Let's Eat Cake!

Last Saturday I went to Chopsticks, a dueling piano bar in Everett, for a friend’s birthday.  This is always a great time, where two pianists banter back and forth, singing almost every song the audience requests, joking, making fun of each other and providing a very entertaining show.  They are high-energy and big on audience participation. 

It is customary to bring people who are celebrating their birthday up on stage to jokingly humiliate them, and the victim this particular night was an adorable girl who was celebrating her 21st birthday.  The lead pianist, Mr. Billy Mac, decided it would be clever to have all the men in the audience sing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin” to the girl, ”just like in Top Gun.” 

So what does Billy Mac do?  He silences the audience, and asks for, “All the real men.  All the real, straight heterosexual men in the audience to please stand up.”  There was a strange hush in the audience, as everyone got the buzz that something wasn’t right about this question.  I was so embarrassed for any gay men (out or not) in the audience, and I sank down so low in my seat you’d think he’d called me out by name.  Unsurprisingly, many men who hadn’t participated much during the rest of the show suddenly shot out of their seats, just to be SURE there was no confusion about their sexuality, and they were all just standing there, looking so. . . smug and manly. . .and I was too ashamed to look and see if any men were still seated.

As I’m looking around the room at all these supposed real men, I can’t help but wonder how many of them go home and smack their kids around or cheat on their wives.  In contrast, images of gay men gardening keep popping into my head.  I realize the world is not black or white – not all straight men are assholes and not all gay men are loving and devoted.  But I still can’t figure how being straight automatically makes you a real man.

Perhaps I’m giving Billy Mac too much credit, but what I believe he was trying to say (though failing miserably), was that he wanted all the men who are attracted to women to stand up.  But what he did was help strengthen a long-standing stereotype that gay men aren’t real men. 

I’m sorry, but choosing to put your penis into a vagina does not make you a man.  Hell, even owning a penis doesn’t make you a man. . .does it? 

Some will argue that unless you were born a man, you are not a man.  I guess I can support that claim on a technicality, but frankly, I consider it mean and pointless.  I know a couple of men (masculine, attracted to women) who were not born men, and it would seem downright silly to look at them and say, “you are not a man.”  Or to tell the big teddy bear, leather daddies that they aren’t real men, because they’re attracted to other big, hairy lumberjack-type men (isn’t this how the mainstream defines masculinity?).

What do you think makes a man?  Is it having a penis?  Is it to act according to manliness, and who defines that?  Whose standards are we measuring against?  Is it how each person identifies?  Is that realistic?  Is it based on what gender you find attractive?

One person said “being a real man means taking care of your business (aka bills, children, being a responsible human being, etc.).”  Based on that logic, I could be considered a man.

Another person said, “It’s what letter you have under ’sex’ on your driver’s license.”  By that logic, transsexuals who live as women are more manly than gay men?  Does this also mean that just because you can’t afford, or choose not to have the gender reassigment surgery that you don’t count?

While I believe Billy Mac at Chopsticks was just trying to be entertaining, I believe a lot of people had the potential of being hurt by his thoughtless remark, and he sure opened up Pandora’s Box for me.

One of those OK Cupid questions got me thinking. The question is posed as:

In terms of relationships, commitment is…

a)…wonderful!
b)…okay, but right now I want to be open.
c)…something I both fear and desire.
d)…a dish best served cold.

It’s interesting to me that commitment equals fidelity in so many people’s minds.  It’s harmless, I know, but I enjoy the debate surrounding it.  

For example, I am 100% committed to my partner. We live together, raise a child together, we are committed to making our relationship work, to being honest with each other, (even when lying would be so much easier), to being responsible to and for each other, to making sure our relationship gets the time and effort it deserves, and everything else that defines commitment to me.

We are also committed to the idea of real honesty with each other, and ourselves, and the thought that desiring others isn’t a crime (or something that disappears just because we’ve found each other), so we are in an open relationship.  We date and sleep with other people. Does that mean we aren’t committed to each other?

In contrast, what does that mean for someone who never cheats, but is a shitty partner otherwise (doesn’t communicate, doesn’t care about their partner’s needs, is emotionally closed off)?  They practice fidelity – but would you say they’re committed to their relationship?

I just like to challenge the words we use so loosely, without maybe realizing exactly what it is we’re saying.  Thoughts?

This is rather personal.

