One Of The Best Blog Entries I've Ever Written

It’s interesting: Here’s a take on why I’m not polyamorous, written five years ago, which both sums up why I am polyamorous and why Gini is the best thing in my entire life.  I’m re-reading it to quote it at someone else, but still…. every note of this resonates true, except the fact that Gini sometimes lets me build that chapel.
I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that explains my love for Gini better. Or the way I experience lovemaking.
If I had to quote just one entry of mine, I honestly think that would be it.

Christmas Greed List: Scanning….

Twice a year, I make a gigantic Greed List that catalogues everything I want this holiday/birthday season, along with the reasons I want them.  But this year will be small, since Gini’s gift to me (and mine to her) is, “Say, that $2,000 repair bill for the car?  It’s paid.”  So it’s going to be a very small Christmas.
That’s okay.  We’ll sing around the tree with the rest of the Whoville inhabitants.  It’s cool.
But I do not wish to dash the tradition, so instead I’ll scout for ideas and ask: What cool thing should I want this Christmas?  Leave me comments letting me know what sorts of neat things you think that I would covet.  As usual, go nuts.

A Case Study In Fury

Yesterday afternoon, I posted about the Speed of Rage and leaping to conclusions.  Then, later that evening, I posted this Twitter:

RT @plunderpuss: Hey everyone, please congratulate @PayPal on being a bag of DICKS to POOR KIDS at CHRISTMAS.http://bit.ly/vAujQX

It’s difficult to reconcile the two.  On the one hand, if you fire too fast, you wind up in a Siri-like conflagration of heat without substance. On the other hand, if you never fire at all, you don’t spread the word of bad things that people should know about, and potentially act/complain/generate more PR about.  So when do you know to pull that trigger?
I’d like to tell you that I know for sure.  But I’m a fuzzy logician.  This was probably the right trigger to pull.  Maybe.
Because first, I looked at who posted that link: that’d be my pal Skerry, who’s a hard-core liberal, frequently angry (in the sense that I’m frequently angry about things). Is he the sort of person who’d pass along a link without really analyzing it to see whether it’s true?  Survey says there’s a non-zero chance that he might, carried away by surface rage.  But on the other hand, being dicks to poor kids is the kind of thing I’d want to pass along if it did happen.
So then I read the entry.  It’s by Regretsy, a site I’ve generally enjoyed in the past, and they’re not notable for getting into flame wars.  This is what I think of as “The Yankovic Rule” – generally, Weird Al’s pretty chill, so when he blows up about Lady Gaga yanking him around about a cover of “Born This Way,” I assume the egregiousness of the slight is well above the beam.  And Regretsy’s been pretty stable in the past; I can’t remember a time when they seemed crazy angry at all, let alone crazy angry without substance.
Then there’s the villain: PayPal.  They’ve been bags of dicks to plenty of craftspeople, and this seems like something they’d do – sticking to their guns of policy regardless of what it says on the paper, with a bunch of idiot drones spouting company line.  I know of people who’ve had their accounts shut down for no reason, and I’ve dealt with PayPal and their suspended payments during disputes.  They’re a monolith who acts like a monolith, with most customer service interactions ending in a silent “…so where else you gonna go?”
So I opted to post the link, with the knowledge that this could be a misunderstanding.  It may be that someone at Regretsy is riotously misinterpreting and/or misquoting things, and PayPal is innocent.  But given the density of the original post (which is down at the moment, but a summary is here), I doubt they’d post that much detail if it wasn’t their last resort. So I posted the link, along with the characterization of “a bag of dicks,” in the hope that it reached critical mass enough that PayPal would be shamed into acting correctly.
In this way, I contributed to a ragefest yesterday.  Not sure I did the right thing.  Am about 93, maybe 95% sure I did.  Good enough.  But not enough to feel 100% good about myself until I know more facts.

