Better than staring out the window

I wanted a drink; a gin and tonic, to be precise. A reward for finishing a project I’d been laboring on for the past three months, in a day where I’d also been tested (declining irregular contracted nouns in the third declension in Ancient Greek) and flitted back and forth to campus four times on foot to hand in a shorter project on time (also completed today). But I was afraid to ask if you’d like to go, or even to go myself, by myself; I didn’t want to give you further, secret ammunition to use against me. 

I was dumbstruck the first time you used drinking as a weapon against me; deliberately leading the conversation here in the middle of a fight on completely unrelated territory, wondering if I were an alcoholic, in so many words. Apparently tallying the drinks I bought myself to unwind, evidence of money I selfishly spent on myself. Not so innocently, though you gave no indication at any time that this might be a problem, and so I went merrily along, thinking I was, in your eyes as in my own, having a drink for fun. My right, my minor indulgence in a fairly serious-minded, spare year.

Wanting one now, I have to wonder what you’ll think. Yes, I accomplished something I’ve been working on for a long time, and yes I worked hard all day and have been working hard for a while now. But I had a beer earlier. I wonder that you’ll think that wanting a drink after a long day is physical dependence. I wonder that you’ll point to this day in specific as evidence that I don’t value you (I still don’t understand how that argument goes). 

I find myself becoming irritated, just sitting here on the couch stewing, wanting that drink. Watching you build across the room, feeling matronly and tightly strung in my best boots and my red top and my tight black jeans. Blonde bangs in my face, putting the same stale water into the kettle, to boil it for the third time.

When I have sex, I don’t just get off on my own kinks and my own pleasure. I also get off on my partner’s pleasure. The sight, the sound, the feel, of someone in my bed who’s getting excited and getting off… that’s hot. It’s not particularly selfless or noble of me — it’s just hot. The more I care about someone, the more true that is… And if you can’t get off on the sight and sound and feel of your partner’s pleasure — even if what you’re doing isn’t your particular favorite thing — then what the hell are you doing in a sexual / romantic relationship?

Greta Christina’s Blog: Broccoli or Tofu? Sexual Differences in Relationships

I was averse to even oral sex for the longest time because men use “cocksucker” as an insult… I question/correct my boyfriend any time he uses “sucks dick” to mean something is negative. If he wants me to do nice things for him, he needs to acknowledge that they are nice things.

Comment by dormouse on Feminist Critique of Hetero Male Culture Causes Mass MRA Hysteria

At the same time as anal penetration is held up in hetero male culture as the ultimately painful/humiliating/unpleasant experience, it’s also held up as one of the premium sexual experiences any man can have - IF he’s on the penetrating end. The plethora of articles in men’s magazines and on men’s websites that instruct men on how to get their girlfriend/wife to have anal sex is staggering…

If anal penetration is the horrible, painful, humiliating thing you imagine it to be, why would you ever want a woman you love, or one you respect and to whom you’re attracted, to experience it? If it’s this horrendous experience, why, oh why, are you expending so much energy trying to inflict it on someone else? And if you expect women to be open to trying it, why continue to use it as the ultimate analogy for all things negative? Don’t you think we hear you when you talk? Don’t you think we get that you associate anal sex with pain and humiliation?

Feminist Critique of Hetero Male Culture Causes Mass MRA Hysteria

Human beings took our animal need for palatable food … and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species … and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took our capacity to make and use tools … and turned it into the Apollo moon landing. We took our uniquely precise ability to communicate through language … and turned it into King Lear.

None of these things are necessary for survival and reproduction. That is exactly what makes them so splendid. When we take our basic evolutionary wiring and transform it into something far beyond any prosaic matters of survival and reproduction … that’s when humanity is at its best. That’s when we show ourselves to be capable of creating meaning and joy, for ourselves and for one another. That’s when we’re most uniquely human.

