I'm Calling Bullshit on Sexual Shame.

Am I the only one who's noticed the normalization/romanticization of coercion as a method of obtaining sex?

I think you know what I'm talking about--the phenomena known as "the chase" or "playing hard to get.". Using more and more persistant and methods (follow them home, hold a boom box over your head, get sex? No. Get arrested.) to badger someone--usually female--until they give in and fuck you.  In my mind, badgering someone constantly until they give into my request for sex is not only disrespectful, it strays dangerously close to the territory of sexual assault. "Playing hard to get" or "the chase" is creating a space for "no" or body-language that means "stop" (turning away, laughing nervously, making excuses to leave the situation) to be willfully interpreted as "yes! just try harder!". And that is just really, really fucking disturbing.

Why is it unseemly to willingly, openly and explicitly negotiate our sexual encounters? Why is it not okay for two--or more, hell, I won't judge the polyamory crowd--adults to just say, for example: "hey, how bout' you and I fuck until we can't stand up? Or, have some oral sex? I'm down with either.". The other party is then free to refuse, heartily agree or perhaps make suggestions for additional fun-time activities invloving genitals. I do not understand why this should not be. Especially in the begining, the formation of sexual relationships, when communication is most critical.

But no. Instead we are left with a fuck-tarded game. And I lied, I do have a partial understanding of why it seems that open communication about sex--in the beginning of relationships, especially--is implicitly forbidden. A little shit-tastic social construct I like to call sexual shame. The need to obscure wanting sex in a variety of shitty little social games is rooted in the fact that, despite the saturation of sexual imagery in our media, despite the repeated pop culture assertion that everybody be fuckin' ,  sex and sexuality are--you guessed it-- still viewed as filthy as satan's unwashed anus, worthy of contempt, suspicion of moral-unworthiness and disgust. Therefore, neogitating it openly is obviously for people who are similarly filthy as satan's unwashed anus. (Sorry, I'm just really enjoying taking that simile for a walk.)

And to anyone who is saying, right now, out loud or in the sanctity of your skull, "but internet lady! I've tried explicitly sexually propositioning absolute strangers and they told me to fuck off! Obviously bitches needs the game!" . Shut. Your. Hole. This is a delibrate misinterpretation of my arguement here. A lot of people--I might even hazard to say most--do require a little "warm-up" that is, knowing who the fuck you are and maybe liking you a bit before they want to take a ride on the disco stick or in the pink canoe. (That's penis or vagina. Yes I know the proper terms, I just like the colorful ones too.) And frankly, they have a right the their preference. Just as you have right to your preference fucking total strangers, apparently.

As a final point, I like to envision a world without sexual shame. I like to envision a social environment that's fertile ground for healthy sexual relationships. I hope, one day, everyone will be able to express thier sexuality openly and joyfully. Because in my humble opinion anything less is bullshit.

Hello Internet!

Here's an introductory blog-post about starting a blog.

Hold your applause . Keep holding it. Continue to hold it...

Okay, so it's not applause worthy. I know nothing about writing a blog. This is my first foray into the domain of blogging. I have only ever read them before, not written one. When I first heard the word "blogging" I thought it was a combination of "banging" and "flogging" which brought up all sorts of BDSM-type notions... Also, I have now reached the point where I have repeated the word "blogging" so many times that it now sounds like a meaningless series of syllables. Fun. For. Everyone.

So, without further ado, I present to you my opinion about blogging.

First, the positives:

It can allow people to connect and share life experience. Blogging can bring people with similar experiences to connect and form community.  It can also create awareness of lived experience for those who may not have understood before and do not have that particular life-experience. Enhancing human understanding is pretty rad.

Blogging can help create and strengthen discourse. It can be an awesome forum to talk about new ideas and engage critically with ideas both old and new--without the time-delay of trying to get published in a book, magazine or journal. Uncensored and unfilitered--mmmm, that's gooood discourse! And strong discourse can be the foundation of real-life activism. Planting the seeds of some change-creating discontent.

And now the negatives:

Blogging can shut down and narrow discourse as much as it can strengthen it. It is far too easy to read only what you agree with and respond only with praise, thus narrowing the scope of ideas you explore. With this particular problem, blogging can start to amount to group verbal masturbation. Lots of fun for everyone, but ultimately not productive and not very interesting.

It is also far too easy to respond in a knee-jerk way to ideas you don't like with big-ol' flame. A nice, all-caps, ad-hominem fallacy--"you are quite obviously an ignorant douche-nugget, and I am not going to listen to a thing you say from here on out or respond with an articulated, unpacked reason(s) why I dislike your ideas because fuuuuuuuuck yooooou." But with more capslock and less punctuation. The stuff that faith-in-humanity-destroying-comment-sections are made of. (Ah, youtube, one minute you're watching a kitten video, the next you scroll down and someone has unleashed a rant that is antisemetic, homophobic, misogynist and racist all at the same time.)

So, for my part, I shall try to welcome open discourse and different ideas. I shall also try not to respond to flames with more flames. Afterall, I don't want to burn my first blog down.