The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: littlefallsmets on March 21, 2007, 05:35:40 am
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http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=03212007 (http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=03212007)
I am not completely sure about this but I think "Brad: Party of One" is about a dude looking into a mirror and pleasuring himself to the sight of his own butthole. This is what my imagination tells me.
Have I mentioned that I don't think in pictures?
Thank Christ I only think in text and sounds.
Thank Christ on God Mountain.
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egh. I don't "get it." Onstad is just breaking all the rules of comics, you know? Don't pretend you "get" this, people-- there's nothing to get.
...really though, I am ambivalent. But Onstad has surprised me before.
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As an aside, the choice of this thread's title was a photo finish.
"Josh Rents A Wimp" would've been almost equally acceptable.
"give... me... thaaaaat!" only won because it is more fun to imagine what it would actually sound like.
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Part of me wonders how gay men would be interested in this prototype, and part of me doesn't want to think about it too much.
But really, how would they know?
...are there meetings? Am I just missing the postings on the community center board?
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I think "I just decided this" makes the cartoon. "I just decided this" perfectly describes a whole (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=09302002) category (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07202004) of Ray strips (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05082002).
Ray Smuckles: He gets things done (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=09062005).
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But really, how would they know?
...are there meetings? Am I just missing the postings on the community center board?
Gays exchange information encoded into the protein sequences of their semen.
This does not work for straights or lesbians because there is not a mutual exchange of long protein strands in straights and none at all with lesbians. They pass secret messages with their wangs.
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I would rent "Great, Great, Great!" just for the dog on the cover if I didn't know it was porn, because that dog looks so happy.
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Happy? It looks like it's having a seizure.
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What might have happened (but probably won't since I am posting it) is that the series would have been released and Phillipe would inadvertantly rent gay porn. True story:
Dude I know taped some porno on a VHS and labeled it "Yu-Gi-Oh" as a disguise. His six year old brother popped in the tape and played it in front of the whole family. Classic move.
Anyway, a bunch of years later, and that dude's parents kicked him out of the house.
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Happy? It looks like it's having a seizure.
I thought it was shaking out of joy?
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HOT (http://www.coonrod.org/posted/handicapped.png) PICK! is hilarious.
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Dude I know taped some porno on a VHS and labeled it "Yu-Gi-Oh" as a disguise. His six year old brother popped in the tape and played it in front of the whole family. Classic move.
Why, for the love of God, did he think Yu-Gi-Oh was less shameful than anything else? Was the idea to hide it in plain sight, and then the inevitable result ensued?
I also like "I don't know who Steve is, but I don't think I'm invited to his Party," although "Josh Rents a Wimp" is such a great title I actually want to make gay porn with that title now.
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Ray is The Decider. Bush wishes he had the decision making capabilities of Ray Smuckles the cartoon cat.
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"Double Subtitled"
Almost as funny as "Presented in Glorious EXTRA COLOR!"
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Gays exchange information encoded into the protein sequences of their semen.
This does not work for straights or lesbians because there is not a mutual exchange of long protein strands in straights and none at all with lesbians. They pass secret messages with their wangs.
By that same logic, could one surmise that lesbians communicate by Sapphic Morse Code? Either that or by wispering the secrets into the holiest of holies like a biological tin-cans-on-string operation?
Dot-Dot-Dash-Dot *OHH!*
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That is a pretty shameful Kevin-Smith-esque recap of what straight men envision lesbians to be. "I don't get lesbians, man...everybody needs dick." ::)
Also it appears that Pat is renting videos from his local Blockbuster or something?
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This is fine and all, but it's not like straight or bi porn is any less shameful. The clerk doesn't want to see you renting Saving Ryan's Privates. The clerk does not even wish to touch the case.
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JIZZ-MOPPING IS NOT A CAREER CHOICE, PEOPLE.
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People still rent porn from video stores?
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"I don't get lesbians, man...everybody needs dick."
See, I always felt the exact opposite. I can understand ladies wanting ladies. I can't get enough of them, why wouldn't ladies feel the same way? It's what men OR ladies could see in dudes that I don't get.
The male body is an ugly utilitarian device, good at what it was designed to do but... nobby and shaggy and inelegant. Naked, we look like Christmas trees that someone only bothered to decorate at the groin.
And man-parts, aw man, are man-parts ugly. The nastiest. Again, they do what they were designed for... but... so ugly.
Any ladies or dude want to explain what could be attractive about a dude body?
I've never understood.
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The male body is an ugly utilitarian device, good at what it was designed to do but... nobby and shaggy and inelegant. Naked, we look like Christmas trees that someone only bothered to decorate at the groin.
And man-parts, aw man, are man-parts ugly. The nastiest. Again, they do what they were designed for... but... so ugly.
Not to be a dick, but this bit is tired. We've all seen a stand-up who did this reiff. The male body may not appeal to you, and that's cool, but it's odd that our culture would lead someone to believe that the breakdown is 20% straight girls and 60% bi girls who all love dick, and then 90% straight guys who all hate it. Bzzzzt - methinks somebody doth protest too much. And the self-hatred inherent in a guy talking about how ugly the male body is . . . is just sad. The human body is a beautiful thing, male or female.
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And man-parts, aw man, are man-parts ugly. The nastiest. Again, they do what they were designed for... but... so ugly.
This is what virgins at women's colleges sound like.
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It isn't a bit. I really don't get it.
I'm as non-homophobic as a straight dude can get, it has nothing to do with that. I was genuinely asking.
A fat dude looks like some sort of deformed animal, a muscular dude looks like a machine for lifting things, a skinny dude looks like a cartoon character. And the wang is definitely a veiny animal type thing. The lowest of low things.
Even a mostly-unattractive lady probably has one trait that is beautiful. Some of the otherwise least-attractive ladies have the best breasts or eyes.
ALSO: I would also like to know who the hell still gets porno from video stores. Didn't President Gore invent the internet so that we could get our pornography without awkward desk exchanges? A friend admitted to us that she still rents porn DVDs a couple of weeks back and she never heard the end of it. She will never hear the end of it.
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Not to be a dick, but this bit is tired. We've all seen a stand-up who did this reiff. The male body may not appeal to you, and that's cool, but it's odd that our culture would lead someone to believe that the breakdown is 20% straight girls and 60% bi girls who all love dick, and then 90% straight guys who all hate it. Bzzzzt - methinks somebody doth protest too much. And the self-hatred inherent in a guy talking about how ugly the male body is . . . is just sad. The human body is a beautiful thing, male or female.
Amen. When you really think about it, the female body is actually pretty lumpy and awkward too. Even non-gender-specific things like limbs are like that. And what about noses? What's the deal with noses? They just kind of stick out from your face. Have you ever stopped for a moment to ponder how weird noses are? If people can accept these things as being as beautiful as they are, why not man-parts as well?
What type of gay porn would the Finnish produce? I am imagining a couple of fully-clothed men sitting around in a hotel room, drinking vodka and acting kind of dour. The presence of (double) subtitles suggests that they do speak to each other at some point.
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Even a mostly-unattractive lady probably has one trait that is beautiful. Some of the otherwise least-attractive ladies have the best breasts or eyes.
So, even ugly women can have beautiful features, but all men are ugly, even you? Yeeesh.
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Oh, man. I am the ugliest of all. Oh. Man.
Seriously, for all this "oh, you're just riffing" no one is actually explaining what could be attractive about a dude.
I am serious in my question. This is like when you ask someone why they believe something about Jesus or God and they answer "Because it's in the Bible!" and then, you're like, you know, you start explaining to them that the New Testament was probably written two or three generations after Jesus at the earliest and its been mistranslated ten ways to Sunday and it was politically shaped in various Vatican Councils and so on and so forth... to which they reply:
"BUT IT'S THE BIBLE!"
And a dude is left with no answers.