And the same is true for sex. Human beings have a deep, hard-wired urge to replicate our DNA, instilled in us by millions of years of evolution. And we’ve turned it into an intense and delightful form of communication, intimacy, creativity, community, personal expression, transcendence, joy, pleasure, and love. Regardless of whether any DNA gets replicated in the process.

Why should we see this as sinful? What makes this any different from chocolate souffles and King Lear?

Greta Christina (Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies)

It also got me thinking again about the trope that most bisexuals will eventually “choose one” by settling down in a monogamous relationship with a person who, presumably, has a gender. And while this is not necessarily true… I’m frustrated by the way people react to it when it is true. Bisexuals who settle down with either a man or a woman are not finally choosing a side, admitting to being either straight or gay. This seems so obvious to me, yet seems to escape most people. Choosing monogamy is just that — choosing monogamy. That’s all.

Bi-Furious!

Current favorite science article title: "Cohn M. 1986. The concept of functional idiotype network for immune regulation mocks all and comforts none. Annals de l'Institut Pasteur/l'mmunologie (Paris) 137C:64-76.20."

I get in fights with people. They say, “I don’t support gay marriage because it goes against my religious belief.” I say, “Well, fuck you, then.” That’s my answer to everything. I’m sick of explaining to people why we deserve equality. I jump ahead to the “Fuck you, then” argument.

Margaret Cho

As one of my bisexual male friends said recently, ‘When people say bisexual men don’t exist, it cracks me up. Would you like to hook me up to some wires and machines and have me watch both gay and straight porn to see that both will increase my heart rate and give me a hard-on?’ When I told him that study had actually been done, which supposedly proved that bisexual men were just “liars,” he quipped, ‘I’ve done that study on my own a few times. I liked the results.’

9 Stupid Myths About Bisexuals That Will Make You Laugh | | AlterNet

In sixth grade, the same year that puberty hit me with irrevocable force, I had an art teacher, Mr. Blake. (This dates me: few public middle schools have art teachers anymore.) I’ll never forget his solemn declaration that great artists all acknowledged that the female form was more beautiful than the male. He made a passing crack that “no one wants to see naked men, anyway”—and the whole class laughed. “Ewwww,” a girl sitting next to me said, evidently disgusted at the thought of a naked boy. In time, I discovered that Mr. Blake was wrong about this so-called artistic consensus. But it took me a lot longer to unlearn the damage done by remarks like his and by the conventional wisdom of my childhood. I came into puberty convinced both that my male body was repulsive and that the girls for whom I longed were flawless.

Men are dirty and disgusting, women are pure and flawless. Right? — The Good Men Project Magazine

Same-sex marriage used to happen in Christianity.

Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual. Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century).

There is no sex position or sex act which is inherently dominant, submissive, or neutral. None. The characterization of every single sex act depends on context, a context which comes from a person’s history and the relationship between them and their partner. This is where a number of feminists and BDSM enthusiasts have gone wrong, positioning some things (being the penetrative partner, receiving oral sex) as always dominant, and their complement as always submissive.

Wait, how can the missionary position be forceful? | No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?

One of the most common biphobic narratives is that the penis is what counts. A woman who has sex with men is really straight, even if she also fucks women; a man who has sex with men is really gay, even if he also fucks women. If a man fucks a man, even once, he is forever corrupted from the heights of heterosexual masculinity.

Bisexual Men, Like, Exist And Stuff | No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?

I am not kidding when I say that I find incredibly esoteric and specialized porn to be one of the most life-affirming things in the world. Even… no, especially the stuff that doesn’t do anything for me. Every giantess crush site, every furry vore gallery, every Shintaro Kago shit-and-dissection-fest, every body-inflation discussion group, every set of specialized apron-fetish films, every dendrophile fan club, every time I learn a new word like “boytaur” or “OT3″ or “docking” or “unbirth”… all these things bring me a genuine and unironic joy. These things, these kinks, these flights of imagination, are the impassioned obsessions of real people, everyday people. At least one of your coworkers, at least one of your family members. And that’s not creepy, that’s wonderful. Every one of those weird kinks is a shout of human individuality in a world that wants to reduce us down to buying patterns and demographic trends.

