through videos full of information like how to tuck boners into the waistband of their pants. The idea of a sexual wish list hand-out is probably one of the better pretend scenarios. (At least in my little group, we all got pamphlets called something stupid like, "Your body, Yourself." I'm pretty sure it was sponsored by Tampax.)

Somehow at the same time that girls are being subtly indoctrinated into what sex acts are "dirty," boys are getting this wish list they can check off of the exact same sex acts. In the latter case they're fantasy, in the former case it's something you only do if he's gotten you a nice piece of jewelry or for an anniversary or something. That's sort of where the conversation went today, and also where the reinforcement came in that respectable girls don't just do up the butt because they've seen it a few times in porn and are curious if it'll feel good for them or not.

 
I honestly don't know how to react when people say things like, "he asks me for anal every year on his birthday." I mean...is that really something people do? Fucking fascinating.

Serious question

Besides the point that RHPS is possibly the best thing ever (just reached this, and it is awesome):

Here is an awesome bit from The Unbearable Lightness of Being that I am loving:

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

Other People's Writing

I found this one on Fet (credit to MasterSoNSo) this morning, and wanted to share it. Since I thought those without Fet accounts should also be able to read it, I'll post the wall o' text for you.

---

Just to be on the safe side, let me start this with a whole bunch of disclaimers: This is not a complaint. This is not venting. This is me telling you what the mechanics of happy could look like.
I am not talking about people, I am talking about my experience with polyamory, and I am talking about it for the benefit of those considering polyamory.
Yes, my partners are aware that I am having these experiences. I have talked with them about this stuff. That is sort of my whole point in mentioning this to YOU.

---

Polyamory is fucking HARD.
People say this a lot but I really think that some people out there might benefit from putting themselves in my shoes for five seconds and really asking themselves, "Could I really handle this? Am I really willing to ask someone else to handle this in order to be in my life?" Because I tell you what, I could not have handled this ten years ago.
I have spent the last five years being a secondary partner without a primary partner of my own. I like it this way. I tell people that _I_ am my primary partner. I joke that I am always the Bridesmaid, but never the Bride. Of the relationships that I am currently in, every single one that I consider myself committed to, is with a married woman.
Let me put that another way: every single relationship I am in could be ended by a third party decision.
I can already hear all of my polyamorous friends start to protest, start talking about how much they abhor hierarchies, how they don't allow veto rights in their relationships. I know what you are going to say, and I am willing to bet my long-lost anal virginity that the people who want to protest are all in primary relationships or want to be in primary relationships. Heck, all my partners would tell me the same thing.
And I'm sorry to hurt your feelings, but I call bullshit. I understand that you and your partner have all these rules and philosophies that you've spent all this time working out and discussing together, but that's not the point. The point is, _I_ have not had those conversations with them. Your primary partner does not love me, your metamour, the way s/he loves you, his actual partner. My theoretical happiness does not trump his desire to make your primary relationship work. "Drop everything else and focus on our marriage" is ALWAYS still on the menu, no matter what you say.
More importantly, as a secondary partner, the potential for that choice always exists in my head. I may be good at ignoring that demon imp voice, but it will always be there. When I'm weak. When I'm having a bad moment. When my boss tears me a new one because I screwed up big and I desperately need you to wrap your arms around me, that voice is there, whispering its evil little chant: "I bet her Primary will come first," that voice sings.
Is that likely to happen? No, because I have made good choices and I have faith that my partners are all spiritually and emotionally committed to a shared set of ethics, and I have taught myself how to trust that if their beliefs are this compatible with mine, then their partner's beliefs are probably pretty similar.
But teaching myself that, maintaining my faith in that, was HARD. Difficult. The opposite of easy. Definitely harder than being sexually monogamous. WAY WAY WAY harder than being socially monogamous.
Keeping that lingering doubt out of my head and heart when I am deep in a self-pity spiral is HARD.
Living a lifestyle where 95% of conversations about MY feelings for YOU includes a discussion of how I think your other (read: more important) partner feels? That is HARD.
That is not the Easy Mode. That is not the Easy Path To Free Orgies All The Time.
I think that the vast majority of polyamorous people I have met thus far would find it easier to lie to their Significant Other about an affair than to learn to trust metamours like that. I know I certainly would find it easier.