It is as though I am asking how a man could be sexually attractive and y'all are saying "BUT IT'S IN THE BIBLE!"
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Oh, I could get into it, but all of a sudden everyone would find other things to do and would never come back. If you want me to tell you, I could send you a personal message.
Of course, it's all subjective, isn't it. You could tell me that you like women, but the reasons you like women are your reasons, and I wouldn't necessarily relate to them. Some people like really lean, thin women. I think they look malnourished if I can see their ribs, and good luck finding women without visible skeletons in today's media (especially porn). I like women that don't look like all their hair has fallen out due to radical new medical treatments, but all women in today's media (especially porn) seem to think hair is evil unless it is above thier shoulders. There is nothing inherently wrong in having armpit hair, women. Don't believe the lies. It doesn't fall out on its own because it is supposed to grow there.
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An open discussion, involving dudes and ladies of all sorts, would probably shed the most light on the subject?
But if this topic is hell of blush-making for you, by all means, even one person's explanation in private would help.
EDIT: Also, leg hair on a lady does not bother me one bit, except when it's in that two or three day window where it's really itchy. And a woman fully-shaved DOWN THERE is pretty silly and weird to my eyes, though trimming a little so it doesn't go 1970s stag-film is acceptable.
But EVERYONE should shave their armpits, man, lady, gay, straight and other. That shit's nasty.
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Goddamn this thing lately - it keeps saying I already posted, and then my post isn't there.
This subject won't make me blush. Nothing about this subject will make me blush. But some folks come here just for the discussion of talking cats and alive stuffed animals.
Armpit hair is about the collection and exhibition of pheromones. Pheromones are attractive, that is what they are for. It is genetics, not personal preference. The culture's bias against armpit hair is, at its roots, making women scientifically less sexy.
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Yeah but Pheremones are Old-School. Like, back in the trees of Madagascar two millions years ago and such. Back when we were swinging on vines and eating bananas and suchforth. I'm drinking a coffee and using a computer. I don't need pheremones.
When functioning within a civil society, dudes and ladies are much more oriented to personality, social positioning and appearence. Mostly appearence. This is why the Lady Display is now in the chestical area as opposed to the rump as it was in the trees of Madagascar. It is about putting the Lady Display where the eyes go, not where the scents are.
I want to get with a lady because of her looks first and then I fall for her romantically because of her personality.
I have a coffee and a computer. Armpit hair can get on outta my face.
Perhaps this is part of why I can't appreciate the male form, though, as I so associate it with animalness. This is a theory.
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Seriously, for all this "oh, you're just riffing" no one is actually explaining what could be attractive about a dude.
Ok, I'll go for it. For a start:
1. Cute butts
2. Nice manly back and shoulders
3. A chest that has just enough muscles that it looks like you could haul a bag of mulch around for me but not like you spend hours at the gym obsessing about how you look. No unsightly bulges.
I assume we are leaving out nice faces, eyes, hair etc as those are shared by ladies and dudes.
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I like women that don't look like all their hair has fallen out due to radical new medical treatments, but all women in today's media (especially porn) seem to think hair is evil unless it is above thier shoulders. There is nothing inherently wrong in having armpit hair, women. Don't believe the lies. It doesn't fall out on its own because it is supposed to grow there.
Quoted for Thank god men who think this way still exist.
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This is why the Lady Display is now in the chestical area as opposed to the rump as it was in the trees of Madagascar.
Well, I didn't realize your brain was broken. That's going to make this harder. I'm not going to suggest that you broaden your enjoyment of what can be sexy and exciting and beautiful, because you are clearly happy with the way things are. I will say that, because I find rumps and scents and armpit hair exciting, in addition to the things you like, I have more things to enjoy about my mate - not even to get into the fact that because of my personal proclivities, I double my chances of a date for Saturday night (as Woody Allen would say).
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So… Didn't a person of Finnish descent join this board not so long ago?
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Well we can go back to the concept of beauty as per a dozen of different philosophers, but I think this is the type of stuff that can't be explained. You either feel it or you don't. I for myself cannot bypass criteria (which is I would believe hardwired into our brains) such as an inherent fondness for harmony of parts, elegance, grace and so on, the sheer animal pleasure that the eye finds in observing a well-shaped object, be it a man's body or a woman's. Maybe it's the beauty that one finds in an object that expresses its potential to the maximum - I mean, have you seen some athletes performing, like swimmers, or marathonists? People who draw might have a heightened sense of that particular beauty - the tension, the weight and how the parts move together gracefully.
This is all of course separated from any sexual context, and when sex comes into play that's where it gets tricky. I think we can draw a line that starts from your invested interest in a certain gender, as a sexual person. If you're a man and straight, you might find the male form beautiful, but not attractive. As a straight man myself, that's how it happens with me: I find the female body beautiful and I'd like to perform hella raw stuff on/with it. The male body - hella beautiful, yes (am thinking right now of some battle scenes from the movie "300", with all those seminaked Spartans), but just as with a beautiful and well-constructed chair, that's where it stops. You mentioned that a strong dude's body makes you think about a machine for lifting heavy things - isn't it possible to think of a *beautiful* machine for lifting heavy things? You can see how a guy could get confused.
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And a dude is left with no answers.
It is as though I am asking how a man could be sexually attractive and y'all are saying "BUT IT'S IN THE BIBLE!"
This is no concrete argument, but a number of classical painters preferred to depict the male body rather than female because of the definition and greater complexity of muscle tone, rather than the smooth textures of the female.
Maybe a problem is that when people think of muscular dudes, the bodies that come to mind are usually the product of steriods. All bulging and out of proportion to the rest of the body, hulklike with poor flexibilty. For real, natural muscle, the best example I can think of is UFC fighters. Those dudes are bad-ass.
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If you're a man and straight, you might find the male form beautiful, but not attractive. As a straight man myself, that's how it happens with me: I find the female body beautiful and I'd like to perform hella raw stuff on/with it. The male body - hella beautiful, yes (am thinking right now of some battle scenes from the movie "300", with all those seminaked Spartans), but just as with a beautiful and well-constructed chair, that's where it stops.
Hey, I'm in agreement. I think the line between hetero and homo is a continuum, and when it comes down to it, there are few pure examples of either end of the spectrum. However, males are "enouraged" to represent as pure heteros, while females are "encouraged" to represent as bi. But the point wasn't someone saying "I am not attracted to males because I am straight". What was said was "I can't understand - the male form is ugly".
I think muscular, not overdone males are nice to look at. I like big arms and pecs and shoulders. The tight butt Wombles alluded to is just attractive to me. All the miscellanous male pieces and parts are appealing too. I can't understand looking at male parts and not finding them enjoyable. It makes sense to me that some men would look at other attractive males and not get turned on, but it doesn't make sense to me to look at other males and find them repugnant.
I mean, some men are hot. It's just a thing. You can say "I wouldn't get with him" but I can't see being honest with yourself and saying "Johnny Depp/Brad Pitt/Ewan MacGregor = not attractive".
Or if this was 20 years ago Tom Selleck/Burt Reynolds/you get the picture.
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This is no concrete argument, but a number of classical painters preferred to depict the male body rather than female because of the definition and greater complexity of muscle tone, rather than the smooth textures of the female.
Okay, now this is probably getting closer to the heart of what I was talking about. I hadn't thought of it that way.
The definition and complexity of muscle tone is just vulgar and animal to my tastes, I guess. I suppose I figured such things were that way to everyone and... like... people got used to such vulgarity because sex is fun.
But, man, there is something Deeply Inside Me that is repulsed by the animal because to be reminded that you are animal is to be reminded that you will die like an animal. A thought that I do not particularly care dwelling upon frequently.
The smooth textures are awesome. I love the smooth textures. That is pretty much what I am all about. This is why though I probably have very specific standards, I also am all about women who would be considered kinda chunky in terms of modeling and actress standards. Angles turn me the hell off. Super-skinny ladies and super-muscular ladies do little for me.