Why I Love Weird Porn | No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?

What those trying to aggressively market an ever more “exotic sex life” fail to realize is that sexual preferences aren’t shaped by artifice. Buying a leather slapper won’t suddenly give you a penchant for spanking—and let’s face it, if you were really into the idea in the first place, you probably would have gone DIY and just picked up a hairbrush long before now. Making people feel shitty about their vanilla-ness is mainly a capitalist calculation. As any marketing exec knows, the moment people become satisfied is the moment they stop buying stuff.

"When travelling to rural Alaska I learnt that people there don’t lock their homes. When they’re away, especially in winter, they don’t just leave them unlocked, they prepare a fire ready to be lit in the hearth, and they stock the cupboards with food and water. I remember an Alaskan seeing my surprise at this and saying, “It’s not like where you live; we still need each other here.”

Perhaps this is why a stranger’s kindness resonates? In cities and suburbs, more so in affluent countries, day-to-day survival isn’t an issue any more (even if it doesn’t always feel like that). We don’t physically need one another in order to live now. And without needing one another, we’re not properly connected. Where would the sense of connection come from?

Alaska made me realise we lost meaning once our survival was secured. The struggle for survival is the meaning, and if your survival’s even moderately in question, that ties you to others around you – it forces you to team up with them, depend on them, serve them. Real or imagined danger connects people, and our connection to others is scientifically proven to be the pinnacle of experience."

Good advice I got: prioritize self-care. Get your love and your groove on.

Resolutions Update: I didn't lose 20 pounds for my wedding. But I lost 12, so that's damn well close enough.
Past the halfway mark to 60 books:

Books Read 2012 (Goal: 60) So far: 34
The Oathbound--Mercedes Lackey
Oathbreakers--Mercedes Lackey
Oathblood--Mercedes Lackey
The Last Werewolf--Glen Duncan
Collected Poems--Philip Larkin
Blueprints for Building Better Girls--Elissa Schappell
The Scorpio Races--Maggie Stiefvater
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer--Michelle Hodkin
Kraken--China Mieville
The Silver Metal Lover--Tanith Lee
 Outlander--Diana Gabaldon
Firelight--Sophie Jordan
Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity--Harman and Thomson
How to Read a Poem--Molly Peacock
Vanish--Sophie Jordan
The Closing of the American Mind--Allan Bloom
The Public and Its Problems--John Dewey
Ship Of Magic--Robin Hobb
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Friend of Virtue--Joseph R. Reisert
Rousseau and Desire--Blackell, Duncan, Kow
The Immortal Prince--Jennifer Fallon
Rousseau: Nature and the Problem of the Good Life--Laurence D. Cooper
John Dewey and Self-Realization--Robert J. Roth
John Dewey and the Artful Life: Pragmatism, Aesthetics and Morality--Scott R Stroud
Starcrossed--Josephine Angelini
Bounty--Harper Alexander
Grimspace--Ann Aguirre
Cry Wolf--Patricia Briggs
How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents--Zac Bissonnette
Mistborn--Brandon Sanderson
Natural Goodness--Philippa Foot
On Virtue Ethics--Rosalind Hursthouse
Noncognitivism in Ethics--Mark Schroeder
Skios--Michael Frayn

Currently reading: The Philosopher's Handbook (Rosen), Foundations of Ethics:An Anthology (editted by Schafer-Landau and Cuneo) and Death In Venice (Mann).

Piano: Done Nothing
Projects: Done Nothing
Philosophically worthwhile: We'll see how this current project goes. It started out with what I thought was an actual, unique idea in metaethics--but it may be total shit.
Friendships: Who the fuck can tell. I've been trying. I'm discouraged. Everyone is so self involved, I don't really think they see me most of the time, or put any effort into doing so. My new friendships are blooming wonderfully (hey hey!).

Were there others?