I try to keep a lot of personal stuff hidden from the “internet” world, and find it interesting that people can read this blog and still have a very limited understanding of who I really am.  I do this for protection, perhaps?  I am a cancer, and while I don’t really believe in astrology, I can’t help but notice major similarities in people of the same sign.  As a cancer, I have a crab shell around me, and my first instinct during conflict is to pull it up, protecting myself from hurt.  Walls – Activate.

I’m trying to let people in more.

I’m going through some trying times, and some new aspects of being poly are going to creep up.  My boyfriend of a year and a half and I finally made the decision to break up.  It had been back and forth for long enough that we finally decided to call it quits.  I love this man, and it was a difficult decision for us both, but we somehow could step out of our passionate feelings (both in love and in anger) to look at the relationship for what it was – increasingly unhealthy.

I am mourning the loss of our relationship.  I’m still not 100% sure it was the right choice, but in not knowing, the answer becomes clear.

Now comes the hard part.  How will my relationship with Luke be affected by this?  In many ways, my relationship with Myke helped me deal with jealousy.  Most importantly, it allowed me to understand that I could love Myke completely, and it did not take away from my love for Luke.  That made it easier when dealing with fears of Luke and his girlfriend growing “too close.”  The reality is, there is no limit on how close two people can grow, and the same goes for Luke and I.  We are not stagnant.  Neither our love, nor our relationship is commonplace.  He still holds the ultimate key to my heart, and I know I hold his.  So now. . .will I cling to him in my loneliness?  Demand too much from him.  He didn’t ask for this break up to happen, it wouldn’t be fair of me to put it on him. 

I’m also available to date again, which is scary to me.  This past year and a half I’ve only been seeing Myke and Luke.  I’ve also developed a slight case of social awkwardness.  Now that I’m on the market again, I’m afraid of rushing headlong into something, just to keep my mind off things.  I have a tendency to slut out all over the place, and while I think it’s healthy having a sexy young thing on the side, I’m afraid I will settle, out of boredom, or wanting to fill my time while Luke is gone.  I will have to tread lightly.

It’s funny, for the first 8 months or so of me and Luke’s relationship, I didn’t really date anyone else.  I think I had more friends then, and a more active single life.  I suspect I closed myself off to many of them “once I got a boyfriend,” which I know a lot of people do.  The problem is, when you’re in a relationship with two people, most of your nights end up being “date nights,” and everything else tends to fall to the wayside.  I believe it’s best now for me to get out there and do new things, meet new people – try to regain some of that independence I’ve lost in the whirlwind of my love life.

Objectively, I know break ups are going to be hard.  They’re going to hurt, sometimes terribly.  This is my first experience going through it in a poly setting, so I’m processing it all.  And lucky you, you get to watch. 

Well, if nothing else, when I do start dating again, my blog will get infinitely more interesting.   

Here’s hoping for positive change.

 

Today is Blog for Choice Day, put on by Naral, Pro-Choice America.  The topic is “Trust Women,” and people have been asked to blog about pro-choice, and what Trust Women means to them.  

I am vehemently pro-choice, because I believe it is a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body.  I am also pro-choice because I think we can Trust Women to fuck everything up.  If a woman is in need of an abortion, it’s because things didn’t go as planned.  (I’m in no way referring to cases of rape, medical complications, or failed birth control.  When those women choose an abortion, we are trusting them in the real sense of the word, to decide what’s best for the baby they didn’t ask for, or their health).  In the other cases, whether it’s because they used Plan B as Plan A, chose not to be on birth control with no responsible back up, or forgot to take their (crucial, life-altering) pill, it is proven that they can’t be responsible for very, very important matters.   

I understand, “shit happens.”  I realize every single situation is different.  I can’t know every situation that ends in the decision to perminate a pregnancy.  But if we’re going to “Trust Women,” I think they need to start being a little more trustworthy.  In the meantime, I think it’s essential we have an escape route. 

Before you say I am too critical, you should also know that I am one of these women.  I have been pregnant twice in my life, the first resulting in my precious daughter, who some of you know and love.  The other ended differently.  Both instances were due to me being irresponsible with my birth control.  Call it a slip of the mind, wishful thinking, being too young to understand the consequences, letting fate decide - whatever you call it, I wasn’t cut out for motherhood in either case.  Did I pull it together?  Yes.  Did I raise an amazing, brilliant, polite, well-rounded young woman? Yes.  Do I regret having her?  Jesus, no.  But I was 17 years old when I got pregnant with her, and quite frankly I had no business having babies.  Right or wrong, I chose to, and I’m just as grateful for that choice as I am for the other one I made a decade later. 

Happy 37th birthday, Roe v. Wade.

