Rant

Emotional shotgun

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I’ve thought about this often.  Pretty much every day to one degree or another. and I have come to the conclusion that I am just not charming. Sure, if you want to talk about the historical context of economic policies and the spread of religion, I’m your guy. Or if you would like a discussion about how time travel to kill that one historically bad guy would be a disaster, then wow would we have something to talk about.  If you want to get deep into serious discussion, I’m right there.  Or take a silly premise and just run with it.  But that whole witty banter thing, I don’t got. In a big group it may seem that I can, because I’ll interject something and it will cut to the heart of what is being discussed, but pay attention, I will then go silent again. So, I’m not charming. I have weird ideas and off tilt desires. I have virtually no shame and no filter but I’ll only dance in a crowd of strangers or after at least 3 real drinks. I’m not doing a job that screams important or changing the world, so that’s not particularly impressive. Maybe, I’m being unnecessarily cruel to my own self image. The tough part is that what seems unique and special about me seems to only exist in my past. And it is bound up in past relationships which new relationships don’t necessarily want to hear about. I’m off point.

What I think about is this: Shouldn’t it, on some level, be easy? Should not the conversation flow from topic to topic? If you’ve known me for years, then it does. But on first talking? First meeting? Only with 2 people has it been that way, One was recent but for various other reasons failed. The other was because she approached me, she saw me and said, that guy, that guys I want to know. That feeling is immensely empowering, I could go for days on that feeling. I have no real point to this. This is just a confused guy rambling in the early morning hours. I wish that I could say that I just don’t know what I want, or that I’m not ready for a relationship, or I just want to put my work first, or any of a dozen excuses to not be dating or to not even be talking to someone about talking about dating. (aside: Dating is a prelude to a relationship. It is the opening act.) (second aside: I cannot emphasize enough how the statement “I don’t date” is bullshit. Are you seeing someone in any kind of romantic or sexual context?  IT’S A DATE.  and don’t tell me that sex is not a date,  unless you are paying for it, then it’s a emotional entanglement of some kind.)

It comes to my attention that I should be talking to friends about this stuff,  but they are all married.  Have been for years. And they are not poly relationships so what would they know?  Maintaining a relationship, sure,  they have good advice there, outside of that, not so much.

This is all just frustration.  I am genuinely not good at the let’s be friends and see where it goes thing. I want to buy you roses or lilies, lilies are cool. I want to tell you that you are beautiful and that all I want is you to feel safe. I want to be the sappy romantic idiot that I am . But I can’t because that would be too serious.  What is wrong with too serious?  Take a fucking chance. We all have baggage, and I get that it hurts and that you don’t want to be hurt.  And maybe you want nothing to do with me romantically, say that,  it saves time.  I won’t be offended. I am a adult.  I know people say that then act like fools,  but I have spent most of my time working on who I am, what I want, and my emotional well being.  That leaves me deficient in the more material ares, admittedly,  But the emotional maturity, that I got.  Just tell me, I won’t be a jerk.

And maybe it won’t work out. But I won’t emotionally blackmail you or be a jerk or be cruel or mean. at least I will try my best to not be and if you tell me I am being that way will try to correct my behavior.  Hopefully, we’ll have at least some good times, and we’ll learn something for the next relationship or maybe we’ll go the distance,  but we’ll never know without that first step.

This has been another addition of Emotional shotgun, are we not entertained!

Have we fallen so far

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A interested party asked me, almost timidly, if BDSM always involved sex. I had to think for a second, not because I did not have the answer, but because it calls to mind the bad information that is out there. Of course it doesn’t always involve sex.

I incorporate sex into play only when I am in a romantic relationship with the person or persons. If the relationship is as Master and Submissive, then no, I don’t incorporate those elements into the play. I think that there is a misconception at work here that play is all about sex.

Admittedly, I have been out of the lifestyle except for friends and the referral from friends for some time now as I struggled to get my problems in hand. But, I can’t imagine it has changed so much. Perhaps, the contamination of 50 shades of grey is to blame.

Or, it could be that the community is not providing adequate training and support or making said information available except in the context of sex. I’ll want to ask where they got the notion to determine where it comes from.

I can’t shake the feeling that it is because male “tops” will use any excuse to get their dick wet. If that is the case, then those people are sexual opportunists and not true masters or tops. It is something to be aware of.

Just because you are bound does not mean you give up consent. Sex is not implicit unless such as been made explicit. I know, I could be accused of being too safe. Believe me, there is no such thing. I won’t even touch a partner sensually unless it has been agreed to. I may want to, need to, burn to, but failure to obtain consent for ANY act, is abhorrent. It is betrayal, it is rape.

