Savage Love

1. “Safeword” has been a generally recognized and accepted safeword in the Seattle BDSM community and elsewhere for at least two decades. Not everyone prefers that word or safewords in general, but it’s usefully unambiguous particularly in semi-public spaces. Kinkifact says “pants on fire.”
   – Eddie

2. Following up on @1, I agree that many people are moving away from relying on safewords these days.

   For play parties, there’s no debate: all play parties I’ve been to this year had a default safeword of “Red” (or “safeword” would work too) — that alerts the audience that you want to be rescued from the maniac beating the shit out of you.

   But the problem with a safeword is that it can give the top a false sense of security (that is, the bottom can be in trouble and unable to say the safeword for physical or psychological reasons).

   Also, a safeword can give the bottom a false sense of security — after all, it won’t, on its own, get you out of a dangerous situation.

   So many people these days emphasize:
   1) keeping the lines of communication open;
   2) having frequent check-ins to make sure the bottom can communicate; and
   3) speaking in ordinary English about the situation (Ow, I have a cramp; hey, that hit my face; etc.)

   Also, realize that it’s quite dangerous to play on the edge of nonconsent with people you don’t know well and haven’t played with much. I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m just saying that you should be ready for the consequences if it goes bad (as it did for me last year).

3. Great column this week Dan!

4. EricaP, thanks for that comment. I’ve shied away from the BDSM community out of concern for the things you mention, and I appreciate your insight on the matter.

5. For the first LW, maybe the school, or your son, can point out an older ‘mentor’ student that can help him in the school.
   I went to the same school from 6th to 12th and while the middle school didn’t have a GSA, I was active in the high school GSA and president my final year. Teachers knew me well enough that they would ask me to talk to younger gay students having trouble and help them out. Sometimes just having an older accepting friend in the school is enough to help them feel comfortable, even if the friend (like me) is straight.

6. Excellent column this week. Great advice. For once I don’t have a lot to add, but thanks to the dad in letter one for being so awesome.

   Good points Erica @ 2, too.

   I’d like to tip my hat to you, Dan, especially on calling out the smugness of YDIW people (another cute acronym!). It’s fine to be informative & helpful, but as someone who’s been a member of a whole pile of different “scenes” (local coffeehouse poetry club, fave bar, gaming, comics, LGBT clubs, on & on) there isn’t much that gets on my nerves as much as the sanctimonious tone that folks in said club/scene/etc can use when delivering their opinions on the One True Way to enjoy the whateveritis. Sure, there are some things that are Rules, for good reasons, almost anywhere. But “safe word” not being an acceptable safe word? Puh-leaze. That doesn’t make you a respected elder of your Hobbit S & M clan, or whatevah.

   Plz be more welcoming to the noobs you meet on your travels, y’all. Sure they can be annoying, but new blood invigorates a place/group & being inclusive is more fun in the long term than showing off (IMO).

7. “Treat your son with the same awkwardness you would your other kids,” says Byard. “I’m speaking as a mom myself now. Make sure he has access to all the health and safety information he needs. (Sitting down to watch reruns of Will & Grace together won’t cut it.) I have two daughters and want to be absolutely sure they have access to all the information they need to make smart and healthy—and potentially life-saving!—decisions. Make yourself available to talk whenever he needs and welcome his boyfriends inside the house the same way you would if they were girlfriends.”

   Not to be horribly stereotypical, but shouldn’t DSS be welcoming his kid’s boyfriends as if they were boyfriends? That is, guys who may not have the best of intentions, who may be pressuring the kid for sex the kid is not ready to have, and who need to know that not respecting DSS’s kid’s boundaries would result in a swift and brutal ass-kicking.

   In other words, if your kid (boy or girl) is into boys, then you should protect that kid from the kind of shit teenage boys pull. Just like if your kid (boy or girl) is into girls, you should protect that kid from the kind of shit teenage girls pull.

8. Hey DSS,

   The downside of being “enlightened” and caring for your child, as opposed to the “You shall do it this way” that I got from my parents, is the constant nagging fear of “Am I doing this right?” and missing the smallest thing that might make everything go to shit. I have observed with my older and experienced sibs that being open and consistent is a large part of doing the right thing. Just do the quick “thought experiment” of what you yourself would need to reinforce yourself as you were at that age, and start with what helped (and avoid what hurt). Listen to your son and work with him.

   Peace.

9. The first 2 boyfriends that my oldest daughter brought home as a teenager came out within a year, the 3rd determined that he was bisexual. Her acceptance of them didnt change when their awareness and acknowledgement of their sexuality changed, these young men continued to be a presence in our home even after she left for college, up until we moved.

   Since the girl has been at college, she’s become a bit more comfortable in her own skin, and is able to acknowledge that no one’s sexuality is completely black or white. During her last visit with us, we determined that she and her mother have similar taste in men, but our taste in women is completely different.

   DSS has a handle on the most important thing: your child is your child, and nothing changes that. My view is that as parents, we act as advocates for our children. In everything. If they can’t count on us, who can they count on?

10. @5:

    I went to the same school from 6th to 12th

    Glad I read that through one more time before nearly responding, “How do you know which school DSS’s son goes to?”

11. Dan once gave great advice along the lines of I Hate Screen Names, basically said to protect gay sons, as you would straight daughters, recognizing that male sexuality can be powerful and sometimes destructive (or something along those lines).

    Hey Dan, do you no longer believe that? I really loved that advice, it helped me as a straight-ish woman.

12. I don’t like it when statistics like “9 out of 10 gay students were harassed in the past year” are whipped out. Haven’t 9 out of 10 high school students been harassed in the past year?

    People harass other people. Being harassed when you’re young is valuable training in being able to handle harassment as an adult.

    That’s not to say any form or level of harassment is OK, but an environment with NO harassment (whether that be because you’re fat, short, dumb, poor, gay, pale, goth, a redhead, acne-ridden, scrawny, clumsy, too tall, lanky, curly-haired, or whatever other excuse one kid will use to harass another kid) is not healthy either.

    Kids have to learn how to handle it when other people are mean to them, EVEN if they are mean to them because they are gay. We should stop trying to eradicate harassment – it’s not going to happen, and it wouldn’t be healthy if it did.

    What we need to do is teach kids how to cope with the harassment they will inevitably encounter in their lives, and provide them the support structure they need while they figure out how to do that.

13. @12, I think you don’t know what the word “harassment” means.

    It doesn’t mean “occasionally poke fun at” or “moderately mocking”. It refers to persistent, repeated hostility.
    It’s the kind of continuous abuse that doesn’t make one better at “handling” it, but rather often results in lifelong issues and difficulty with relationships. The effects of actual harassment are more like PTSD.

    You are probably right that some moderate teasing, etc. does help build resilience in kids, and might make them more resistant to harassment later. But harassment is not valuable training, it just makes people fucked up.

    That said, the “9 out of 10” statistic seems high if we’re talking about a persistent pattern of repeated behavior. Quite likely, the originators of that statistic are guilty of misusing the word as well. I don’t doubt that gay teens are targets, but are 90% of them continually subjected to serious hostile treatment?

14. In so far as speaking the safeword should be the equivalent of interrupting the actors mid-sentence, stopping the play, turning up the house lights, and quite possibly sending everyone home for the evening, a safeword logically _shouldn’t_ be something stylish or stylized. The only thing it needs to be is something that you wouldn’t say as part of a scene, so as to not yank the emergency brake inadvertently. Beyond that, the idea that the safeword itself needs to conform to some sort of aesthetic ideal is stupid, counterproductive, possibly even dangerous.

    I’d say that ‘safeword’ is a perfectly good one. It indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt “Okay, I’m done, NOW,” while still not being mistaken for other protestations not intended to interrupt the action.

    (Says the guy who knows nothing about BDSM, is pretty damned vanilla, but can recognize a logical inconsistency when he sees one)

    Hmmmm… For what it’s worth, “password” does make a lousy password, and having it as your password will indeed get you laughed at, if not disciplined for putting company assets at risk. Does your dickhead friend work in high-tech, perhaps? Maybe she has just confused the two concepts.

15. Hey, Dan!!! Everybody!!! I’m in a monogamous, loving relationship with a hot 38 year old!!! While we’re both used to Pacific Northwest rain and gray days, when it’s sunny, we hit the beach!!

16. @EricaP, since the little exploration I’ve done of BDSM was strictly outside of “communities” and solely with individuals (who I took time to get to know before actually trying anything out of the ordinary, and vice-versa), I’m sort of curious about what happens in the kind of situations you mention. What kinds of consequences does one have to accept when things “go bad”, and what does one do when it happens — assuming that the “going bad” was non-intentional, and the person is basically good and ethical? Does “going bad” usually come from not respecting accepted rules, or can it happen anywhere, anytime, no matter what (‘shit happens’)?

17. I play pretty rough, and I find safeword to be the best possible safeword. If I need it to STOP, I don’t want to be trying to remember what the french word for grapefruit is. Per the “green, yellow, red” system, I also use “bad ow!” for when I need a specific activity to stop, but not the whole scene.
    In the BDSM world, we sometimes call those who suffer from YDIW syndrome as “twue”…as in “there is one twue way to do this!” and pretty much everybody I know mocks the hell out of them.

18. @12 – Are you sure that an environment with no harassment is not healthy? How do you prove that? How do you explain it?

    For years people said that kids who went to daycare/groupcare situations and came home with every illness going around the neighborhood were strengthening their immune systems, that there was an eventual benefit to being a kid who was constantly sniffling and frequently sick. I read a study some years ago that this popular theory was essentially bunk.

    It’s like saying that everyone needs to have a finger or two broken, and maybe a couple toes, so they’ll be able to handle it when they get a broken arm or leg later in life. It’s a ridiculous idea.

    I agree that we need to teach kids how to deal with harassment and provide them with strong support structures, but that doesn’t mean we need to legitimize abuse. Recognizing that it happens is a good thing; believing that it’s healthy and beneficial is not.

19. @12, @18, I don’t think it’s quite right to say that harassment is normal and needs to be accepted. I think, more importantly than teaching our kids how to deal with the people who harass them, we should teach them not to harass others.

    I think if even 9 out of 10 parents could successfully raise their teenagers to not be dickheads, we’d all be better off.

20. @12 (biggie)– “Being harassed when you’re young is valuable training in being able to handle harassment as an adult.”

    Yeah, this was my initial reaction to a lot of the anti-bullying work that’s been going on in the last few years. After all, when it happened to me as a kid, I understood that this was just the way the world worked. I couldn’t expect to go around being so weird and inept and not as good as the other kids and not expect to get hassled for it, right? It was just teaching me how to deal with the fact that people would naturally always dislike and despise me, wasn’t it?

    Yeah, so, no. People are very good at rationalizing bad things that happened to them as normal or even helpful– it makes us feel better than just saying, “yes, that was a shit thing that happened to me, and it wouldn’t have happened in a just universe.” And sometimes these rationalizations get us through tough situations. But rationalizations are all they are, and we need to learn that before we allow other people to go through the same crap that we did.

21. Great topic! Just love your kid, support them *no matter what* (love, confidence, security, belief, empathy…) and instill in them that there’s nothing anyone can’t handle or deal with as long as you have the guts to be honest and live honestly.

    Being openly gay (even in this day and age of uber-acceptability with LGBT stuff) is *still* one of the ballsiest, gutsiest moves *anyone* can make: it’s taking back your life from the fuckheads in the name of *truth*!

    Some people hate on and/or are envious of others’ bravery. Good! May it inspire them to have the guts to live and walk it as they really are.

    I had (and still have) great parents who get it 😉 and love me as I am: an honest, openly-gay, hopefully-well-balanced male.

    That, and I’m one of those types who doesn’t give a shit what people think in the best possible way: when it matters most; being yourself and having the guts to do just that.

    My kids could be aliens and omni-tri-polysexual and I would *still* do my very level best to guide them and love them to the best amount of self-acceptance and self-belief as I can.

    Honesty is everything, man. *No one really gives a shit about anything as long as you have the common sense and the poise to just be honest, and keep it moving 🙂 *.

    That, and if the kids at school are that unruly about everything (nothing’s shocking anymore in the age of the internet, and what with it being 2012 already), then maybe change schools are consider home-schooling until the brouhaha about being newly-out dies down.

    It’s true: no one really cares what anyone is or isn’t as long as people are forthcoming enough with honesty, with a minimum of drama and bullshit in serving up what is: the truth to silence those who don’t dare to walk it as they talk it!

    Great thread and topic! Cheers On Everyone!

22. POPCORN!

23. I volunteer at the Citadel in San Francisco as a dungeon monitor . . . basically a hall monitor in sassier clothing. The “house” safeword is “safeword”–that way players can yell anything they want during a scene without triggering an interruption, but if I hear someone yell “safeword,” I’ll come over, stop the scene, and see if everyone’s okay. (If I hear someone yell “red,” or “stop,” or “that’s it you bastard, you’re off my Christmas card list,” I’ll wander over and observe for a bit, make sure that this really is just part of the fun. We do everything possible to avoid interrupting a scene, but if it looks like the bottom is having a bad time, we’ll politely interrupt and make sure everything’s okay.)

    @16 . . . I can answer a little bit of the “what happens when things go bad.” I think like any nonideal situation it’s very case by case . . . and the joke is “it’s always the top’s fault.” Which is not to say that the bottom can’t contribute to a bad scene, but the top does have greater responsibility, since many people go pretty deep into subspace and can lose some judgment as they let themselves get overwhelmed by sensation.

    I have been in one scene that went badly–it was a negotiated resistance scene where the bottom was supposed to fight back, hard. Basically, a takedown by myself and another woman of a big, strong guy. And it went pretty much as we negotiated but, for various reasons, it turned out to be way more emotionally triggering than he expected and he ended up really devastated. I sat with him and held him for hours, and felt horribly guilty. It all worked out okay, and we all still play together, but it was pretty unpleasant, and now I would negotiate much, much more carefully and even if someone says they want a really intense, violent scene, I’d ramp up way, way more slowly and check in more, even though that’s not what he thought he wanted.

    Another friend of mine had a scene go badly because someone thought one of her hard limits was silly. Basically, she doesn’t mind being beaten, whipped, fisted . . . but she hates getting water on her face. He thought that was funny, and splashed her with water. She ended the scene and never played with him again. Respect someone’s hard limits even if they strike you as weird.

    FInally, I had a friend whose “scene gone badly” story involved someone having an asthma attack while in bondage. He got her untied, got her inhaler, and she was okay but it was really harrowing and scary for both of them. Lesson there? Be sure to tell your top about any physical conditions that might come up . . . if he’d known, he could have done different bondage and had the inhaler handy.

24. Without working from a very specific definition of harrasment as @13 has pointed out, kids need to grow some thicker skin and deal with things outside of the warm and fuzzy environment, which I think was @12’s point. One of my biggest concerns is that kids getting out of school over the past 25 years have gotten progressively harder to have as employees, because someone at work (God forbid maybe even their boss) wasn’t nice to them and didn’t respect their feelings. Unfortunately that is the real world, and they need to work within it. Lots of pampered kids whose parents wouldn’t let suffer the consequences of their actions have a lot tougher time in the big bad world.
    This in no way condones abusive behaviour, and @19 makes the best point…parents need to teach their kids both how to deal with real life, and how not to be a dickhead. I don’t think that it is too Mayberry, but kids in the 70’s took shit and gave shit, but generally weren’t damaging others. Their were always exceptions, and adults seemed to be more willing to step in the middle of those cases. Agree that LGBT youth were certainly less visible then, and that was a challenge we may not have addressed as well as it should be addressed now.

25. @ 24; BTR: I’m with you. One of the most important steps in coming out (which I myself did when I was 27 {I’m 42 now}) is *knowing* you can handle what may or may not come your way by way of others’ intolerance, harrassment and/or bullshit.

    Know yourself, your attributes, as well as your limitations, and go from there.

    No one has power over you anymore once you take it all back for yourself, the way anyone deserves: gay, straight or fucking alien lol.

    Argh! Phones await! Come to Pigeon Park: they await you ;-D +~+

26. I think a column devoted to monogamous couples is on par with having a straight pride parade.

27. @ 26; sadinoe: Monogamy’s only boring when you’re with the wrong person altogether. Get back to me when you happen to walk into true love (sixteen+years and counting!) and you find you’ve found *everything* you ever wanted and/or needed in one person.

    One of My True Love is better than 1,000 of anyone else! That, and My Babe Gets Me Hot in the sack and in the mind (the heart, too <3 🙂 ).

    I’d have a straight pride parade just to watch the horses take a dump in the middle of the street lol ;-D.

28. Did this Eliza Byard get the majority of Dan’s salary this week, since the entire response to the first question was all from her & not him?

    Pretty sweet racket, pretending to write an advice column that occasionally gets passed over to someone else to do the work!

29. @ 27 (pigeon park)

    I don’t think sadinoe was saying monogamy was boring; I think they were saying it was the norm, and totally accepted and acknowledged, and didn’t need any encouragement. Monogamists are not a persecuted minority, and giving them a lot of extra support and visibility is kind of coals to Newcastle.

    That said, it’s always nice to hear about a working alternative lifestyle, and monogamy is one of those. But it’s not exactly lacking in social approval.

30. @16, for me what happened was that I discovered that apparently some people use the negotiation system differently. When they say “this is a hard limit, I don’t want this,” they mean — “this is what I really fantasize about, but can’t ask for.”

    That’s not how I use it (and I think they’re out of their minds, personally), but I ran into a top who was (a) inexperienced overall, and (b) the experience he had was with people who negotiated that crazy way.

    So when I took rough anal off the table, he heard me saying that’s what I really wanted more than anything.

    At the time, I just thought he was an asshole who ignored hard limits, but I’ve run into tops & bottoms since then who see the scenario from his perspective, so now I see him as clueless, not an asshole.

    So, yeah, bad can mean a lot of different things. Talk to people about their worst scenes, to get some insight into what to watch out for, but realize that you can’t plan for everything…

31. Sorry about the stupid lawyer, Dan. The most bizarre thing to come out of that story is the our useless excuse for a government actually did the right thing shortly afterwards and made it clear that all marriages were indeed legal in Canada. I’ve never agreed with them before… and probably won’t again.

32. @ 29, Gaudior: Thanks for clarifying what I couldn’t at the time.

    I’m beginning to think that just having a solid, rewarding, fulLfilling relationship *is* the minority after all!

    Anyone can love or do what they want. I rarely ever get caught up in the “ism”s, or the catch-phrases, buzzwords; all of that bullshit.

    I never thought I would be as monogamous as I am, and I’m gay! Who thought that shit was even still possible anymore?

    🙂

    (Blessed Am I, Blessed Go I, and all that good 🙂 stuff 😉 ) +~+

33. @ 30, Hi EricaP. I have read in here for quite some time, and I enjoy what you have to say and share in here, so *thanks* 🙂 .

    It is sometimes hard enough to establish openness and intimacy to be able to say what you are into…and to making your wishes and dreams become a reality.

    *Talking about* what gets either of us hot is what gets me hot. ALL a precursor and foreplay, if you will… But then, I’m still hot as fuck for The Love Of My Life 16+Years On!

    Pretty wild, man.

    But Moreover…

    Beautiful 🙂 .

    +~+

34. Mr Park – I’ve observed that most people don’t have the capacity to find *everything* they ever wanted or needed in one person; that requires a unique practitioner. Good for you.

    And I never expected to *attract* monogamous partners who would match my own tendencies, but did. Who knew? All that time I spent preparing to accommodate non-monogamy – wasted, when I could have been mastering Swedish. (I’d never dare attempt Latvian, as then Mrs Ank would deliberately reinforce and expand Miss Ank’s homophobia by way of revenge.)

35. DSS– Advice for when he starts dating– Give your son a huge number of reminders that sex and emotion go hand and hand. Logically they don’t have to. Possibly they won’t for some one at some time. But they will go together enough of the time that he should be prepared to accept responsibility for that. In other words, he’s going to experiment; he’s going to get his heart broken, and he’s going to break someone’s heart. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t experiment. It means that he should proceed with caution.