Oh, Siri, You Uptight Prude: The Speed Of Rage

So Siri, the iPhone’s voice-recognition search engine, is anti-choice.  Asking it to find an abortion clinic finds nothing, showing that Apple has baked in a pro-life bias right into the iPhone.
…or maybe this displays another bias built right into the Internet.
See, as it turns out, searching for abortion clinics via a sketchy search engine just doesn’t produce consistent results, partially because Planned Parenthood doesn’t advertise “ABORTIONS: BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE!” on the front page of their website, and partially because, well, Siri’s searching is mightily impressive in some ways but really quite lacking in many other ways.  And it’s not like, you know, Apple products haven’t ever been lacking in their first-generation incarnations.
The “scandal,” however, highlights the problems with people on the goddamned Internet.
First off, what happens with every Internet blow-up is that people know the reasons why.  Could it be that abortion clinics don’t usually tend to use the word “abortion” prominently when describing their services, and that Siri might overlook it?  Could it be that Siri has a lot of problems with a lot of searches, and that abortion is merely one of many things it’s bad at finding this early on?
Of course not.  SIRI HAS BEEN SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO FILTER OUT ABORTION RIGHTS AND CONTRACEPTIVES.  Which means, of course, that Apple are a bunch of right-wing Nazis who’ve set out to purposely knock the knees out from women’s power by rendering them helpless to find the very tools that would give them power over their own bodies.  Because, you know how Apple is just seething with Rush Limbaugh fans.
But that’s what happens on the net: one person jumps to a large conclusion, and another person reads their Tweet and retweets it, and next thing you know it’s “APPLE WANTS TO FORCE-BREED ALL WOMEN, FILM AT 11.”
The second problem here?  The arrogance with which people demand an answer.  The Internet is a big place, and there are a lot of things, but there’s this expectation that Apple should be a quivering tuning fork eagerly combing every reference to them like some egotistic movie star, waiting to respond to every conspiracy theory, no matter how crazy.  I saw Tweets within 48 hours decrying that APPLE HASN’T RESPONDED, THIS PROVES THEY’RE PRO-LIFERS AT HEART TRYING TO CONCEAL THE TRUTH.
Well, no, pal, it may just be that your cries haven’t reached critical mass yet…. Or that they have heard, but they have to talk to the Siri team to figure out what the problem is so that they can respond accurately, and as it turns out gathering correct information may not be doable at your whim.
But that’s the Internet for you: I WANT A FULLY-FLESHED OUT, THOROUGH, SATISFYING RESPONSE TO A COMPLICATED TECHNICAL QUESTION TWO MINUTES AFTER I’VE BECOME AWARE OF IT, OR YOU’RE A TERRIBLE PERSON.
(And yes, maybe Apple does need to hire a bunch of people to monitor for crazy-ass conspiracy brushfires starting up, just because it looks bad if they take, oh, a weekend to formulate an answer.  But anyone who’s worked in retail will tell you that customers are often greedy dumbasses who get bent out of shape over the most moronic things, and yes you try to satisfy them… But that doesn’t mean they’re not touchy douchebags who would make the world better by being decent human beings.)
Then there’s the third problem, which is WHY ISN’T APPLE TELLING US THE INTIMATE DETAILS OF SIRI?  IF THEY ONLY OPENED UP THEIR SOURCE CODE TO US, WE’D KNOW THE TRUTH.  WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO HIDE?  Oh, I can’t see a reason in the world why Apple might not want to explain the intimate workings of their #1 new feature.  It’s certainly not like Google or Bing or all the other phone manufacturers in the world would be eager to find what Apple is doing right and try to steal it in a heartbeat.  But no, the fact that they have not produced a 20-page PDF with diagrams to explain how this accident happens, instead marking it off quite legitimately as a bug they hope to improve, is proof that Apple are secretive and awful.
Dude.  You’re kind of awful.  I dig that this sort of herd mentality is going to crop up from time to time, but instantly assuming the worst possible motivations and then demanding a full explanation instantly approaches insanity.  It’s a literal shit-storm, a tornado of outrage that’s kicked up out of someone noticing something weird, and it just makes it harder to be civil or rational, and more importantly if we have this level of furor over everything then it’s harder to sort out the genuine problems.  Of which there are, you know, many.
I’m not saying not to investigate.  But allow for other options, like, “I dunno, man, does anyone have any problems with other drugs or other types of businesses?” that would let people come to saner conclusions.  Don’t let Apple off the hook, but do recognize that if someone collared you on the street out of the blue and roared, “SO WHY HAVE YOU NOT ANSWERED MY QUESTION ON THAT RACIST SHIRT OF YOURS?” you might not only be stunned by the question, but might have to take a while to not just ask what the fuck is happening and see why people think your shirt is insulting, then carefully formulate a proper answer on why your plaid shirt is causing an uproar rather than aggravate this angry guy even further.
The problem is that the Internet puts people in such close proximity with the things they love, they come to believe that everything has become a tool of theirs, existing only to provide them with answers on their schedule.  And it’s good to realize that hey, maybe they’re human, maybe there are some genuine screw-ups here, let’s try to give the benefit of the doubt before lowering that rage-hammer.