On happiness and beauty

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We all deserve a little happiness, so let what makes you happy consume you once in awhile.

What makes me happy is the transitory nature of beauty and the ephemeral quality of performed art. Sounds pretentious, I know. What I mean is that beauty shifts and changes as we the perceiver change This change, allows us to change as we see ourselves through this outside lens and in seeing are changed by the experience.

As to the ephemeral quality of performed art. Well, no two performance is the same, each one is a unique experience, each a microcosm of itself and a connection to each other person that experiences this with you. These feelings of connection can allow us the space to embrace our humanity. To see, for a moment, in the shared experience, community.
Further, those that share the experience are forever linked. Even that little bit of connection weaves us into the tapestry of the world.

Take some time to do what makes you happy, and remember to share your passion, your joy. Maybe you are someone’s transitory beauty. Maybe it’s your ideas or your smile. We make this world with ourselves, out of our lives and that is beauty.

Timbers smoldering

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The only bridge worth building is the one worth burning

I had a recent conversation about whether I needed BDSM in a relationship. The answer is no, but…
No I don’t need it but I enjoy it.
Further Bdsm is in the mind.
If I make you orgasm again and again, never stopping, never giving you a chance to catch your breath, that may be considered good vanilla sex. But if in my mind I was laying claim to you and I stated I won’t stop until you stop me. Then that is a show of Dominance. A fairly mild show but still.
Vanilla sex is just that, vanilla, every time, each time. That doesn’t mean no orgasm, generally, but it does mean that the actions are intellectually boring. I happen to enjoy watching someone lose themselves to pleasure, but that only goes so far. You only need the toys for particular things, for the most part it is a understanding, a mindset.
But that is all just physical and I prefer to only engage in Scene behind the bedroom door. I don’t do slaves or pets. So you may submit to me in the bedroom but outside of it I expect you to be your own person. Further, I want emotional commitment more than I need the physical. I’m rambling. BDSM is fun, and engages me fully but I don’t need it. But vanilla sex forever is not appealing either. Further,I can’t see how it would be enough for anyone. Maybe people are just used to sex that is unsatisfactory.

Love rant

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Love is a continuum,
Ranging from as easy as falling to a constant struggle to be understood and accepted. It exists in many forms

All forms requires a leap of faith or an action.

That may be part of my problem. Many of the people I’m interested in want to be friends and then see where it goes. Which is interesting to me because friendship for me is a slow process.
Further, I generally love my friends in an agapic way. So if you don’t want emotional attachment then neither friendship or dating is what is wanted.

What most consider friendship, I consider acquaintance. To me friendship comes with rights and obligations. Acquaintance is no strings. I’ll accept acquaintance from people I work with or share a single activity with.

But for someone interesting? Someone worth getting to know? I cannot understand why anyone would want less than true friendship, complete with agapic love. Why spend the time for less. Take a bloody chance. We are all so cautious with our hearts. We have all been burned. But pain is life. It is necessary for growth. And failing all else, it is experience.

Which is what living is all about. I’m not saying you should accept risks beyond your limits but we all need to have a little more confidence in ourselves and learn what those limits are.

Love, experience, learn, repeat. Life is devastatingly, brutally beautiful.
Risk and chance, chance and risk.

Sometimes it’s as easy as falling, sometimes we must screw up our courage and jump.

Friendship and dating

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I don’t understand the current need to be friends before you start dating. I’m willing to concede this may be just my experience but it always seems to be “I just really want to be friends then we’ll see.” Is this some kind of stalling tactic? Do they think, “He wants to date me which means he wants to fuck me?”

Now my body may want sexual release and I probably find you physically attractive but that has little bearing on sex, at least to me. When I’m dating you, I’m getting to know you, of course I want your friendship. That is a part of it.

But I also get to be romantic. I get to take you out. I get to hang out with you. Friends I see when circumstances and convenience allow. Dating, I arrange the circumstance. We work together to have the time.

I suppose my perspective may be askew. I do NOT have sex unless I am in love. Some levels of Bdsm play perhaps, but even there I’ll want an emotional escalation at some point. And some more intimate types of play will be off the table.

Bottom line, if you seem interesting then I may want to date you. If you don’t want the romantic nonsexual stuff just say so. But if so, actual friendship with me is years, literally years away. I take my friendships seriously. They are the family I choose.

Maybe, I’m just an odd duck.

Stand

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Don’t ever think that because I’m emotional, I’m not strong. I’m emotional because I’m strong. I’ve stood against the onslaught. I’ve faced down loss and things that would destroy, that I know has destroyed others. You see me crying and think me weak. You see my tears and think I’m failing. Fools. I cry but I stand. I shed my tears and am unafraid of your judgements. I’m falling apart but those pieces fit together into a stronger whole. I’m afraid but I act anyway. I’m tired but I wake. Stand against me and fall.  Stand with me and we will both rise.