I just... I guess I figured that no one actually liked those things and just accepted them. I guess some people like to deal with unyielding and pointy things. Fair enough.
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I just... I guess I figured that no one actually liked those things and just accepted them. I guess some people like to deal with unyielding and pointy things. Fair enough.
You aren't really clear on how man-on-man sex works, are you?
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Well, I'm also not really that clear on how a... parachute works... because I would definitely dislike skydiving.
I'm happy that some people enjoy skydiving, I'm glad that it provides them joy. But it scares me to watch it and I ain't gonna try it. I will moulder in my grave without any regrets about not skydiving so... I pretty much do not need to know for parachutes.
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What type of gay porn would the Finnish produce? I am imagining a couple of fully-clothed men sitting around in a hotel room, drinking vodka and acting kind of dour. The presence of (double) subtitles suggests that they do speak to each other at some point.
Personally, I picture Tom of Finland, just on an international level.
(I would like to say I regret that my first two associations with the word "Finland" are extremely muscular, hypermasculine gay porn and Moomintrolls, but I can't actually say I do regret it...)
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I would like to say I regret that my first two associations with the word "Finland" are extremely muscular, hypermasculine gay porn and Moomintrolls, but I can't actually say I do regret it...
I'm afraid of both porn (specifically the non-clothiness) and Moomins, and now Finland sounds terrifying.
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Nabu just made me remember Smells hut-o-porn clerking days clean up of returned disks stories.
When will the heaving end in sympathy for the poor gob wiping clerk?
*aak*
Sorry, I came to this thread late, but... Whaaaat? You have imagined that sir. The porno shop was back in the days of the VHS, but this is beside the point: I've never been paid to clean jizz off anything.
Also, Chuano, the theatre I work at is about to tour "Comet in Moominland" to New York, and I get on pretty well with the actors. If you'd like I could arrange a private Moomin' Porno show to break you of both fears at once.
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Remember the time Chachi bought that wax spray that damaged Al's tables, Potsie's hair, and Fonzie's chopper saddle? And Fonzie vowed revenge? That shit was sick.
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Remember the time Chachi bought that wax spray that damaged Al's tables, Potsie's hair, and Fonzie's chopper saddle? And Fonzie vowed revenge? That shit was sick.
I'd tell you how to get a job working with me, but you'd just say shit like this all the time.
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But the point wasn't someone saying "I am not attracted to males because I am straight". What was said was "I can't understand - the male form is ugly".
That's why I said I thought it was a matter of getting it or not getting it... as for mentioning the sexual aspects, really, they're only inevitable in this type of discussion. Anyhow, please continue, it's hella (I'm saying hella too much, which is lame) it's groin-grabbingly interesting.
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I'd tell you how to get a job working with me, but you'd just say shit like this all the time.
I.... I.... damn.
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So… Didn't a person of Finnish descent join this board not so long ago?
Yes, Raymo Smookels. He is an inventor.
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I.... I.... damn.
All I can say in my defense is that these last two weeks at work have been especially trying.
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Personally, I picture Tom of Finland, just on an international level.
(I would like to say I regret that my first two associations with the word "Finland" are extremely muscular, hypermasculine gay porn and Moomintrolls, but I can't actually say I do regret it...)
I don't know what it says about me that my own first association with the word "Finland" was Pekka and Toivonen jokes. (http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20031104IE15) Probably nothing good.
Also, Chuano, the theatre I work at is about to tour "Comet in Moominland" to New York, and I get on pretty well with the actors. If you'd like I could arrange a private Moomin' Porno show to break you of both fears at once.
Would our hypothetical Moominporn involve the Hobgoblin's Hat? That could get interesting. Or should we go for a different approach, with BDSM Hattifattener sex and the Groke sitting on things?
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A fat dude looks like some sort of deformed animal, a muscular dude looks like a machine for lifting things, a skinny dude looks like a cartoon character.
The body of a fat man -- especially one who walks with confidence -- is an expression of pride in taking up space. It is luxuriously abundant, and undeniably real.
A muscular man's body is a machine for sailing halfway around the world -- for climbing high in a tall ship's rigging, and looking down at the sea.
A thin man's body is a window into the intricate mysteries of anatomy. It is a story of muscle sliding over bone, of bone hinging under muscle, of life beginning, of life changing, of life ending. It is, as you say, a reminder that we are animals, that we have been born, and that we are going to die.
And it is precisely this that makes it so blindingly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
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Oh, and as for the aesthetic appeal of man-parts: Let's just say that if the good doctor Pavlov showed you, say, a jar of mayonnaise every time you were about to get laid, you might start to find mayonnaise jars pretty easy on the eyes.
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This bi dude's perspective: Excessive hair on men and women is, while not actively repulsive, less attractive than shaving. I think c*ckes are not necessarily ugly, but frankly a little comical in structure. Whatever. They do the job. Think of pu$$ys (or, y'know, don't). When you were twelve (or whenever), did you find them appealing, or did their appeal grow as their function became clearer?
Otherwise, I think that while women are generally more aesthetically pleasing, men, particularly pleasantly muscled men, are staggeringly more attractive in their manliness.
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Oh, and as for the aesthetic appeal of man-parts: Let's just say that if the good doctor Pavlov showed you, say, a jar of mayonnaise every time you were about to get laid, you might start to find mayonnaise jars pretty easy on the eyes.
Yes, this is exactly right.
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This thread has been an interesting read for me. I have agreed with everything that Nabu has said... and yet I find myself on lfmets's side.
I agree, for instance, that hetero-to-homo is a sliding scale, not a binary switch. But I think I'm all the way to one side. If the scale has 100 grades, I would be hard-pressed to justify calling myself anything but 100-0 hetero. At the most, 99-1. Y'know, if I catch myself humming the tune of "America" from West Side Story or something.
I, too, have often wondered how so many people in the world could find men attractive. And I think mets's description of things does it for me. The female form has an elegance to it, a sort of... evolution to it. Maybe it's because, like Nabu said, society trends men towards straight, and women towards bi. Maybe in a more "enlightened" society, I would have been raised to appreciate the elegance and beauty of the male form. But I wasn't. As a result, I don't see it. And I don't really care to, either. The view is good from where I sit.
Again, strange. Nabu's ideas are intriguing to me, but I'm subscribing to lfm's newsletter.
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The body of a fat man -- especially one who walks with confidence -- is an expression of pride in taking up space. It is luxuriously abundant, and undeniably real.
Okay. I now know who I'm hiring to write my PR when I am Completely Famous.
You have made the physical manifestation of my laziness sound awesome.
The Pavlov's Wang explanation does make a good deal of sense.
My dad said he was the same way with "Terms of Endearment".
It is a Terrible Movie but it caused Mom to want to have sex with him so he eventually dug it.
This analogy is worthy and, indeed, can-worthy.
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the pavlov thing, that's not a stupid way to look at it. the important thing is the sex act itself, not the person who facilitates it. moreover, you're extremely vulnerable while having sex, so in terms of attraction we maintain some bigotries. you might be as englightened as anyone in terms of how you carry yourself, but sex with a person of another race, another gender, another age: these are terrifying prospects. these people LOOK unfamiliar, and so how could you ever know their motives??? won't they stab you when you come?
i think trust is a visceral response (e.g. this asian chick will never leave me, that's against her culture). i think every baby in the world is born trusting everyone, and after 3, 4 years, it's been hurt enough that it begins to lose some of that trust, for some people. and it won't describe those people in academic terms, not having access to language like that, but instead in how she might describle them to a sketch artist: height, skin color, attitude, tattoos... obvious things. and that's the end; it's as hard to reprogram yourself after being set in those views as it is to learn a new language when you're 30.
this is how i feel about the thing, but it's only my second post, and everybody here is a lot smarter than me (schmucks). a guy who doesn't like dicks is a guy who's afraid of dicks. this i'm sure of. likewise, homophobia is not a proper 'phobia'; rather, it's psychologically more similar to hivemind racehatred.
just be gentle. love is the message.
