A Whole New Level Of Support

While I was away, Gini spent the entire week cleaning the house to up her standards.  Her standards are spartan; nothing on the counters but the barest of essentials, everything else put away neatly in a drawer.  The house is visibly lighter after Gini has swept through, as the sunlight has so many more open flat surfaces to reflect off of.
I do not support her in this.  And so I shall not help.
This is why our marriage works well.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to clean.  I won’t leave dishes out just to prove a point; certainly, Gini has raised my cleaning standards over the years to be more compatible with hers.  But Gini’s idea of “a nice house” is something that looks despicably barren to me, more of a show apartment than an actual home.  I like a place with a few books strewn about.
So I shall not help her in her quest to do this.  I shall not particularly stop her, either, but I won’t go out of my way to help her achieve her look.
This is a vital skill in marriage.
There’s much talk about being “supportive” in marriage, but there’s not much talk about the low support that most things actually require.  When I think of “supportive,” I think of helpful wives brightly saying, “Yes, sweetie, get out there and go exercise!  Have you biked this morning?  Here, let me help you out of your chair and get your bike out of the garage!”
Yet the majority of the stuff that Gini and I deal with can barely be called “support.”  It could, grudgingly, be called “not opposed to.”
For example, take my exercise.  Gini hates jogging, and cannot drum – so when it comes time for me to exercise, I’ve pretty much gotta do it alone.  Gini never asks whether I’ve worked out that day, doesn’t really care to know the details of my jogging/drumming unless I share them with her, and is mildly happy for me because it makes me happy…
…but other than that, she couldn’t care less.  Much like she really has no inherent interest about Magic, or videogames.  Or like I don’t really have an inherent interest about her quilting or classical music.  These activities are interesting only to the extent that we share them with each other… Yet if I never said a word about the Dark Ascension prerelease, Gini would never follow up.
This is a positive thing.  Sometimes, the best thing your spouse can do is shrug and let you do it, if you want.  Gini doesn’t need to run down to the gaming room and organize my Magic cards for me…. Because as a human, you need to learn how to be self-directed and get that shit done yourself, if it makes you happy.  Relying on your partner to constantly push you into happiness makes for a sad and work-like marriage.
There are things we do check in on; if I didn’t write for a week, Gini would be concerned.  Gini needs to have some hobby going on in her life, lest she feel awful about wasting her week on iPhone Sudoku, so I urge her to go do something if she’s been sufficiently still.  But the majority of our “support” involves “you go right ahead, and I’ll even listen if you want.”
So if Gini wants the house super-super-clean, I’m going to not be a dick about it, but I’m also not going to spend a half-hour out of a busy day in efforts to keep the house to a standard I’m not overly fond of.  Instead, I’ll simply let her do it when the urge moves her, and not actively complain about oh damn, the book I had in the place I was reading has once again moved to another room where I have to go search for it.
Such is our support: not getting in the way.
It works.

Writing Is Fucking Is Writing

I wrote another essay today over at FetLife, the Facebook for kinksters, where I discuss the more personal sex-related topics that I don’t necessarily want people to stumble across accidentally.  (If you seek it out, great.)  And today’s essay is how some revelations I’ve had on writing have led me to feel better about my sexual style:

All my life I’ve been insecure about my sexual ability. No, check that:
All my life I’ve been insecure.
In a sense, that insecurity is a good thing, because it drives me mad to correct my faults. When I fuck, I fuck with a considerable amount of skill because I am determined to become better in bed with every coupling. If a woman is kind enough to let me into her bed, least I can do is not kiss like a slobbering German Shepherd. So I work that shit, even as I still lose myself in considerable passion. (I was told this weekend I “fuck like a beast,” which I’m going to purr over for a bit.)
But with insecurity comes the badness: the need for reassurance, the anxiety of Doing It Wrong, the drive to sometimes push when stasis is not only fine but what’s needed.
That said, one of the things that Neil Gaiman said to me at my Clarion class resonates in a weird way with sex….

If you want to read it all, well, it’s in the usual place.