Bitch Magazine posted an article from Manolith magazine, titled 15 Annoying Things Girlfriends Do (That You Have to Put Up With).  Bitch Magazine is a fem rag, so of course they were bashing the article for sexism.  I should point out that I’m a huge supporter of Bitch, for the most part, and while it’s easy for them to pick apart a stupid male-centric summation of “what’s wrong with girls,” sometimes I think they take their criticism a bit too far.  Here’s why:

1)  Manolith Magazine is not an endeavor in intellectualism.  This is your normal, run of the mill, every day guy’s magazine.  The equivalent to Glamour or Allure, this isn’t directed at anyone looking for mental stimulation.  I mean, come on, Manolith?  The men who are reading these magazines have already developed their impression of what a woman is, not to mention what a man is, and the roles that we’re all supposed to fit.  Even if every single person in the comments section vehemently opposes the article, another one will be posted tomorrow.  There is a bell curve, and while there are brilliant, thoughtful people on one side, their idiotic, cookie-cutter counterparts have to appear on the other. 

2)  One commenter in Bitch Magazine’s link laments, “[I'm] so sick of misogyny poorly disguised as jokes. Why is it acceptable to make nasty jokes as far as sexism is concerned, but no other ‘isms’, like racism, etc?  Why is feminism or equal respect for all people regardless of gender, still considered a joke? Why is this shit still ‘funny’?!?!”

I’m sorry, but if I have to hear, “Why is it still acceptable to make fun of                     ism?” one more time, I’m going to boycott the Internet.  My fat friends say, “Fat people are the last acceptable targets.”  My trans friends say, “Transgender is the last acceptable target.”  Now women?  I consider myself a borderline activist, semi-feminist, definitely sex positive chick, but I refuse to be so PC that I’m afraid to speak.  I also recognize that I’m one of the privileged (white, “HWP,” able bodied, cis-gender, middle class) people, and am sensitive to the struggles of others, or my ignorance thereof.  In other words – there are some words I’ll say, and some I won’t, but how people will react will not be my determinant.       

3) In many ways, the article is right.  I am a non-traditional woman in (almost) every sense of the word, and I fit 5 of the 15 listed, and I’m sure Luke would argue more.  If that’s true for me, what’s the liklihood that a typical, uninteresting, mindless female is going to fit closer to all of them?  If I’m being honest, I’d say the majority of women fit that category, which is why I don’t get along with most of them.  Again, it’s the bell curve.  There are the insanely talented, the desperately pathetic, and everyone in between.  It’s the ones along the outskirts, who have somehow broken the mold, that I get along with best, and I can almost guarantee that my brilliant, dynamic female bloggers/RL friends would say the same thing. 

Let the mindless play amongst themselves.  Save your energy for real issues.  The feminist in me is not going to waste my time responding to some moron on Mantastic Magazine.  The activist in me is going to continue my path to world domination, and the girlfriend in me is going to go home and reorganize Luke’s DVD collection.

(please click it, it’s so worth it to see it larger)

Spiritual high
A Hindu holy man, his face smeared with ash, exhales smoke after smoking marijuana at a transit camp on the way to Calcutta, India, on Jan. 9. Religious pilgrims started to pour into the city en route to take a dip at the mouth of the Ganges River at the Bay of Bengal at Sagar Island, about 85 miles south of Calcutta, on the auspicious day of Makarsankranti, Jan. 14.

I had an “incident” this weekend. Something happened that proves the past can come back to bite you in the ass. Essentially, I was invited to an old friend’s show this weekend – he personally called me and put me on the list. At the last minute, I received a text message, “Sorry, Steve & Rachel are coming.”   (Not their real names, of course).

I knew immediately I just been uninvited. Steve and Rachel are married. Steve cheated on Rachel a few years ago – with me. As long as these two remain married, I will be uninvited to any event they will be attending.  Just to keep the peace. 

Is this fair? Should I be punished for his fuck up??

In short: Yes.

I have been on both sides of the “personal responsibility” bit regarding cheaters and cheatees. I have an arsenal of one-liners to defend the actions of someone who allows someone to cheat with her. “It’s not my relationship to maintain.” “I didn’t take a vow – he did.” “If it wasn’t with me, it would be with someone else.” “I didn’t ruin their marriage, I only shed light on the problems that already existed.” “You can’t steal someone who doesn’t want to be stolen.”

Listen. A lot of this is true, to a certain extent. You can’t steal someone away. If one person in the relationship is straying, it may mean there are problems at the core; it may just mean the cheater has commitment issues (or, societal conditioning problems).   