---

My girlfriend is having her husband's baby. Right now, they are sharing in an utterly transformative experience that I will never get to experience with her. Never. I mean, this completely fucking trumps that time when he saw the Transformers 3D with her before I could.
She and I were fluid-bonded (and, speaking of hard conversations, that is another Not The Easy Mode conversation: "I would also like to fluid bond with your wife."). We had to break our fluid bond while they tried. Think about that. Think about how you would react to that. They decided when they were going to start trying to have a baby, at which point I had to start wearing condoms again with my girlfriend.
If you're the sort of person who would see that as a slap in the face, then maybe you shouldn't be poly.
(Just to dive briefly back to my last point, have you thought about whether you believe you should get any kind of say in when your girlfriend will start trying to have kids with her husband? Is that a conversation you're prepared to have?)
When I lay in bed next to her, I can smell that she's growing some other guy's kid in her. Her body is changing shape. Her daily routine has been biologically rewritten. It will require a completely different wardrobe -- she isn't even going to be dressed like I'm used to. For the next seven months, her husband and this choice is going to be an inescapable element of my relationship with her.
I mean, realistically, what they've just done is decide to change the woman that I'm in a relationship with. Not just for the next 7 months, either.
It is thrilling and gratifying and deeply affirming to watch myself be okay with this, but I have to say, it is not easy to be okay with it.
It requires skills, it requires learning how to notice yourself be Not Okay with it, and have the courage to speak up and admit when I am Not Okay with it, and have a relationship where you can talk about it and feed your esteem while still making sure she's getting all her natal vitamins and naps in. It requires trusting in your relationship's communication skills, and trusting in THEIR relationship's communication skills, which is way harder, because you are never going to get to watch them talk about you when you're not around.
When people talk about how polyamory is hard, this is MUCH harder than anything I ever imagined Those People meaning.

---

As the Icing on Everyone Else's Cake, I am by now well used to long distance secondary relationships, to weekend affairs. I am used to having to say goodbye at the airport. I have developed skills to deal with the sense of loneliness and sudden isolation, have learned to deal with having to return to my empty bed. But listening to her talk about what a great time she had and how much she misses me and wishes she could be there with me but now she's got to go to bed with her husband? Constantly being treated as a Special Occasion that needs to be planned? That is always going to be hard. Nor is there really anything that she can do about that.
People imagine polyamory to be this place where you're never jealous and there's enough love and connection so that you'll never feel left out again. I have to tell you, this isn't my experience. I wouldn't want it to be my experience.
I get jealous. I feel the whole wide range of emotions.
I have complex, multi-layered, so-intense-I-can-barely-keep-a-grip emotions. My relationships push my buttons and terrify me and test my idealistic philosophies about what relationships should be, about what I can be to other people. It is a challenge.
It is a challenge we face together.
It amazes me how many people think they can enter poly relationships and then tell their partner, "Your emotions about the other relationships I'm in are Not My Problem." That you're solely responsible for dealing with your own emotions and that asking for help and support is somehow not Good Poly? What amazes me even more than that, are the people who don't even think about what it means to ask someone to be their secondary partner.
If you're not involved in the emotional experience of your partners than what the fuck are you doing this for? Prostitutes and swingers clubs will be way less expensive and time consuming. Multiple, ethical, open, emotionally intense, committed relationships are hard.
As a perennial secondary partner, do you know what my deepest fear is every time I start a relationship?
That I'm being used as an exit strategy.
That my entire relationship with you was secretly, the entire time, actually just about getting the strength to leave your Actually Significant Other. Because she won't actually know that's what she's doing. Because she's convinced herself that she's happy with her marriage and that this is just one more way that they're expressing that happiness. Because for her I'm nothing more than a catalyst agent for her to grow some balls and Dump The Mother Fucker Already, but for me that was an actual relationship.
If it's surprising to you that this happens often enough in the world of polyamory for me to have baggage about that shit, then maybe you should spend some more time thinking about this choice.

Predilection

Quite often I will find myself talking to Now-hubby about Frisbee or vice versa. Not in a way where I'm comparing the two of them, just sort of, "oh, I was hanging out with Frisbee and he mentioned [blank]. I thought it was interesting and so now I am telling you about [blank]."

The more this happens, the more I am ultimately surprised by how much the two of them have in common. I'll mention some book Frisbee is reading, and Now-hubby will be all, "oh, I read that book a few years ago. It was really good. I told you all about it." Which really just proves that I am an insensitive clod who doesn't pay attention to things that don't interest me. But it also illustrates this weird compatibility that exists between the two of them, and one of my more common soap box points on why poly is not of the devil.