    Encourage him to keep a harassment/teasing diary. Others have noticed that there’s no clear line between the sort of insult that kids should learn to brush off and deal with (yo-mama jokes that go both ways for instance) and targeted harassment that no one should have to endure. Since it can be hard to know when one turns into the other, a diary can help identify.

    Make sure he has friends! A single friend can make all the difference. In order to make sure he has friends without getting too intrusive into his life, you have to be perfect hosts. Offer to do the driving when the young teens want to do something like go to the mall or the park or whatever teens do in your part of the world. Make your home the hang out where kids want to be. I don’t know if that means ping pong or a trampoline or the best video games or great cookies and milk. (Obviously it’s not enticing the kids over with alcohol or porn, but you knew that.)

    Know your son’s friends’ parents before problems arise. If they don’t arise, no problem with knowing a few more adults. If they do, you’ll be calling someone you have a previous relationship with, not calling to complain out of the blue.

    Can you think of a role model/mentor? No matter how great your communication with your son is, he may have some question or concern he’d rather talk to a gay adult about rather than his straight parents. Is there anyone in your community you could introduce him to? Someone with a sterling reputation who wouldn’t mind being called in for the role? Be upfront about what you’re doing. “My gay son may want a gay adult to talk to some time, so I thought I’d introduce the two of you now.” Then, as with all of your son’s friends, you keep track of the relationship so your son still knows he can come to you if something disturbs him.

36. I thought “cacao” was the standard safe word to be used in all BDSM situations. Hunh. Guess Portlandia isn’t as reliable as I thought for information about kink.

37. auntie grizelda@15 (h/t Hunter @36) – I thought you were kidding when I saw your post, but are you in fact dating now? Either way, sending warm hugs your way.

    @4/33 – thanks for the kind words!

38. @7, I don’t think the advice was stereotypical; in general it would be, but to treat a gay kid’s boyfriend the way you would a girlfriend is good advice for a parent who had the preconceived notion that they would need to be welcoming to a girl. Of course, the preconceived notion isn’t ideal, but it probably isn’t bigotry in this case. I’m as supportive of the gay community as the next person but the fact is that we live in a heteronormative society. Most people are straight, and I don’t think this parent who is clearly trying to do the right thing can be faulted for not knowing what exactly to do with a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend.

39. @7, In this case it’s good advice to treat the boyfriends like the parents would if they were girlfriends. DSS is the product of a heteronormative society where the vast majority of people are straight and he and his partner are clearly trying to do what is best for their kid and they needed advice. The simile was a succinct way to communicate to them how boyfriends of their gay child should be treated.

40. I’m having a hard time picturing someone getting laughed out of a BDSM community for using “safeword” as a safeword. Let’s try it on for size:

    “You know that scene was really hot until you used ‘safeword’ as a safeword. Don’t you know scene etiquette requires you to use some cryptic word like ‘grapefruit’? Seriously, get the hell out of my club and don’t come back again.”

    Nope. Not seeing that happening. But if you want to get a few chuckles, use “aardvark” or something like that. Not because it’s poor form or anything; it’s just because “aardvark” is a really funny word.

41. @7

    +1 for reinforcing gender role stereotypes of males being sexual predators and females hapless victims with no desire or agency of their own. Keep up the good work.

42. The parent who “doesn’t care about [their son’s] sexuality” might need to rethink that phrasing. (“I don’t care” sounds a bit hostile.)

    I care about my kids’ sexuality, and I’m sure that this person cares about their kids’ as well. I think what the LW means to say is that “I am neutral about my son’s sexual orientation, but want to support his developing sexuality so that it becomes a source of joy, inspiration and love for his lifetime.”

    Also, the bit about how the letter writer is still waiting for the good feelings of being special and different also deserve discussion. It’s probably totally normal for this parent to have mixed feelings, and right now it’s probably anxiety for their son’s peer experience (which Dan handles really well) that is overwhelming them. I’m sure they are also deeply proud of their son’s bravery and his honesty, and – every parent’s favorite! – that he came to them and talked to them directly about an extremely vulnerable topic. Well done, parents! : )

43. Between 7 and 43, I’m putting my vote with 7. Sure, maybe it is stereotypical, but it’s not harmfully stereotypical. Treat your son’s boyfriends the way you would treat your daughter’s boyfriends. That is, encourage friendship, caution, care, caution, laughs, caution, things in common, and caution. Don’t forget caution. That’s not accusing all boys of being sexual predators, a sexual stereotype that they will somehow grow into. Nor is it insuring that girls have no agency. It’s acknowledging a potential and using — caution.

44. @ 34: Hi Venominnon (reads like phenomenon with a ‘v’! That’s crafty! Good one.)

    And Thank You for addressing me as Mr. Park lol. Pidge, or Didgey: any addressed name aside from a’hole is kosher with me ;).

    But I mercifully digress…

    I suppose what it is, Ven (if I may call you that 🙂 ), is that I only ever wanted to find someone who clicked with me, got and was quick to reciprocate on the wavelength, and the fact that they’re gorgeous, smart and strong is an additional bonus.

    He’s my best friend, and I lucked out beyond a beyond to have run into him so many years ago, and now we are still here: hard-won, happy and proud for the work and the faith, you know?

    Life could be worse! Thanks for the feedback and rock on with your bad self!

    Graciously Yours,
    Mr. Park

    😉

45. @AuntieGrizelda, congrats also from my neck of the woods! Enjoy!

    @EricaP, when I saw you referring both AuntieGrizelda and Hunter78 in your post congratulating her, my neurons got crossed and I somehow interpreted it as you saying Griz and Hunt were going out together. I was about to say, and do they know each other in a non-www way?

46. (Sorry to visibly hog airtime here, but if I may…)

    For D.S.S.: It already seems like you’ve got it together in how to be there for your son. It’s sooooooooo a whole ‘nother universe (really) since when I came out fifteen years ago: at age twenty-seven. Here it all is in 2012, the internet, shows like ‘Glee’ making gay as offensive as a handshake: kids today have so much information (good and bad) to draw upon, to find themselves much quicker than I ever would have back in ‘my’ day.

    13, man: my one nephew came out at 16 (about seven years ago). He’s a successful graphic artist for Walt Disney World imagery in Florida now.. Hard-working, healthy, focused, successful.. Everyone grows up so damn fast nowadays..

    Your son should be applauded for such a strong, keen sense of self at such a young age. It’s a testament to your love and good parenting that he’s able to take such a bold, self-assured, strong step into his own life.

    Awesome.

    Dan’s words and resources likewise are awesome.
    Thanks for that.

    @ L2: There has to be some sort of safe-word, unless yer both mutual masochists or something lol. I kinda like “safe word” as the safe word.

    It’s a bit like the goof of getting a tattoo that just says “tattoo”! 😀 Nice! (And Effective.)

    @ L3: Couple Of Compatible Keepers/C.O.C.K.: I relate. Hey, I too expected I would wind up going through the run-of-the-mill motions of several partners in my lifetime.. Somehow, love ran into me and took over from there.. That’s pretty much it in a peanut shell. A lot of hard work and solid love for the hanging on, but there you go. It can still happen. It happened to me and I didn’t even look!

    🙂

47. @ 47, Ankylosaur: If I may…

    Yes. The Grizmeister and Great #78 met in the market.. I think it had something to do with frozen spinach falling on top of one’s head, if memory serves (and it tends to serve well 🙂 ).

    At any rate, greetings and bonhomie from upstate New York, my neurons get crossed and refracted all of the time and that all is just part of the ride, man lol 😉 .

    Cheers.

48. @ That silly, disturbingly-ugly mug of Rick Santorum’s in that ad above: I hereby rename it “Rick Santorum For 2012 Slaps Upside The Head”.

    Slap, knuckle-punch, it’s up to you lol.

49. re: safeword. Did anybody see House of Lies on Sunday (super funny, I love Don Cheadle). Anyway, there’s a sex scene where she’s protesting, and he keeps saying say the safeword, say the safeword.
    So I guess my point is, by #23’s definition of safeword (which I think is very good) safeword as a safeword could be confusing because you could use it playing but not mean it as a safeword.
    just say popcorn and KISS.

50. Fine, in the interests of fair and equal representation I guess we can print some monogamous letters like COCK wants. Sounds pretty fucking boring to me, though. “Hey, Dan! We have a normal relationship! It’s normal!”

    A special column for monogamous couples sounds to me kinda like when clueless white people ask why there’s a special Black Entertainment Television: it’s because every single other channel is White Entertainment Television, dummy.

    Anyway, I guess let’s try to be open-minded and run it. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.

51. @39/41: The idea of “treating your son’s boyfriends like they’re his girlfriends” is good intro-level advice, for parents who are not quite comfortable with their son’s homosexuality. But DSS does not need the intro advice: he seems fully accepting of his son and loves him unconditionally. So for gay-friendly parents, I think the better advice is to treat your son’s gentleman callers as if they were courting your daughter.

    @43: You might want to keep in mind that 13-year-olds are not 30-year-olds, and that junior high / high-schoolers are much more influenced by social roles and expectations than adults are. Our society characterizes men as sexual aggressors and women as hard-to-get, so it’s hardly surprising that young adults, struggling to define their own identities and understand their own sexuality, might latch on to the “expected” roles.

    As @45 said, there’s a difference between promoting a viewpoint and being cautious of it.

52. I would love to say that I have *a lot* of fun in here, enjoying you all. You all f***ing Rock!

    Please Take Your Bows: Individually As Well As Collectively 🙂 .

    Props of course to Mssr. Dan and to his cohort, the most-mysterious and enigmatic “@fakedansavage” courtesy of twitter.

    Peace Y’All 🙂 .
    +~+

    p.s.: I now rescind my offer for physical retaliation for the futile exercise of giving Santorum a sound palm-to-noggin thrashing. It wouldn’t improve anything: it would only stir about, splash and leak from his orifices the vile, noxious waste product that begs to seep from his orifices and pores: the emulsified remnants of he and his poopy-headed idealogies. Not to worry; his tent will be packed, folded and shop closed down by no later than a month.

    No one gives a shit: he’s just the last one to know, as usual lol.

    Rick Santorum For The Bathouse 2012!

53. @ 35, Crinoline: Awesome advice, this following bit, if I may quote you:

    “Encourage him to keep a harassment/teasing diary.”

    That *Is* Brilliant as an idea. It helps you to understand and absorb stuff quicker when you write it down sometimes. It helps you to gain a better, more well-rounded perspective, so you can be armed with as much poise, street smarts and cool as you can.

    P.S.: I meant to say Bath House, not Bathouse.
    My condolences to the Wayne family as well as Batman(tm) 😉 .

54. @ 52, Not normal, just happy. I’ll never be normal lol, but I’m rather happy. Never really was, until… 🙂 .

55. @30 – can you imagine what these people would be like if they negotiated like that in other aspects of life? “No, I don’t want an interest rate of 4.25%, it’s too low.” “I’d love to hear about your time-share proposal – please, tell me more!” “No, please keep my account open and continue to charge me interest, fees, and penalties!” It’s like living in Oppositeville. I think you’re too kind in calling that person simply clueless, and I hope you came out of it okay.

56. I don’t know if I’ll need this advice or not (2 kids with orientation so far undetermined), but I’m wondering how parents of gay kids handle sleepovers. It’s pretty straightforward with hetero kids, like my oldest. Same sex sleepovers are just dependent on if you want to allow that kid to stay over. Opposite sex (until you decide it’s okay for your kid to have sex in your house) are not allowed or require some kind of enforced separation. So with gay kids, do you just do vice versa, allow sleepovers with opposite gender friends but not with same gender?

57. @ 58, snoozn: Good question. Sometimes though, there’s friends that anyone has, even if you’re both gay or lesbian, etc., where there’s no overt sexual tension, so therefore, it would be like a regular sleepover…

    It all depends on the age, too, of course… I pretty much knew myself that I was probably going to be gay when I was like three years-old.. I Just Knew. Very strange to think about, even now..

    I never had sleepovers with any gay friends, etc.. Shit, I barely even had gay friends until well into my early 20’s (late bloomer, here).

    I think the same set of standards and rules should apply to any childhood couple: gay, straight, lesbian, bi, transgendered.. Why should the general rules be any different, especially when it’s all basically young kids living under your roof during that time? It *is* a tough call on one hand..

    You wanna be cool parents, but you also have to be *parents* at the end of the day.

    If you think Johnny’s little friend is going to befriend Johnny while they sleep upstairs in the fort that built out of blankets and furniture…then well, maybe getting to know your own kids and their friends is the best medicine of all.

    Sounds plausible 🙂 lol.

58. GAG, “safeword” is arguably the best safeword. It’s unambiguous and attracts the attention of other players in a group setting. Don’t play with someone who has issues with it. It is for YOUR security, not their ego (and the person who put you down for using it is not someone you need to form a relationship with).

    DSS, thank you. You’ve already done a lot more than far too many fathers in my parents’ generation did to make your son’s life better. That’s not a reason to stop. In dealing with the inevitable issues, keep your sense of scale. Is the situation something that a teenager should be learning to handle on his own? Is it something that it is within his capability to handle on his own? (Single other kid calling him “Fag!” in the hall–yeah, sort of on his own on that one; teacher telling the class that homosexuals are destined to unhappiness, early death, and an eternal lake of fire in Algebra–make the first visit to the principal with your wife and without your lawyer as a sign that you have confidence in his ability to manage his faculty & if the response is remotely mushy, make clear you will release the hounds of hell and then do so if necessary.)

    PFLAG: Even if you’re not much of a joiner, they’re worth having in your bookmarks. Who knows? You could end up chapter president.

59. @ 44, hrchick: Well said. To quote you:

    “The parent who “doesn’t care about [their son’s] sexuality” might need to rethink that phrasing. (“I don’t care” sounds a bit hostile.)

    I care about my kids’ sexuality, and I’m sure that this person cares about their kids’ as well. I think what the LW means to say is that “I am neutral about my son’s sexual orientation, but want to support his developing sexuality so that it becomes a source of joy, inspiration and love for his lifetime.”

    Exactly. I just want my kids to be happy, healthy and as well-adjusted as I can provide. Loving your kids unconditionally: it’s what you do. No one really has a choice about what their sexual orientation is gonna be: only a choice to not suffer for it with abuse, silence or denial.

    It takes guts to stand up for yourself honestly: LGBT or not. Love and support, man: it goes a long way.

60. @44/61

    I’d go one better than saying “neutral,” even. Neutrality or indifference suggests that there is a preferred orientation, but you’re putting up with the alternative because you’re a supportive person. Can’t you just be happy that your kid knows who he is?

61. It occurs to me that age 13 maybe a little early for any hard and fast pronouncements of what a teen’s orientation is. But, given that I’m not familar with either the teen in question, the family, nor the process of coming out, perhaps it isn’t too soon.

    I would have counseled that the teen should keep it to themself for now, and see if they still feel that way later…but that the parents still love and support them. (I know some will rally at the thought of having to keep one’s orientation quiet… but it’s just a bit early to be making permanent statements, in my book.
    Some people change their minds. Some experiment later and modify their lifestyles both ways. I just think 13 is a bit young…. for everything.

62. @59, thanks for the input. I agree that mostly I’d want to be fair about it. I want all my kids to feel like they’re living with the same set of rules, even when those rules may be different from other households. Which means that by about puberty, no sleepovers with whatever gender he/she is attracted to. At least not until he/she is mature enough and has a partner who I trust enough to allow for “that kind of sleepover.”

    Of course I’m still stuck because my two near- or at-puberty kids don’t seem to be attracted to either gender as far as I can tell. At least neither is too big on sleepovers at the moment either!

63. @57 and 30, about “Oppositeville” negotiating… my very abusive ex was like that in ‘negotiation’. We went through a phase of telling each other what we liked and disliked, loved and couldn’t stand. He did what I liked a few times before it clearly bored him, but he would not stop with doing what I didn’t like. It was like I’d given him a shopping list of how to harass me and he couldn’t stop trying to check those boxes off.

    But he was a complete asshole, not clueless.

64. @63: no, absolutely not. You are correct that 13 is much to young to be making set-in-stone statements about one’s identity. My experience of my sexuality has changed in major ways since I was 13.

    That said, you can be “out” at 13 and change later, I know people who have done it, I know people who have been “out” as questioning as well. Kids and teens need to have space to explore themselves and their identity OPENLY without fear of judgement or censure (especially from parents). “Keeping it to himself” would have meant hiding what he was going through. One can speak about things without them being “permanent statements” and sexuality doesn’t have to be a permanent statement to be a valid discussion.

    I think the idea that being out means making a serious and non-voidable declaration is a bit dangerous. I’ve had bi friends who came out as gay first and changed later, and OH! the vilification and unpleasantness from people. What we need is to give people space to explore, expecting a 13 year old to hold true to the things they say about themselves for ever is just as dumb as asking them to clam up about it until they are 100% sure.

65. @63: At 13, I knew I liked girls. Not only did I have a long and glorious tradition of getting a new crush on a girl each school year, but by 13 I was having (literal) dreams about fucking girls, usually one or two nights per week.

    So I can easily imagine a 13-year-old knowing exactly whom he wants to kiss/love/fuck, as much as that squicks me out today. They’re just kids, for gawd’s sake!

66. @63: no, absolutely not. You are correct that 13 is much to young to be making set-in-stone statements about one’s identity. My experience of my sexuality has changed in major ways since I was 13.

    That said, you can be “out” at 13 and change later, I know people who have done it, I know people who have been “out” as questioning as well. Kids and teens need to have space to explore themselves and their identity OPENLY without fear of judgement or censure (especially from parents). “Keeping it to himself” would have meant hiding what he was going through. One can speak about things without them being “permanent statements” and sexuality doesn’t have to be a permanent statement to be a valid discussion.

    I think the idea that being out means making a serious and non-voidable declaration is a bit dangerous. I’ve had bi friends who came out as gay first and changed later, and OH! the vilification and unpleasantness from people. What we need is to give people space to explore, expecting a 13 year old to hold true to the things they say about themselves for ever is just as dumb as asking them to clam up about it until they are 100% sure.

67. @58

    Classic parental leotardation.

    I don’t know what’s worse. The idea that you can stop your kids from having sex via any control mechanism? That it’s somehow better if they have sex in a park somewhere? Or the idea that you cannot share a room with someone of the sex you’re attracted to without fucking?

    Or maybe just try bundling bags.

68. @58: If you have a gay child, then sleepovers with anyone are ok, because nobody can get pregnant, which is the big life-ruining consequence of teenagers of opposite genders associating.

69. @70

    Um, no.
    Pregnancy is not the worst consequence of sex. Think harder.

70. @69

    You’re sixteen, aren’t you? 😉

71. @64:
    I don’t know that the hard-and-fast rule of “no sleepovers with people of the gender to whom you’re attracted” is always necessary. Some of my fondest memories were of mixed-sex sleepovers as a teen. Here are some of the factors that kept them (as far as I know) sexless:
    1) large, group sleepovers–wall-to-wall kids on the living room floor. No privacy, which meant much less opportunity for sex, unless you were pretty immodest, and teens are often modest.
    2) I am a straight female, and as a teen had lots of straight male friends that were just friends. There was never a sexual tinge to those sleepovers, and I’m glad that my parents just went ahead and let us have them.

72. @73

    1) When I was a teen I definitely (on more than one occasion) got very frisky with several other people in the room. It wasn’t a sleepover either. When were you a teenager?

    2) My parents were strict so I wasn’t allowed to go to mixed gender sleepovers. It would’ve been no problem though since I wasn’t interested in any of the guys at any of those sleepovers. Once you’re a teenager sleepovers are kind of a nerdy thing, especially group/mixed gender ones. Not to diss on nerds, a good chunk of my friends from highschool were nerds and most of my friends now are from that group – but… they generally aren’t the friends you want to have sex with.

    I don’t know. Have the rule, don’t have the rule, whatever makes you comfortable. The teen years are short anyway. If they think it’s unfair, they’ll get over it.