(i'm 80% gay and LOVE achewood, plus i'm pretty brittle, so don't get too rough on me. i'm a friend and ally!!!)
love,
adam
ps so screw you guys for being so down on teodor, who i've had a crush on ever since his archie haircut! http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12182001
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Two posts in and already at -6 cans. Nice work. Of course, your first post was pretty fucked. However, you are making an attempt at redeeming yourself, so what the hell. Keep trying, would ya?
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It's really funny to hear heterosexual men pontificating about gay culture and Kinsey's continuum.
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Well, we're also talking about alive stuffed animals and cats what talk.
I definitely know more homosexuals than alive stuffed animals and cats what talk, even though I am none of those three things.
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It's really funny to hear heterosexual men pontificating about gay culture and Kinsey's continuum.
Uhhhhh? It's a continuum! There's no such thing as a heterosexual.
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Uhhhhh? It's a continuum! There's no such thing as a heterosexual.
How is it more acceptable for a gay/bi dude to say that about heterosexuality, but if a straight dude said the same of homosexuality, everyone would be all over him about it? Not that I would condone the latter -- rather, I don't condone either. Meanwhile, I'm reading about kinsey's scale to see what you all are on about, and in the process, I discovered that he briefly attended my college, Stevens, and quite disliked his time there. Random facts.
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How is it more acceptable for a gay/bi dude to say that about heterosexuality, but if a straight dude said the same of homosexuality, everyone would be all over him about it? Not that I would condone the latter -- rather, I don't condone either. Meanwhile, I'm reading about kinsey's scale to see what you all are on about, and in the process, I discovered that he briefly attended my college, Stevens, and quite disliked his time there. Random facts.
Interesting. Get the boot.
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Would our hypothetical Moominporn involve the Hobgoblin's Hat? That could get interesting. Or should we go for a different approach, with BDSM Hattifattener sex and the Groke sitting on things?
c&
also terrified
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c&
also terrified
No no - don't be frightened, Ben. We're here for yooooouuuuuu!
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How is it more acceptable for a gay/bi dude to say that about heterosexuality, but if a straight dude said the same of homosexuality, everyone would be all over him about it?
Because it's about cultural imperialism. It's like a bunch of white dudes thinking that they have the right to explain blackness and the validity of the black culture. However, that being said...just because someone is a member of said minority does not necessarily make them an authority on the history and struggle of whichever group to which they happen to belong.
What all this means is that basically, I took a "queer studies" class in college and we spent a lot of time talking about Fouc*ult.
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However, that being said...just because someone is a member of said minority does not necessarily make them an authority on the history and struggle of whichever group to which they happen to belong.
I think that works both ways. I don't see why a bunch of white dudes necessarily can't explain blackness and the validity of black culture, even if in practice the vast majority are unlikely to be able to do so effectively or fairly. Surely to suggest otherwise just strengthens the notions of separateness that cause so very, very much fucked-upness wherever they appear?
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Well, I mean, this is the problem isn't it?
The assumption by each person within a minority (or even an oppressed minority) that their experience within that group IS that group's experience.
One of my closest friends in Los Angeles is a 6'8" musclebound black man with a shaved head who looks like he could basically kill your grandmother by punching you. Like retroactively. He could punch you and you would suddenly remember your gramma's funeral two years ago and start crying. He looks like he can punch through time.
And yet he is the first American-born member of a family of Nigerian immigrants who grew up in the 'burbs of St. Louis and has less connection with the "African American experience" than I do, even though I am a hayseed of Southern and Eastern European extraction.
His job is as an assistant web designer for a television network and his dream is to be a science-fiction novelist. He has severe difficulties with his dating life because... culturally, he wants to be dating a wispy thoughtful librarian type who in our culture are usually white girls in thick-rimmed glasses. And generally, those kind of girls are raised to be afraid of dudes who look like him.
Moreover, the kind of women... in Los Angeles, especially, but basically all of America... who will usually be comfortable dating a huge adonis of a dude of African descent tend to be very outgoing boisterous ladies and... those women scare the hell out of HIM.
Am I to arbitrate the... Catholic experience? The left-handed experience? The son-of-the-blue-collar-trying-to-make-it-in-entertainment experience? I don't know that I have any right to speak to any of those experiences, even though I am those things.
I fear that I am just as able to speak about any experience because no one can talk to any "experience"... except for their own personal experience. All else is vanity.
This is at least how I feel sometimes.
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From the gays and straights I have known, the only ones who are exclusively attracted to one sex are messed in the head. They are gay men who have extremely severe issues with women, or women who view other women as contemptible objects, or astoundingly misogynist straight men who consider being on the wrong end of penetration shameful Ancient Greek-style.
The average sports fan, Savage Love reports, has an erection 8 to 11 times over the course of a football game. This is, unless my meager knowledge of football fails me, almost (or more than) a boner every ten minutes. We are talking almost as much hole as cheese here. But talk to straight football fans about the man-sex they subconsciously want to have with the sculpted adonises on the field and they will have all kinds of nasty things to say because they are messed in the head.
I am pretty straight, but 'pretty' is the operative word here. I have known men who I find vaguely attractive. There's a tall redheaded dude I knew in high school who I would totally have made out with if the chicks I was more attracted to hadn't panned out. There's nothing exceptional about this; there is something to like about everybody. Sometimes the way you were brought up just prevents you from recognizing that.
If you got beat by your mother whenever you popped wood and you associate that with having an erection, chances are you're gonna have serious issues finding women attractive and will be gay by default. Or if you get molested by a relative, you could well have issues with that sex and wind up attracted to the other one. This is not to say that being one sexuality or the other hinges on being abused; hell no. But most gays you meet have been vaguely attracted to the opposite sex in the way I've been vaguely attracted to the same sex. Most gay women and straight men who do not have serious man issues have at least one male celebrity they would get it on with. (For me, it is Edward Norton.) It would be kind of awkward because tight asses and dicks and muscles aren't usually their thing, but there's something about them either aesthetically or as a person that clicks. Most gay men and straight women have at least one woman they can say the same of.
If someone is 100% absolutely attracted to one sex or the other, chances are it means they're lying to themselves at some level - maybe not even a level they're conscious of - and have issues with the other sex. I have never met anyone who is unattracted to anyone who their orientation can't explain who doesn't have Problems. The Problems don't even have to be serious damage - it could be something as small as being bullied as a kid at just the right time. Whatever it is, there's some monkey on their back making them feel bad whenever they're attracted to the 'wrong' person. It's the same as someone finding one race or nationality or religion or whatever universally unattractive. People are people, and letting one arbitrary thing get in the way of finding someone sexy is usually the result of deep-seated issues.
This is all my experience talking. I could go on theory for why all of this is, but I think my experience and the experience of those I know speaks for itself.
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Oh... I dunno, I'm open to the idea that there might be something off-kilter about my never having being attracted to a dude. Basically all of my major male role models were dead, insane or variously disgraced by the time I was twelve.
I could well have some kind of complex about maleness being flawed and corrupted and wrong. I am open to this idea.
Nearly everyone I've ever known is not pinning the needle to either end of the ol' Kinsey and... back home growing up, I was friends with pretty much all the people courageous enough to self-identify as bisexual or gay... to the point where I have found out later that there were girls who were gonna ask me out but assumed I was closeted gay because I hung out with all the gay and bi kids.
As opposed to the fact that gravitating toward the arts is just gonna get you in social circles with a lot of people of alternate sexual persuasions. I was head of the school newspaper, an actor in the drama club and volunteering up at the community college's radio station because our high school didn't have any kind of an AV club. I was singing parody songs at coffee houses.