Now-hubby and I have been doing the poly thing since we first got together, and that was almost 10 years ago. Over this expanse of time, it's been interesting to sort of keep mental notes of the trends. People we get involved with just for genital touchings are really sort of varying. There's definitely certain traits involved, but it's not like these cookie-cutter people one after the other. If Now-hubby gets to the like like stage with somebody else, it's interesting how much I'll have in common with that person. Similarly with me. Not to say that we're all best fucking friends for life, but it's kind of neat in a way to find those commonalities. It makes me feel more reassured, because I can find those instances in Now-hubby's other relationships where I'm still sort of present. It's not about which of us does x better, or whether the his significant other has better y or z than I do. That's the way I tend to frame things, anyway. Not to think about the differences but focus on the similarities in poly relationships. I don't want to change myself fundamentally because I'm worried about somebody else Now-hubby might be seeing and trying somehow to compete with them. That's pointless and a waste of energy. I like that Now-hubby loves qualities in other people that he also loves in me; it means he's a consistent guy who knows what he's looking for.

The down-side for me in loving the same qualities in both Frisbee and Now-hubby means that the feelings of love I have for them are fairly similar as well. Whenever I get to see one of them, it makes me equally happy. When I have to leave one of them, it hurts my heart just as much regardless of which one I'm leaving. This makes sort of everyday negotiations on where I'm going to be and who I'm spending time with difficult. It helps that among their shared qualities, they're both incredibly accommodating, laid back guys who don't make a lot of demands as far as my time and energy are concerned.

For another decent view on the whole, "loving more than one person" thing, you can check out this Pervocracy entry. I sort of like the analogy, but I also can't help imagining eventually you'd get to be like the Burrow, with this crazy compendium of rooms.

Projecting the Erection

No, I don't have anything interesting to say about the election thing happening tonight.

However, I do have this Ménage à 3 comic to talk about while I sort of pay attention the all the fancy maps on the news slowly turning either red or blue.

I do actually like this webcomic, so this entry isn't  a critique so much as a, "here are some things I think about this" exposition.

First, there's the interesting implication that it doesn't really count as cheating because the two people in the relationship aren't happy together. Or that the supposed "cheating" won't hurt as much for the same reason. Somewhere there is a mathematical equation waiting to happen, where the amount of happiness in a relationship is directly proportional to its fidelity.

Second, Dillon's (the one with his clothes on) look in the last panel. I like to imagine that in those ellipses is a common question of my own - "But how...do you get involved with somebody who doesn't make you happy in some way?" You could go a bit more esoteric with it and maybe he's asking how Gary (the naked one with glasses) doesn't know whether he's in love or not - like an emotional uncertainty. To equate it with the 2nd grade: "Do you like like me?" But I like to put my own question in there, because my eyebrows make that same confused arc when I am stuck listening to somebody complain about their significant other and then I ask them why they're with them in the first place.

Instrumental

Inspiration for this post.

One time in college I got into a discussion with a friend about who gives better blowjobs, woodwind players or brass players. An argument you can really only have about band instruments, because other things just don't work as well.

 He was a saxophone player in our college's marching band, I had played clarinet for about...7 years. (Since 5th grade, then I gave up band to take Physics my senior year of high school. It was a total nerd dilemma at the time, trust me.) So, the whole thing might have been a bit biased to begin with. My friend was a straight guy, so he wasn't exactly in the practice of giving blowjobs. Also sort of a n00b when it came to sexytime stuff, so not really in the practice of getting them, either. (He did, however, have a great story about a girl who actually blew on his penis once - like she was trying to cool down soup or something. Me: "But she eventually put it in her mouth, right?" Him: "No, she just did that for 10 minutes before I told her to stop.") But, the night had already involved fine smokeables and peanut butter covered brownies, so it was a natural next step for the conversation to move in.

It all boils down to embouchure. For those who are unfamiliar, embouchure, besides being a hilarious word to say in an exaggerated French accent (go ahead, try it), is  the shape your mouth takes when you play an instrument. For brass instruments, it can probably be best described as giving a raspberry. Or how to make a fart noise with your mouth. You press your lips together really tight and then try and blow air out through them. That doesn't even work if you're talking about cunnilingus. If you're talking about blowjobs, it's pretty fucking terrible. With woodwinds the embouchure is more about putting your mouth around things. And there are some big-ass mouth pieces in the woodwind section. Barry Sax? Bass Clarinet? Yeah, that's what I thought. Pretty much the only instrument in the woodwind section whose embouchure isn't worth dick is the flute. And the first sack to bring up American Pie gets their genitals mutilated with a crowbar. We're talking blowjobs only, not anal stimulation. So...go cry in a corner, flute players.