73. @69 Bundling bags…now why didn’t I think of that! But really, I know I can’t “stop my kids from having sex” nor do I wish to as long as they are mature and make good decisions. I talk to them about trust and about good and bad reasons for having sex, etc. As far as enforcing rules, well I grew up in a pretty lenient household. So I see the positive side of having parents make rules so that kids don’t act completely on impulse. If my kid thinks they are ready for a sleepover with someone they actually want to sleep with, I’d like them to discuss it with me and spend some time thinking about whether it is really a good idea, which leads me to why I disagree with…

    @70, because I definitely don’t see pregnancy as the main downside of having sex. There are plenty of risks, both physical and emotional, associated with sex. Teens and young adults are vulnerable and I want my kids to go down the path of having positive sex rather than negative sex, whatever their orientation.

    @73 and @74, yep my oldest had a few of those group sleepovers with everyone in the living room where parents could theoretically pop in at any time. Is it a nerdy thing? Maybe — my oldest is a nerd!

    Whatever I do and whatever my kids’ orientations end up being, I’m sure I’ll screw up somewhere. Ah well, I never expected to go through life without doing leotarded things now and again.

74. @75

    I’m probably too old to be able to accurately comment on what the kids are doing these days.

    Nerds are rad though, so hopefully he is!

    Sounds to me like you’re on the right track anyway.

75. @74 mydriasis,

    @74 #2: You’re the nerd dream that breaks their hearts. (Dramatic sigh)

    Peace.

76. @36 Hunt: Actually, my babe and I have known each other since we were kids. He has been around all along. And then one day we shared a long, smoldering kiss, and—-WOW!!!! He’s especially great for hugs, someone to talk to and snuggling. Does 28 years count as monogamy?

    @38 EricaP: I don’t know if what I’m so lucky to have is really dating (we don’t go to bars), but thanks for the warm hugs!! Right back atcha!!!

    @47 anklosaur: Thanks! Actually, I never have met Hunter78 in person, face-to-face. We just blog each other.

    @49 pigeon park: Unless you’re just being sarcastic, please see my response to anklosaur, posted above.

    XOXO, everybody!!

77. @ 64, snoozn: You’re welcome! It’s a wistful age, isn’t it? When your kids are still kids 🙂 , before puberty and everything kicks in. I love children. I hope to have some more 🙂 some day.

    @ 78, ankylosaur: Totally in jest about you and Hunter78 being anything more than you who you are to one another. Forgive me: I sometimes wing it and say stuff that isn’t meant to be taken with any offense or anything. It’s not sarcasm (I apologize if you registered my bits as that): it’s just playfulness 🙂 . XOXO Likewise, Everyone!

    🙂

    +~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+

78. @78(auntie grizelda), clearly you’re having a lot of fun, which is something the doctor always recommends. Enjoy! (I just hope your beau won’t distract you from that opera buffa and from your symphony. Music also needs you 😉

79. Ha, my safe word with my ex was “Bazinga!” (yes, from “The Big Bang Theory”).

80. No… Sorry but this is the second in a row of quite a few lazy and boring columns…

81. As an American who has a (traditional) marriage and a Canadian marriage license, I’m a little upset about Canada’s antics.

    http://www.ellwoodcityledger.com/columni&hellip;

82. After a lot of years experimenting with various forms of non-monogamy, Mr and I decided (and it was more his preference than mine, and no he wasn’t jealous because I wasn’t seeing or interested in other men and he doesn’t care about other women) monogamy was more appropriate for us. We may have the desire to not be at some other time, but the last two years of our 10 year union have been monogamous and we’re relieved, frankly. That said, we both agree if either of us were unsatisfying sexual partners for us, being happy in monogamy would be extremely difficult. As such there’s no sexual activities either of us want that the other objects to, we’re both very competent in performing those activities in a way that pleases the other, and we’ve done enough threesomes and more to be “eh, BTDT” about it.

    We quit because managing our two personalities and desires and needs and wants in our relationship was difficult enough without adding more people and their desires, needs, wants, and issues. Not to mention scheduling. No really, it’s an issue.

    Erica P, I can’t help but feel so much of your experiences have been other people minimizing your feelings. From your husband convincing you it’s perfectly normal to be non-monogamous and you were just being silly to object, to now BDSM people claiming this guy was just clueless and not an asshole. As a retired BDSM’er, I strongly disagree. He was indeed cluless, and this is precisely what made him an asshole. Doing that to you was horrible and shame on him for not getting out of his own aggressive asshole headspace to notice he was actually hurting you. If he wasn’t sure or aware that yes, some people actually want that as a hard limit, he had NO BUSINESS doing that scene with you. Do not minimize his crime, which is precisely what it is to perform rough anal on someone who says NO. He had no business presenting himself as a top if he didn’t know this shit, and yes, that does indeed make him an asshole at best and a rapist at worst.

83. @wendykh, but if being clueless makes you an asshole, why the two words? Isn’t there a difference?

    I’m glad you’ve found out monogamy works best for you. Please enjoy. But, as Dan said elsewhere, there’s no reason do YDIW. Everybody gets to discover for themselves what works (or doesn’t work) for them.

84. Quoth @85 (ankylosaur):

    @wendykh, but if being clueless makes you an asshole, why the two words? Isn’t there a difference?

    I would hazard that being clueless in some circumstances makes you an asshole. The two are not mutually exclusive. For instance: I’m clueless about 19th century Russian literature. I maintain that does not make me an asshole. If I were clueless about the needs and wants of my fiance, that would make me an asshole.

    Put more simply: for the important stuff, we have an obligation to know our shit. You don’t get to make the six-year-old’s excuse of “I didn’t knooooow better.”

    Now does knowing a BDSM partner’s hard stops qualify as “important stuff”? I would venture yes, but I have no experience with that scene. Maybe miscommunications are common enough that they can be forgiven or at least excused? I dunno.

85. @84, @86, et al non-monogamous persons,

    It just seems so convoluted and confusing sometimes when I read your posts.

    Best wishes though.

    Peace.

86. @87: FWIW, I’m currently in a monogamous relationship, and that relationship has always been monogamous (once we got past the initial “dating” stage).

    Both my fiance and I have been in non-monogamous relationships before (not with each other), and I enjoyed them immensely, but these days I just don’t have the time or the energy to navigate all the feelings, communications, and scheduling involved. For me, the “cost” of maintaining non-monogamous relationships is no longer worth the “return.”

    Which isn’t to say the cost would NEVER be worth the return again. If for some reason we couldn’t have sex with each other, I can see us deciding that the benefits of non-monogamy are worth the costs. Same if we’re forced to live in different countries for a long time. And I can certainly understand how someone with more relationship needs, or with more available time/energy, might decide that non-monogamy made more sense for them. I’m just not that person right now.

87. Why not a safe word of “safe word”? One of the most common passwords is “password.” And safe word is a hell of a lot better than “abc123.”

    popcorn,
    jill

88. @79 pigeon park: No sweat. It’s all good.
    @80 anklosaur: No worries—he’s as much into music as I am!
    While snow & ice are still on the ground, there’s a lot of time for practicing, playing, composing, and….well, you know.

89. @ Kinky Ana & EricaP – thanks for your anecdotes and advices. Really enjoyed reading them!

    Safewords: good to negotiate a safeword for a new play partner, but with people I trust, safewords don’t really get used, it’s usually the plain English communication method. I also like having the option to signal “go slow/yellow lights”, rather than a stop-the-scene red light, it’s been far more useful for me than the actual safeword.

90. @84, you may be right. I liked him, before the assault, so I prefer to think of him as woefully uninformed about how to run a scene rather than scheming villain. But I’m attracted to “bad boys” and he came across that way, so there is a part of my brain that says this was a useful lesson about the possible consequences of fucking “bad boys.” The goal is to tell the lightly bad boys from the serious bad boys… but if I were sure, then I’d be less attracted… My reptile brain is unhelpful to me, sometimes.

    @91, agreed – phrases that serve to slow down the scene are generally more useful to me than ones that threaten to end the scene. In particular, because the top can then purposefully drive the scene to a ‘yellow,’ to verify that the bottom will communicate when unhappy or in serious pain.

91. @ YOU 😉 : +~+~+~+~+I Love You! Wanna? ;-)xoxoxoxox+~+~+~+~+

92. Nearing The Beginning 🙂 …..

93. 😀 Of The Beginning, Of The Beginning, Of The Beginning, Of The Beginning….. :-)+~+~+~+~+

    “Tomorrow Never Knows”: The Beatles: ‘Revolver’: 1966 Through To Immortality.

    True Love 😉 .

    +~+~+~+~+xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo+~+~+~+~+!!!!!

94. I can’t be bothered to write a letter, but am happy in my 10 year monogamous relationship and don’t give a rat’s posterior what other people do with their relationships as long as they don’t make drama that propagates into my or their kids’ lives. (I care about their kids because emotionally damaged kids grow into emotionally damaged adults who live in our society).

95. @ 96: GG1000;), You Are A Soul After My Very Own!

    Well. Fucking. Said.

    😉

    .

    I could totally quote you for what you wrote, for I agree a zillion % over: zenith;) percent to my bones 🙂 .

    Monogamy, schlagogamy, polygamy, whatever:

    Are ya happy? What makes ya happy? Whatever works for you and doesn’t harm, hurt or damage anyone involved (especially children), then who would care who is or isn’t this, that or the other thing?

    #95;-)+~+~+~+~+ Sends Their Love ;-+-;+~+~+~+~+

96. @ 93 & @ 94 Also Love Ya Immensely, For The Record 🙂 +~+~+~+~+~+~+~+

97. 55 pigeon park– Thanks for the compliment. Here’s the down side to keeping a teasing/harassment diary. It forces you to focus on the negative. Let’s take it as a given that a 13 year old will, at some point and probably at many points, do something stupid and that his friends will call him on it probably in the form of teasing. He’ll say something dumb in class, and his buddies will call him a dumbkopf. If he’s out, they may call him a sissy dumbkopf. If he’s smart beyond the idiot thing he said in class, he’ll call them weirdos; they’ll all make fart noises, punch each other on the shoulder, and all will be right with the world.

    If he keeps the diary, he should note when the kids and/or teachers are picking on him, but he should also note when they come to his defence. Maybe the teacher handled the stupid comment well by making it clear that her class is one where people should feel free to think out loud even if it means getting it wrong sometimes. Maybe his buddies won’t punch him too hard on the shoulder or will accept the dumbkopf/weirdo designation with good grace.

    My idea with the diary is to be able to notice trends. Maybe one kid is turning into a bully. Maybe sissy is starting to go along with dumbkopf a little too often. Maybe he’s getting a few too many insults, or he’s getting the sense that kids are keeping away from him. He needs to be able to go back and see when it started and what the general direction is.

98. I am highly involved in my local BDSM community and have to agree with those here who say using “Safeword” as a safeword would not be laughable at all. In the really real world where flesh and blood people meet to get their kinks on, we tend to be pretty supportive when people make an honest attempt at clear communication.

    We use the universal “red” but most players I know also use checkins (squeezing a partner’s hand is a wonderful non-verbal cue) and just plain English (I’m much more likely to call FOOT CRAMP! than red).

99. @ 99, Crinoline 🙂 : If I may quote you kindly…

    “If he keeps the diary, he should note when the kids and/or teachers are picking on him, but he should also note when they come to his defence.”

    Absolutely :-). There may be a lot of idiots, cretins, cruel fucks and/or ignoramus’ running rampant in this world, but there *also* are people who care, who get it, who are supportive and can *applaud the courage* it takes for *anyone* to say, “This is who I am: this is the truth. Don’t like it? Well, have a nice day then, ‘cos I don’t really need to give a shit anymore about whether or not assholes think well of me or not, ‘cos, well, they’d be assholes then!” LOL It *IS* That Simple! Maybe not in the application (until you get the hang of it), but it *is effective*.

    For a child of 13 to know that they are truly homosexual (or lesbian, etc.) and to have THE GUTS to do what many people three or four times his age probably will never have the courage to do: BEING YOURSELF DESPITE ANY NAYSAYERS, SCUMBAGS, ABUSE FUCKS AND/OR DOUCHEBAGS (LOL Sorry to scream in caps! 😉 ).

    The thing is though, is that if a 13-year-old already has the fortitude and focus to know the difference that living truthfully is the only way to go: that kid must be the product of parents who truly love him unconditionally, and who would never turn their backs on him for something that commands immense respect: living honestly within his own skin.

    Anticipate on occasion the likelihood of the negative, focus on the positive (but moreover, *the constuctive*) and *trust yourself* to be able to feel/gauge your way through (and around) people who help you and love you…..and phasing out or more or less steering clear of negative, toxic, abusive people. It may not happen all of the time, or even for a long time (it took me ages to learn to love myself enough to finally say, “fuck it and fuck you!” insomuch to the world when I came out at 27 years-old.

    A family’s love, unconditional support and empathy does more than any of us can imagine sometimes. Family could come in any bloodline shape or form: *people who truly love you and who would have your back until the very end*: THAT’S the kind of truly-loving parent I want to be!

    If you screw up raising your kids, what else woudl anyone else honestly have to show for their time on Earth, you know (unless you opt to not have kids, which is also to be applauded: knowing yourself enough to know kids would be cool or that kids wouldn’t be in your plan, or something).

    (deep sigh…)

    To bolster what you shared, Crinoline, I’d would offer that maybe the parents can have a great heart-to-heart with their 13-year-old and to teach them a very universally-recognized practice: if people aren’t there for you and like/love/respect you for who you really are, then steer clear of them whenever possible! Life’s too short to suffer other people’s ignorance. Fuck that, and fuck them! Fuck ’em all! ;-D LOL

    Living as honestly as you can is the most-rewarding, hard-won, clear-as-a-bell fuck you to anyone who tries to diminish you for having the guts to be yourself, and to thy self be true, and all that stuff;) .

    The diary thing can shed *so much insight* into your own condition: often enough by your own words helping your own self to get through, heal and improve.

    I actually have been writing heavily in diary form these past four+years;) in particular.

    I get your drift;) .

    Thanks, Crinoline.

    🙂

    +~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+

    As well as…

    “My idea with the diary is to be able to notice trends. Maybe one kid is turning into a bully. Maybe sissy is starting to go along with dumbkopf a little too often. Maybe he’s getting a few too many insults, or he’s getting the sense that kids are keeping away from him. He needs to be able to go back and see when it started and what the general direction is.”

    I appreciate that you mentioned not dwelling on the negative, which could happen if the teasing/harassment diary is solely about that.

    As you’ve mentioned, it should be about noticing patterns, trends and/or certain repetitive behaviors: either within the one writing the diary as well as the people who inspire him to want to write a diary in the first place.

    .

100. @ 100: Anything verbal (if you intonate it loudly and emphatically enough) can serve as a safe word. Or a safe phrase, like, “get these fucking nipple clamps off of my pecker, pronto!”

     “Safe word!” or “ABC123” could work, too.

     I haven’t had to use safe words yet. That, and I’m not quite ready for the torture wheel in the basement with the flogging as well as having a master step on my ball sac with his steel-toe boots.

     Eh, maybe tomorrow ;-D LOL.

     Cheers.

101. @102 “anything verbal can serve as a safeword”

     Also, in case anyone needs this info some day — anything done in quick succession three times is also a “safeword” and should be treated as such (ie, check in with the bottom immediately):

     3 quick grunts
     3 foot stomps
     3 finger snaps
     3 emphatic blinks
     etc.

102. I think that safewords in general are great ideas, whether or not you engage in risky or BDSM play. My last girlfriend and I sometimes did some light stuff-spanking, bondage, etc.-but even when sticking to vanilla activities we still had safewords, just in case. I think a lot of couples would benefit from a safeword, just in case a sense of discomfort is experienced, or in case one partner gets turned off or no longer wants to consent to the activity. Saying “no” in the middle of an activity might seem like rejection or might get lost in rougher play. Having a safeword made it seem less like rejection, and more like taking care of our partner.

103. @104, if someone’s no longer having fun with an activity (and they’re not submissive), they might try saying, “hey, I really want to do X to you now,” or just changing positions, rather than safewording. After the sex, it’s a good time to bring up the issue (I didn’t like it when you called me Daddy / your tongue was starting to tickle me / whatever). But, in the moment, if you can keep the sexy times going by just changing the activity, that has less risk of causing insecurity in your partner and leading to longer term problems.

104. (Although, phoenixtorte, I don’t mean to downplay your successful use of safewords — glad that worked out for you.)

105. @ 103: Who needs a safe-word when a swift punch to the arm can say it for ya? LOL (Ok, taking into account someone’s hands are tied, hmm… Maybe an elbow to someone’s noggin to get them to cry Uncle? Anything’s possible: it is Friday, after all lol.

     Cheers.
     🙂

106. When I gag my girls, I do it stuffed tight and more often than not, taped with clear packing tape that not only seals her mouth, but also allows me to see her lips. So a safe word usually comes out as, “unghhhmfff….” I make very sure to watch her face for signs she’s not panicked or very uncomfortable-and I ask her if she wants the knots or gag tighter. An emphatic shaking of her head tells me to slack off a bit.

     In a gagging situation, I watch for any blue on her lip color, her nailbeds showing bluing or blanching are also signs she may not be getting enough air. Watch her eyes, too. If they’re looking “sleepy” or heaven forbid, rolling back in her head stop immediately and check her out (if she’s cumming, well that’s to be expected, but her erotic grunts and moans will tell you that she’s more than ok anyway).

     At the first sign of panic, free her immediately, I tend to use safe slipknots when binding my girls. Go for the breathing first (get that gag out of her mouth and clear any bindings constricting her chest), circulation is second (you are watching her extremities at the wrist and ankle bindings for signs of blue or blanched skin signalling poor circulation aren’t you)? If you use rope a lot, look to assure that the ligature is not cutting into her skin. I really like rope bindings, but have lately favored soft ties (old tee shirts cut into strips make great bindings as well as cleave gags), because it’s easier on her skin and I can more effectively tie her up without leaving rope marks, which is great if she has a guy to come home to or is going to work after a noon time fun session and can’t have obvious rope burns showing.

     Don’t just listen for whatever safe word of the day is in vogue. Look, Listen and Feel her in case she’s not able to communicate clearly. And, trust me, my girls seldom have the opportunity to verbally communicate clearly. I tend to be protective of the precious few women in my area who are into BDSM role play and I really want them to be safe, secure (in every sense of the word) and coming back for more.

     Play safe, have fun, cum often.

107. @108, what do you stuff in her mouth? Pieces of cloth seem like they might go down her throat and choke her, no?

     Do you discuss with them ahead of time how they should communicate in case of emergencies, by giving them a ball to drop or something? Does someone else generally know they’re there, in case you keel over with a heart attack?

     Thanks for your detailed explanation of the signs someone isn’t getting enough oxygen.

108. Hi Erica-My girls and I have a close connection and I instinctively know when I’m going too far. Our safe word is “Uh Uh!” If I hear that, first thing I do is remove the gag. That allows me to communicate with her and if she’s having trouble breathing, that’s automatically taken care of.

     I use wadded lint-free cotton for mouth packing about the size of the ball gag when wadded. I often make it just a little bigger than a ball because her natural tendency to compact it when she clenches into the gag, compacting it when she gets excited. If there are any loose ends, or tails, in the wadding, I always place them toward the front of her mouth so they don’t work loose and cause her to choke from the “tickling” action of the tails if placed toward her throat. You can assure that there are no tails of cloth by wadding them inside the cloth “ball” before gagging your pleasure victim. Sometimes one of the girls asks to be gagged with her own panties so she can taste herself and they work very well to stifle her mouth. A simple ball gag also works fine on her.

     One of the girls I see cannot open her jaw to accept packing (she has TMJ), but she tolerates the soft cloth cleave gag very well. As a matter of fact, she plays the damsel in distress like a champ and says she’s fantasizing that she’s kidnapped like in the old cowboy movies. This almost cries out for the tried and true traditional cleave. I often place a piece of clear tape over that and she prefers the tape as she says she can still make noise with the simple cleave gag alone. Many times, I’ll just go ahead and duct tape her mouth sans the cleave gag as this seems to really turn her on. With tape alone or combined with the cleave, she can still verbalize (at least I can understand her). One thing I do with duct tape is to first place the adhesive face down on my trouser or the bed sheet to take some of the stickiness out of it. It still seals lips quite well and is far easier to remove in an emergency or after we enjoy each other.