In the perception of people in rural upstate New York, that is the opposite of owning a pair of boxer shorts with "exit only" printed on the butt. And it actually caused ladies to not date me. It boggles.
So I guess I could have a complex that is surpressing whatever little bit of swing for the dudes might be inside my genes, out of deeply ingrained problems about... having to be hyper-straight as a dude who liked ladies AND the arts in a small town or... about my grandfathers and uncles and cousins and stuff all being in really bad places.
I'm open to it but I must say, it doesn't resonate a true to me, consciously.
It feels like dudes are just ugly and animal-looking to me. But I'll admit that all minds are onions.
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The average sports fan, Savage Love reports, has an erection 8 to 11 times over the course of a football game. This is, unless my meager knowledge of football fails me, almost (or more than) a boner every ten minutes. We are talking almost as much hole as cheese here.
I'm trying to picture how this assertion was made. Self reporting (seems unlikely)? Observation of nude dudes watching The Game? That has a subtext to it that seems comical. Some sort of electronic cuff the researchers talked average sports watching fellows into wearing while chilling at home that was later downloaded and compared to time-stamped journals of activity? That would seem most objective, if not for the fact that erections seem to be self perpetuating once you're aware of any action going on down there, which (I would think) a cuff would sort of accentuate.
(http://www.humboldt.edu/~movement/images/225-stance.jpg)
Sculpted Adonises at play
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It feels like dudes are just ugly and animal-looking to me. But I'll admit that all minds are onions.
This is definitely a part of it. See, I couldn't find a woman (or a man, for that matter) physically attractive if I knew she was seriously ugly on the inside - like, a hardcore racist or a homophobe or a Jews for Jesus canvasser. On the one hand, she'd still look the same to me, but seeing what made me find her hot in the first place would just further remind me how horrible she is deep down.
Edward Norton isn't the best specimen, but he's by all accounts a pretty decent guy and I like him as an actor; he's got this weird soft-spokenness about him that prevents him from being himself on camera for lots of money like 90% of actors (and 99% of actresses). He's big on the environment and human rights and taught English in Japan before he was famous, which says something about his intelligence outside of acting.
I guess for me part of it is that most of attraction is personality-based, which makes judging who is cute to me based on looks a mug's game. But I think this is true for most people at least to some extent. Most men could not have sex with Ann Coulter without feeling dirty afterwards, just like most men could not have sex with a normal man without feeling dirty afterwards.
Basically looks aren't everything. They're important, which is why I find women attractive who have a lot less going on upstairs than it'd take for me to find a man attractive - I'm aesthetically attracted to the female form - but personality can trump them.
If it absolutely can't, if some part of looks are so important that you absolutely can't find someone attractive without them, there are usually some issues at play there. At the very least, upbringing takes some part in this: after all, the ancient Greeks considered you weird as a grown man if you didn't mostly prefer pubescent boys, and thought that men who exclusively went for women (whose purpose was to keep the house and produce more boys) were weird, almost the modern/Western equivalent of 'fruity'.
I'm trying to picture how this assertion was made. Self reporting (seems unlikely)? Observation of nude dudes watching The Game? That has a subtext to it that seems comical. Some sort of electronic cuff the researchers talked average sports watching fellows into wearing while chilling at home that was later downloaded and compared to time-stamped journals of activity? That would seem most objective, if not for the fact that erections seem to be self perpetuating once you're aware of any action going on down there, which (I would think) a cuff would sort of accentuate.
(http://www.humboldt.edu/~movement/images/225-stance.jpg)
Sculpted Adonises at play
I'll admit it's a little dubious, but I still find it pretty interesting - and based on how hard a lot of sports enthusiasts I've met overcompensate with the straight thing, it rings sort of true. I'll look for the link; I don't recall their methodology either.
But it makes a sort of sense: they're basically watching dudes who are the best at one of their favorite things do it as hard as possible, adrenaline and all. It's pretty easy to get your 'excited' wires crossed - we are animals, after all - and if you add an upbringing that encourages you to take that man-lust and bury it real deep instead of expressing it and leaving it well enough alone, well, you usually wind up with a situation.
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... to the point where I have found out later that there were girls who were gonna ask me out but assumed I was closeted gay because I hung out with all the gay and bi kids.
Doesn't that just kill you? I had a semi-similar thing happen when (years later) a lady I had once fancied told me she would have asked me out but she thought I was with a girl who was "just friends" with me. I felt like it was life-imitating-pathetic-sitcom.
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Doesn't that just kill you? I had a semi-similar thing happen when (years later) a lady I had once fancied told me she would have asked me out but she thought I was with a girl who was "just friends" with me. I felt like it was life-imitating-pathetic-sitcom.
The worst thing is that as soon as you wind up in your first relationship, people who liked you come out of the woodwork. In retrospect, I should have recognized that I was bored with my first relationship two weeks in and pursued all the trim I had been missing throughout high school.
There were readily a dozen or so women who had things of varying degrees for me, and yet I was so obsessed with my own crappiness as a person that I thought nobody could like me at all. Of course, I also got to thinking that the first girl who asked me out was the only girl who could like me at all, so I hung onto that longer than was healthy.
Live and learn, I guess.
Also, let this be a lesson to any lurkers: try and find a lull in Onstad's latent man-on-man issues to pop in, otherwise people are gonna think you are like a character in a bad sitcom who has wacky misunderstandings in relationships. People will read your posts and think you are a dude from a show whose writers looked at Friends and thought it threw too many curve balls. You will be like the version of Chandler who gets his hair done at Supercuts to these people.
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Most gay women and straight men who do not have serious man issues have at least one male celebrity they would get it on with. (For me, it is Edward Norton.)
The first time I read that, I parsed it as GRAHAM Norton.
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I think whatever your sexuality, desiring Graham Norton is an extremely clear sign of serious psychological issues.
I used to find my sexuality somewhat baffling, because although I can see the appeal of the male form and have known many guys with personalities I'd go for, I have never found myself attracted to a man even if I rationally think I should be. I don't like being that aware of my social conditioning, so it worried me for a while.
Sadly for this story, I just wrote it off as not something that was likely to affect me enough to worry about. It might indicate that something in my head could be radder, but I don't really see any more reason that I should be concerned by it than I by the abnormal size of my first toes.
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If you got beat by your mother whenever you popped wood and you associate that with having an erection, chances are you're gonna have serious issues finding women attractive and will be gay by default.
I don't think the logic here works. I think if you were beat by your mother every time you had an erection, you would probably turn out pretty fucked up, but the only way you are going to turn out gay is if you start out gay. You may have some kind of weird sexual issue with older women, but child abuse doesn't turn people gay (or make them straight if they aren't already).
This is all my experience talking. I could go on theory for why all of this is, but I think my experience and the experience of those I know speaks for itself.
I appreciate the disclaimer, and I will say that my mileage varies a great deal.
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This is really interesting, though, what you bring up, Nabu...
How do we reconcile the basically-accepted-truth that sexuality is inborn and the basically-accepted-truth that sexuality is a gradual range from completely (or effectively-completely) gay to completely (or effectively-completely) straight and everywhere in-between?
If we accept both of these things, we've got some sticky things to figure out in the gray area between them, you know?
Though the general sway of someone's sexuality somewhere in that range is pretty undisputably set in the womb... aren't we still swayed within our own range by later environmental influences?
Couldn't someone be "mostly gay" or "mostly straight" but be driven to the extreme of their range by a family or cultural influence? Couldn't someone who is pretty much down the line bisexual be pushed into almost solely exploring one side or the other, for reasons that... aren't about prejudice or fear but just their own preferences from their own experience?
Not to get too personal... but my significant lady is, in terms of preference, in terms of who she notices and what she has fantasy about... if anything slightly leaning toward the lesbian side of bi.