The one where I watch Magic Mike

And am mainly disappointed because people at work talked it up and promised me dicks, and then there was like...half of one. Like, even more angry than when I sat through the entirety of Boogie Nights in high school because somebody had told me Mark Wahlberg went full frontal in it. Now-hubby just now: "You mean you didn't even fast-forward it?" Me: "No, I was going to earn that dick."Anyway. Spoiler alert. After almost 3 fucking hours of Burt Reynolds moustache (which is impressive, but hardly panty-moistening all on its own) and fucking Heather Graham on roller skates, it's like...30 seconds of a completely fake plastic dick. Boo.

If I had to rate dick shots, I'd put Jason Segal's from Forgetting Sarah Marshall top.

 
First, because it was pretty unexpected (nobody makes teaser trailers all, "oh my god you're going to see Jason Segal's penis in this movie!"), and second because it's Jason Segal and I would seriously orgasm to death even just seeing him fully clothed somewhere.

Anyway. Magic Mike. There were several hilarious moments where I could make comparisons to Pretty Woman. Such as, he didn't even get a chance to walk back into the bank later and be all like, "boom bank lady remember when you wouldn't give me that loan even though I had my sexy glasses on? Well, now some sugar momma is paying for my stuff and don't you feel sorry for yourself?!"

Also, there was a little break where I had to rant about the differences between men and women in general when it comes to sexytimes; how essentially it all comes down to feelings of entitlement vs. those of sincere appreciation. I'll save you the majority of it and just boil it down to the nutshell version. Me: "Forget all the shirtless tastyness earlier, 'I just want to talk' is the real sploosh moment in this film."

In the end, I spent the majority of the dance routine portions with my hands clasped in my lap just...completely unable to form coherent thought. Now-hubby: "You're funny right now." Me: "I'm not fucking trying to explain it."

Happily Ever After

I stumbled upon a little blog entry on Unicorn Hunters posted to Reddit. (It's in 4 separate parts, link is to the first installment.) For those not in the  know, Unicorn Hunters are a special breed of poly couples. Typically: male(hetero)/female(bi) couples looking for another poly, bi, female that they can both date. I've run into them a few times before, most notably when I was on SLS and advertising myself as a "single" female - this was in a period when Now-hubby wasn't necessarily interested in other partners, I still was, we had talked about this and he was okay with me putting myself out there as such.

In addition to the magical instance of stupid that is Unicorn Hunters,

there are the couples I'll meet and talk to who have fascinating ideas about how they're going to open up their relationships.

 Most of my reactions here can be pinpointed to a particular personality trait.

I'm not saying that the following things won't ever work for anybody. I just find they are the type of idealized crap that invariably the couple will call me back later on all, "bwah this didn't work"

and then I have to put on my, "the fuck did I tell you?" face.

There's probably more than this, but these are the top 3 that are coming to mind right now.

Wanting to know the other person/"let's all be friends with each other"

This is a fantastic idea in theory. It's a great one for people to say they want, because it sounds nice. Which, it does, doesn't it? It sounds really nice.

 
Who doesn't like friends? It implies this image of everybody fucking holding hands around the globe while a white dove of peace soars in the clear blue sky. The ideal is the people your significant other wants to rub genitals with will also turn out to be really awesome people that both of you can get along with. You can avoid the whole awkward primary/secondary discussion, because you'll be too busy hanging out with each other and being cool with everything. Also, you get a chance to sort of "proof" the person your significant other will be spending time with

When Now-hubby and I were in college, we had a group of friends and sexytime partners that was fairly inclusive, so by the time either of us were having sexytimes with somebody, the friendship was already established. If you're not in that type of environment, trying to force it can be unnatural and weird. Especially if your significant other doesn't particularly like the other person you want to be with. Even if they do, you open up an entirely new series of complicated definitions regarding "friendship." What exactly does it all mean? When it comes to this, I'm more a fan of that sitcom-esque parental trope. Who are you going to be with, where are you going to be, and when can I expect you home?

Total and complete honesty at all times

If being open is about being honest with each other, nothing can be better than being honest all the time about everything, right? This is an easy pitfall to get into, because it's the classic misconception that if a certain amount of something is good, than even more of that something must be great! Which is sometimes true, but also sometimes not true.

I'm not advocating lying. That's a completely different shitty thing that people think about open relationships - that they're just a justification for lying. Lying in relationships, regardless of the format, is a shitty thing to do.

However, complete and utter emotional verbal diarrhea is also not the greatest way to go about things, either. This is a good one to find the balance between what you want to know about and what you don't when it comes to your partner's extra curriculars.

"It's just going to be about sex."

Yes, because we all exist in Brian Kinney world where you can have completely anonymous sex with anybody you choose completely at your whim.

 (I mean, yes, that does sound excellent, but it's unrealistic at best out here IRL)