     Both of my girls know that I tie them so they can easily escape by pulling on the slip knot’s tail and there’s a lot of “give” in cotton soft ties. Most of the B&D I do is strictly fantasy play and there are times where the girls play simulated bondage where they are instructed to cross their wrists and/or ankles and keep them in place as if bound. To uncross their appendages is to ask for the palm smartly slapped against their bottoms, followed by wrist to ankle “binding” forcing them to maintain position while I enjoy their bodies.

     If the worse ever happened, like I had a heart attack or something, I would immediately free them at the first sign that I’m not feeling well by pulling the slipknot before going down for the count (and believe me, the sight of my gagged girl looking at me with compliant doe like eyes is enough to give me a heart attack (make that hard attack) at times!) But I am the kind of guy who stays calm in an emergency because in my real line of work, that’s what I get paid to do.

     So, bondage play is serious business, but oh the rewards, yum! I know my two girls very well and they trust me not to hurt them. And because they trust me very much, I love them and take great pains to keep them safe. And my one rule in rope and soft tie play is to never, ever tie anything around their throats, that is just too dangerous in my book and you’re really asking for trouble if you do it.

     Finally, if you haven’t done so already, take at least a CPR class and learn a little first aid while you’re at it. Both are good skills and could save a life some day. The last thing I would ever want to happen is for things to turn to crap and be the guy who runs around in circles in a pancik when the solution is usually very simple if you keep your wits about you and pre-plan as well.

109. NOGAFWYTA!
     Not you, Dan. Just wanted to acknowledge your new acro. It is kinda long tho. Probably STFU! is more useful in text. NOGAFWYTA is pronounceable though, as in, “NOGAFWYT, SANTORUM!”. (rhymes with: No, halfwit!)

110. @110 Very helpful tips – thanks!

111. @104

     Whatever happened to “baby, can we switch?”

112. Can I just chime in that I think some of the examples of “bullying” being discussed in the comments are just adorably innocent?

     When I was a teenage girl, I pissed myself twice – once on the walk home from school and once during lunch break (thankfully out of sight) because I was so scared of going into the toilets where no adult would be around that I would just try to hold it in all day. I stopped doing that after I thought I got my period but it turned out there was blood in my pee.

     I cannot recall everything said or done to me but it was far worse than being called something like a sissy. The bullying did not stop when I said something back. It did not stop if I told a teacher (it would get worse in fact, as I was punished for ratting on them). The bullying ran the gamut from verbal abuse to sexual assault while also making sure I knew I was a fat, ugly, smelly sow who should be grateful anyone even thought me worth touching against my will. It only stopped after I finally flipped and almost throttled one of the little shits that had put me through daily hell for five years.

     Bullying is not something that kids should just toughen up to, nor is it a way to learn appropriate social skills or how to negotiate with difficult personalities.

113. Hey Danny!

     They were talking about you on CNN tonite!

     by name!

     (we know how much you get a hardon about being on CNN….)

     Pierce Morgan had on Rick; and the wife and kids
     (damn lovely family, we must say.
     you know Danny,
     you could have married a nice catholic girl and had a houseful of kids as well…..)

     So the daughter was saying how she prays for your depraved pathetic soul.

     She seemed like such a nice kid, you almost wonder if god would answer her prayers.

     PS….oh, hey, Slog fanboys- were your ears burning too?
     (and still the yellow discharge? eeeeew….no, just kidding!)
     Cause Morgan said people who mock the Santorums for how they grieved the loss of their child are first rate assholes.
     are you going to let him call you first rate assholes?
     Farting Monkeys! to your email!!

114. @114, VicH-good god, I feel for ya, girl. From 2nd through 12th grade, I was bullied unmercifully. Stoned by rocks on the way to and from the school bus, constantly hit while on the bus (my neck still gives me trouble from that bitch April S. who slammed a big history book on my head), beat up in class, pushed, shoved, spat on-they once held me down and took turns haucking loogies into my mouth-5 guys right in full sight of teachers on the playground. No help whatsoever, just constantly harassed. Once was choked out in the locker room, went into a seizure, vaguely remember my head slamming repeatedly into my locker door while seizing. The coach thought it was, “real funny, you looked like a nekkid chick’n with it’s head cutoff…” In those years, I was constantly on alert, watching for signs of being trapped, culled from the herd and attacked by the animals who were my classmates. My sin was being the small, skinny uncoordinated kid who kept to himself as a defense mechanism.

     So what social skill did I learn from it? Well, dealing with PTSD for one, but I still get vicious when dissed in public and hate walking into a room full of people, like at parties, etc. Makes me nervous like I’m going to be humiliated in front of everyone, ’cause that’s what the nuns did to me in Catholic school. Still always sit with my back to the wall in restaurants and unconsciously look for the closest exit in case of trouble. Because of my career, I’ve been in a lot of barfights and tussles with psychos. Always enjoyed getting paid to wrestle a guy to the ambulance gurney, and make him rue the day he took the first swing. It’s not right, though to be like that, but it is what it is. Being the bully’s victim does not build character. But dealing successfully with the private hurt and shame does.

     Bullying in any form is totally unacceptable. What it does to the victim can never be remedied, they live with the hurt for a long time afterward. What Dan is doing to savage the Santorum family is unconscionable and is just plain not right. The constant name calling using his last name for not so funny jokes is sick and juvenile, it’s definitely internet bullying. It’s just as sick to dehumanize a kid because he or she is gay as it is to bully on-line another because he holds certain beliefs or his grief at losing a child doesn’t conform to your belief about how to handle a devastating loss. You’re a fucking scumbag bully Dan and so are your adherents. What you’re doing is wrong and demeans you as well as the whole LGBT community. In the long run, you are no better than those pricks who tied the innocent gay guy to the fence and beat him to death simply because he was seeking some companionship. I’m a fucking conservative and I still grieve for what that boy went through, such a sad end to a young life. This shit has to stop.

     -Vic

115. Hey Dan, Newt Gingrich I guess wants to be polyamorous too. Even Republicans are doing it. No doubt you’ve already noticed this.

116. Part of it is being adorably innocent. Part of it is being willfully naive. And part is not knowing what to do when people jump on the victim bandwagon. It has happened with so many charged words. First there was rape. Then there was date rape. Then (some) women saw something good in the kind of sympathy and understanding others were getting and started claiming they’d been raped for any situation when they’d had consensual sex with a guy and had reason to regret it later.

     I saw a similar evolution with the term “abuse.” I’ve got lots of complaints about the way my parents reared me. There was cluelessness, inconsistency, ridicule, selfishness, temper. Abuse? Maybe. Thinking of it that way sure made me feel better at one time.

     And now bullying. Where do you draw the line between a single instance of teasing on the part of an insensitive teenager and a harassment campaign on the part of everyone in the school including the adults? I suggested above that it was to be found in the power differential, but the word continues to be batted about even on this list where there will always be someone who cries bully when another respectfully disagrees.

     Back to DSS’s letter. The father asks for advice, and we all jumped on how to address bullying should it come up. That’s like thinking that medical care is all about preventing safes from dropping on your children’s heads and nothing on how to treat the flu. Bullying is the headline news, but a gay 13 year old needs more advice than that. I’m not the one to give it, but I can see that it’s necessary. What would you tell a gay teenager about navigating the dating world?

117. @118 “Then (some) women saw something good in the kind of sympathy and understanding others were getting and started claiming they’d been raped for any situation when they’d had consensual sex with a guy and had reason to regret it later.”

     Evidence? Claiming rape is a huge pain in the ass, involving unpleasant procedures by medical technicians. Also, having people question your choices and whether you were “asking for it.” I’d be interested in any evidence you have suggesting a significant percentage of rape accusations are lies (rather than unprovable in court).

118. What do you do about BDSMers with a bad case of You’re Doing It Wrong?

     The house safe word at the events that I attend is usually safeword and it is the second most commonly used safe word after red.

     YDIW may affect a minority of people involved in the bdsm lifestyle, but usually those who are active in their community are helpful in sharing their knowledge and skills. In my experience, most look after people who are new and look out for unsafe players and predators.

     The best way to learn what is real and what is fiction is to attend munches, workshops and events. Fetlife.com is another way to network with those who share your interests.

     GAG would not be laughed out of any community that I’ve been involved with, but her friend might be.

119. @ironvic “You’re a fucking scumbag bully Dan”

     If power doesn’t matter, and if Dan’s taunting of a presidential candidate is as bad as the presidential candidate’s insistence that gay sex is the equivalent of incest and bestiality…

     …then are your words also bullying? If not, why not? If so, do you see any way in which Dan’s bullying is worse than yours? If so, can you see Rick’s bullying as worse than Dan’s?

120. @115: …and yet you remain unregistered.

121. @EricaP-Bullies seldom work alone. They get their people all fired up and target an individual. Dan’s got the bully pulpit, so to speak and he’s used it to target Santorum and his family. Like it or not, that’s bullying. Juvenile name calling fits right in with the bully’s tactics. Dehumanizing the individual also fits. Calling Rick the shitty foam from gay aftersex is also a crude form of name-calling.

     I happen to think Santorum is wrong, but I have yet to see a Rick website devoted to trashing Dan Savage. Santorum is entitled to his opinion about sex and how to care for the body of a dead child-it is what it is. You can disagree with him and you should if you hold your views worth defending. But that gives no one the right to whip up the masses to target a man simply because he has his own truth to defend. If Santorum is wrong, he’ll wither on the vine, and he probably will because this country is not walking down the same path as him.

     You can call me a bully if you want to, but show me where I am doing nothing more than calling a jerk what he is, because he’s being childish in his disagreement. Just look at @115, he’s exhorting Dan to a new level, much like the bully’s cohorts shouting, “kick his ass, Dan!”

     Savage has stepped over the line of decency and decided to take the low road in his disagreement. He’s not winning any friends or converts in the hetero community. It’s more like he’s screeching to the choir and they’re singing their song of hate for hate’s sake.

     Sorry, but just being gay does not put you above anyone else, or allow you to target another person and his family with a vengeance.

122. GAG, I’ve been a stunt bottom at a lot of BDSM parties and organizations– the guy that demo tops use for demonstrations, since I’m pretty much game and tops tell me I’m fun. When we have newbies, we teach them about safewords, and once they’ve internalized the idea we tell them that the number one safeword is… “safeword.” It’s what you can remember. In a moment of crisis, resuce is not one memory step removed from “safeword,” it *is* “safeword.”

     I have no idea who that woman was, but she was so wrong as to be a danger to the community.

123. @123 Dan believes that destroying Santorum’s political career is vitally important, because of the damage Santorum wants to do to real people’s lives (making it illegal for gay people to have sex with each other, or for me to have anal sex with my husband).

     Do you think Dan wants to destroy Santorum’s career in order to profit personally?

     Do you think if Santorum were retired, that Dan would still be targeting him?

     This is politics. I’m sorry it’s upsetting to you. I’m glad it’s working. Santorum might very well be the Republican candidate for President this year if not for his google problem.

124. @123, I can see where you are coming from. You don’t like name calling, you don’t like jokes made at the expense of others.

     Neither do I.

     But consider this. The definition of ‘bullying’ is not simply the strategy, but the power imbalance (check the definition if you want). When angry citizens throw offenses at their president, this is not ‘bullying’ — Obama wasn’t being bullied when he was compared to Hitler, or when they drew pictures of him dressed in African tribal garb. He was being offended, but not bullied. These are different things.

     Dan’s attack on Mr Santorum is offensive, but it is not bullying. Unless your definition is different from the usual one.

     There is of course the question of whether or not this attack is justified. You see, the problem is: Mr Santorum’s opinions are not simply ‘wrong’ in the sense that 2+2=5 is wrong; they are also ethically bad, and have real consequences for people’s lives in ways that go beyond simply this being ‘his truth.’ You might pick any dictator or radical extremist in history and claim that the bad consequences of his dictatorship simply ‘reflect his truth’, and that is true; but it does more than that: it affects in painful ways the lives of many others.

     Now, you may disagree. You may think that Mr Santorum’s opinions do not contribute to an anti-gay culture. Or you may think that the consequences of this culture aren’t so dire as to require offensive retaliation. If so, please state your case.

     But, regardless of whether or not you disagree: there are many people, gay and straight, for whom Mr Santorum’s opinions are not simply despicable, but actually threatening. If you take these people’s viewpoint — is it really so hard to understand that they would retaliate with an offense? Wouldn’t you want to offend people who you think are conspiring against you? Even if you are so mild-mannered that you wouldn’t consider doing this, would it be so hard to understand that others who feel equally threatened might want to offend them?

     What are offenses for, anyway?

     I’m curious about your opinion. I hope you’ll share it with us.

125. @123, also: you say to EricaP that you can’t be a bully because you’re simply calling a jerk a jerk. But consider this: if a child is bullied in highschool because s/he is gay, or fat, or wears glasses, or whatever… well, when s/he is called gay, fat, or four-eyes, all those things are true.

     For bullying, it doesn’t matter that what you’re saying is true.

     You think Dan is a jerk, and you say it. If you had power on your side, and could actually hurt Dan physically or morally by doing so, and decided to call him a jerk because you wanted to hurt him morally and physically, and you actually had the power to do so; and if you acted in the absence of a direct provocation — you start it, not he — then you’d be bullying him.

     The power differential isn’t there, and you can’t hurt Dan — that‘s why you’re not a bully. Not because you think what you’re saying is right. More often than not, bullies also think they’re saying something right or true.

126. @123, a final thing. You say Santorum hasn’t come up with an anti-Dan Savage website. You’re right, but simply because Santorum considers himself (probably correctly) to be more important than Dan in the politico-cultural arena in America. And Dan isn’t a politician.

     If Dan were equallly important, or were a politician fighting for votes against him… then I think he, or someone connected to, or who supports, him (SuperPAC? enthusiastic supporter? etc.) might very well do that. Considering the level that political ads and political discourse have taken in America, would you really be surprised by it?

127. Ms Erica @119 – I agree with you about actual charges, but I think Ms Crinoline might have been referring to claims that did not reach the level of official accusations. It strikes me as plausible that, especially during times of a shift in consciousness about changing definitions, women have been encouraged or even urged to label an experience so. A recent example – when Ms B Palin’s book came out, there were many women in one thread I followed quite ready to use the R word, although Ms P avoided it. There was interesting discussion about whether one could call something rape if the survivor wouldn’t, and about the dilemma faced by those who held the beliefs both: that any woman telling of rape should always be believed and supported; and that they would never believe any self-serving story told by Ms S Palin or anyone connected to her without a polygraph test.

     For a lighter example, there’s Tales of the City. One may recall DeDe Day pleading with her grocery boy Lionel Wong to stay half an hour after his delivery for a bit of “special customer service”. Not long afterwards, DeDe attends a luncheon discussion group for rich women. Prue Giroux says they’re going to rap about rape, and that each of them will share an experience of when her person was violated against her will. Prue drops a couple of hints about her own story, then prods DeDe to go next. When her attempt to deny having been raped is taken as dithering, DeDe lets herself say that it happened at home, and that it wasn’t an intruder but a grocery boy. DeDe then goes home, calls the grocery with another order, and Lionel comes right over.

128. @114/118

     IMHO:

     What I described was bullying. What 114 described was rape.

     To me, “bullying” is a relatively benign term to describe a situation where one or more children/teens harass/tease/mildly attack one (or more) other children/teens for an extended period of time.

     What I experienced in middle school was not extreme, and it was certainly a drop in the bucket compared to the years that came before it started. But I will say this – getting teased was the trivial part of it. It’s the isolation that ensues when everyone is on the side of the bully that can often make things hard. Depending on that person’s home life it can be exceedingly difficult to lose school’s “safe haven” status.

     Finally…. I don’t really agree with differentiating date rape and stranger rape as if it’s an undue broadening of the definition of the term. If someone forces you to have sex, I don’t think it makes it any better if you went on a date with them first. If anything, I think the awareness about date rape is a positive thing, because it helps alleviate the stigma that suggests that going on a date with someone gives them permission to rape you. If anything, it’s the expression “statutory rape” that I find reprehensible. Having consensual sex with a person a year younger than you if you’re the age of consent is NOTHING like rape.

129. @129, I don’t think either of your examples (B. Palin or Tales of the City) serve as evidence of lots of false rape accusations (even at the level of gossip rather than criminal charges).

     The problem is that we don’t have a good term for sex that you didn’t want beforehand, didn’t enjoy during, and were relieved when it ended. A lot of women have “unwanted sex”, and don’t call it rape, and never complain to the authorities. Those are the women I assume Crinoline was talking about. They may tell their girlfriends that this one guy wouldn’t stop pressuring for sex, wouldn’t take a polite, friendly “no, let’s not” for an answer. We live in a culture which devalues what women want, and teaches women to put up with having their preferences ignored. If a guy is getting mixed messages from his date (she likes the kissing, but pushes his hand away when he tries to go further), he should stop and ask what she wants to do. But our culture says it’s okay for him to keep on pressuring her until she either gives in or has to be rude to him. Then he calls her a bitch, and tells all his friends she was a bad lay. You’re going to say it’s wrong for women to warn each other about such men?

     @130 most jurisdictions make exceptions for Romeo/Juliet couples (ie, close in age). A thirty-year-old having sex with a fifteen-year-old isn’t so very different from someone taking advantage of their passed-out acquaintance. In both cases, the rape victim is not considered able to give consent (even though both people might, the next day, not actually complain about the sex).

130. 131- “A lot of women have “unwanted sex,” and don’t call it rape, and never complain to the authorities. Those are the women I assume Crinoline was talking about.”

     NO! They do call it rape. They call it rape in conversation with me. They start with “he raped me.” I become all concerned, want to find out what happened, want to encourage them to tell the authorities and press charges. I am all sympathetic and understanding. I get a tearful explanation of the order of events. These involve consensual, if maybe a bit confused, sex.

     “The problem is that we don’t have a good term for sex that you didn’t want beforehand, didn’t enjoy during, and were relieved when it ended.”

     How about “unsatisfactory sex” or “the relationship didn’t work out”? Not everything works out. One time I took a college class I wasn’t sure I’d like. I did badly in it. In the long run, I wish I hadn’t taken it. But I couldn’t have known that before I tried. Sometimes the sexual chemistry isn’t there. Sometimes the sex is awful. But sometimes you don’t know that until you try, and she did try, then wants to absolve herself of all responsibility afterwards.

     We’re hearing the term “date rape” used differently too. Date rape is when they go out for dinner and a movie; he drives her home, kisses her at the door, then forces his way into her apartment, overpowers her struggles, pins her against the wall, muffles her screams that no one would hear anyway, forces her skirt up, enters her, comes, leaves quickly, and says he’ll call her.

     I’ve heard the term used to describe a situation where they go out for dinner and a movie; they’re kissing, necking, and petting in the backseat; she’s quite turned on; he moves to enter her; she hesitates for an instant, allows him; he comes too quickly; she’s disappointed, and then he brags about his conquest to his friends and doesn’t call the next day.

     Look at 118. I wasn’t talking about accusations made to police and authorities. I can’t have statistics about claims made in conversations to friends. I can’t provide evidence to defend claims I never made. I am pointing out that there’s a problem when people are using the words abuse, bullying, and rape to mean different things, then arguing about how harmful they are or aren’t. There are legal definitions or should be.

131. @131

     It’s creepy, but it’s not rape.

     @132

     This may be somewhat unique to your friend group. I have never heard a woman use “rape” in such a fashion. I’ve heard it suggested that people do (in a derogatory manner to suggest that a woman complaining legitmately of rape is stretching the truth), but you are the first person I’ve heard in my life actually mention a real-life scenario where a woman has done this.

     Like you said, there’s no study that I know of, but on my end this suggests that it’s very rare.

132. @131

     To elaborate…. you seem to a have a very low opinion of the mental faculties of young people. Sometimes I wonder if as people grow older and get further away from those years, the more distorted and faded memories make a negative impact on their ability to assess what people at that age are like.

     You’re basically suggesting that a fifteen year old is mentally equivilent to a non-conscious adult. Really?

     Fifteen was a while ago for me but not so long ago that I forget what it was like. I might think a fifteen year old who is sleeping with a thirty year old is making a bad decision. But you know what? I also have a friend who’s dating someone in his mid thirties. I also think that’s a bad decision. But I smile and nod because it’s her life, not mine.

