Picking the Right Fights
I think happiness is thin on the ground, so I usually try not to crap on people’s joy. If you like to get naked and roll around in dead toads, I retain my right to be thoroughly squicked, but I’ll usually keep that to myself. Is your dating relationship a vial of nitroglycerin, poised on top of a teetering stack of rocks located deep in earthquake territory? I won’t say anything to disturb the contentness you feel now unless specifically asked, even if I’m pretty sure the resultant explosions will be spectacular and speedy.
And so I think about a falling-out I had with a friend I had over the disgust he had with seeing a certain kind of people at kink events, wherein I kept calling him out for discussing how those people made him feel uncomfortable.
What I said to him, repeatedly, was that speaking about those people in a judgmental way was a bad thing, particularly in a place where many of those same people – who attend many of the same kink events that you do – might feel ashamed of themselves. When they see you, they’ll remember your writings on your revulsion, and feel bad. So while exploring your virulently negative reaction may be something that’s necessary to getting past your personal dislike, which I support, airing this particular dirty laundry in public will make them feel awkward and ugly. Which I still believe.
Yet there I am, picking on the one-penis polyamory, raging against a style of people in a rather popular rant. When those folk see me, they’ll know that I am down on the whole “You can date women, sweetie, but never men,” and they will feel ashamed.
And the difference?
I’m perfectly okay with having those people feel bad.
I think my friend didn’t mean to cause potential offense; he was just trying to explore a set of reactions he was having, and determine whether those gut reactions were fair. Yet in writing about his revulsion, he was inadvertently targeting people for things he admitted might as well have been his problems. The damage was done regardless.
Which is why, before I write a rant, I think: do I mind if these people feel icky when I’m done? Is this just me? Are these people all that bad?
And if after considering all these topics, I believe that these folks are the enemy of the kind of world I want to see happen, then I will fire.
With an audience my size, I try to choose carefully; as the years go by and I’ve gotten some experience in managing a mid-sized audience, I’ve learned more about what hurts people, and have modulated my approach quite a bit to minimize accidental harm. I’ve made a lot of mistakes that I regret in picking on the wrong people, mistakes which sting me to this day. So when I fire my tirade-cannon, I try to be certain that it’s never “Oh, it’s not you, it’s me” – no, buddy, I think it’s you.
Now, my essay could have been written better, as several people responded with, “…We’re starting off with one-penis policy as we dip into poly, but my husband acknowledges it’s unfair and is working on it.” And that, to me, is a very different kettle of fish. Yes, it’s an unfair jealousy, but there’s a distinct difference between “You don’t date men because I’m your boyfriend,” and “You don’t date men, because I’m insecure about that, and I’m trying to better myself on that front.” So my torrent hit some folks who are using the one-penis rule as a way to move into alternative fidelities… and that I do feel bad about. I was aiming at a very specific kind of relationship, and was a couple of degrees off on my aim.
(And there’s an interesting comment left by Katranna, who muses over some of the distinctions between men and women and wonders whether men are clingier. Also good food for thought.)
All of that feedback will be taken into account before I rant again. I don’t do it often, or lightly. I care about the opinions of strangers – since as I said, happiness is hard to find and I think people owe it to the world to think carefully before minimizing the joy of others.
But that doesn’t mean that I never take aim.
And if I call someone out, then some people will dislike me for being judgmental, or too angry, or misguided. And I will spread open my arms and drink in their hatred. Because by the time I’ve decided to complain, I’ve already decided they’re not the sort of people I’m going to respect heavily in the first place, and at this stage in my life I’ve thought it through enough that I can accept a negative backlash. Even the bits of negative backlash that are uncomfortably true. I’ll sort through those negative reactions to see what I might have gotten wrong.
And I acknowledge that I might be wrong. I don’t know it all. I’ll make mistakes, and if I do, then I’ll do what I can to clean them up.
That’s how I sleep well at night. I’m comfortable with it.
