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You have the correct (serious) answer to GASSYASS- gas leaks around and out.
I like JMT's model, but I would change "from cis to trans" to "from male to female" and I would not assume that all four properties are equally important. For example, I imagine it's easier/less damaging/whatever from a person who prefers multiple relationships to remain monogamous than for a homosexual person to limit him/herself to people of the opposite sex. In general, I'm not sure that "exclusivity" is as much of a factor as the other three points. Most people want sex with whoever they want all the time, but people in monogamous relationships don't act on it.
Happy holidays, everybody---cheers, and whatever your sexual orientation, don't get too plugged up about it.
:-)
Still, acting on attraction takes effort. No CPOS had no choice in the matter.
Sometimes a person's will is overwhelmed by the power of seduction.
Too soon old, too late smart. :)
Too soon old, too late smart. :)
It's a nice thought, but it's hard to predict in your 20s whether your partner will stray after ten or twenty years together. What are the upsides of your marriage? What persuaded you to stay all those times that he cheated and blamed you for his choices?
Yes! Semantics arguments are over. Now we can go back to talking about actual sexscapades & kink-o-riffic advice, & stop arguing over who is labeled what. The labeling isn't just identity, after all: helps us find each other. & Slog is certainly a 'net destination where we can all let our freak flags fly.
Hey Dan: HAPPY BEING MARRIED, Mazel tov to you & Terry. ;) I predicted you'd beat me to it!
Save the stick for the local comedy club and be a tiny bit more straight forward with the responses.
"I doubt Dan has used a butt plug in his life, since he's not an anal sex person himself."
OutInBumF, do you have inside info on Dan's butt? :-)
You say you're a gay man in your profile, do you really think total tops never even try a butt plug just to see what it's like? Total top myself but I've tried the occasional toy insertion, you'd have to be vvv (triple-vanilla) to never try. (Indeed, trying is how I know I'm a "total" top. Zero pleasure, 100% don't like it.)
Dan has said in his books he's on the kinky/bondage side, although he keeps it vague whether he's top, btm, or vers; but we know he's not vvv!
Note to all sexual minority groups everywhere: Don't you think we should spend our time fighting real fights, like marriage equality and other human rights, rather than bitching at our allies about offending our sensibilities by not mindreading what terminology we personally would prefer at any given moment? Just a thought. Radical, I know!
JMT wants to add monogamous/polyamorous, but that's actually TWO dimensions. Some non-monogamous folks are polyamorous and into long term committed *loving* partnerships with more than one person at a time.
Other non-monogamous folks are highly mono-amorous: totally and only in love with one person, and wired up that way. But still non-monogamous, ranging from monogamish, to shag anything cute that moves.
Other non-monogamous folks are in the middle: mostly mono-amorous, monogamish to shag anything that moves, but can fall in love once in a while with a second person. So now you need 2 new dimensions: mono-amory to poly-amory, and mono-gamous to monogamish to shagaholic.
Better to stop adding on dimensions and just peace out.
If you're going to argue "I didn't want to do X, but X overcame my will with its seductive powers" we don't let you wander around in public, since you're operating at the level of a small child who really wants a cupcake and a chance to see what happens when you ram a mini cooper into a police cruiser.
@16: The original LW's "problem" was neatly summed up by I believe Bonefish: If you easily toss aside your core identity and a vital and unchangeable part of your being because it turns out you can laid right now if you do, arguing for how unchangeable and central it is feels pretty fake. Like if a man claimed to be strictly straight, except for all those times a hot guy offered in which case of course he nailed him for hours, but that didn't make him even a little bit flexible on the bi scale.
Very few people are truly "monogamous-oriented" in the sense that they only lust after their own partner. That simply isn't core to anyone's nature, even those who want to be monogamous. I'm monogamous and it's really hard. I would never agree to it if my husband wasn't an amazing friend, father, and partner, but it's important to him so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. And even though monogamy is important to him, I know he has been attracted to other women over the course of our 13 years together, so he has been acting against his nature as well.
As for sexual interest, most people don't have the same sex drive at 50 that we did at 20. And there are temporary situations, like crazy job stress or a new baby that can affect interest for a bit. So, for most people, interest can't really be considered as a long-term identity, although I'd love to hear from the 65- or 70-year old whose interest stayed constant over 5 or 6 decades!
Nice work.