133. @131(EricaP),@132(Crinoline), my experience tends to support what Crinoline says: some women who experienced bad sex recategorize it as ‘rape’ (because they imagine the sex was good for the man but bad for woman, the man didn’t care about it being bad for the woman, so the woman gets angry and calls it rape). Others also may claim ‘rape’ only because they want to exact revenge (they were dumped in a way they didn’t like, and then decide retroactively that some sexual situation at some point that they didn’t like was ‘rape’ rather than ‘bad sex’).

     I’ve met women who acted like that. I’ve met women who were hurt by women who acted like that. (One I ran into recently in Youtube made this video about her experience.)

     I don’t think there are good statistics on how many rape claims are false, and why (understandably, those who made false rape claims wouldn’t want to admit, even to researchers, that the claims were false). I’ve heard hazardous guesses ranging from 3% (normal for all crimes) to 40% (based on some study conducted in a small town). I don’t know what to believe: in my personal experience (meaning my extended group of family and friends), I’ve seen both cases of false rape claims and of real rapes.

     I frankly think this is a phenomenon feminists should give more attention to. To the extent that at least certain schools of feminism view rape as somehow emblematic of the relationship between the genders/sexes in society (‘rape culture’, ‘porn leads to rape’, ‘rape perpetuates power relations’, etc.), then false rape claims would also have (for said schools) a special significance, different from other false crime claims; and yet I rarely see the issue being discussed.

134. Ms Erica – Your culture, madam, not mine (sorry, that was irresistible). Other than that, warn away. Tattoo a big scarlet C for creep on appropriate targets any way you can. I’m entirely in favour of creative warnings.

     By the way, I thought of you as I followed the Palin thread. I did not post in that thread, as it didn’t seem appropriate to insert a non-female opinion, but wondered whether you might have advanced the idea that BP got drunk on purpose in order to shed her virginity without responsibility.

135. I don’t know if I should be posting this, as you all know way too much about my personal life already, but this “stranger rape” v. “date rape” and “”is-it-date-rape-or-just-unwanted/unsatisfactory/deeply-regretted-sex” debate is kind of hitting me in a hard spot.

     When I was 18, I experienced what I now think of as date rape (or acquaintance rape, to be more accurate). I didn’t call it “rape” at the time, didn’t report it (how could I? The man was one of my friends, a guy I knew and trusted.), and for years my only response was to blame myself for being bra-less. I made sure to never be in the same room with that guy ever again, not even if other people were present, because I was so angry at him, and so upset at what he’d done that I didn’t want to have to look at him, not because I was scared that he’d rape me again. Late, I came to a deeper understanding of the dynamic that was at work: I knew what rape was, but it never occurred to me that a friend, someone who supposedly knew and liked me, wouldn’t listen to my objections, wouldn’t stop when I asked and then told him to. I couldn’t really believe he didn’t care or respect my desire to not have sex. So finally, I sort of ‘gave up.’

     Was that unwanted/unsatisfying/deeply-regretted sex? You bet! Was it rape? Some people would define it as rape; others wouldn’t. In the long run, it doesn’t much matter to me. I ended up pretty unscarred, and much warier, healthily so.

     But 14 months ago, as we slept in our house, a stranger broke in through my 16-year-old’s closed-but-unlocked window and raped her–vaginally, orally, and anally. He also choked her, and threatened to kill her. (She was sleeping when he came in and woke because her air supply had been cut off.) She really thought she would die; she easily could have. I slept peacefully through the whole assault, something I will never be able to forgive myself for. I failed my child in the most elemental way a parent can. That daughter, my younger daughter, whose biggest fear has always been that a bad stranger would come into the house and do something bad, my ex-husband, and I have all been severely traumatized by this event and its aftermath. I would go so far as to say that none of our lives will ever be the same. My concerns for my daughter’s ability to ever have a healthy, joyful sex life, to see sex as an act of love, are strong. When you see your child live in a state of suspended terror, something is ripped out of your guts.

     And try as I might not to create a hierarchy of rape, to legitimate all unwanted sexual acts, I cannot find it in myself to equate what happens to a drunk young woman on a date with an equally drunk young man, bad as it might be, with what my daughter went through.

136. @131(EricaP), who wrote:

     If a guy is getting mixed messages from his date (she likes the kissing, but pushes his hand away when he tries to go further), he should stop and ask what she wants to do. But our culture says it’s okay for him to keep on pressuring her until she either gives in or has to be rude to him. Then he calls her a bitch, and tells all his friends she was a bad lay. You’re going to say it’s wrong for women to warn each other about such men?

     Indeed he should, but the same culture who teaches him not to also teaches the girl to despise the odd guy who will ask — he should ‘guess’ what she wants. Also, fear of being called a ‘slut’ makes quite a few women prefer not to have to tell the guy what they would like to do. So, many an otherwise honest and decent guy is left with no alternative but actually wait for her to be rude…

     Ideally both attitudes would change, and there certainly are signs that this is going on. I hope in the future men will also warn each other about girls who don’t like to say what it is that they like to do — but as far as I know that’s not the case yet.

137. Cute,

     I’m deeply, deeply sorry for what happened to your daughter. If I were the praying type those prayers would be with you, her, and everyone involved but instead let me just say I hope that the healing goes as well as it can under such horrible circumstances.

     Also, I hate to press, so feel free to not answer any further questions but I do have one, if you don’t mind. Has the man been caught by the police?

138. @ankylosaur

     Yeah. As a woman who is perfectly capable of saying no, I’d have to say that I don’t like the pseudo-feminist ideal of a man who always checks in “do you want me to do this now?”. I like assertive men. Of course that ideal would probably benefit most women (socialized to be ‘nice’) but it would be disadvantageous to me and my sex life, so… yeah.

139. @137, indeed these are two terribly different things, and the word ‘rape’ has been somewhat stretched (as a cover term for all kinds of non-consensual sex, so that it now depends on what ‘non-consent’ exactly means, with all the sad ‘gray zones’ that this implies). People roll their eyes on nonce, on-the-spur-of-the-moment differentiations like ‘rape’ vs. ‘rape rape,’ but the stretching of the term to include all kinds of non-consensual sex means including all kinds of very different situations, like the ones you mention. Sooner or later words will be needed to differentiate them.

     The incident with your daughter is horrible. It reads like a horror movie. (Did the police catch the guy?) If my experience is any guide (I did voluntary work at a date rape hotline while I was in grad school), it will indeed never fully disappear: it will become part of the person she is, and unavoidably color her perspective on the world. Though no fault of her own, or yours, or your ex-husband’s. Suddenly the world becomes smaller, and everything looks more dangerous than it used to.

     I’m reminded of that Six Feet Under episode in which David Fisher was carjacked and submitted to all kinds of abominable things before being released. Eventually one heals in the sense of growing enough to see how much more one is that any catastrophe that befalls us, but it takes time.

     Here is hoping that she will find a path leading to more power and autonomy, and happiness.

140. @140(mydriasis), my ideal is that sex shouldn’t be different from other shared activities qua planning. It’s OK to discuss what you’d like to eat before cooking. It’s OK to start cooking and then make assumptions, and have them corrected if you’re wrong. (‘I thought you wanted me to chop the meat! Oh you don’t? OK, tell me what you want to do’).

     I basically think two people can do something together feeling that they’re doing it together — not always perfectly choreographied, but at least with the feeling that the other person is also trying to make it work, as we are. And if something is going wrong, it’s OK to talk, stop, correct, etc. — without anyone’s virtue or ‘femininity’ or ‘masculinity’ being compromised by it. And if it is working, it is also OK not to talk, just go on making assumptions. It’s how people do pretty much everything they do together; why should sex be a big exception?

141. Oh, my god, nocutename — I am so sorry. And you are completely right. The unwanted sex I had with a friend in high school, the oral that turned me off oral for ten years… that was not in the same category with what your daughter endured, not at all. Our language is so limited, and sometimes it breaks down completely. Even through your poignant narrative, one can tell that there is so much there that goes unspoken because there are no words. I am so sorry for what your family has gone through.

142. Thanks for the expressions of support, ank and mydri.
     To answer the question of whether her rapist was found, arrested, tried, and sentenced: The police were able to definitively identify him circumstantially, and then DNA confirmed that identification. Unfortunately, he had fled the country, escaping to Mexico. The extradition process lagged and now his whereabouts are unknown; he could be in Mexico, somewhere in Central America, South America. He could have re-entered the United States. He could even be somewhere in California. No one knows. It is an ongoing horror show.

143. And thank you, Erica.

144. Aaaargh: I had written a long post about the problem of should a man persist, and how should he go about it, and I hit some button and the whole thing disappeared! Dagnabbit!

145. Crinoline @132, my own experience is that people are reluctant to say they were raped unless there was actual violence involved. But women who hear another person’s story about being pressured into sex are usually sympathetic, and may call it rape. I’ve been in lots of discussions where the victim doesn’t want to call it rape and the audience does. I’m stunned to hear that you see these events so unsympathetically. Either the victim should go to the police or else he/she should call it “a relationship that didn’t work out”? What? How about telling one’s friends what a creep he was, and warning them not to go drinking with him? The law differentiates cleanly between rape and sex that was unwanted but ultimately tolerated. But if you hear such a story from a friend, try not putting him/her in a box (“Go to the police!” “Hey, you were sending mixed messages”), and just listen, non-judgmentally, while he/she talks about what happened.

     mydriasis@134, legally, yes, the 15-year-old is unable to consent to sex with a 30-year-old. I have a 12-year-old daughter, so I’m sure that colors my thinking. But a 15-year-old values her future fertility differently than a 30-year-old woman, and may take risks as far as STDs that she wouldn’t take if her brain were more fully developed. Yes, I think 30-year-old men should feel that they will face consequences if they piss off the 15-year-old girl by getting her pregnant or giving her an STD. (If the guy keeps her happy, and isn’t an idiot, then they’re not likely to get caught.)

     ankylosaur@135, I watched the video you linked to. That woman (if she exists) was a psychopath. It’s hard to protect oneself from psychopaths, except by (a) trusting one’s gut implicitly, or (b) experiencing the chaos they bring into one’s life and finally realizing what’s going on. But surely you’re not arguing that we should universally distrust women’s narratives about being pressured into sex because some psychopaths lie? Which do you think is more common, for women to be pressured into unwanted sex, or for women to falsely claim they were pressured into sex in order to ostracize a guy who had honestly listened to them and tried to build a positive sexual experience together?

     Mr. Ven @136, thanks for the support. I don’t think it has to be so deliberately planned. One of my early sexual experiences I ended up feeling that I had raped myself, because I knew beforehand (and afterward) that I didn’t want sex with this guy, but in the middle I did want it. The guy was understandably pissed to hear afterwards that I felt I had raped myself with his cock. I should have kept that to myself and spared his feelings, but I was so upset at what I had done to myself that I wasn’t thinking straight afterwards. I’d put that in the “bad sex” category, but it was a useful education in understanding my own desire, and probably educational for him too. But that’s just me; I don’t care to speak to what B Palin’s motives or intentions might have been.

     ankylosaur@138, women won’t take responsibility for what they want until men stop pushing it on them. We need the culture to change. If men don’t like being in the position of possibly pushing sex on someone who didn’t want it, they should stop doing that, and back off when given the signal to back off. Then maybe women will learn how to initiate a little more, or how to communicate what they do want to do, with passion and enthusiasm, instead of grudging, passive acceptance.

     mydriasis@140, could you please not conflate someone who stops when his hand is pushed away with someone who can’t make any move without asking permission?

     ankylosaur@142 – I completely agree.

146. @148

     It’s also illegal for you to consent to anal sex in some places. Does that make it ethically wrong? Besides, in many places it is legal for a fifteen year old to consent to sex. When I was fifteen it was legal for me to consent. (Oh shit, I’m dating myself, aren’t I?)

     I’m not sure if I agree with your assessment of what role age of consent laws should play. It seems you’re suggesting age of consent should be a weapon in the back pocket of the minor in order to keep her older beau in check. Sure, some savy young girls do this…. but it’s only an extension of the already established paradigm that sex = power. For some young girls the first experience with power they’ll know.

     But I digress.

     The law is meant to be based on one’s perception of reality – not the other way around. An unconscious 18 year old and a lucid, well-adjusted 15 year old may be legally identical – but they aren’t cognitively identical, and isn’t that the salient point here?

     There are grown women who think that they don’t need to use condoms and there are 15 year olds who use them religiously. Education is important, I think we can all agree. Does age make an impact? Of course it does! But do you think fifteen is the age people are most likely to contract an STI? Try again. It’s people my age.

     Basically, all I’m trying to say is that calling consensual sex between a 15 year old and a 30 year old “rape” is offensive to the teenager (suggests that they have the decision-making capacity of a bowl of warm oatmeal while making a victim out of someone who isn’t), the thirty year old (accuses him of one of the worst crimes known to humanity), and rape victims everywhere (dilutes the meaning the word). But that’s just my opinion.

     Re: your second comment… unless we get into a play-by-play with contingencies, it starts to get a little murky, doesn’t it? But no, I wasn’t suggesting the equivilency you’re worried about – so I’m sorry if it seemed that way.

     Look, with me personally, no means no. And I would have no problem getting into a physical altercation with someone who was trying to force me (In fact, I have had to do this more than once). I would urge other women to share this degree of assertiveness despite their socialization and not “give in” when “pressured”. Of course I understand it’s not that easy. I don’t take bullshit from guys and I’ve been called a bitch for it many many many times. Heck, even you catagorized it as “rudeness”.

     What I was saying earlier was more in regards to the comment responding to yours. Unfortunately, every woman who says “no” and then relents worsens this problem. That does not mean it’s their “fault”. (If this distinction seems illogical I can go more into it, but I assure you it isn’t) Despite all the media insisting “no means no” (or at least it used to, when I was a kid), real life teaches men a different lesson.

147. @149 I think the laws are there to make older people think hard before starting a sexual relationship with a teenager. Just as they should think hard before giving an unlicensed teenager their car keys. Or a six pack of beer. Let alone both. None of that is necessarily unethical, but it may be stupid.

     Re “rudeness” – there are friendly ways to say no: “No, I’d rather not, no, stop that, come on, be a pal, geez, you’re kinda pushy, I said no, geez, hey…”

     And there are confrontational ways: “Get off me, asshole”…”OK, I’m calling the cops.” Yes, I called those “rude.” They’re also dangerous, since you don’t know if the guy’s going to punch you if you make him mad.

     Women are taught to de-escalate dangerous situations, which often means tolerating unwanted sex. Excuse me for wanting men to think that if they push hard for sex, then may find themselves being called creeps behind their back. Sadly, as you point out, real life teaches men a different lesson.

148. correction: THEY may find themselves being called creeps

149. @EricaP, I think the problem here is getting to a golden middle. I think everybody (at least everybody with a working sense of ethics and without an axe to grind — i.e., leave the radMRA’s and the radfems out) agrees that both rape and false rape claims are very bad things, both can destroy lives, etc. etc. etc.

     Now, good-willing people who stress the ‘but you have to listen to the woman’s story — it’s so difficult to tell and be believed, society is still sooo unwilling to believe she wasn’t asking for it’ aspect are those who did have these experiences — you mentioned some, and I saw some things like that in my year-and-a-half in the date rape hotline.

     Now, those who stress false rape claims have also had the corresponding experiences — and I also met a few of those, in my year-and-a-half in the date rape hotline. (One was a badly dumped girlfriend who out of spite seduced her former boyfriend a few weeks after the break-up and then claimed to have been raped, because she wanted him to be thrown out of the university. She actually cut and hit herself to look as victimized as possible.)

     I don’t know if the woman in that video is a psychopath. I know that there are bad people out there, and some of them are female. Humans have often lied to get something they wanted — money, sex, status, revenge, power, freedom, knowledge. Women are humans. How many women are there who could do something like that? How many men?

     I am certainly not arguing that we should universally distrust women’s narratives about being pressured into sex — nor should we universally distrust men’s narratives of women sending mixed messages and playing around gray areas that are sometimes difficult to navigate. In fact, we shouldn’t “universally” distrust any narratives — all kinds of things happen in real life.

     But we shouldn’t automatically trust any narrative either. A woman claiming rape may be lying. Or she may be telling the truth. I think we owe it to the real rape victims to find out when it’s a lie — because every false rape claimer is doing a disservice to real rape victims (by providing fodder for the narrative that claims ‘women lie all the time’).

     I don’t know which one is more frequent, lying about rape or being raped. My guess is the former; but do you really want to base an ethical argument on frequency? If it were the other way round — if false rape claims were more numerous — would you then claim we should ignore real rape victims?

     The main point is, I don’t know what the numbers are, and the data I’ve found online looks suspicious. So, personally, I say we need more and better data, more and better studies.

150. I meant to say ‘the latter’ — i.e. I think real rape claims are probably more frequent than false rape claims (to say nothing of rapes that go unreported). Sorry about the mistake.

151. @150

     You said unliscenced teenager. Telling.

     Again, teenagers can be trusted with responsibilities if they are properly prepared. That’s what I was getting at. Are they at higher risk? Yes. But that doesn’t mean we don’t let people drive until they’re 25 years old.

     If someone has pinned you down and is trying to force you to have sex with them, it is not “rude” to say “get off me!”. If someone rapes you, it is not “rude” to call the cops.

     Believe it or not I am a woman, and I have been in these situations and I didn’t “de-escalate” them by allowing these people to have psuedo-consensual sex with me.

     If someone crawls into my window, you can bet I’ll de-escalate. But again, that’s not the same context as a friend or coworker who will later be held accountable to mutual aquaintences and the police. I’d wager that they’re unlikely to kill me because I “escalated”.

     That is, after all, why women are (explicitly) taught not to escalate – to avoid homocide or severe injury. The reason they’re implicitly taught is to be “good girls”. I was never a “good girl”.

152. @EricaP, who wrote:

     Women are taught to de-escalate dangerous situations, which often means tolerating unwanted sex. Excuse me for wanting men to think that if they push hard for sex, then may find themselves being called creeps behind their back. Sadly, as you point out, real life teaches men a different lesson.

     Indeed, the point is that there are many pretty decent, honest men who aren’t trying to be jerks; they really were taught the lesson (from culture or from experience with women — which may be the same thing) that women won’t stand up for what they want, so they have to ‘guess’ when they have to pressure, to ‘take the lead’, to ‘be manly’.

     I don’t think it’s only men’s responsibility to change these expectations — I think it’s everybody’s, i.e., women’s as well. Women should become more outspoken about what they like and don’t like, what they wan’t and don’t want — there’s no need to wait for the guy to ask for it, you can say it (in a friendly way) right from the beginning. And I also agree that guys should stop and ask more, cooperate more, pressure less and go easy on that ‘manly behavior.’

     Both behaviors reinforce each other (as cultural features often do). Stopping one without stopping the other is usually not going to work well.

153. @155

     In addition, there are men who are comfortable with

     a. pressuring a woman, making her clearly uncomfortable, having her say no (“politely”) until she gives up and stops resisting, making sex ostenisbly consensual

     but not

     b. violently forcing that same woman if she chooses to be “rude”, or killing her because she “escalated”, because then it’s “rape” (and also, well, murder). This comes with the possibility of guilt, a marred reputation, and jail time. Not worth it when there’s plenty of other women who will give in like “nice” girls do. On to the next one.

     This is, in my opinion, the greatest problem resulting from the social setup we’re talking about here.

     Because there are many men who will do a. with no remorse but stay the hell away from b., I don’t agree with Erica’s implicit suggestion that women should carry on with business as usual and wait for men to become more knightly.

154. I’m not saying women should carry on with business as usual.

     Not. At. All.

     I’m doing what I want women to do, which is TALK about how they don’t like some kinds of sex, and despise the guys who pushed them into it. Now that men & women can talk in public about sex, I want women to say what they like, and what they don’t like, here on Slog as well as during private sexual play. And I want men to hear them, and talk back about what men like, and what confuses them. And I want women who say “but I like being pushed around, and I respond to that,” I want them to hear that they are hurting other women with their choices.