It's In My Head Now, So It's In Yours Too
After the season premiere of “Breaking Bad” last night, all I can think of this – sung to the tune of Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken“:
Badness has broken, like the first meth lab
Walter has spoken, what a huge turd
Crazy-ass killers, crazy-ass dealers
Sane but sad Gale now, so long you big nerd
Watch Walter’s space crawl, searching for money
Watch Jesse’s bling sprawl, stoned off his ass
Praise for the sweetness of Vince’s writing
Praise for the blueness of Walter’s smooth glass
(Seriously, if you want analysis, Perich has a nice write-up of the Premiere over here. Me? A little underwhelmed, but last season ended so explosively that I don’t mind starting slowly. And Walter’s “Because I say so” was brilliant.)
All Women And Never Men: A Rant On A Polyamory I Dislike
“Baby, we’re poly; you can date all the women you want. But no guys.”
That’s the kind of polyamory that drives me crazy.
Look, if your guy is such a brobdignagian studmuffin that after shuddering in the shadow of His tremendous cock you need no others, then great! As the woman, you’ve made the choice not to seek other menstuffs. I support that. What I do not support is the polyamory model where the guy, majestically, allows his woman to date all the chicks she wants, but never men.
And it’s fucking everywhere. As a blogger with a reasonably sizable audience, I usually enstate a cooldown time between “a friend of mine does something that vexes me” and “the day I blog about it,” just so they don’t feel like I’m picking on them. But it never stops. Every other fucking week, I have a good pal who meets a guy who’s wonderfully encouraging, because he wants her to have all the loving relationships she can handle – as long as they have boobs! And no penis. That penis is scary, y’all.
It’s so everywhere, and I just fucking hate it.
Now, not every poly relationship is the same, and I’m sure that YOUR poon-but-no-peen relationship is based on factual evidence that men are the crushers of dreams. But what I usually see, when I look at these restrictive gardens, is a monstrous selfishness: Oh, you can have all of the sex you want, so long as it turns me on. I think lesbian sex is the spice, and maybe if I’m lucky I’ll end up as the filling in your slut sandwich, so go on and have your fun. Besides, we all know that women’s relationships aren’t nearly as deep or threatening as guy relationships, so it’s fun to indulge you – it’s like watching two kittens play! You girls are so cute.
The reason I hate it is because that’s a form of polyamory, but more often than not it’s one that’s selfish, misogynistic, and dysfunctional. It’s often a way of saying, “Everything in this relationship needs to serve my needs.” Because I’ve talked to a lot of those women while their man is out on a date with a new girlfriend, and it’s not like they don’t get the usual poly-quivers of jealousy and terror (as these dude-types are invariably a) arrow-straight and b) always willing to find just one more woman to fuck, as long as she’s cute). The women sit at home, not at all turned on by this new potential threat to their relationship, trying bravely to be fair because, “Well, this is an open relationship, this balancing of affections is just part of how it works.”
Except it doesn’t. Does he ever sit at home, worried about her on a date with a guy? No. It’s a one-way street because when she’s flirting with a hottie male at the club he gets all OMG HIS COCK WILL SUPPLANT MINE, and that shit is just too terrible for any man to deal with – so no, just fool around with harmless little women. (If you’ve read some of my previous rants on how dumb guys approach penises, you’ll know what I think of the whole ubercock routine.)
Look, my wife dates other men. Is it always easy on my ego? No. But even the best polyamory involves a few inadvertent shots to the self-esteem. There are people who will tell you that good polyamory involves never being jealous or insecure, and I’ll say fuck those inhuman robots right in their crankcase. Poly has a lot of benefits when it works – but even the best of relationships will occasionally have these monkeybrain down times of, “If she’s having a really good time with someone else, can she really love me?”
Yes. Yes, she can. But walling off a whole fucking sex just so you don’t have to have your dark night of the soul is selfish. Just go fucking monogamous, dude – there’s nothing wrong with that. But no, you want your hot threesomes, and you want to sex up as many chicks as you can, and she’s conveniently bisexual so you can just let her have her explorations as long as it’s not threatening to you.
I shall repeat: If you’re the woman, and you really don’t want any men, then I say that’s great. (As witness this excellent essay a friend of mine wrote on her trouble with “The ‘H’ Word” over on FetLife, which should be required reading.) But if the reason you don’t want any men is because he’d melt down in jealousy, then that’s a marker of potential problem – and one where, in my experience, the woman will jump through hoops to avoid bruising his ego, but when he eventually finds someone who threatens her, suddenly he’s all “Baby, you’ve got to learn to be more open-minded!”