Getting Older Is Not A Consolation Prize

I’m forty-two now.  I know what forty-two is supposed to feel like: the first creaks of oldness, settling into a mundane life in suburbia, the first pangs of losing yourself in that self-involved, Baby Boomer-like nostalgia where only the old songs are the good ones.
Yet with each year, I keep picking up power.
It’s odd.  On Saturday, jenphalian took me out to get a manicure.  On top of Bec’s henna, that leaves me with some pretty pretty hands:

And as I left the parlor with my henna hands and my purple fingernails, I thought of what a strange difference this was.  Back when I was twenty, I might have done the fingernails and henna, but it would have been as a way to show How Radically Different I Was.  I was so desperate to make a unique mark back then that my every move spoke of flopsweat.  It wouldn’t have been art to please me, but rather art to define me.
What I didn’t guess was that over twenty years, I’d be finally be defining myself.  And part of that identity is pretty pretty princess nails.
America’s culture is youth-crazed, so there’s this concept that middle-aged life kind of a consolation prize – sure, your life isn’t as exciting as it once was, and you’re uglier, but now at least you have some money before you start dying!  We all know old age is sad and pathetic.
For me, though, age is strength.  I’m learning more every day because I’m not wrestling with new problems – just variants on old ones.  I’m a better writer because I have the discipline to sit down and work every day, even when I feel like fucking off and playing Mass Effect.  I’ve got a better sex life because I’m exploring kink and polyamory responsibly, without the psychodrama or insecure implosions I would have engendered as a twenty-something kid.  I’m listening to more kinds of music, exploring more fiction.
I’m told that middle-aged suburbia is to have your life shrink.  Mine’s expanding.
Every day I wake up and I feel more me.  It’s a concept that is strong, quiet, confident.  It’s not always there – I’m shaken by my usual insecurities – but more and more I’m waking up and going, “Yeah, I’m going to fuck up sometimes, but mostly I know what I’m doing.”
That’s potency.  Born of experience.
There’s a part of me that’s thinking about getting a tattoo, now – not a huge piece of artwork but rather some lyrics that mean a lot to me.  (It’s from the chorus to this song, in case you’re curious, the words of which sum up pretty much entirely what I’m trying to do ever.)  And before, I’d always thought, “How do people get tattoos of silly things like that?  What if you’re wrong?  What if you put the wrong thing on your body?”
Forty-two year-old me hasn’t made the decision yet.  But if I do, it’ll be like my henna and nails – something for me that I don’t mind you watching.  I’m comfortable in who I am, settling into my skin.
This isn’t what old age was supposed to be like, but I’m glad as hell that it is.

A Thing You Should Not Do (To Me)

You can easily destroy me during a depression by being kind.
I put this rather personal entry here so I’ll be able to point friends and lovers towards it in the future, but this situation has come up three times in recent months… And I can’t write about it when I’m depressed, so mise well write about it when I’m in a salvageable mood.
So.  If you have a problem with me when I’m depressed, tell me.
I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s sweet – you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s down right now, he doesn’t need any additional burdens.  So I’ll wait until he’s out of the depression to talk to him.”
This is, quite literally, a thing that may drive me to suicide.
When I am in a depressive state, I am wrestling my brain weasels – who are telling me that everything is wrong, people hate you, you think they like you but you’re clueless.  My brain weasels are telling me I am so worthless and unloved that I should kill myself.
When in a depression, I rewind every conversation we’ve had recently.  My brain weasels look at the replay and tell me how much I’ve offended, what a clueless oaf I am, how insensitive and stupid I’ve been.  This is further evidence of my worthlessness.
I fight them with facts.  I cling to the idea that if things were this bad I would know, that not everyone can be angry or upset with me, and that if there were a problem that bad I’d be aware of it.
This is how I do not slit my wrists.
So what happens when you’re “kind” and wait until I’m done being depressed to tell me how badly I’ve erred is that you have just given the brain weasels ammunition.  They were absolutely right!  I was screwing up!  And I had no clue!  That weird conversation we had two weeks ago was proof that I was an idiot!
Now, the next time I’m in a depressive state and I’m frantically replaying every conversation, the brain weasels go, “See?  You really fucked up with X, and you didn’t know that.  You’ve probably fucked up with everyone, and they’re too nice to tell you.  You’ve alienated all your friends.  Why are you living again?”  And I’m left without a good answer.
I’m not fucking kidding here, people.  Every time you wait during my depression, you make the next depression that much worse.  You make it harder for me to use facts.  (And you make it so, when I eventually emerge from my depression, I’m going to get slammed with uncomfortable talks that no one likes having, so I can’t even be happy once I’ve gotten through this blue time.)
So please.  If you have a problem with me, tell me right away.  Don’t try to be nice about it, don’t worry about my mood, just fucking come to me and say, “Hey, you fucked up.”  Yes, it will make me upset.  But I promise I’ll be as rational about it as I can, and deal with it, and then I’ll have the confidence that if my friends are actually upset with me I will know immediately what I did.
Do not be kind.  This is not generic advice for depressives, mind you.  Every depressive is different.  But your attempts to be nice, as well-meaning as they are, push me to dangerous places.  Please do not do this.