155. @137 nocutename: Oh my God! I am so sorry to read about what happened to your 16 year old daughter, and the trauma you have all experienced!
     Was the perpetrator ever apprehended and held accountable for his shameful brutality? I know it’s a horrible situation to have to report to the police.

     You and your family are all in my deepest thoughts and prayers.

156. @158, see 145. So awful.

157. @157

     It seemed to me that you were suggesting that the current state of things (for most women) where they politely say “no” and if the man continues to push they shrug their shoulders and allow it to happen, does not need to change. (At least women’s behaviour in those situations does not need to change)

     That being “rude” (as I have been) is dangerous and to be avoided.

     You think the way women talk about it afterwards should be changed, but you think that “Women are taught to de-escalate dangerous situations, which often means tolerating unwanted sex.” and that there’s nothing that should be changed about that on the woman’s end.

     Women aren’t just taught to de-escalate dangerous situations (see above for why your boyfriend raping you and someone on the street raping you are different contexts), they’re taught to de-escalate all conflict. To their detriment.

158. ankylosaur@152, “I think we owe it to the real rape victims to find out when it’s a lie.” Unless we implant cameras in everyone, we will never have that knowledge.

     So you push for the change you want to see, and I’ll push for the change I want to see. My own energies will go less to challenging women’s stories and more towards convincing men to disdain passive partners and look for enthusiastic partners (male or female) instead.

159. @160 Apparently I’ve been unclear. I do not think women should be polite. I think we should be assertive and clear. In all aspects of our lives.

     I work for that goal with my daughter, and with other young women I know.

     Is that more clear?

160. Yup. You can see why I might have been confused by some of your statements though, yes?

161. Yes.

162. Rad.

     P.S. your daughter may thank you later for encouraging her assertiveness. I learned mine from my mom and it serves me well.

163. EricaP: I agree with everything you’ve been saying and I’ve understood it all, too.

164. @158 (Auntie Griz):
     It wasn’t the slightest bit shameful for my daughter to report it to the police, who have said that she is the most composed and coherent and amazing survivor/witness they’ve worked with.
     Also, she bit the shit out of his hand when it was over her mouth, and hopefully gave him a hell of an infection. This was one of the things that the police were able to use to help rule out certain suspects, as well.
     And she used her head: when the rapist had finished assaulting her, he kissed her, told her he “loved” her, and again threatened to kill her. She replied that she loved him, too, and she would never, ever tell anyone. Then he left and she came into my room, woke me up with the phone in her hand, and told me to call the police.
     I am indescribably proud of her.

165. @137 nocutename,

     My girlfriend who was my first sexual partner told me about her rape, when she was 12, about 2 years after we started going out. I will never, ever, forget the scene in complete detail; in particular I felt so helpless without knowing what to do. I was 19 at the time, and yet despite my cluelessness, I was able to be the person she needed because my love and support never changed.

     I can only suggest that as best you can, try to not let this incident control your lives. Get as much help as you can, but live on.

     Peace.

166. Ye gods. Bit late, because my internet was down, but can I just chime in that I am utterly opposed to the shit that ironvic just tried to pull in reply to me?

     Ironvic, bullying is bad. What Dan is doing isn’t bullying. It’s beating a known bully at his own game. And doing it with humour.

     Eesh.

167. @159 EricaP re nocutename’s post @145: Oh, wow. That really is horrible.

     @167 nocutename: I think you may have misunderstood my comments. I didn’t mean that you and your daughter acted shamefully—HER ATTACKER who broke into your home did!
     I would be indescribably proud of your daughter, too, if she were mine.
     I’m glad that the police were responsive, supportive, and impressed with her remaining calm in such a horribly traumatic, life threatening situation.
     I hope that authorities catch and incarcerate that monster so that you never have the nightmare of facing him again.
     Peace be with you.

168. @167: Further clarification: I’m proud of you and your daughter keeping your heads through such an awful experience–period, regardless of whose daughter she is.

169. @167, part III: Additionally, I hope that shithead’s dick falls off and everyone calls him “Stubby”.

170. @EricaP, who wrote:

     My own energies will go less to challenging women’s stories and more towards convincing men to disdain passive partners and look for enthusiastic partners (male or female) instead.

     That is a very good use of energy — especially since, in our society, men who do that (i.e., stop pushing when their prospective partner is passive and look for an enthusiastic one) are often still considered ‘not mainly enough’, including by the very passive partners they thought they were respecting by not pushing further.

     You see, that’s the point: often otherwise good men will push beyond polite levels (see mydriasis above) not because they have a sense of self-entitlement and think sex is always theirs for the taking, but because they’ve had the experience of being mocked — sometimes by the very woman who they were respecting — for being ‘too respectful.’

     By all means go on convincing men to disdain passive partners. But, please, do convince women not to disdain men who disdain passive partners. They are part of the reason why pushy men are pushy.

171. EricaP(@161), who wrote (quoting me):

     “I think we owe it to the real rape victims to find out when it’s a lie.” Unless we implant cameras in everyone, we will never have that knowledge.

     True, but this cuts both ways. If we don’t have implanted cameras we also don’t know if the rape claims we hear are true.

     Part of preventing a crime is finding out when it happened and when it didn’t. There’s theft and false theft, there’s fraud and false fraud, assault and false assault, murder and false murder, and so on. Surely you don’t think that our concern for the first element in each pair means we shouldn’t pay sufficient attention to the second element?

     I’m not saying we shouldn’t listen to women’s narratives. I’m just saying women are people, too.

172. @167(nocutename), I would also be proud of her if I were her mother. That was indeed very intelligent, and very courageous, behavior.

     Let me add my hopes to yours that this bastard will be caught and punished as he so richly deserves.

173. People in successful, long-term monogamous relationships—even those of you who aren’t but think you are

     Was there really any need for that little dig? In a paragraph about how you shouldn’t run down people with different -gamy choices from your own, written in response to a letter that was perfectly polite and non-YDIW-ish, it seems pretty uncalled-for.

174. This story hit me like a bolt. I came out at the age of 12 and my families reaction was a tragic experience I carry with me to this day. I was locked up in a mental hospital during my time there my roomate hung himself in our room and I saw staff members having sex with patients. It was alot to handle for someone who had been sheltered most of there life. If that was not bad enough I was released a year later and I found out that my mom had signed me over to the state and I was told I was not going home. It has been over 20 years and I still live with those feelings of abandoment and fear. I have dealt with my own issues with substance abuse and childhood sex abuse of myself and my sister at the hand of my stepfather. To have to live with the memories and feelings of my past is so bad at times I just want to yell and hit something. I have found my own outlet with my writing and it’s very theraputic for me. Any child that can come out with support of family,friends,public will only benefit and prosper in there own relationships and eventually raising a family of there own.

175. @173

     I’ve never mocked a guy for taking no for an answer, nor have I ever heard of this happening. I’m sure you have some reason to believe this happens, but I’ve never seen it.

     Fact is, from where I’m sitting, the men who stop pushing when they first are told to stop just have less sex. I assume it just got filed under “nice guys finish last”. I don’t know… I honestly have a hard time understanding women, for the most part.

176. @178 Thomas,

     I am very sorry for your loss, both of your innocence and your family. I hope you find the happiness you deserve.

     Peace.

177. @179 mydriasis,

     “I assume it just got filed under ‘nice guys finish last’.”

     I can say there has never been a hit on my conscience for not continuing after the first “no/stop”. However for me sex has always been as much (or more) an issue of me trusting my partner as my partner trusting me.

     I argue that defining a collaboration as a competition seems a little weird.

     Peace.

178. @174, anklosaur, at some point your obsession with fairness seems ridiculous to me. I’m not, personally, using my energy to effect more rape prosecutions — I’m using it to try to change the culture so that men expect happy participation from their partners (male or female) and don’t put up with passive unhappiness.

     The men in my ideal world could still be initiators and aggressors, and most women would be happily responsive to that, sexually. But when men run into someone who withdraws into herself, or lies there unresponsive, or says, no, please, stop — they’d pause to figure out if she was done for the evening or had some other activity in mind.

     You’re suggesting that women disdain men who are aggressive (not namby-pamby) but who do stop when faced with a passive, passed-out, or otherwise unresponsive or miserable partner.

     Respectfully, ankylosaur, I think that’s a ridiculous claim.

     It’s like saying that every bout of male roughhousing has to lead to a full-fledged fist fight or else the men lose face. Maybe in some rare parts of the culture, but mostly, men have ways to back off from escalation with their friends and acquaintances.

     As mydriasis says, those men who don’t push beyond their partner’s resistance might miss out on some intercourse, but I can’t see how they’d earn anyone’s scorn. (Except that of other men for not being ‘rapey’ enough, possibly.)

179. 148– I’m stunned that you’re not more sympathetic to the men who do their best, have sex with a willing participant, and get accused of rape later after an argument. I’m further stunned that you know so much of the details of an events you weren’t present for and haven’t heard both sides of. Granted I wasn’t present, but I did know both participants and did act as confidant for both. I’m not filling in details. It’s not my place to spill secrets even anonymously and even after many years. Let’s just say that I was as sympathetic and supportive as I could be, that I did acknowledge grey area between go to the police and a relationship that didn’t work out and that the preponderance of the evidence was on the didn’t work out side.

180. @181 the “nice guys finish last” competition is with other men: the idea is there may be men who get more sex by being aggressive, and men who get less sex by not pushing so hard. The latter are “finishing last” in the competition to get more sex.

181. @183 – So, what’s his side of things? How much was she participating in the sex? Would you say he was doing his best to ensure that he had not just a willing participant, but a happy, active partner? Does she agree with his description of how much she participated?

     Also, we don’t usually use the phrase “accused of rape” when the alleged victim didn’t tell authorities, just a friend. Maybe you object to the colloquial (as opposed to legal) use of the word ‘rape’ (as when I said that I raped myself @148)?

182. @183 never mind, I see you don’t want to fill in details. All right. So assuming she had a fantastic sexual experience that night, and is just spitefully lying about what happened — then I guess you advised her to avoid the word rape and get some counseling for her anger? I don’t think women are always reliable narrators and of course I don’t know what happened with your friends; I just think there’s a lot of bad sex in the world that could be improved upon if women took a more active role and men didn’t continue without an active, happy partner.

183. The only BAD safewords are those open to easy misinterpretation- Ow, No, Yes, Harder, and random expletives are some examples of safewords that ARE bad ideas.

     A good safeword is one that is clear, at least two syllables and out of context(not a word likely to be spoken spontaneously)- Popcorn is excellent, BTW, for exactly those reasons and so is Safe Word- especially at a party when one may be playing with new and unfamiliar partners- in such a context, a generic signal is good for the same reasons traffic signs are given consistant shapes and colours. Everyone understands them (or should).

     A safeword is not a substitute for good negotiation prior to play, careful attention and communication during a scene and honest review after but a clear, concise signal is an important safety tool and I would never consent to play with someone who wanted to dispense with that detail.

184. @184 Erica,

     You are correct. My point about the collaboration part is between the male and female having sex. The weird thing is that the male going with the request/statement of his partner will, in theory decrease his chances of having sex over the partner that ignores the woman’s request/statement.

     I think this is one of those edge case scenarios that just make life frustrating. The difference between “assertive” and “aggressive” lies in interpretation more often than not.

     And to throw out another edge case: There is also the nice guy who never finishes last because he’s already won a race. Some nice guys always have sex because they were already pulled off the market by their partners.

     I agree with your goal of self advocacy; sex without coordination is sub-optimal at best. More importantly, to assert that women can’t be proactive, or a submissive male can’t be good in bed, seems needlessly limiting.

     Peace.

185. @184 Erica,

     Or, to put it another way: Why is it that being pussy whipped is viewed as a bad thing?

     Peace.

186. Dan,

     Wow. Your advice to COCK was defensive, condescending, and missed his point completely. Way to bring your own issues into the topic. I recall you recently posted a response from a “monogamous” couple, which was actually just a guy who had cheated on his wife without her knowledge, his self-serving definition of “making it work.” One doesn’t need to be a judgmental prick to know that is just plain ol’ adultery.

     I want to believe differently about you, so in the future perhaps you might try not jumping the gun and shoving your version of morality upon your readers. Otherwise, you cast a big shadow and news flash we all see it.

     Signed,

     Disappointed

187. 13 is not too young an age to realize that you enjoy other males. To the contrary it’s roughly right on the mark, but even if the boy DOES turn out later to be (insert any orientation you can think of here) instead of gay, he has an incredible, wonderful gift. There is nothing on Earth better for LGBT kids than a loving, supporting, understanding family. If he does turn out to be gay, which he very well might (My own personal fantasies of other males started rather spontaneously at age 11. Turns out they were right, I’m gay), he’s already off to a wonderful start, at least as far as his family is concerned.

     I AM rather worried about him already coming out to his school, that part could be a major concern. He’s probably still in middle school if he’s only 13, and middle school can be easily summed up with a simple reading of Lord of the Flies, so it would be a concern. However, reading this first letter from the dad no less was the highlight of my day. Thank you a thousand times over, DSS. You’re a wonderful parent and a wonderful human being!

188. @189, depends who you ask. Some men like being whipped, some men would like being “pussy-whipped.” Other men don’t like the idea of women telling them what to do.

     Most people are in the middle: they like input, but not when that takes the form of criticism. And our culture complicates things even further with sex, because men aren’t supposed to need direction to do “what comes naturally”, but sometimes things go terribly wrong if men proceed without active encouragement from their partner.

189. 186 Why would you assume she had a fantastic sexual experience and is spitefully lying? Are we out of grey area? There’s no room for genuine confusion mixed with bitter disappointment plus a hurt desire to lash out while not thinking clearly which translates to an insecurity that includes not being able to hear another point of view? If you’re confused now, rest assured that I was then.

     It was rape when there was a need for sympathy. It was not rape when there was a need for legal definitions and police reports. It was rape when that term would help her recovery. It was not rape when it came to just getting up and leaving. It was rape when it came to joining hands with a sisterhood of feminists. It was not rape when a feminist would have told her to stop depending on a man to play knight in shining armor to rescue her from big bad world.

     That’s only one of the times I’ve heard the word “rape” used in such an ambiguous way. In my circles, the word gets thrown around a lot.

190. !93 I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, since you said he did his best. I’m happy to agree that this was a bad situation.

     I’m not as upset by people using the word ‘rape’ colloquially, assuming they don’t press charges or post it on facebook. If she wants to use it as shorthand for “screwed me over badly,” and if it’s clear that she’s giving her personal perspective, not a legal verdict, I might not argue with the term. Though I might suggest other ways of reframing, if she seemed able to listen. You say that she wasn’t able to listen… That must have been difficult for you. Sometimes friends can’t really help, especially since you were friends with both sides.

191. @184 Thank you for the clarification. That is what I meant.

     @189

     Because it’s a turnoff for women who (to use an archaic expression rather than a lengthy PC essay) “like their men to be men”.

192. @194

     “I’m not as upset by people using the word ‘rape’ colloquially, assuming they don’t press charges or post it on facebook.”

     Do you think it might if you were a victim of a real rape?

193. @192 Erica,

     Somehow, being told to show up at a particular time and place so that we could have sex never seemed to be that much of a hardship. Eh, lots of sex; how unmanly…

     Peace.

194. Being told to do anything is pretty unmanly, yes.
     Hey but that’s me. I like my gender roles like others like their wine/fashion/record collection – vintage.

195. @195 mydriasis,

     As long as you are getting what you want, when you want it, labels mean nothing. I just take exception that a man saying yes to a woman that wants to date/have sex is any less masculine, or that a woman that is sexually assertive is any less feminine.

     Peace.

196. EricaP
     I think your point is that sex is better when the woman is fully involved. Most young men don’t know this. Even some more experienced men don’t get it. Once men learn this they can have gourmet sex rather than fast food sex, they will frequently go for it. But sometimes both parties don’t have the time or are too tired, so fast food sex will be enough to satisfy them both.

197. @200 Quickies are great, but even then, you should expect to see some joy on the face of your partner.

     If he or she doesn’t like the sex, then break up with each other, or get to counseling to try to figure out why. But don’t just keep on having sex with an unhappy partner.

     I know, this goes counter to all of Dan’s advice about how GGG people will have sex when their partner wants it, even if they’re not feeling it. But where does one draw the line? Personally, I’d much rather masturbate than inflict sex on a partner who I know is unhappy.

198. @196 I am the victim of real date rape, held down while I was saying no the whole time. My friend thought I didn’t mean it, because my no’s were not aggressive. It’s true I haven’t been the victim of stranger rape. Maybe that would change how I feel. Are you saying that you feel the word rape should be reserved for only events that fit the legal definition? That is, talking about “rape of the environment” trivializes a serious crime?

199. @199

     A lot of people do.
     But perceptions exist.

     If you’re willing to read, this is my personal opinion on how women perceive masculinity. If not, skip down to the end.

     There are lots of qualities, physical, behavioural, etc that get filed as “masculine” and ‘feminine”. Whether or not it’s even valid to ascribe a quality as M/F is contentious but whether or not it’s valid, it happens. Any man that had all of the masculine qualities in spades would essentially be a gorilla. So women sort these qualities. Some qualities are deeply tied to their concept of masculinity. Without these qualities, they see the man in question as too feminine, not manly enough, however you want to look at it.

     Other qualities might be seen in an non-essential positive light, or negatively as the case may be.

     Here’s an example. A good friend of mine when I was younger liked men who were ‘sensitive’ (a “female” quality) but didn’t like men who were too pretty/groomed, or too hairless. So for her, a man who cries during a movie (isn’t “stoic”, is lacking in a masculine quality) is still plenty manly as long as he can grow some chest hair.

     I’m more the opposite. I like pretty guys. The kind of guys manly men scoff at. I think it’s adorable when a guy can’t grow a beard to save his life. I like men that are good with kids and nurturing. I also don’t like super muscular types, etc etc etc.

     But if he cries during movies? Ew, no. If were to let me treat him like a lap dog? Ew! If he doesn’t initiate sex enough and/or isn’t agressive enough in bed? DTMFA. Doesn’t take the metaphorical driver’s seat by default? Lame! Etc, etc etc. It’s all about what people put their emphasis on.

     TL;DR
     Masculinity is all about personal opinion. If it bothers you that some women find your behaviour unmanly then don’t listen to them/me.

     And for the record, I don’t know enough about your behaviour to know whether I would catagorize it as such but the manner in which you defended it suggests that I would. No big deal.

200. Well, dye my eyes and call me pretty.

     I’m so sorry for the horrors experienced by Ms Cute and the unregistered Thomas.

     Separatism is looking like the only answer again.

201. Ms Driasis – Personal taste is personal taste, but shouldn’t DTMFA require a real MF, not just some vague failure to meet a possibly unclear standard? And “lame”? That’s just nasty. Dislike qualities you dislike by all means, but please don’t get sucked into belittlement by Dump Culture.

202. @205

     I’m sure you can tell the difference between a somewhat facetious SL post and how I would dump someone in real life?

     How a person feels is how they feel. I consider ‘lame’ to be a pretty mild expression of dislike. It’s nowhere near say, ‘pathetic’ in terms of insulting.

     Do you really consider it to be that offensive?

203. @203 mydriasis,

     “…some women find your behavior unmasculine…”

     Heh, the problem answering that kind of question depends upon when you asked it. For the sake of posterity, the summer before my freshman year I tried out for the junior Olympics on a team sport. From the time I started my freshman year till my junior winter I continued in that sport, but dropped it because my study load was getting even more insane than I could handle. At different points in time I would do things like a couple of hundred pushups and incline board sit-ups a day (in the off season), and a 10 mile run. Physically I was a 5% body fat jock, mentally I was a hard core science student attempting a minor in a European language. I also went to college with my girlfriend, but in hindsight my emotional maturity was pathetic (or pretty standard for a male under the age of 21). I was 6′ 1″ and about 175lbs. I also goofed around with the martial arts. I even had a roommate that got me into wearing a blazer and a tie on days when it wouldn’t get me killed going into the lab. So, by most standards I was rather masculine. I was also raised to be extremely polite and careful with my language. In essence I was someone that “just didn’t fit” into the kind of quick categories that pass for standards in a frat house keg party. But I was getting laid anyway, so there wasn’t any problem. I just find it unfair to categorize my girlfriend as being unfeminine for pursuing (and nailing) me. Or the one after that. Or the one after that.