Generally, that means, “You have to be more open-minded about doing only things that make me happy.” And “All the sacrifices in this poly are going to be yours.” And “Women can’t really get attached to other women in a meaningful way.” And I hate that. Hate all of it. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
If You're Not On LiveJournal, Then Where Are You?
Monte Cook leaving was the final straw.
See, right now I’m running my old Planescape campaign, and Monte (who designed Planescape) has been writing increasingly interesting thoughts on game design. Which he’s posted, mostly, here. And yesterday, he said, “I’m not posting on LiveJournal any more, this is why I have a blog. See you there.”
As have many others. And LiveJournal’s RSS aggregation is kind of crappy, so what I need to do is now go out and find all the good blogs and enter them into Google Reader so that I can catch up.
Which brings the big question: What non-LiveJournal blogs should I be reading? Short lists, please, as if you give me more than three blogs my eyes will glaze over. But if you’ve gone off-site and think I should be reading you, speak up! If you love a blogger, let me know! I’m looking for interesting reading here, so let me know!
(And when I say “blogger,” I mean “People who blog.” Aggregate collection sites like PostSecret and FailBlog are fascinating in their own way, but I’m looking for people actually writing on their own topics about their own lives.)
Why I'm Sad About Not Seeing Breaking Dawn Part 2
“The good news is, my husband said you can see me for the weekend,” she told me. “We can rent a hotel, have wild sex, cuddle, anything you like. But there’s one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You have to see the new Twilight movie with me.”
(Cue Darth Vader-style NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
The running gag was that seeing Breaking Dawn, Part 1 with her was proof of my devotion. Certainly I’m no Twilight fan. So we got good and drunk beforehand – I felt like a teenager, smuggling in little airplane bottles of vodka to covertly dump into my Sprite – and held hands, and watched the merriment of big dumb sparklepires.
And I liked it.
Not the movie – which, like most things society holds in poor esteem, wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone’s scorn but certainly wasn’t good either – but rather, her excitement. Watching her bounce in her seat before the movie, the way she squeezed my hand when things got exciting, the way she kept leaning over to explain who this werewolf was and why he was important.
And I realize: I get off on other people’s enthusiasm.
I’ve listened for hours to folks going on and on about hobbies that I have zero interest in. Manga, football, accounting, Battlestar Galactica, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, BBS communities I’ll never log into, you name it. But if they’re willing to share that enthusiasm with me, then I’ll match it, because what I like is seeing people’s faces light up as they share their world with me.
Now, there’s a fine difference, because there are a lot of people who aren’t there to share their world with me. There’s any number of yammerers who are there to show me how very smart they are, bombarding me with facts on bocci ball to demonstrate their mastery of the subject. And there’s the stereotypically breathless fan who, annoyingly, cannot even fathom that the world does not share her love of Yaoi, and so keeps quietly assuming that I’m intensely familiar with the fine differences between yaoi and gei comi.
Yet I love that moment of connection, where someone takes me by the hand and escorts me into their world and says, “This may be silly, but this is something I adore and I want to show you every bit of it.” Because it is an act of trust, and a form of love, and a whole bunch of new things to learn about. And so in those three hours, and over the rest of the weekend, I learned of the Twilight mythology, and how vampires breed in Stephenie Meyers’ world, and what scenes they left out of the movie – and maybe it wasn’t high literature or high cinema, but it was full of things I didn’t know that were critical to her.
We’re no longer dating, and I wouldn’t go see Breaking Dawn, Part 2 on my own. Oh, I could go with Gini, who’s read the books… but that’s a very different thing than going on opening day with a dear friend who’s trembling with excitement, burning to know how they adapted the rather boring second and not particularly satisfying last half of the book, so enthused to be there that they’re radiating a glow that suffuses me.
She’s gone. So’s that world. And there are other people with their new hobbies – there always are – but that doesn’t mean that when the new Twilight comes out I won’t be a little sad that no, that particular happiness is something I’m no longer connected with.
A strange thing, missing a movie I didn’t particularly enjoy, in a series I barely know. But as with most things, it’s all about the people you’re with.