Stories Of PayPal Dickery And Wondrous Women

The always-relevant Naamah_darling would like you to know how PayPal is censoring erotic publishing with some new and rather poorly-written moral guidelines.  She makes some rather salient observations about how simple “we can all agree on this” changes cascade in ugly ways – and given that PayPal is now, de facto, the global currency, if PayPal won’t accept your payments, you’re not getting them.  So stories of PayPal dickery need to be broadcast far and wide, and the more y’all can Tweet, Facebook, and otherwise link to Naamah, the better.
In other news, the magnificent poet Rose Lemberg needs some help getting to WisCon. Rose is a wonderful person who would liven up any right-thinking convention, and she’s taking bids on six artist’s books of The Book Of Shapechangers.  Her stuff’s fun to read, and I trust in her artistic sensibilities, and I want her to attend WisCon, so why wouldn’t I link?

Is Polyamory Genetic? Is Homosexuality Genetic?

So Ministry_victim asked an interesting question:
“I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the ideas of those who believe that polyamory is an a priori genetic condition that suggests predisposition a la homosexuality.”
My thoughts on a genetic polyamory link are the exact same as my thoughts on a genetic homosexual link:
I don’t care.
Now, I do believe that there is some genetic predisposition towards homosexuality (and gender dysphoria leading to gender switches).  As many have noted, people don’t become gay for the fabulous social benefits it brings.  And I’m as guilty as any of occasionally dragging this fact out to try to convince the anti-gay faction that they should be more tolerant of homosexuals because gay people can’t effectively change the nature of their attraction.
But if.  Even if.
Even if the gays were, as some suggest, all conspiring in one big plot to annoy us fine-thinking straight people, wincing as they sucked distasteful dick and reluctantly chowed pussy out of some misplaced form of rebellion, it should still be allowed.
The truth is, gay sex is between consenting adults, and it hurts no one but those adults – there are way more deadly car accidents caused by beers than queers.  You may consider gayness to be a bad choice, but two people should be free to make bad choices together.  And what people want to do for fun in their private life is something that should be allowed, no matter how distasteful it may be to me.  There are scat-players out there, an act that fills me to the bottom of my throat with ick, but as long as they keep their apartment clean for their poor landlord I say let ’em do as they please.
(I’d even say let ’em wear outfits proclaiming their love of scat in a public place, but in the interests of public niceties I do request a shower before they get on the subway.)
Let’s say there are people who are indoctrinated in a seditious lifestyle, pestered into a culture that preys upon naive young people who don’t know any better, at which point they are ushered in and secluded from society and brainwashed until they come to believe that all of these evils are not just acceptable, but actually natural… And then they go out seeking new victims.
Well, there are, and the born-again Christians ring my doorbell early Saturday mornings, and I’m not looking to outlaw them.  (If they offered free hummers as part of their entry package, I might be more willing to listen.)  As such, even if gay people were an act of rebellion, I’d still say it was something that should be allowed.
We often get caught up in the “nature vs. nurture” aspect of gay and transgender issues, forgetting that this is playing to the conservative bent.  What’s important is that people all over the world should have the freedom to live their lives as they see fit assuming they’re not actively harming anyone, and as such Teh Gay Should Be Okay.
So is gay genetically disposed?  I say probably, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
Now; is polyamory a genetic tendency?  That, I have no opinion on.  I’ve gotten in trouble for my assertions that polyamorous people are, by and large, much larger horndogs than the average person – which makes sense to me, given that you’re risking breaking existing relationships in search of new sexual intimacy.  (Otherwise you could just, you know, be friends.)  I’m sure there are tendencies genetically towards certain aspects that encourage polyamory, but polyamory is such a complex term, encompassing so many styles of relationships, that I don’t think a single set of genes could really cover it.
But it’s irrelevant.  I’ve heard it said that after gay marriage gets settled, they’ll be coming after the polyamorous relationships next.  Could be.  When that day comes, the genetic predisposition will be just as useless.