"Very few people are truly "monogamous-oriented" in the sense that they only lust after their own partner. That simply isn't core to anyone's nature, even those who want to be monogamous."
Isn't core to anyone's nature? I disagree. When in a relationship I don't "resist" temptation, I just don't have it. Being a naturally selective person helps for sure but I honestly don't even notice guys I'd otherwise find attractive.
I also disagree with you on point two, have you ever met a sex addict?
"If it were up to me, every object in the world -- tennis balls, light bulbs, corks, socks, everything -- would have a warning label on it. And all those labels would say the same thing: DON'T STICK THIS UP YOUR BUTT!"
Also, I think Dan responded appropriately to the first few letters. They clearly weren't serious in nature, so why shouldn't he be flippant in response? I found both the letters & his responses to be amusing.
And, just gotta say, if we're going to make everything that has anything to do with sex and/or relationship preferences/identities, i don't think a bracelet can handle that acronym. I propose the following:
1) everyone please chill out about the differences between mono & poly. we have bigger things to deal with right now (like gay rights, women fighting for basic control of our bodies and trans people being routinely fired, beaten up, and/or alienated -- not to mention the fact that our country still has major race issues)
2) know thyself, and make damn sure the people who matter, know who you are. if they don't like it, find new people who matter.
3) if you can't get your hands on decent health insurance, don't put things up your butt that can't be easily retrieved.
First, really wanting a cupcake, or a blowjob to bring us back to the subject at hand, isn't childish at all.
Second, comparing the seductive powers of a beautiful, sexy woman who knows exactly how to wave her magic wand to a cupcake is, I don't know, naive? Sad?
You've made the wrong analogy. Seduction is more like alcohol or MDMA in that it impairs the frontal lobe and all of its worrying about future consequences, bringing its victims more thoroughly into the here and now. Like those drugs, it can certainly compel a mature adult to behave in ways they otherwise would not.
Not every person is as vulnerable to seduction as the next, but that vulnerability has little to do with maturity. The planet is crawling with decent, monogamous men married to women who over time have come to take them, and their fidelity, for granted, and who out of laziness, selfishness, scorn, or disinterest, neglect their relationships. Most of those men are vulnerable to seduction, I would argue, and their faithfulness to their wives is entirely attributable to the fact that some other woman hasn't yet waved her wand at him.
Here's what puzzles me: why, if it (some object w/o a flared base) can go in, can't you just poop it back out? I get it about broken glass objects, but assuming the thing is still intact. My partner is a surgeon and the butt-sex negativity isn't limited to ER/Trauma horror stories, but yes, seems actively taught in Med school.
You mean, like, leaving the house alone? Going to work? Staying late at the office to work on that executive presentation with Sharon from marketing?
If you're goal is to prevent your partner from being seduced, you're better off just treating him well than behaving like a ball and chain.
Who. Gives. A. Shit.
You are who/what you are. Why does anyone care what Dan thinks about whether it's an identity, orientation, choice, whatthefuckever. Decide he's wrong, continue to call yourself whatever-oriented, and move on with your life.
I blame Tumblr.
You sound like only people who treat their partners badly are cheated on.
A friend of mine cheated on his then-gf, now-wife quite regularly during the first ten years of their relationship because he enjoyed the attention of other women. And no, it is not just because men are biologically wired to be like that: his sister cheated on her boyfriends just the same.
So much fail, I'm sorry.
First of all, if you think that people can't treat food compuslively like sex or drugs then you clearly need to bone up. Here's a lovely article on how foods exactly like cupcakes effect your brain:
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/07/2…
Secondly, if you're firing off a prefrontal cortex argument one minute, and then discounting the relavence of maturity the next then you really can't know what you're talking about. Maturity matters a great deal when it comes to resisting temptation exactly because what we consider maturity is largely based on the development of the prefrontal cortex and it's ability to inhibit influences from lower brain centres.
Thirdly, "magic wand"? "Victims"? We're women, not witches, for fuck's sake.
a) Nail her right there in the middle of the crowded subway car. He couldn't help it! She was very desirable!
b) Figure that being arrested and having to explain to his boss why he missed work make that a bad move, and engage instead in flirtation. Followed by flirtily meeting for coffee, a few more dates (while arranging cover-up stories if he happens to be in a closed relationship), and eventually sex.