"He brushed his teeth. Standing upright, scrubbing the teeth as if he were looking after an idol. He then ran the big old-fashioned tub to sponge himself, backing into the thick stream of the Roman faucet, soaping beneath with the same cake of soap he would apply later to his beard.

Under the swell of his belly, the tip of his parts, somewhere between his heels. His heels needed scrubbing.

He dried himself with yesterday’s shirt, an economy. It was going to the laundry anyway. Yes, with the self-respecting expression human beings inherit from ancestors for whom bathing was a solemnity. A sadness. But every civilized man today cultivated an unhealthy self-detachment. Had learned from art the art of amusing self-observation and objectivity. Which, since there had to be something amusing to watch, required art in one’s conduct.

Existence for the sake of such practices did not seem worthwhile. Mankind was in a confusing, uncomfortable, disagreeable stage in the evolution of its consciousness. Dr. Braun (Samuel) did not like it. It made him sad to feel that the thought, art, belief of great traditions should be so misemployed. "


Saul Bellow, “The Old System,” originally published in Playboy (January 1968), reprinted in Collected Stories (NY: Viking, 2001), pp. 90-116, here pp. 90f.

Well

Well, I -was- having a good day. Goddamn.

People always forget the end of this poem

For whatever reason, it seems like people in my life have decided a fragment of this poem is a proper response when talking about women (usually themselves). The line I hear a lot is "Girls love a sick child or a healthy animal/A man who's both itches them like an incubus"

She Bitches About Boys (Marilyn Hacker)

To live on charm, one must be courteous.

To live on others’ love, one must be loveable.

Some get away with murder being beautiful.

Girls love a sick child or a healthy animal.

A man who’s both itches them like an incubus.

But I, for one, have had a bellyful

of giving reassurances and obvious

advice with scrambled eggs and cereal;

then bad debts, broken dates, and lecherous

onanastic dreams of estival

nights when some high-strung, well-hung, penurious

boy, not knowing what he’d get, could be more generous."

Let's all remember together that we don't 'fix' each other, and that this view of 'feminine' standards (as well as being misandric in its expectations for the man's role in the relationship) is shitty and labels you the Unfun Police forever.

Just...getting tired of repeating that one. >>

Me problems

My lover's advice on a 'friend' I've been uncomfortable with for years seems sound.

The fact is that I'm not okay with her. For a lot of reasons. I have little to nothing in common with her, we have not talked about anything that was not either banal or about her problems in...multiple years, and she really hurt my family.

It's my problem, as I've consistently downplayed how big of a problem this is for our friendship. This was a bad move. It's much better to be upfront with people, even if they will react badly.

Since my wedding is coming up in June, I feel like I have to do this now, as at the moment I'm not entirely comfortable inviting her to my wedding. And my wedding is small enough that no one I don't wholeheartedly love and consistently connect with should be there.

I'm trying to figure out how to bring this up, and what would be most constructive. It's gotten to the point where I almost feel like I'm leading the friend on by allowing her to think we're okay. We're not okay.

Impotent Rambling

I have to admit, I'm a little hurt to realize I'm not that important to the person I consider one of the closest people in my life. I apparently don't warrant information and am not someone to be contacted when he is sent to the hospital for a couple weeks--that's for someone else. Someone else who, by the way, fails to call and inform me of details when the friend apparently explicitly asks her to. Leaving me to think very dark thoughts about said girl.

Thankfully I know this person's mother, who is thoughtful enough to know I'd be out of my mind with constant worry and fear and feelings of helplessness strong enough to temporarily cripple me, and who is keeping me updated on his health. At least I know t he facts.

It still hurts that I'm not special enough to deserve knowledge from the source. I guess it just shows where we are; nothing to be done.

The friend's just being callous not passing on the request to inform me, though. I'd been trying to work my way up to overtures of friendship, but I doubt I will now. Of course, I haven't made any overt efforts to contact her--that's probably me being passive-aggressive and seeing if she'll ever remember basic courtesy.