True answers to questions

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I am not ambitious. I don’t need a job to have meaning or be challenging. I just need it to provide funds to allow me to live as I choose coupled with the freedom to by and large do as I wish. I have that.

I don’t fear change. I don’t see the point of change for the sake of change. If there is a goal, and a vision of how to achieve it, then I will work towards the goal. But change for the sake of change seems like running away to me.

My art provides me with meaning. My words have touched more than one life and made that life easier, better. That is enough. Would monetary success be nice? Probably, but it is not the goal.

I have no desire to travel for the sake of traveling. People are the same the world over. I travel for events that can’t be had elsewhere. In a relationship, I travel when it delights my love. I enjoy seeing delight in the eyes of someone I love. If it’s travel that does that then I’m there.

I do not desire adventure. Adventure is what happens when plans go wrong. I don’t seek the chaos that will occur naturally on its own. But I can move and adapt to it as needed.

Life is beautiful, haunting and it ends.
Its impermanence is what makes it worth living. I can spend hours watching clouds race across the sky or people dancing at a club. Experience is the sweeter with someone to share it with. If anything, that is the adventure I’m looking for. That is the ambition I harbour.

Regret

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When I was younger, I once got in trouble for writing a sentence that used the word regret properly. The sentence? I have no regrets.
I suppose the teacher was having a bad day.

Well, I’m older now and I have a few regrets. If you’ve read this blog then you know a few of them. If you haven’t, well why not? There is some good stuff in there. *grins*

But seriously, there is one thing my mind travels back to. I was at PAX Prime a few years back. I was standing in line to get the swag bag that they were assembling up front. It was the longest line I’d ever stood in. And it was moving forward just enough to not allow people to play games or otherwise entertain themselves. It was grueling, dehumanizing and was for a bunch of nonsense frippery that ended up thrown out. It was hot in the queue line. Packed and my feet were killing me. And I had with me a print of a Jim Darkmagic painting. Which now hangs in my closet, so you know it was a good purchase. It was unwieldy and I wanted nothing more than to not be in the line. But we were halfway in, so I stayed.

Then, I saw something heartbreaking. Towards the front of one of the rows, a person was sitting on the floor crying. Lost and alone in a sea of humanity. People were avoiding her. There was 3 foot circle around her. I don’t know what had happened. But I know what didn’t. In this mass of a so called compassionate gamer community, here was someone truly hurting. I didn’t help her. My instinct said to help. My intuiton said to help. My heart was breaking for this person. But I did nothing. And that I truly regret. I don’t know if there was anything I could do. But I could have been there. Available and human. Even now, years later, it wrentches me. A terrible grief. I doubt that person will read this, but let me say I am truly, deeply sorry. If I could, I would change my actions. I can only promise, that you would not sit alone now.

“Regret is a dull and rusted blade, that covers me in scars that never fade. ”
-Assemblage 23

Sometimes scars are the visible reminder of who you were and must never be again.

Sex

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Sex is pleasurable but in American culture it is obsessed over. If you have many partners you are considered a real man. Due to the inherent misogyny of our culture. Or, if a woman, are considered a slut, for the same reason.

Sex is raised up to be the end goal of social interactions and is shamed when that goal is reached. There are idiotic laws about what sex acts are legal, what commercial transactions are legal. We are a culture that on the one hand is hypersexualized and on the other is fanatical in our suppression of that sexuality.

So as an individual it is difficult to traverse those waters. For myself, I see sex as merely one of a great number of pleasurable activities that can be engaged in with one or more partners. It’s not the goal of any relationship I’m in but an expression of that relationship.

To the society at large that would seem to be unmasculine or in some way lacking. If I’m not constantly seeking sex, I’m seen as odd or less than a man. It’s hard for me to understand how important it is. And I question whether it is really sex that is desired or if it is fact a desire for physical contact with another person. Whatever form that may take.

Sex takes the place of more vulnerable contact. With sex we can play a role in the larger societal hangups that the USA has, and in doing so shield ourselves from the harder desires. We find it easier to assume and ask for sex than to ask to be held. To feel safe, cared for, if only for a night. I’m all for pleasure body and mind. But I think we need to examine if it is pleasure we want or if we are lacking in physical touch of any kind. I seem to have lost the thread of my original point.

Bottom line: Slut shaming is bullshit.  And so is being shamed for not constantly wanting sex.  Sex is pleasure.  And can mean any number of things to anyone at any given time.  But if we are honest with each other I think we’d all be better off.