Someone in another thread made the distinction between an explanation--why something that hurt one's partner happened--and an excuse--why one's partner should be okay with it. Your magic wand is the latter, the version in which everything one person does is really the fault of other people.
"When I cheated on you, it was her fault because she waved the magic wand! And your fault because you took me for granted and made me all wand susceptible! I'm a victim here, unable to do anything but respond to magic wands!" That's not the explanation of someone who should claim to be an adult: adults take responsibility for their actions, and don't go around helplessly having sex with anyone who waves a magic wand at them, unless their supposed exclusive partner is waving the magic wand hard enough to fend off all other wand wavers.
I'm not saying resisting a sexually desirable person willing to have sex with you is easy at all times for all people. (Though for many it is.) But it's hardly like someone zapping you with a mind control ray that makes it impossible for you to do anything but have sex with them. As with your drug example, there are active choices that are made on the way.
And while I'm sure you don't mean it that way, the magic wand which when waved renders a man powerless to resist sounds like what men who have sex with underage girls, including very underage ones, say: that there she was being all irresistibly desirable and he couldn't help himself. There are many, many, many situations, including that military unit one I gave, in which we expect people to refrain from having sex with attractive people.
If you're an adult then you can help what you do. If you choose to stray you can feel racked with guilt, you can realize your marriage is done, you can do all sorts of things. What you can't do is claim that you're really a helpless victim without agency here, because the piece on the side waved her wand.
>>If your goal is to prevent your partner from being seduced, you're better off just treating him well than behaving like a ball and chain.
Feeling trollish today, seandr? Those "decent" men are, on average, just as selfish as their wives. The decent thing to do is to address marital issues as they come up, and divorce if you don't have a partner willing to do that work with you. Saving up resentment as an excuse to cheat is not the solution.
*tongue firmly in cheek*
Jen
*tongue firmly in cheek*
Jen
I usually love this column for the comments threads, but these have mostly been 50% hair-splitting an 50% groaning at hair-splitting.
Poly, and the discussions surrounding it, may be old hat to you, but to many people, the concept remains foreign.
That's because I was addressing someone who seems to believe that only immature people cheat. Obviously, people can cheat for a variety of reasons.
it is not just because men are biologically wired
Of course not - women cheat as well. If I've failed to account for the seductive powers of men, it's because I feel more comfortable leaving that to those who find men sexually attractive.
And the poly issue is getting so old. I know it's new to some people, but it's getting really old to read about it three weeks in a row. It's a big wide sexual world. There are so many new/old sexual topics to educate us all about. Please no more poly, at lease for a little while.
Fair enough. Given the plague of cupcake boutiques that has overtaken Seattle, there's obviously something about them I just don't get.
if you're firing off a prefrontal cortex argument one minute, and then discounting the relavence of maturity...
That's not at all what I'm doing, and you're neuroscience misses the point.
The prefontal cortex reaches full maturity around early to mid 20's. Beyond that age, the maturity of that bit of anatomy is irrelevant to whether a person succumbs to the advances of another.
Second, my point is that there are other things besides immaturity that can impair executive functioning, and that the combination of sexual arousal and flattery and je ne sais quoi that a man (or woman, I would guess) might experience upon being seduced is one of them. Alcohol, E, and rage are others.
Thirdly, "magic wand"? "Victims"? We're women, not witches, for fuck's sake.
Witches? No, that's not what I had in mind. That unfortunate association aside, magic and spells and intoxicants better capture the effects a woman can have on me, at least, than whatever it is that causes some people to compulsively stuff their face with cupcakes. That may not be true of all straight men.
Actually, I was drawing an analogy between seduction and alcohol/Ecstacy. I chose that specific analogy because those drugs tend to facilitate impulsive decision-making without completely absolving one of responsibility for the decision.
The "magic wand" comment was intended more as a cute and reverential turn of phrase, with allusions to dozens of pop songs ("You put a spell on me", "Black magic woman", or "Magic man" for a gender-reversed example). I had no idea it would strike such a dissonant chord.
The neuro is relevant, especially since you're the one that brought it up. :p
There is a vast array of maturity even among adults past their mid-twenties and the maturity level (functioning of their prefrontal cortex, regardless of whether or not it's 'done growing' yet) is a significant player in whether or not they will succumb to their impulses or not.
So in other words, no, the maturity of one's prefrontal cortex is not irrelevant.