     I’m just being cranky at stereotypes that never really made any sense, and cost me chances to have a pleasant conversation when people found out my major. I merely seek to lower barriers for the other nerds who aren’t quite as fortunate.

     Sorry for rambling.
     Peace.

204. @207, I think it’s just about style. Sounds like your style is laid-back / polite gentleman. Whereas mydriasis (I think) likes to be ravished. (Apologies if I’m getting that wrong.)

     You’re not less masculine than anyone else; there are many different ways of being masculine — thank god!

     Which is, I think, what mydriasis was saying @203.

205. @207

     You might be surprised at how similar my personal experience of not-quite-fitting-a-catagory is to yours. I could elaborate if you’re interested.

     Give those ex-girlfriends some credit. I’m sure they’re self-assured enough to not be offended by the psuedo-implication that they’re unfeminine for pursuing you.

     There’s oodles of guys that love sexually forward women. I wouldn’t touch them. But they certainly exist in droves. That’s the beauty of diversity: women who some might catagorize as “unfeminine” (although I didn’t) are a veritable wet dream for others.

     But you can’t ever make everyone appealing to everyone. So what exactly are you seeking to change?

206. @208

     If only I was as good at getting your points as you were at getting mine 😉

207. @209: “Give those ex-girlfriends some credit. I’m sure they’re self-assured enough to not be offended by the psuedo-implication that they’re unfeminine for pursuing you.”

     It isn’t even a pseudo-implication when they are actively engaged. They are just doing what they do, and hopefully enjoying it. It isn’t anything until some other person opens their mouth and tries to slap the pseudo-implication on them in the form of a pseudo-derogatory label.

     “There’s oodles of guys that love sexually forward women. I wouldn’t touch them. But they certainly exist in droves. That’s the beauty of diversity: women who some might catagorize as “unfeminine” (although I didn’t) are a veritable wet dream for others.”

     That’s good, you are getting it, mostly. Everything except the labeling thing.

     “But you can’t ever make everyone appealing to everyone. So what exactly are you seeking to change?”

     Perhaps a recognition that terms like “unmasculine” by their very construction imply some sort of universal categorical standard, in a way that they have no business being. And they are offensive because they implicitly weigh the other person, measure him, and find him wanting, in ways that they have no business doing. As you yourself have demonstrated, your definition of “unmasculine” can be diametrically opposed to your friends’ definition. Two people applying the same label to two opposite sets of characteristics pretty clearly indicates that the label itself is nonsensical.

     In other words, have the good sense to stick to describing your own likes and dislikes as something you own, rather than projecting them onto the other person as some sort of failure on their part to meet a standard which has already been shown to be anything but standard.

208. @16: Great article on what happens when things go wrong in a BDSM scene:

     http://sexgeek.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/&hellip;

209. @203: I think you’re confusing masculinity with preferences. Just because someone cares more or less about a feature such as hair, demeanor, dominance, or whatever, that doesn’t make it more or less masculine.

210. @211 avast,

     Thank you for so eloquently expressing what I meant. Labeling never seemed to be able to catch the nuances of a person, and couldn’t convey the intricacies that (to me) make everyone unique in their own right (well duh, right?!). You know, the parts that make them interesting?

     @209 mydriasis,

     I would very much like to read about your uniqueness. As, I am sure, would others.

     (Getting on my soapbox mode). Labels suck because they can be misapplied, misleading, and downright cruel. I have been fortunate that I wasn’t attacked by a fellow student once when I parroted a label about a young woman that turned out to be his girlfriend. In some ways I wish he had, to assuage my shame. in the hands of some they can become tools of oppression (cough *Santorum*) (wimp, fag, n*****, liberal). They can also become sources of pride when their meanings are highjacked (nerd, slutwalk). To go back to the original theme of this thread, I would raise my child to understand the complexity of the world, and the loss of opportunity represented by oversimplification (a thoroughly un-American stance, to be sure).

     So: Back off man, I’m a Scientist!

211. Ms Driasis – Sorry, but I really have it in for Dump Culture. And this is no reflection on what you like or dislike. I could refer you to a large group of women who would think that, “he automatically TAKES the metaphorical driver’s seat” qualifies as the MF in DTMFA.

     I’ll concede that perhaps I’ve been spending too much time in places where “lame” would meet with requests not to be ableist. I can’t think of anyone objecting to “pathetic”.

     Had you invoked LMB for those particular examples, I shouldn’t have blinked at it; you just seemed to be drawing progressively nearer to giving the impression of someone who took her style of expressing standards from Sandi Griffin of the Lawndale High Fashion Club. I should present that a breakup over what someone CAN’T do ought not to rise to DUMP standards, and that a dump of that nature should require at least something someone WON’T do (not that all won’ts necessarily merit a DTMFA or even a dump).

     I shall spare the assembled company my usual references (“Problem at Sea” for the subtleties of the difference between CAN’T and WON’T, and *To Play the King* for why the difference between breaking up and dumping matters).

212. @179 (mydriasis), personal experience, plus listening to women and men talk about incidents in their lives. Happened to me more than a couple of times.

     If you don’t do it — more power to you. I wished a couple of the women I didn’t (or eventually did) sleep with thought as you do.

     To say nothing of what (some) other guys will say to or about you if they know you didn’t realize she “really wanted it” despite her ‘no’s.

213. @182(EricaP), I’m sorry if my comments rubbed you the wrong way. I stand by them, though. I’m talking from personal experience, from hearing what women told me later on they wished I had done. (And I’ll gladly ask the other guys here — has it never happened to you that a woman was displeased with the fact that you didn’t realize her ‘no’ was not meant to stop you? Or, if not the woman herself, then someone else, who you told this story to?)

     You’re implying a lot of communication in your world, which is good. You’re implying partners who are open and talk a lot about sex, and who aren’t afraid of it in any way, which is good. In your world, people are indeed like that, and they should be, because things would indeed be much better if communication always worked and people really felt they could be aggressive (but responsive to others’ reaction to that aggressiveness) or not, and also say “no” or “yes” as the case may be, without this sounding like “confirmation” of some stereotype or other that others around them might have.

     It’s indeed a great world, and I have good hopes that we are going in this direction. Hopefully the stereotypes will be abandoned.

     Meanwhile, I don’t think I’m as much obsessed with fairness as reacting to personal experience. Just as I suppose you are.

     We both want people to communicate better and to assume less qua cultural stereotypes about each other. I think we can both agree that this is what both our comments above are heading to.

214. @178 (Thomas):
     I’m sorry you have suffered so, and hope you can find happiness. There’s still a lot of life ahead of you.

215. I’m glad several of the comments above mention various ways of being manly, various concepts of masculinity, and various different tastes.

     I’ll merely add that we’re still often dealing with stereotypes (among which that it is ‘manly’ to ravish the girl even when she ‘says’ she doesn’t want it). This seems to be changing, but it’s not gone yet. I’m glad you didn’t have to deal with it in your personal lives, but I did. From the other side of it, that is. And that is sad.

     Peace.

216. ankylosaur, have you watched this Louis CK video? (It’s short, just 1:42)

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hNaFkbZ&hellip;

     Sure, some people prefer that guys push past the no, and force sex on resisting women. That’s rape, unless it was negotiated. And those people are idiots.

     @182 I meant that you wouldn’t earn the scorn of anyone who wasn’t a fucking idiot.

217. @219, Also, I don’t like this:
     “even when she ‘says’ she doesn’t want it”

     If she says she doesn’t want it, then that’s what she said. She may be lying, but if she said no, please don’t write that she “said” no.

218. @217 “You’re implying a lot of communication in your world, which is good. You’re implying partners who are open and talk a lot about sex, and who aren’t afraid of it in any way, which is good.”

     No. No. No. I live in the real world. Not everyone is good at communicating. But just as we can hold people accountable for breaking the law, for violently holding someone down and raping them, it is also possible to use peer pressure to hold people accountable for being creeps. (And hold people accountable for pressuring men to rape them without negotiation, as in the Louis CK video).

219. @220: perfect link.

220. Okay! First things are first…

     @avast

     I urge you to follow the chain of comments I made before that one. It’s exhausting and tedious for both the reader and writer to adress those points every single time I make mention of concepts of masculinity and femininity. I made them at the outset and it’s fair for the reader to assume that I haven’t forgotten them since. :p

     If you want my opinion on gender roles and “maculinity/femininitiy” here it is (if not, skip ahead)

     Many years ago, people who were left handed were considered deficient. They were forced to learn how to write with their right hand. They were punished for using their left hand. There were also many negative attributes given to lefties, that we would laugh at now.

     How did we fix this?

     Did we force everyone to become ambidextrous? Did we deny that handedness existed? No. We allowed people to follow the method that suited them, we made some left handed scissors, and we got on with our lives. Is it harder to be a lefty? Yes, it still is. But only slightly. And no one is thought to be “sinister” because they write with the left hand.

     This is my dream for gender roles. Not to deny they exist, not to force everyone to be genderless, to accept that there may be certain tendencies/majorities, but to ascribe no negativity to being ‘unmasculine’ or ‘feminine’. Is that an inherently negative term? I don’t believe it has to be. Gay rights have taken a similar tact. No one’s denying that heterosexuality is the (statistical) norm. No one is denying that sexual orientation exists. People are just trying to make it easier and more acceptable not to be the ‘norm’.

     But if you look at how people approach gender issues it’s wildly different.

     If you want to get into a sociological discussion suggesting that genders are exactly the same and all concepts of masculinity and femininity are imposed on us, I’m not interested. Here’s why

     a. I don’t believe it’s true and the science doesn’t really support it.
     b. Though a more toned down version of it may be true, it’s still not relevant to the point. Perhaps under different societal conditions, homosexuality becomes much much more common. Does that make homosexuality more or less valid? No, of course not. It’s inherently valid, unique from it’s commonality or origin – whether it’s genetically or societally induced is irrelevant.

     Finally, in the example I give, they are opposed, yes – that’s the point. Just because a concept is subjective and complex doesn’t mean we should stop describing it or taking away words to describe it. If I call something beautiful and you call it ugly – should we give up on the ideas all together?

     But let me be clear: beauty is a value-laden concept… gender need not be.

     @213

     I think you misunderstood my point. My post here is already getting exceedingly long so maybe could you reread what I wrote?

     @214
     See above for my opinion on labelling and masculinity/femininity. More on the personal application below.

     Growing up, I was what I could refer to as “left handed” in terms of gender. Back in the old days we used to call that a “tomboy”. Never once did that bother me. I wasn’t raised to think that being “girly” was better or that being “boyish” was negative – but kids aren’t stupid – I was vaguely aware that I was “supposed” to be playing with dolls (never owned a barbie) instead of legos. Here’s the thing: I didn’t care. Not to harp on it, but shouldn’t that be the salient goal?

     One time in conversation with a good friend, we noted that bright people typically are less “girly” if they’re women and “manly” if they’re men. Smart women are (typically) less interested in chick flicks and Cosmo, and smart men are (typically) less interested in crushing beer cans on their heads and sports.

     Because this is SL, I’ll say it again: see how I said typically? That means that a trend appears to exist. It is not a denial of exceptions. See how tedious that is to do every time?

     Labels are tricky. During my university career my first part time job was as a barista at a hipster restaurant. The people there were shocked to learn that I was studying neuro at my school – they assumed I went to art school, based on the way I looked/dressed/acted and the music I like. Now I work at a sports bar that’s fairly well known for skimpy uniforms. You can imagine the surprise I get when customers want to know what I’m in school for. People who know me as a “student/intellectual” are surprised when I make references to the days before I started at college. I was a total delinquent (I’ve gone into it here one time), I was fairly well aquainted with the drug trade as well as other gang-related activity, I was a big hedonist, mildly OD’d a couple of times although bedhopping was really my extracurricular of choice. Doesn’t line up with “mild mannered girl who stays in studying at night” they know today.

     The fact that labels aren’t all-encompassing is what makes them fun. I like defying labels. Would you want a word that described you flawlessly?

     I’m going to put racial slurs aside because I don’t see those as similar to “labels” personally. If anyone wants to try to argue that “masculine” or “unmasculine” is as offensive as the n word don’t even bother, because I won’t even entertain that.

     But in terms of words like ‘slut’, ‘nerd’, ‘liberal’, ‘intellectual’: the mind works by catagorizing. We can try fighting that – but good luck. I think a less futile and equally helpful goal would be to take the negativity out of labels and understand that they aren’t all encompassing, it’s been done successfully in the past.

221. You see, that’s the point: often otherwise good men will push beyond polite levels (see mydriasis above) not because they have a sense of self-entitlement and think sex is always theirs for the taking, but because they’ve had the experience of being mocked — sometimes by the very woman who they were respecting — for being ‘too respectful.’

     Yes, exactly what ankylosaur said. God, I wish more women would understand this.

     It’s essentially women internalizing patriarchical standards of male aggression and masculinity — if a guy is too ‘respectful’ he’s not masculine enough and therefore not attractive or worthy.

222. @ Ven

     “Ms Driasis – Sorry, but I really have it in for Dump Culture. And this is no reflection on what you like or dislike. I could refer you to a large group of women who would think that, “he automatically TAKES the metaphorical driver’s seat” qualifies as the MF in DTMFA.”

     I don’t know what Dump Culture is.
     But if you’re curious about my MO, I suspect you’d have to file me under ‘rejection culture’ rather than ‘dump culture’.

     I’m aware of this group – my oldest and closest friend is a member. The fact that that large group of women exists is why it should be nonthreatening and inoffensive for me to voice my own personal preference. Again, it was meant to be facetious. I wasn’t talking about a real person, nor was I referring to anyone here in the hypothetical. I’m failing to understand why it was so offensive to you, but I am curious.

     “I’ll concede that perhaps I’ve been spending too much time in places where “lame” would meet with requests not to be ableist. I can’t think of anyone objecting to “pathetic”.”

     Really? I’ve never heard a medical professional use the expression “lame” to refer to disabled, nor have I heard anyone else use it in that context. There are many outmoded words that used to refer to specific things that have lost that meaning. Cretin, for example. But if you find it offensive, I’m sorry.

     Pathetic is a much more loaded word in my opinion. Language is funny, isn’t it.

     “Had you invoked LMB for those particular examples, I shouldn’t have blinked at it; you just seemed to be drawing progressively nearer to giving the impression of someone who took her style of expressing standards from Sandi Griffin of the Lawndale High Fashion Club.”

     Don’t understand the LMB reference, do understand the Daria reference. Nice work. I was more of a Jane though.

     “I should present that a breakup over what someone CAN’T do ought not to rise to DUMP standards, and that a dump of that nature should require at least something someone WON’T do (not that all won’ts necessarily merit a DTMFA or even a dump).”

     Again, it was a somewhat rhetorical use of DTMFA. I just don’t date guys like that. So I don’t dump them, I reject them. See above.

     But wait… hold on. Are you suggesting that a person must stay with a partner regardless of unmet needs just becasue the person “can’t” fufil them?

     “I shall spare the assembled company my usual references (“Problem at Sea” for the subtleties of the difference between CAN’T and WON’T, and *To Play the King* for why the difference between breaking up and dumping matters).”

     Too bad because it might help me undestand your point. :p

223. @225

     Siiiiigh.

     Okay look, as much as I love the patriarchy and hate fun-ruining feminists…

     this is why none of what you said makes sense to me, so please explain.
     This is how I (the feminist nightmare) catagorize men:

     1. I don’t want to have sex with you. I say no, you try to push it, I’ll say no firmer and “ruder”, and if you still push it I’ll claw your eyes out.

     2. I do want to have sex with you, I don’t say no. The end.

224. @225 – “women internalizing patriarchical standards”

     Yes, and don’t pander to it. Educate her. Change the culture. Watch the Louis CK video, and pass it along to people who need to see it.
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hNaFkbZ&hellip;

225. @220: I think you’re seeing things in too much black and white. You can be aggressive and pusy without raping. Men are expected to be somewhat pushy, not to rape. Failing to rape someone will not earn most people’s scorn, but I don’t think anyone’s talking about that: the issue is failing to be sufficiently aggressive.

     @227: How are you a feminist nightmare? That seems like the feminist ideal. You are allowed to prefer aggressive men.

     You’ve said before you don’t like it when someone checks in with you too often, if I recall correctly. How does it not make sense to you?

226. @227: Essentially, men often need to strike the exact correct balance between not being too pushy and not being too passive. It’s different for every person and direct communication is often difficult in the early stages of getting to know someone, for the obvious reason that some women don’t like being checked in with too much.

     The upshot of all this is that guys are going to be more aggressive than perhaps is polite, because it’s easier to recover from that mistake than from the opposite one.

227. @228: That’s a very idealistic view… but from a pragmatic point of view, most of us are trying to fit in and be accepted. When you’re trying to fit in with a group and learn about its norms, that’s not really the time to lecture about how you think the world should be.

     Your suggestion makes sense once you know someone and have reached a certain level of comfort with them, but that’s somewhat of a Catch-22.

228. @231, I can’t offer a middle ground where you get to push past the ‘no’ and be confident the girl won’t tell her friends you’re a creep. She might love it, she might not. Most guys who push past the ‘no’ do fine in life. Usually, the woman doesn’t press rape charges, or if she does, they don’t stick.

     On the other hand, if you act aggressive but back off one step when she pushes your hand away or says no — I can’t guarantee that you’ll get laid as often. But you’ll be doing your part to make the world a better place.

     That’s all I’ve got.

229. Oh, acting aggressive but backing off slightly and trying again in a little bit is what I’m talking about. I don’t think that makes someone a creep. By the time someone actually verbalizes a ‘no’ (which, honestly, is difficult and uncomfortable for men as well as women, in sexual or nonsexual contexts) continuing to push would not be productive.

     Though I think it tends to be lack of confidence that people react negatively to. Confidently teasing a girl doesn’t usually get negative reactions. Say, pushing a hand into her jeans and sliding it slowly around from her hip, stopping just short of her clit as she starts to breathe hard and gasp.

230. (I lied)
     @232 “back off one step” isn’t the same as pack up and go home in a sulk. The idea is to build on her sexual interest, not push your way past her disinterest.

     How about using all that male aggression and confidence to get HER to do something? — Demand she suck your dick, or strip for you, or touch herself, or squat over you with her pussy on your face.

     If you’re not threatening actual violence… if she does those things it’s because she’s hot for you. If all she’ll tolerate is you doing things to her, then yes, you do have to worry about her thinking of you as a pushy creep.

231. @233 Hot! But actually, other men (not you) do push past a gentle no. That’s what I’m talking about. Their partner clearly indicates discomfort, unhappiness, passive resistance (not arousal, as in your example), and they push further. They may get laid, and then they may get talked about as a creep.

232. @Blackrose

     How are you a feminist nightmare? That seems like the feminist ideal. You are allowed to prefer aggressive men.

     Why thank you – it depends on the feminist.
     I love agressive men, but agressiveness isn’t going to magically make me attracted to someone I didn’t want to have sex with earlier.

     For another comedian’s (more accurate) opinions on women… (couldn’t find the video, but here’s a transcript)

     “A woman knows if she’s gonna fuck you within the first five minutes of meeting you.
     Women know right away.
     They’re shaking hands like, “I’m gonna fuck him. I hope he don’t say nothing too stupid.”

     Bonus points to whoever knows the quote.

233. @BlackRose, yes indeed, that is exactly what I was talking about. Some women expect the men to do all the guessing — ‘he should know exactly how aggressive/non-aggressive I want him to be’ — which is indeed a problem, since most often there is no way of telling what a particular woman’s preferences will be if she hasn’t talked about them herself. So men guess. When things go well, both smile and laugh and have a good time. When they don’t… the ‘creep’ label comes in handy.

     EricaP, I honestly don’t see where we disagree. We both want communication. I’m simply saying that women sometimes fail to communicate by playing some sort of game based on stereotypes (‘you were supposed to do X now without me telling you! why didn’t you?…’). I think this should change, and that women should behave more as you or Mydriasis above do. Surely this is perfectly compatible with your ideals?

