Columns Jul 16, 2014 at 4:00 am

Shorties

Comments

110
@23 you're getting into very slippery water when talking about who is allowed into "[y]our space" - you're talking about a bar, a public accomodation. There isn't really a way to separate your argument from a segregationist one, even if the power dynamic is reversed.

There isn't really anything inherently gay about gay bars, other than that you expect to meet other gay people there. Times changes. Whites only used to exclude Irish and Italians. There were times when Capitol Hill was a jewish neighborhood. There was a time when there was no english spoken on Capitol Hill. Places ebb and flow. Too many bro's at your gay bar? Find a new one [also an issue at many straight bars, fwiw].
111
@104: Still a sign of a bad training that the dog can't be outside of the owner's sight for more than an hour (or whatever). I've adopted dogs with abandonment issues, understandably, but there's still got to be some amount of personal time possible for the sanity of any couple.

I'm not bothered by dogs on beds in general, but definitely in that context.
112
@110: You really don't appreciate cultural dynamics, do you? When the bros and single ladies take over a space, it pretty much dooms a spot within a short period of time.

Your analogy to "no $race wanted" signs is stunningly dim and unimaginative.
113
@111 undead ayn rand,

Yes, that’s pretty much the point. The place a dog takes in a single person’s household is not exactly the same as the place it takes in a couple’s household. Training and routines will be slightly different. If you show up at a single person’s house for a few hours or an overnight, the dog you find there is not going to be trained to respect couple dynamics.

The other part of the point is that some dogs are a helluva lot more resistant to training than others.

The other other point is that the single person is not necessarily oblivious to the awfulness of having a dog in close quarters during couple time.
114
@112 go ahead and make an argument to that effect, then
115
I should say, “If you show up at a single person’s house for a few hours or an overnight, the dog you find there *may not* be trained to respect couple dynamics.”

Some single people like their dogs to keep a respectful distance anyway. Some single people have enough company that the dog knows the drill. You could be fine. But if you are visiting someone who does not entertain that many callers and who has a particularly stupid and persistent dog (as I did) you may need to compromise (or to turn around and leave) even though there is not necessarily anything twisted about the person you are calling on.

*** *** ***

The teal deer says to ask when you’re dealing with single people. “Do your pets sleep in the bed with you? Do you know if they’re cool with giving up their spot for company? If I were to go see you next week to beat you up could you leave them with a sitter?” Make your decisions accordingly.

When you are dealing with a steady date though, state your limits. “I need the dogs to sleep somewhere else. How can they be trained?” It is not fun to have sex in a bed with a dog in it. Sane people recognize this no matter how adaptable they are or how much they love their dogs.
116
@108 Hunter78: ...a dog and cat war? I didn't read it that way, but that's just me.
118
Hunter78, you have obviously never owned a chihuahua.
119
@117: "Anti-animals? Savagelanders are fine with being flogged bloodly or having pins stuck through women's breasts, as long as it's a kink, but some hold animals watching people fuck a perversion too far."

Yes, one is human on human, the other is animal species literally shoving their noses where they don't belong.
121
... meaning, of my four dogs (two dead, two living; two terriers, one herder, one chihuahua) for three of them all I need/ed to be is pack-leadery. It was the chihuahua who needed active intervention and behaviour modification. I could spend a week teaching him not to sleep on the bed in preparation for a hot date, but then either 1) he would have to never sleep on the bed again (no more nightime snuggles!) because he would promptly unlearn how to sleep anywhere else or 2) I would need to schedule any hot date a week in advance so that I could re-teach him every single time (sleepless nights and doggie valium!).

Alternatively, I could tolerate his being on the bed and shove him out of the way when he got too interested, and ask my partner to do the same.

When my beloved moved in I didn’t need the chihuahua for nighttime snuggles any more so I taught him to sleep in a crate and he never slept in the bed again. Just not worth it for sex with a stranger once every few months.

I keep specifying that some dogs are particularly dim and unresponsive and people who have to cope with these particular dogs have compromises to make. Other dogs don’t present the same aggravation. I don’t know why you think that makes me not a pack leader.
122
@120: I'm suggesting the difference between human kink being encouraged and animal presence while activities going on being undesirable. I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to explain to you.
123
Well, undead ayn rand, I don’t get it either. So it makes at least two of us who need things spelled out.

I can’t even parse your first sentence.
124
@122 undead ayn rand & @123 Alison Cummins: I share your bewilderment.
125
There's a kink where pins are stuck thru women's breasts? And it's called?

126
@125: Play piercings,I imagine.
128
FWA @88:

I find that 'drunken ashamed' confession, and your response, very sweet.

My ex whom I was with for the last 15 years or so wasn't physically demonstrative. I'm Aspie and somewhat blunt & brusque. I'm convinced that to an extent both of us 'used' the cats for expressions of soppy affection that was directed towards the other person as much as the cats. Things one might feel too foolish or self-conscious or 'silly' to say to a human person can be said to the cat, who after all isn't going to look down on you any more than cats already do. Similarly with one of my best friends (also a fervent cat-lover, although in his case 'platonic' inasmuch as not having his own cat), there's a certain amount of cat-adoration over the phone.

I don't regard this as Wrong & Bad: if cat is being cared-for in a way its own feline little mind can appreciate, human Soppiness is neither here nor there to the cat.

If I get into another relationship I'd probably try to do what you suggested and nudge myself towards being as demonstrative to a person as to a cat.
129
@88 FWA:

Very sweet, and something I intend to try in future if I find myself being more touchy feely with pussycats as opposed to people!

I'm Aspie (blunt and brusque in demonstrations of affection), and my ex (who was with me for 15 years) wasn't particularly demonstrative either. *Both* of us were fairly verbally and physically soppy with the cats, and I had the distinct feeling that the verbal whimsy and fancifulness was 'really' in the space between us rather than truly directed at the cats.

People who are self-conscious with other humans may 'let go' in a different way with pets who aren't capable of judging what they say as 'silly'. As you say, this isn't going to hurt the pets, but left to itself may weaken the human relationship, so it's worth pushing straightforward physical/tactile affection (and/or the freedom of being verbally silly?) as something one does with the partner.

I feel sad that I did not make the expressing-ourselves-through-the-cats thing more overt. Because it was something I felt we both did, I didn't push from the realisation to improving the human relationship.
130
(sorry, above was me trying to rewrite my comment because I thought it had got eaten by the aether)

(damn UI is out of the ark, am used to comment threads which allow threading, editing and deleting what has just been posted, rather than just adding it to a vast pile)

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