But with me, with this particular male, in this particular situation, she claims to be completely content and has for... seven years now. Even though she only dated girls a little bit and never got past "second base" with another lady... and she went to the gayest public college in America, SUNY-Purchase, where if anything the expectation was to be gay...
She's mostly dated boys, myself included. No one would've disowned her, she wouldn't have lost any jobs or friends... in fact, she lost some friends at college for getting long-term with a guy... but for her own internal reasons, despite being very much bi in terms of libido, she's generally been interpersonally more comfortable dating guys.
One of my best friends from high school, he is the exact opposite... pretty close to down the line bi, but most of his significant relationships have been with other men.
I don't think my girlfriend is lying to me and... I don't think my friend Adam is lying to me, either.
There's gray area between sexuality and actual sexual expression, I guess I'm saying, and there's an interplay there between how you were born and how you were influenced along the way to who you are now.
I just wouldn't wanna be reductive about it, to either direction.
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I don't think the logic here works. I think if you were beat by your mother every time you had an erection, you would probably turn out pretty fucked up, but the only way you are going to turn out gay is if you start out gay. You may have some kind of weird sexual issue with older women, but child abuse doesn't turn people gay (or make them straight if they aren't already).
Well, not in the sense you mean when you say 'gay'. 'Gay by default', I should probably have said, isn't necessarily 'gay' in the sense of you're attracted to the same sex - but in the sense that the opposite sex is absolutely repellent to you for whatever reason. 'Straight by default' would be the opposite, and there's probably a lot more of those than the other way around.
Yeah, sexuality is pretty complex. I've always been on board the Freudian assertion that people are basically bisexual, but I could be wrong. It's probably perfectly possible to be Rigidly Straight(tm) without any kind of trauma back there, but it's still basically artificial - or at least as artificial as being rigidly and exclusively enthusiastic for Ancient Greek-style boy-love would be.
And yeah, I'm thinking attraction to Graham Norton is what happens when you don't got anyone to sexualize by default. There isn't 'gay' or 'straight' when it comes to sex with Graham Norton - only 'jesus Christ why are you doing that'.
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my psych professor was a gay man who was married to a lady. he did not see this as a problem. You see, he explained, he loved his wife. He did not particularly care which set of parts she had.
When they got divorced, though, he fucked dudes apparently.
also: his theories about sexuality development were really weird.
also: it is weird to me that he was my current psych professor's mentor when he was in school.
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Interestingly, my girlfriend once had a psych professor who refered to transsexuals as "the ultimate gender conformists" because... instead of living their lives however they want in all the ways masculine, feminine, neither and both as those traits and situations come along, they go through years of drugs and dangerous surgeries to be... as much like one binary extreme as they have felt to be the other as medically possible.
Suffice it to say, his theories weren't appreciated at SUNY-Purchase.
Gender and sexuality is, in some ways, THE most interesting field in the study of people because... it is based on a binary that is completely in no way a binary but also... completely a binary.
As much range as there is between "man" and "woman" and "gay" and "straight" and as completely fucked up as our perceptions of what they all mean are...
We're still stuck with needing a sperm from a human teste and an egg from a human ovary to make a new human.
The battle to reconcile (or not reconcile) that conflicting set of truths is fuck*ng FASCINATING.
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yeah. I mean... I kind of agree? It seems to me that I am not a very manly guy in any way, but I do not find this in conflict with the fact that I am a dude. I can understand transexuals, at least, but some of the other ones just seem... I don't know. I can understand thinking that you should have been born a man instead of a woman, or vice-versa, but being all "traditional gender boundaries do not define me! stop forcing me into a false gender binary!" is just a little too bullshit for me. Our "Pride Alliance" group on campus is officially called "GLBTQQIA Alliance" or something and it's like... gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-queer-questioning-intersex-ally alliance.
I mean... why. Why are these necessary.
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my psych professor was a gay man who was married to a lady. he did not see this as a problem. You see, he explained, he loved his wife. He did not particularly care which set of parts she had.
Sex is only a small part of a sucessful marriage. Love and sex are two entirely different things.
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Sex is only a small part of a sucessful marriage. Love and sex are two entirely different things.
Mr. West has it.
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True. But...
a.) Most of the people I've known with strong relationships that lasted started with physical chemistry that slowly evolved into love, as opposed to starting with some other kind of affection that shoehorned itself into passion.
and
b.) Generally, a sexless marriage eventually becomes a... marriage where one or both parties start having sex with someone outside of the marriage. And, while if both people know and agree to that, it can work... most of the time, one party or the other changes their mind or was lying about being cool with it and... it stops being a marriage. And in any event, whether a marriage is still a marriage if people are sleeping outside of that marriage is... debateable to say the least.
Sex is only a part of a relationship. Not the biggest part, usually. But an essential part even if a small one.
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yeah. also, I mean, they had kids, so... I assume it worked out for them?
This wasn't one of those depressing "I didn't know I was gay" ones either-- he told her when they were dating that he was mostly a gay man, but that he was really into her regardless. She was OK with this, which is impressive considering the era (early-mid 60's).
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True. But...
a.) Most of the people I've known with strong relationships that lasted started with physical chemistry that slowly evolved into love, as opposed to starting with some other kind of affection that shoehorned itself into passion.
and
b.) Generally, a sexless marriage eventually becomes a... marriage where one or both parties start having sex with someone outside of the marriage. And, while if both people know and agree to that, it can work... most of the time, one party or the other changes their mind or was lying about being cool with it and... it stops being a marriage. And in any event, whether a marriage is still a marriage if people are sleeping outside of that marriage is... debateable to say the least.
Sex is only a part of a relationship. Not the biggest part, usually. But an essential part even if a small one.
I think you have a tendency to overstate things without actually having much information to back up your positions. How do you know this about marriages? I mean, do you have citations to back up that most sexless marriages end up with one or both partners going outside the marriage for sexual pleasure? And I'd like to hear your debate about a marriage not being a marriage if a member is finding sexual pleasure outside the marriage. What if one partner is unable to consummate relations?
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Regarding nature vs. nurture in re: sexuality:
The expression of genotype as phenotype is the result of interactions between hereditary and environmental factors.
101 stuff here.
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The "Most of the people I've known..." should have been applied to both (a.) and (b.)... I thought it was implied but I'm trying to be less parenthetic around here so as to be less wordy.
I am only speaking from the people I have known in my life, as a person who has known a lot of people and lived in a few different cultural settings and is fairly young.
As for the rest:
My personal definition of a marriage allows for sexual pleasure outside the marriage if it is honestly agreed to by both parties and is reaffirmed as agreed to on a fairly frequent basis, yes.
But I'm a pretty liberal guy. A whole lot of people would differ.
Most Western interpretations of monotheism, as are prevalent in North America and Europe and generally the English speaking world, deal with marriage as a two-person sexual exclusivity.
Even most of the Christian and Jewish... and also most of the Hindu, Buddhist, etc traditions as they are extant in the Americas... even those traditions that embrace same-sex marriage embrace it the exclusive union of two partners.
And what is marriage if it is not a religious covenant and/or a legal agreement? A legal agreement that is often broken in court on the grounds of... sexual infidelity.
If we're not talking about the prevaling religious parameters of marriage and we're not talking about the prevaling legal parameters of marriage... we're left with our individual and personal definitions of marriage.
And yours and mine, Nabu, are not the vast majority opinion of marriage.
And... because of that... because the culturally engrained image of marriage is for so very many an image that includes a sexuality and a sexual exclusivity, most of the people I'VE KNOWN who've tried to take a marriage out of those bounds, one party or the other gets worked up about the prevaling definition of marriage and... no more marriage.
There are islands of personal definition that stand strong, no question.
But most people I've known will eventually give into their preconceived notions about a thing if the going gets tough. It is a very difficult to fight human reflex. Very few of us can be the Muadib, unmoving with our hand in the pain box, if you follow.