But I could. It's on me.

I think I'm a little bit too hurt to think clearly on the subject. I feel like i have a rival, which is fucking ridiculous.

No idea what to do with myself. I hope he's out soon.

Resolutions 2012

1—Read 60 books
2—Lose 20 pounds before my wedding
3—write something real; a project just for me, unrelated to my graduate degree
4—write something philosophically worthwhile, even if it’s just an idea that’ll take me into the future
5—be a better friend; more attentive, particularly, despite my tendencies to disappear into projects
6—start playing piano again, starting with Beautiful Maladies

Doctor Rafa Completed Last Year's New Year's Resolution

BOOKS READ-2011 (goal: 50)

After Graceland--Charles Spencer
Hunger Games--Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire--Suzanne Collins
Maledicte--Lane Robbins
The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales--Oliver Sacks
Mockingjay--Suzanne Collins
Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol--Iain McKelley
Fragile Eternity--Melissa Marr
The Magicians--Lev Grossman
I Like You: Hospitality under the Influence--Amy Sedaris
City of Glass--Cassandra Clare
Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free WIll, Language, and Political Power--John R. Searle
Bayou Moon--Ilona Andrews
White Noise--Don Delillo
Vampire Academy--Richelle Mead
Frostbite--Richelle Mead
Dreamtigers--Jorge Luis Borges
Squirrel seeks Chipmunk--David Sedaris
Shadow Kiss--Richelle Mead
Blood Promise--Richelle Mead
Shadow Dance--Robin Wayne Bailey
Warped--Maurissa Guibard
Anansi Boys--Neil Gaiman
River Marked--Patricia Briggs
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience--assorted authors
A World Without Time--Palle Yourgrau
Spirit Bound--Richelle Mead
Blue Bloods--Melissa De La Cruz
The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul--Douglas R. Hoffstadter and Daniel C. Dennett
The Enchantress of Florence--Salman Rushdie
Masquerade--Melissa De La Cruz
Art In Three Dimensions--Noel Carroll
Paranormalcy--Kiersten White
Lamplighter--DM Cornish
Philosophy and Neuroscience--Bennett, Hacker, Dennett, Searle
Foundling--DM Cornish
Bossypants--Tina Fey
Divergent--Veronica Roth
I Am America(And So Can You!)--Stephen Colbert
Earth (the Book!)--Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Long for this world--Jonathan Weiner
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland--Patton Oswalt
The World In Six Songs--Daniel Levitan
Shit My Dad Says--Justin Halpern
The Moral Psychology Handbook--John M. Doris and the Moral Psychology Research Group
Spindle's End--Robin McKinley
Better--Atul Gawande
Darkfever--Karen Marie Moning
Pathfinder--Orson Scott Card
Bones of Faerie--Janni Lee Simner
Bonk--Mary Roach
Bloodfever--Karen Marie Moning
The Origin of Satan--Elaine Pagels
The Colour of Magic--Terry Pratchett
The Hob's Bargain--Patricia Briggs
Faefever--Karen Marie Moning
Infinite Jest--David Foster Wallace
Dreamfever--Karen Marie Moning
The Iceman Cometh--Eugene O'Neil
The Maze Runner--James Dashner
The Scorch Trials--James Dashner
The Poisoner's Handbook--Deborah Blum
Brave New World--Aldous Huxley
The Whale's Companion--edited by Adriana Klepac
Logicomix--Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, Annie Di Donna
The Witches of East End--Melissa de la Cruz
A Discovery of Witches--Deborah Harkness
Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of A Reluctant Chef--Gabrielle Hamilton
Huntress--Malinda Lo
Incarceron--Catherine Fisher
Basic Rights:Subsistence, Affluence, and US Foreign Policy--Henry Shue
A Visit From the Goon Squad--Jennifer Egan
Foundation--Mercedes Lackey
Intrigues--Mercedes Lackey
What is this thing called love--Kim Addonizio
Dearest Creature--Amy Gerstler