And in fact if you like I can look around for some references that show that in healthy, non-pathological functioning, the prefrontal cortex exhibits higher activation when a person is attempting to use his or her "will power".
While I actually agree with all of you for the most part, and am certainly tired of the hair-splitting and term-wrangling, the truth is that there is a shit-ton of power in labels and wresting the narrative from the dominant group is an important step.
I'd love for most of us here to have all agreed that polyamory is an important part of some people's sexual identity weeks ago, and stopped, but I am uncomfortable with the calls for those in the underprivileged group to accept the status quo.
But there was a very good question above - why don't these things come out the way poop does? Is there some kind of anal retentive instinctive reflex that sucks things in and won't let go?
No, not especially, although I'll admit I'm bored of monogamy/polygamy and don't have much to say about farts and buttp... ech.
The decent thing to do...
As I see it (and I've expressed similar sentiments before), holding cheaters accountable without considering the broader context of the relationship is a bit like the parent who always holds the older or less favored child responsible for any sibling conflict. My reaction to both scenarios is roughly the same - work it out yourselves, or there will be consequences for both of you.
As with sibling relationships, marriages can be complicated, full of history, rewarding, hurtful, loaded with emotional triggers, distant, stuck in recurring patterns, guided by unconscious forces, and capable of making decent people do "indecent" things.
I've been in several long term relationships, and I've seen (and forgiven) lots of indecent behavior, including being cheated on. Some of it was so convoluted and passive-aggressive that I didn't understand what was happening to me. Other times it was just plain aggressive. (As for me, I've always been a perfect little angel ;-))
So, sure, one should always behave with decency in a relationship, except that no one does or can, at least as far as I know. And while the CPOS label may fit in many cases, I think it's kind of stupid when generally and indiscriminately applied.
So there is the advice to give- makeshift sex toys are a good way to get badly hurt. Put down the toilet plunger/light bulb/maglight/cat/whatever and spend a wee bit of money on the internet for a nice, featureless brown box to be delivered to your door. It's safer for your health and you avoid the humiliation in the hospital as well as the humiliation I must imagine you imagine you would feel in openly shopping for toys if you shoved an egg up there AGAIN.
This is why the notion of a sex addict has always puzzled me as opposed to, say, a meth addict. It's not like you have to convince the meth to be ingested....
Furthermore, while "demi-romantic/high sexual 40% sub poly cis WORDVOMIT" made my day, @29 still gets the win. Bravo sir.
I get the impression you're not very familiar with illegal drug use.
I assure you, sex addiction exists. Though a drug addict doesn't need to do much to navigate the consumption of meth, the procurement of illegal drugs can be a lot of work, especially considering how expensive they are and how difficult some drug dealers can be to get a hold of - plus some of them get arrested, funny thing.
A homeless drug addict will go to extrordinary lengths to get the drug of his or her choice, as well as the means to inject (or insufflate or smoke) that drug, and a place to actually DO the drug. The sex addict will go to similar lengths to find a willing sex partner. Suddenly it doesn't seem so dissimilar does it?
It's another to blame just the "lazy, selfish" wives, while putting the men on a pedestal, as you did @39.
A reasonable reply to IPJ's claim @11: "No CPOS had no choice in the matter," would be to note that in most of these situations, there's plenty of blame to go around. I certainly agree with that.
You know a story is true when the rumor comes out several days after being told the same.
Anyway, that was just a side note to the original tangent, which is how one can talk about sex as if it doesn't involve the willing participation of another human being.
Male sex addicts? They're not disproportionately attractive. As cute pointed out there's always prostitution.
Female sex addicts may find it easier to find sex but they also have the quite noteworthy hurdle of trying to balance their own personal safety with their need to get off.
But look, my point is, if I dropped you downtown I think you'd have a hard time getting high on heroin. You'd have to get the money for the drug, find someone with the drug who's willing to sell it to you, you'd have to get the means to inject it and find somewhere hidden to inject (hope you like public washrooms!). Oh and uhh, would you even know how to shoot up?
The average person looking for a one-night-stand has a comparatively easy time when measured against that, I think.
Learning to find sex is a skill like learning to find drugs. It often involves activities and people one would normally avoid.
@nocute
The heck do you mean by "actual physical addiction the way drug addiction is"?
Happy holidays all :)
I'm happy to correct you. :)
It's a popular misconception that the physiological aspect of addiction (especially withdrawal) is what makes addiction so persistant. But this simply not the case.