Most of the romantic relationships I've known where one member is unable or unwilling to have sex, either the unable/unwilling partner learned to allow the other to get sex outside of the marriage or the partnership eventually dissolved.
The only exceptions I've known have been in the cases of the elderly where, y'know, both of their libidos were faded to the point where sexuality was biologically less of an issue more or less equally.
I ain't married. I might never get married, there are times when I don't know if I believe in it, there are times when my girlfriend knows that she doesn't believe in it. It is very similar to our positions on the idea of a higher power in those respects.
But I've known a lot of people in a range of lifestyles and these are the things I've seen.
I still say, though, that I can't think of a case where two people in a long-term relationship equivalent to a marriage or a marriage where one or both of them still had a libido and... the situation of trying to find sex outside of the marriage didn't end with one of them eventually falling back on old morals and deciding its "wrong" or the other falling in love with the lover outside the marriage or some other collapse of the agreement that such an arraignment is good.
This is probably a cultural artifact and not a biological one but it seems to be a strong cultural artifact.
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Fair enough, sir. Your posts have been most edifying.
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The fight against the ingrained cultural assumptions that lie inside our hearts and minds that prevent us from following our bliss and being humane is pretty much THE Good Fight, there is no doubt about it, Nabu. I am with that fight as you seem to be, as well.
But I'm not going to pretend that most people who try to make the big leaps against those assumptions don't... end up hitting snags and come crawling back to the pain that they knew before.
"Finding Jesus" "being born again" "going back to moral values" "reconsidering traditions".
All that bullshit that basically translates to "I'd rather be normal than happy"...
Most of the people I've known have staggered and fallen in the face of that... especially in the cases where more than one person was on that journey. A couple or a family or something.
The more people involved in that journey, the higher the odds that someone's gonna give up.
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And what is marriage if it is not a religious covenant and/or a legal agreement? A legal agreement that is often broken in court on the grounds of... sexual infidelity.
A deep emotional agreement between two people.
I've been married for almost 19 years now. Neither of us are religious (spiritual maybe, but not relgious). The legal aspects of our marriage relate to how our property and obligations would be divided should be decide to part.
But neither religious nor legal reasons has a thing to do with why we married, why we've stayed together and why I expect we'll be together until we die.
On some level, Mrs. West and I are good for each other. We support each other emotionally, physically and spiritually. When we recognized that we made a committment to each other to continue to support each other as long as possible.
Money and Hell are secondary considerations at best.
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The fight against the ingrained cultural assumptions that lie inside our hearts and minds that prevent us from following our bliss and being humane is pretty much THE Good Fight, there is no doubt about it, Nabu. I am with that fight as you seem to be, as well.
But I'm not going to pretend that most people who try to make the big leaps against those assumptions don't... end up hitting snags and come crawling back to the pain that they knew before.
"Finding Jesus" "being born again" "going back to moral values" "reconsidering traditions".
All that bullshit that basically translates to "I'd rather be normal than happy"...
Most of the people I've known have staggered and fallen in the face of that... especially in the cases where more than one person was on that journey. A couple or a family or something.
The more people involved in that journey, the higher the odds that someone's gonna give up.
Well, I was lucky in terms of who agreed to share the journey with me.
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Well, I am genuinely very glad that both August and Nabu found partners like that and created their own definitions of marriage with their wifes that work for them. That's what matters. penisltov.
Many many people haven't. Many people would say that if not for religion or contract, such people have "wonderful relationships" or "wonderful partnerships" but not "marriages".
Those people would be assholes who I in no way agree with.
Sadly, those people are generally In Charge Of Things.
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Well, I am genuinely very glad that both August and Nabu found partners like that and created their own definitions of marriage with their wifes that work for them. That's what matters. penisltov.
Many many people haven't. Many people would say that if not for religion or contract, such people have "wonderful relationships" or "wonderful partnerships" but not "marriages".
Those people would be assholes who I in no way agree with.
Sadly, those people are generally In Charge Of Things.
You spend enough time in the box, you'll hit one over the fence.
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Many many people haven't. Many people would say that if not for religion or contract, such people have "wonderful relationships" or "wonderful partnerships" but not "marriages".
Those people would be assholes who I in no way agree with.
Who the fuck cares what those assholes say? A true marriage is between two people and two people only. I truly hope that you find someone to marry on these terms LFM -- I believe you deserve it, because I believe you are a good guy.
Also, I'm going to bed now because Mrs. West just got home from work. And, I'm tired of being drunkenly garrulous on the interent.
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Who the fuck cares what those assholes say? A true marriage is between two people and two people only. I truly hope that you find someone to marry on these terms LFM -- I believe you deserve it, because I believe you are a good guy.
Also, I'm going to bed now because Mrs. West just got home from work. And, I'm tired of being drunkenly garrulous on the interent.
I would like to point out here that as far as I am concerned, a true marriage need not be limited to two people. However, all members should be human for best results.
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It don't matter to me what those assholes think.
And... I'm in a long-term relationship with the only person I've ever even CONSIDERED marrying.
I'm a pretty happy dude.
I'm just sayin'... most of the people I've known who've tried something other than a sexually-exclusive two-person relationship for a long period of time have collapsed under jealousy or some other re-emergence of caring about what those assholes think.
If both people are completely into some other idea of the form and it works for them, as Nabu seems to be suggesting he and his wife are into in some way, I am completely happy for them.
If we had more people with the strength to be happy on their own terms, shit would work better.
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Who the fuck cares what those assholes say?
The IRS, for starters. Part of why Sam and I aren't getting married until it's legal for everyone is that several of our gay friends have been in long-term relationships and if one of them were on his or her (mostly her, but that is because American men have ants in their #####) deathbed the other one would not have power of attorney or be able to provide insurance or anything. It is unfortunate in all kinds of ways living in a country where assholes who are OK with Britney Spears marrying a man for five minutes but not OK with one dude marrying another run shit.
Unfortunately, when people act a dick it is everyone's problem in at least a little way. Even when they are marginal and obscure - the world is basically poorer for the Westboro Baptist assholes being the subject of mass-media attention. Thanks to their asinine business, there is at least one preacher out there who will be more comfortable castigating gays openly instead of just going after their practices, and one more red-state gay teenager who would have had a decent enough upbringing being denied it because his parents are impressionable when it comes to 900-foot Jesuses.
Never underestimate the power of one man or one lady to make a difference - whether he or she is a power for good or for Dick.
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I would like to point out here that as far as I am concerned, a true marriage need not be limited to two people. However, all members should be human for best results.
Well, aren't you prejudiced.
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On the flip side, my SO and I aren't married, but after two years of living in a conjugal relationship, my gov't considers us common law. I feel sort of ambivalent and annoyed by this, especially since I think I never want to be married to anyone, but it's a choice that was taken away from me. The law came into place at the time as we were about to hit the two year mark (it used to be seven years). Did I want to be legally bound to my partner and give him the right to half of my stuff and become personally responsible for half of his fairly large debt (which was amassed from a previous, bad relationship)? No. I wanted to be free to make the choice when and if I wanted to. The law came in to place before gay marriage was legalized here, as a way of protecting and recognizing partnerships not legally classified as marriage at the time, but for a young strait couple who were just messing around, it's sort of unfair. We've hit some rocky roads recently, and though I think things are getting worked out, I can't deny that knowing I contributed much much more financially to our relationship - and his massive debt - scares the hell out of me.
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Unfortunately, when people act a dick it is everyone's problem in at least a little way.
Truth.
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New York Times - Pas de Deux of Sexuality is Written in Genes (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/health/10gene.html?ex=1333857600&en=87d00a870b9db178&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink).
I thought of this thread after reading this article. It seems to basically say that men are hardwired one way or another, but women are without sexuality - they're just picky, and they usually choose men.
Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men. In experiments in which subjects are shown photographs of desirable men or women, straight men are aroused by women, gay men by men.