The Ease Of Polyamory

Last week, Gini and I gave a talk to a classroom on polyamory.  And there, as here, people wondered how we made polyamory work.
And though every poly is different, for us there’s one trick that makes it easy for us to date other people: We want to spend all of our time with each other.
It’s pathetic, really.  We work at home, a situation that’s driven some couples insane, and yet Gini can’t work in her back office for more than a couple of hours before getting lonely for me and joining me on the couch.  After a week spent at home working side-by-side and watching Deep Space Nine, I needed a date day with Gini where we could window-show at the mall and hold hands and make snarky comments about the awful overpriced items we somehow still desire.
And then we snuggle in the bed and talk some more.
I dunno.  Maybe other polyamorous primaries have issues because getting time with their spouses involves fighting off Skyrim and the need for isolation and the hobbies they want to get done and the guys’ night out.  But with us, our need for each other is as clear as our need for water, and if there’s any chance we can be together, we will.
So when Gini wanders off for a weekend with S, or I go off with a weekend with J, I don’t think we get too many of the “Do they really want me?” willies.  Because I know when Gini returns, she’s going to get out of that car smiling and she’s going to fling her arms around me and then we’re going to go inside and cuddle the heck out of each other.
In my darker dumber hours, I doubt she loves me.  I never doubt she likes me.
That makes it easy.

I Put On Some Make-up, Turn Up The Tape Deck

So it’s a Saturday night and I’m sitting in my living room, tying up my wife’s feet. Well, her legs, really; I’ve been trying to master limb locks and the two-column ties after watching the videos at TwistedMonk.com and the diagrams in the Complete Shibari book. And I’ve been advised that I should just practice at will instead of trying to invariably link the complex intricacies of “ropework” with “hot sex,” since the frustration of “SEX NAO?” will magnify the frustrations of knot-learning.
So I’m on my second drink of the night, watching DS9 with Gini as she lays across the couch and periodically I go, “Okay, try to get out.”
She does. Too often. Not entirely my fault. This Home Depot nylon’s really slippery rope.
I text pictures to a few friends showing them my odd Saturday night, and Jenphalian – a true rope-bunny – wonders what the hell kind of two-column tie I’m trying. She’s bored, I’m happy to learn, so I install Skype and we webcam it up. Gini stands as Jen teaches me her foolproof method of securing limbs – a lot quicker and bunnyproof than the two methods I know – and then I’m holding the Complete Shibari book up to the screen as she squints and tries to make more sense of the book than I have.
Suddenly, my life implodes a little as I realize the oddness of it all. Here I am, chatting with a beloved sex partner of mine on the Internet webcam as we’re discussing better ways to tie up my wife, and this isn’t sexual, we’re genuinely working hard to untangle this problem, and I reflect on all the ways kink and poly and friendship and the Internet have been knotted up in a way that I couldn’t possibly explain to others but makes such a raw and intimate sense to me.
And the strangest things seem suddenly routine.