     I wished it were as simple as saying that what a woman says is either true, or then she was lying. There is more to that, at least in my experience with dating and relationships (not only romantic ones, actually). Sometimes a woman said to me something (e.g., ‘no’) hoping that I would understand something else (e.g., ‘yes’, or ‘try harder’). Was she lying? Literally, yes. But in her own mind she wasn’t; she was simply speaking another language, and I failed to react appropriately. It’s about such situations that I say she ‘said’ something — because what she said wasn’t what she ‘said.’

     EricaP, Mydriasis, I certainly wish all women (at least all women I had relationships with) thought as you do. And I have indeed met women similar to you. There seem to be more and more of them, and I’m all for it. It’s easier to deal with them. But there are other kinds of women out there as well, who still play the old games. I think the latter women should reconsider.

     That’s all.

234. @236, I was going to say Seth McFarlane in Family Guy, because, believe it or not, I saw yesterday an episode in which Glenn Quagmire says that to Peter Griffin. Google tells me it’s Chris Rock, though.

     EricaP, I totally agree that it is stupid to be with a partner who signals passive resistance, discomfort, etc. and still push to get sex. There indeed are men who do that, and I not only think they’re wrong, I think they’re crazy: what is the pleasure of getting sex from someone who isn’t willing to give it to you? Do they have to project a whole fantasy in which the woman is an enthusiastic participant and close their eyes to what is really going on? To me, this is rotten sex at best, not at all appetizing.

     The counterpart is that there also are women who are into it, but won’t say so — the Louie C.K. video you linked to is an example — and this is also bad. A woman may — like Mydriasis — prefer guys to take the driver’s seat, but she should at least say so at some point, not simply hope he’ll guess that this is what she wants and then, in case he doesn’t, say it’s his fault.

235. @235

     I encourage it.
     But I would be upset at the use of “rape” unless she mades her “no” clear.

236. * I encourage them to call him a creep.

237. @237, you’re a talented linguist, and if you want to deal with complicated codes where ‘no’ means ‘push harder,’ then you’re probably up to the challenge.

     Most humans, being bad at communication, should take a ‘no’ as a ‘no,’ as an active request for something different. (Ideally, the ‘no’ would be accompanied by some expressed enthusiasm for something else).

     @238 agree agree agree.

238. @ankyl

     It is Chris Rock. A much more datable man than Quagmire. :p

     I agree with you 100%
     Until you said this: A woman may — like Mydriasis — prefer guys to take the driver’s seat, but she should at least say so at some point, not simply hope he’ll guess that this is what she wants and then, in case he doesn’t, say it’s his fault.

     Waiting for me to say that’s what I want is not taking the drivers seat. This is why I take issue with the hyperfeminist ideal of what all men should behave like. Not all men are going to match all women. Some men take the drivers seat, some women like it, some women don’t and vice versa.

     I’m not waiting for him to “guess” that’s what I want. I want it to be what he wants, and for guys I’m attracted to, that’s typically the case.

     That was the whole point of the Chris Rock clip – women know what they like. Just be yourself, either she’ll like it or she won’t, just the same as how you’ll like her or you won’t. There is no universally appealing man, just like there’s no universally appealing woman.

     Beyond anything else there’s nothing less appealing to me than a man who’s trying to calibrate his behaviour to what kind of person he thinks I want. It’s deceptive and insincere. I obviously want him to TRY, but I want him to be himself.

239. @227 mydriasis,

     I just want to state, again, as long as you are getting what you want, and how you want it, wonderful. Truly.

     As per myself, I know I’m masculine, and nothing will change that. That in large part is why I “dared” to let myself be seen with gay friends in public (in the early 80s). And if bravery is a masculine trait, those guys were a damn sight more manly than I. But, going forward in time, a mother giving birth for the first time is brave as well. The times I have felt most manly in my life include taking care of my youngest child, experiencing a vomiting fluish bug for the first time. To be able to clean up the mess, ease the fear and misery of MY frightened child, and control everything through to normalcy made me feel INCREDIBLY powerful. That was part of my “whipped” comment; that somehow associating with feminine needs (like getting fucked) diminished my testosterone output or my ability to bench press more than my body weight. Getting rid of the old gender stereotypes doesn’t benefit only women.

     Peace.

240. @238/242 – can we split the difference? A man in the driver’s seat doesn’t ask “is this what you want”? But a woman who likes that will coo and moan when he gets aggressive, rather than getting passive and unhappy.

241. @244

     Haha – you and I are on the same page.
     Neither of us understand women who say “no” when they mean yes, or act unhappy but secretly want a man to push ahead anyway.
     No splitting required.

     Men who took the drivers seat with me in the past had no doubt as to whether or not I liked it.

242. @241, maybe; but considering that I was actually rather unsuccessful when confronted with women who used such codes, I come out prefering sincerity.

     I can figure out a language if I’m given sentences with translations to work on. But I can’t figure out a code if its user wants me to guess her intentions. (I remember a girlfriend who used the phrase ‘I know what men are like…’ to signal that she wanted me to guess something without her having to tell me what it was. I didn’t understand that at first and thought she was criticizing me for being ‘unmanly.’ That led to several misunderstandings, some comical and some tragic.)

     @Mydriasis, I couldn’t agree more with the spirit of what you’re saying. Except that… it’s not entirely true that people know whether or not they’ll want to fuck you in the first five minutes. First impressions, à la Mr Darcy, change; I’ve seen myself surprisingy attracted to women later on who, at the first meeting, had not at all attracted me. I’ve heard similar stories from women, too.

     But with this caveat, of course it’s better to be yourself and simply be with the people who like the kind of person you are. But still: after the initial decisions, there is still a lot of getting-to-know-each-other that often involves unravelling expectations about ‘what men are like’ and ‘what women are like.’

     I wished these expectations were replaced by ‘what I like in men’ and ‘what I dislike in men’ — it’s more sincere, less confusing, and doesn’t seem to contain hidden accusations (‘men should be this or that way’). I will take anytime a woman who prefers men who like to take the driver’s seat because that’s what she likes over one who has the same preference because ‘everybody knows’ that’s how men should be.

     I agree that a man who takes the driver’s seat just because he thinks it’s what the woman wants is not doing what he should — he’s not being himself (Leonard in the last few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, in which he tried to be more assertive only because he thought this would please Penny, comes to mind).

     But this is not what I had meant. The key word in what you quoted from me is: “…in case he doesn’t, say it’s his fault.” That’s the stereotype thing: if you happen not to be my type and still try to woo me, then it’s your fault. No, it’s not. You should tell him that he’s not your type as soon as possible — preferably as soon as you realize it yourself. Even if only for practicality’s sake: so nobody’s time is wasted.

243. @245 indeed 🙂

244. @244 Pre-CISE-ly!

     Now, how do we get men and women to do that? It’s basically what I had wanted to say.

245. Oh believe me, I do tell them ASAP.
     I do know in the first five minutes. Or at least I always have in the past.

246. @EricaP and Mydriasis,

     Neither of us understand women who say “no” when they mean yes, or act unhappy but secretly want a man to push ahead anyway.

     I don’t either. (Or maybe I do, but that’s a long story…) But they’re out there; I’ve been in relationships with some. And they’re part of the reason why some guys are pushy: they’ve also met these girls.

     Frankly, if more women were like the two of you, I’d be much happier.

247. Here’s an example. I had a ‘girlfriend’ once (we behaved like gf’n’bf for a couple of weeks, mostly because she wanted to, but still) who would often say ‘but I know what men are like!…’ — for example, when she wanted me to guess what she wanted; or when she insisted on stereotypical behavior and wanted to criticize me; or basically when she wanted to manipulate me into doing something.

     I would have been OK with a woman who had exactly the same preferences as she did (though if said woman were upfront about them we’d probably not have started a sexual relationship, we could still have been friends); but this particular one had to pin it down to ‘what men are like.’ That is what rubbed me the wrong way: the apparent implication, repeated a number of times in a number of situations, that the fact that I was not exactly as she wanted meant that I was somehow ‘wrong.’

248. …insisted on stereotypical behavior
     …wanted to criticize me
     … wanted to manipulate me

     Um, can’t help but think you’re better off without this one. Sometimes you just have to walk away.

249. @242/245: mydriasis, I’m a little confused. You want guys to actually want to be dominant or aggressive, not to pretend to be for your sake. That I understand. And you signal to them that you want this, “leaving them no doubt.” But you don’t want to say it?

     Is it that you prefer nonverbal signals to verbal ones? Or is it that you want to see a sign of dominance first before you signal back that you want it? For instance, say a guy you liked pulled you into him, kissed you, and tugged your hair, then said “You like when I grab you like that, don’t you?” Would you answer? (I say things like this all the time, partly cause I like hearing her tell me, partly to feed my ego, and partly to fish for more info about what turns her on.)

     I’m not sure I get it. If someone did want to adjust their behavior for what they wanted, they could feel the waters by trying a few different things and seeing what you responded to, right? Alternatively, someone may want to be dominant with you but need some sign that you’re interested first, especially in situations where there’s some risk to misreading you (I’m thinking, say, a coworker or friend of a friend).

     I just think a little clear communication can go a long way in situations where people are slightly misreading each other or uncertain what the other wants, and when you don’t know someone well, that happens sometimes.

250. @224: Regarding masculinity and femininity, what I meant was that people sometimes conflate “the most masculine qualities” with “qualities they like in a man.”

     In other words, if A, B, C, and D are masculine qualities, and a woman likes A and B, she might say that a man with just C and D isn’t masculine enough, or that A and B are more masculine qualities, rather than just saying that he doesn’t have the qualities she prefers.

     This mistake happens because people sometimes make the associations “masculine” = “good” and “attractive” (for men), and “feminine” = “bad” and “unattractive.” They conflate attractiveness and masculinity (in men) because they’re both “good” — there’s prejudice against a guy being unmasculine in any quality (even though every guy other than a gorilla is in some way).

     All this for women as well, though I suspect masculinity may be more policed.

251. @252, indeed it soon became clear to me that I was better off without her. It was a pity, though. She was an excellent mathematician (that’s how we met); thinking about problems in statistics with her was such a pleasure.

252. @Mydriasis, who said:

     The fact that labels aren’t all-encompassing is what makes them fun. I like defying labels. Would you want a word that described you flawlessly?

     Indeed, a good question. No, I don’t think anyone would like there to be a word that describes them flawlessly (even Hofstadter’s “strange loop” ultimately fails, I think). We all like mystery.

     But in terms of words like ‘slut’, ‘nerd’, ‘liberal’, ‘intellectual’: the mind works by catagorizing. We can try fighting that – but good luck. I think a less futile and equally helpful goal would be to take the negativity out of labels and understand that they aren’t all encompassing, it’s been done successfully in the past.

     I agree entirely. If we remind ourselves that nobody is simply the list of whatever labels you might apply to him/her, and if we get rid of the negativity that some labels carry, we’d be much better off. (Which is why I tend not to like the language police, even when it goes against so-called ‘good’ targets like ethnic slur.)

     I note old ideas sometimes have more life in them than it seems. My mother-in-law was horrified at the prospect that my daughter might be left-handed. It turned out she wasn’t, but while that seemed unclear she did lists and lists of all the things necessary to ‘cure’ her…

     Which is why I wonder if we’ll be able to de-negativize labels. Offenses are necessary. People often need things to throw at other people they don’t like. If a certain label is de-negativized, another one might very well take the negativity and allow it to live on — unless the group that the term addresses stops being seen as deserving anger. (I think part of the reason why it wasn’t all that difficult to de-stigmatize left-handed people is that they aren’t really conspicuous, if you’re not looking for them. Black people, for instance, aren’t as lucky.)

253. Finally! A thread in which experiences from 35 years ago might actually provide some useful historical context.

     In that long-ago era, a good many of the young women who wanted to have sex had been raised to believe there’s something unladylike in actually saying so. (At least in the Midwest.) As a result, it was quite normal for them to say no, all the while taking part in an otherwise quite normal session of lovemaking (not that anybody called it that).

     It wasn’t actually ‘No, stop doing that.’ It was more like ‘What are you doing to me?’ or ‘We have to stop this right now or my parents will hear’ or ‘I can’t be doing this because I already have a boyfriend.’ And meanwhile, undressing and stroking me and the like, and sure letting me do the same to her.

     This kind of thing disturbed me — I had heard about date rape even then, was quite sympathetic with what we called the Women’s Lib movement, and as much as I wanted to get laid I didn’t want to delay the revolution by acting like an asshole.

     But then I heard from the other guys that the same thing was happening to them: saying ‘no’ but doing ‘yes, yes, yes!.’ Girls could be as horny as we were — they just had to express some ambivalence about it.

     I had thought this was way back in prehistory until just about five years ago. I was about to begin an affair with a lady, also around 50, whom I knew to be quite experienced in such things. As she slipped out of her clothes she was saying ‘no — I can’t go through with this!’ And why? Because she was married? No: ‘because I haven’t shaved my legs.’

254. @Blackrose

     This is hard for me to explain well in words.

     Um, yes. I do like nonverbal better than verbal. I’m not into dirty talk because I find it kind of cheesy, TBH. Again that’s just me!! I have been told that I have a very specific look that is VERY clear.

     If a guy was legitimately unsure if I was okay I’d be alright with answering him if he asked.

     In terms of the scenario you mentioned? When I read that, I picture a certain kind of guy doing that and it’s the kind of guy I stay far far away from. Not because he’s bad but because he’s the wrong kinds of masculine. I’m picturing the guy that lived with us briefly when my friend had to move out (no, I didn’t sleep with him and turning him down caused a whole mess of trouble). But if I try really hard to picture someone I’ve been with in the past doing that I guess it’d be ok by me.

     I guess where all this falls apart is this. You’ll either believe me when I say this or you’ll don’t, but here goes.

     I am very intuitive when it comes to people. I read them very well. I’ve mentioned this before. I’m not good with people (likeable, easy to get along with, etc) but I am good at people. I know how they work, I know who they are, and fast. Sometimes I’m wrong, we all are. But most of the time I’m not. With guys I can tell really fast what kind of guy they are. It’s not what they do, they could do everything exactly the way I specify. I could have my best friend hand them a play by play of what I want, but if that’s not them, I can smell it, and it won’t work.

     I’m sure that sounds like bullshit and you don’t have to believe it – but that’s why communication (in the context of winning me over) is irrelevant.

255. @258: Sounds very cool. I wish you could read me and tell me what kind of guy I am. Can you do it over skype?

     What are the wrong kinds of masculine, and what are the right kinds? Did you mean the scenario with someone pulling you in and kissing you was the “wrong kind”?

256. @224 mydriasis, @256 ank,

     It’s interesting that sinister refers to the left (or left-handed), while dexterous refers to being right-handed. (I checked out levo-, but that simply came from modern French).

     I used to play with dolls as a kid; G.I. Joes. Since my sisters had large Barbie collections, including the accessories, my troops had the coolest pink corvette to ride into battle with (I did put a machine gun on the trunk though). Those dolls would be worth some serious money nowadays, so it couldn’t have been all that scandalous. And as far as role models are concerned, one of my sisters was the neighborhood bully for a while (if she caught the boys acting like douchebags, she would “correct” their behavior). Of course when I was really young, 4ish, my sisters would dress me up like a doll (no, I don’t have a nylon fetish. Nylons are freakin’ hot and sweaty. I do like facial paints and costumes though.). We didn’t have legos, we had tinkertoys; by the time you got done with all the nuts and bolts: boring. Bottom line, what we like to play with (and whom) isn’t a gender role or sexual preference determinant. It should be seen as nothing more nefarious than what we like to do, and find fun and interesting.

     Peace.

257. In slight defense of people who say no when they mean yes, I’ll admit that I’ve been in that boat in the past. Actually, it’s more of an “I enjoy letting him talk me into something dirty” thing than actually BEING talked into it. However, I have to add the disclaimer that my “No” that means yes is drastically different from my “No” that means no.
     I have always enjoyed playing coy. So a no that doesn’t actually mean no tends to be accompanied by giggles and nonverbal cues that would suggest that I’m not exactly unhappy with the situation. It’s more often than not less of a “No.” and more of a “What do you think you’re doing, you bad boy?” While I have had that conversation in advance with some people, it usually took at least a little of the fun out of it.
     However, I have had people try to push when I was definitely not interested. In those situations, I simply got up and left.
     It is definitely harder when you’re in a situation with someone you don’t know, because each of you is trying to get the others cues. Now that we’ve been together for awhile, for example, my boyfriend knows that I like to play sweet and innocent sometimes. And sometimes he enjoys forcing me out of that comfort zone and making me take control. Still getting used to that one, but it can certainly be fun.

258. Exactly! Here’s what I’m saying…

     Step 1: notice person lacks trait x
     Step 2: identify trait x as “masculine”, therefore person “unmasculine”
     Step 3: identify masculine as “good” therefor unmasculine “bad”.
     Step 4: negative interpretation of person

     I object to step 3, not step 2.
     I see step 3 as more faulty, more problematic and easier to fix. Personally.

     Is that clearer? :/

259. @Blackrose

     I don’t know if skype would work, I’ve never tried.

260. @261 “So a no that doesn’t actually mean no tends to be accompanied by giggles and nonverbal cues that would suggest that I’m not exactly unhappy with the situation.”

     I have a huge problem with this. My rape happened as an extension of a tickle scene. He had already been holding me down and tickling me (I’m very tickling), while I was hysterically laughing and saying no, no, no. When he pulled down my pants and went down on me, I was still saying no, and he was still not listening to me. There was no gap in time for me to catch my breath. When I did catch my breath, I managed to wriggle away, but it meant that my associations with cunnilingus were tainted with awfulness for the next ten years till I got over it.

     For all I know, he’d done this with plenty of girls before me.

     So – I tell my children that if someone’s saying no/stop, whether during tickling, roughhousing, whatever — you stop. I don’t care if that takes all the fun out of it. I hate tickling.

     Does someone want to make the argument that I’m ruining my kids’ childhood because I won’t let them tickle people who are saying no/stop?

     And I think that should go for every situation where the aggressor is not positive if the victim wants it to stop. Guess that does take some of the fun out of life.

     Sorry.

261. (very ticklish)

262. @264: Agreed about tickling, but that’s clearly a very different situation and very different kind of “laugh” than the coy giggle Kate is talking about.

263. @266 I’d have to hear it. If there’s no ambiguity that her no means yes, then fine.

264. @264 I can completely understand where you’re coming from. And I would certainly not be upset with someone if they DID take my no’s at face value. Though (and I’m sorry I didn’t do a good job of conveying this), it’s usually not an actual “NO” that leaves my mouth. It’s more of a “I can’t do that, I’m a good girl” type thing. I’m sure I have used the word no at one point or another.

     Also, anyone who has been told no by me can probably verify that I don’t have a problem with saying it adamantly (including a physical reminder if necessary).

265. Inspired by Dan Savage!

     http://penguinsinamerica.tumblr.com/

266. Inspired my Mr. Savage and of Course Mr. Santorum… More to come. http://penguinsinamerica.tumblr.com/

267. Masculinity and femininity……hmmmmmm….that’s a tough one.
     I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.

268. I am monogamous, and I want to address the other monogamous people who have been commenting here: NO ONE GIVES A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK, ASSHOLES.

     Isn’t it enough that our relationship style is not only the norm, but in many places the only kind accepted? Isn’t it enough that you met that special someone and are happy? Do you really need to come in here and say (as 26 did) that meeting The One is better than having multiple partners? Do you really need a cookie for doing what you’ve been socially conditioned to do? Because I don’t, and it makes me wonder why you’re all so desperate for the attention.

269. It’s funny, because one of the BDSM play party clubs I used to go to….the house safe word was just that. Safe word. It was put in place so that the dungeon monitors could keep an eye on every scene going on, and if they heard it, they could make sure the scene stopped.

     I think it’s a perfectly valid safe word. Personally, I prefer red. As in red=I don’t want this at all, yellow=I’m not sure, can we slow down, and green=all is good, keep going, more more more!

     Anyone who says it isn’t a valid safe word is probably not actually involved in a very good BDSM social scene, and are definitely suffering from, as Dan calls it, YDIW.

     It’s funny the things people get hung up on.

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