For example, crack cocaine, one of the most infamously addictive drugs on the planet - well that must cause real physical addiction right? In actuality crack causes relatively meagre physical withdrawal symptoms - the heavy lifting is done by the "psychological" addiction piece.
Or if you prefer I can speak from personal experience. Having experienced both sex and quite a few highly addictive drugs I can tell you that without a doubt, sex is more addictive in my books.
And you're right, I wouldn't have a clue what to do with the meth.
Thanks EricaP and nocutename and jujubee80, makes sense.
If you want to learn more about addiction I highly reccomend reading things written by this man. He's amazingly brilliant and probably has more personal experience with hardcore addicts than anyone else on the planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-APGWvY…
Regarding your "how is it addiction if it's not hurting anyone" concern, here's Gabor talking about the difference between passion and addiction.
"To take a non-substance example, someone who’s passionate about social activism might work tirelessly for a cause, while her colleague may have a workaholic relationship with the same activity. It all depends on the energy with which one pursues the activity, and what happens when the activity comes to an end. There may be a letdown after a big event, but does the person feel a sense of basic worth in the absence of the adrenaline and the long hours? Does she find comfort in the other parts of her life? Or is she left irritable, restless, and less at ease with the people in her life?"
ALSO, at the risk of beating a dead horse, psychological addiction IS physiological. That's why we have MRIs.
@73, et al. Sometimes seandr's bitterness that his wife doesn't fuck him often enough drives him into crazy misogynist rant mode. I counsel sympathy.
Haha.
No offense, but you seem like the type who'd have a hard time getting someone to sell them drugs ;)
Sex addiction's more complicated. How cute is cute? What about how drunk the girl is, how many bars are you willing to go to, what KIND of bars are you willing to go to? How agressive are you willing to be when trying to pick up girls? Are you willing to lie? Are you willing to get rejected dozens and dozens of time until you strike it lucky? What if the girl's sexy and into you but totally underage?
Plus it's not that sex addicts always have sex whenever they want. Do you think that drug addicts always have drugs whenever they want? It's not like drug addicts (unless they're mega rich) always have their drug of choice on hand. As I said earlier, drug addicts often undergo unwilling dry spells due to lack of funds, their drug dealer being MIA, or the town going dry. Although, typically female drug addicts have to deal less with all three of those issues but then we're looping back around to sex again.
You have mentioned your libido here many times. Clearly, sex is important to you, more so than it is to some people. But being called an addict might be an overstatement. And the term addict, with all its attendant connotations and ramifications, is a charged word, a pretty weighty label. It can be applied in the same way that jujubee80 pointed out @89, or the way that alcoholics "in recovery" decide anyone else having a beer must also be an alcoholic: as an excuse for sitting in sanctimonious judgment.
If you want to claim the title "addict" for yourself, either in terms of drug use or sexuality, go ahead.
>> well, not that that's ideal at all, but it would be good to be in a position to make a valid comparison >>
heh. thanks for the wry grin.
chi_type@91, you're wise, and more compassionate than I am.
Yes, by admitting that sex addiction exists and is a valid addiction, we run the risk of people using it as a way to stigmatize normal, healthy sexuality.
But by pretending that sex addiction doesn't exist we delegitimize the suffering that can be caused by sex addiction and make it more difficult for people with sex addiction to understand and overcome their problems. The average person who "doesn't believe" in sex addiction typically mocks the idea at best, and more often assumes that it's a weaksauce excuse for immoral behaviour.
We all know I'm not a fan of people using armchair diagnoses to insult eachother (remember that whole borderline thing?), but the solution isn't to pretend there are no mental illnesses, the solution is for people to stop being stigmatizing douches.
EricaP: Glad I made someone smile wryly or otherwise. My take on seandr is that he is a bit like an attention-seeking pre-schooler. Not that he necessarily wants all the attention for himself, but he likes to stir things up here and shift the discussion to what he finds interesting and he knows the surest ways to do that, one of which is to incite the ire of people. That and the sexual frustration.
And no, being in a "sexually compulsive relationship" is not the same as being a sex addict.
I could have just as easily included husbands in the equation, but I was talking about the powers of female allure before I strayed off into that tangent.
I'm sure there are other reasons besides "laziness, selfishness, scorn, and disinterest" that cause people to neglect a spouse, but these are the ones that came to mind.