Such experiments do not show the same clear divide with women. Whether women describe themselves as straight or lesbian, “Their sexual arousal seems to be relatively indiscriminate — they get aroused by both male and female images,” Dr. Bailey said. “I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men.”
Dr. Bailey believes that the systems for sexual orientation and arousal make men go out and find people to have sex with, whereas women are more focused on accepting or rejecting those who seek sex with them.
Similar differences between the sexes are seen by Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist at Michigan State University. “Most males are quite stubborn in their ideas about which sex they want to pursue, while women seem more flexible,” he said.
Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth. “I think most of the scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth,” Dr. Breedlove said, “whereas for females, some are probably born to become gay, but clearly some get there quite late in life.”
So basically it seems like they're saying that sexuality is only fluid for women. Which seems fitting.
Anyway, read the article, it's really fascinating.
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So basically it seems like they're saying that sexuality is only fluid for women. Which seems fitting.
Fluid in the sense that it legitimately changes over your life or... fluid in the sense of "true" bisexuality?
Because those are two way way different things.
If you're saying that a Kinsey "number" is much more concrete for men from the start than women... I probably agree.
But some people would probably also use this information to argue that men can't be nearly-down-the-middle-bisexual, that a man claiming to be bi would actually be either a gay man who can't embrace his gay completely or a straight man getting off on the taboo and... I don't know if I dig that idea so much.
I don't think that's what you're saying, Rumjay, but... like... I think people would use this to say that.
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But some people would probably also use this information to argue that men can't be nearly-down-the-middle-bisexual, that a man claiming to be bi would actually be either a gay man who can't embrace his gay completely or a straight man getting off on the taboo and... I don't know if I dig that idea so much.
I think that's what the article's saying. Other studies I've read about have suggested similar things - that men who are truly bisexual are rare.
This is a copout, but I'm not really saying anything. Science is science, fallible as anything else. I don't think that bi men are impossible. But, even if most men are wired into a binary, surely the wires of some men will get crossed.
The thing about women seems pretty right on the money though - in keeping with what I've seen at women's college
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I guess... as a dude who pins the needle to the straight edge of the range, I'm just not comfortable with that particular paint brush of male sexuality. I mean, as a dude who has never had a thing for a dude and kind of can't picture it, I'm so afraid of making assumptions from my own leanings that, like, I have this weird reverse reaction to it.
As if to say "as a dude who is as straight as the spectrum allows, I have no right to judge those in-between."
Plus one of my best friends from high school, he's always been trapped by those stereotypes, as a... very feminine man who claims to be a down-the-line bisexual who was closeted about it until his middle twenties.
When he was a teenager, he "talked himself out" of his desire for men because he dug some women too and... now that he's out as a bisexual and seriously dating another dude, he's got the other problem, where people now assume that all of his relationships with women were lies which... he vehemently claims they were not.
He claims, even now that he's engaged to a fellow in Arizona, the last girl he dated in upstate New York, he would've married if she had accepted his proposal and he still regrets that she didn't.
So dude's kind of a man without a country, sexually, and... I've always felt bad about his situation.
Gay AND straight people... well intentioned gay and straight people... are impressing onto him, like, this narrative where he was always this closeted gay man who was dating girls in high school and college despite outwardly fitting every stereotype of an American homosexual male since late elementary school and... that he's for some reason still living a lie by calling himself bisexual while marrying a dude.
The range of sexual expression and desire is fuckin' fascinating to me. I grew up with a butch lesbian who would be shacking up with a new serial-monogamist every two or three years as my next door neighbor and so... I didn't even "know" it was supposed to be weird until I was like ten or something.
I was one of those boys who never had a "girls are icky" phase. I had crushes on girls from pre-school and they never stopped, it's just that around twelve the sexual part of the deal dawned on me. I faked the girls are icky thing to fit in better socially but, man, I never believed it.
So a lady liking other ladies seemed perfectly normal to me. What Mom saw in my big fat hairy dad was more of the question.
(I love my dad, by the by, but he isn't a handsome dude. I'm not a handsome dude, either. I'm just bein' honest.)
And the fact that... my girlfriend is bi and if anything digs girls a bit more than guys on average and... that my brother is incredibly coy about his sexuality, has never had a steady girlfriend and only rarely dates... just amplifies my fascination with how this all actually works.
We are all, as humans, rich tapestries of interests and traits and paradox but... a person's sexuality, not just their orientation but their entire sexuality, is one of the biggest and most important parts of that mosiac.
That's why if I'm ever successful enough to just write spec scripts knowing someone will make them, I'm gonna write a script about that all-gay high school in NYC and the most popular lesbian and the most popular gay dude falling in love and trying to hide it so that they don't become social pariahs. With a subplot about a straight guy trying to "pass" as gay because he wants to be an actor and they have the best acting department in the city. And John Waters as the girl's dad and the owner of a clothing store called "Buy Curious".
But... I would have to write it with a gay or bisexual writing partner so that I wouldn't get murdered for it.
I am sort of a pragmatist about being extreme.
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tl;dr
TL;DR
TL;DR
TL; DR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* Too Long; Didn't Read
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Jesus H. Christ, what a bullshit study. Womens are made for makin' babies, let's find another way to subjugate lesbians. I think their data are/is flawed. With the fact that the medical community is in the fuck*ng Dark Ages about women's ANATOMY (such as the Grafenberg spot or urethral sponge or female ejaculation) which some physicians don't believe exist...I highly doubt that their method of measuring female "excitability" was accurate.
Sure, there are girls at college who "experiment". Personal observation can't necessarily be extrapolated to represent the entirety of humanity.
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I'm not prepared to say that the study is bullshit -- I haven't read the primary source, after all, and these things tend to be distorted by secondary reporting very badly -- but I am always skeptical of studies that claim a) a total genetic correlation to the current societal status quo, and/or b) a reliance on the idea that men are always sexually aggressive and women are always sexually receptive, when in fact there is ample evidence from both the human and zoological world for females as sexual initiators. I do find it interesting, though, that the same female-receptive dynamic that used to be used to "explain" women not having a sex drive is now being used to "explain" women having a bisexual sex drive.
I honestly don't have the evidence to say whether or not there is any biological element to this; certainly, there may be. On the other hand, I think we all have ample anecdotal evidence about bisexual/sexually-flexible men and Kinsey-0-or-6 women, and I do think it's interesting that biological evidence for female sexual flexibility comes at a time when the sociosexual culture of the nation is fixated on the ideal of the stunningly attractive, somewhat confused Kinsey-2-or-3 woman, usually one just lesbian enough to make her an interesting conquest.
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Yeah, is that female ejaculation thing real? I've seen it in porno and it doesn't look real to me. I mean i've made women so wet the sheets needed changing, but it didn't come gushing out.
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Paul. It is real.
I don't get the appeal, though. It was kind of an awkward situation for everyone involved.
Also, this makes sense to me. I'd have to read the real study, though. And then have someone who's an actual scientist explain it to me, so I could be sure they weren't just... blinding me with science.
PS I may be biased because the way they explain female sexuality is kind of close to the theory my psych professor at Cornell taught us, except he applied it to everyone.
Weird parallel fact: he was a gay man who was married to a lady, and he did not think this was a problem. This may have been part of the reason for his theory.
additional weird fact: I found out recently that he taught psychology to my current psych professor (at wash U).
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Yeah, is that female ejaculation thing real? I've seen it in porno and it doesn't look real to me.
We TALKED about this! (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,2084.0.html)
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We TALKED about this! (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,2084.0.html)
Yeah, you see I fell way behind on reading this board. I'm nearly caught up now, but that is one I missed.
Thank you for the Education.
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I dunno. I don't really buy "genetics as indicator of sexuality" either, I just thought it was interesting.
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Paul thought that he would get all the Education he needed without us because he is going to school. But now he sees the error of his ways.