Whose responsibility is it to maintain the marriage vows?  The people who took the vows.

Whose responsibility is it to conduct oneself with integrity and honor?  Mine.   

The truth is, I knew damn well what I was doing years ago when I allowed this guy to have an affair with me.  With the first contact, I could have said, “You’re married, good bye.”  But I didn’t.  Why? Because I got off on the excitement of doing something forbidden.  Just like being caught having sex in public, or fantasizing about people you shouldn’t, there is an erotic charge associated with sneaking around.  There is even a fetish associated with cheating and being cheated on.   

I was the worst of the worst.  At one point I was dating three men, all of whom were married or otherwise attached.  I gained a certain pleasure from being non-committal on my end, and receiving (what I thought were) the very best parts of their affections.  Every encounter was steamy, passion-filled and intense, and the wife was stuck at home raising the kids and picking up their dirty socks. 

But here’s the thing. . .

You don’t want to be that girl.  Regardless if he’d cheat anyway, let it be with someone else, because that shit can haunt you for the rest of your life.  Not just the invites to parties being revoked, but the knowledge that families are destroyed by infidelity.  Children are irreparably scarred.  This happens, I’ve seen it.  I’ve *caused it*.  Trust is broken, for the woman who was cheated on, not just with the guy who cheated, but with every guy she dates afterwards.  Trust in you is broken, from people you expect would know better.  I was told by a good personal friend, “I don’t judge you, but I won’t leave you alone with my husband.”

Now, don’t let’s confuse the issue.  I am in no way saying that the cheater isn’t to blame as well.  They are much more responsible for the betrayal, as they are the ones who made the commitment.  And it’s sad how the betrayed tend to put all the blame on the “other woman.”  But it makes sense that they would: Otherwise, they have to admit that their partner betrayed them, and who wants to do that when there’s a perfectly good home-wrecker to blame.

Regardless of how I feel about the suffocating harness of monogamy, the truth is that we are all still responsible for our actions.  I have readjusted my life and my relationships, so I can still get that thrill of new found passion, but now it’s all out in the open. I’ve come to terms with my past; I’ve confronted those demons.  I’ve done my 12-step program and I’m now reformed.  And while I can’t say whether those I’ve hurt have put it to rest, I can at least make a vow to myself that in the future, I won’t do more harm than good.

An interesting new invention  was unveiled at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas this weekend - “The world’s first sex robot*,” also known as Roxxxy.

The robot is “designed to engage the owner with conversation rather than lifelike movement,” because, says creator Douglas Hines, ”Sex only goes so far – then you want to be able to talk to the person.”  I guess person should be in quotes here.

What can Roxxxy say?  If you hold her hand she says, “I like it when you hold my hand.”  Evidently, if you touch her naughty bits she says something that is too dirty to print.  In addition, she can be trained to learn a variety of non sex-related phrases, including knowledge about the owner’s favorite soccer team.  Sound like the perfect woman, no? 

Cue the left-wing radical pro-feminists in 3. . . 2. . .1

Is it sexist?  Seeing as Roxxxy isn’t equipped with her own personality, other than the typical mindless archetypes of femininity (such as “Wild Wendy” or “Frigid Farrah”), I’d say “probably.”  But I would have to point out that anyone who is considering a robot as an actual companion is already pretty desolate, and the robot leading him or her to concepts of inequality is the least of my concerns. 

Still, out of curiosity. . .

Ladies – if there was a Rexxx doll, a life-size, male blow-up doll with a permanently erect penis, who would lovingly coo, “You look gorgeous today.  Can we watch The Notebook again tonight?” –  would you buy it?  I imagine, even if money were no object, very few women would purchase this “toy,” except perhaps as a high-tech dildo.  At least the men are pretending it’s about more than just sex. 

And a few questions about Roxxxy: 

Is she anatomically correct?  Does she have a fuck hole, or two?  Are these parts replaceable as they are worn out?  Is she restricted to the creator’s version of eroticism/ fetishism?  For example, can Roxxxy be gay?  Into BDSM?  Does ”Frigid Farrah” come with pre-programmed bible verses?  And what’s with the Frigid thing?  At what point does it become a turn-on to talk the robot into it?  Do you suppose Roxxxy has a preference on sex positions? 

Roxxxy will cost somewhere from $7,000 to $9,000 and is expected to start shipping in a few months.

*I’m not sure how they’re claiming this is the World’s First. . . Real Doll has been around for years (and in fact DOES have a sexy male option – with different pubic hair selections), but I don’t know that they have artificial intelligence.  It may be the difference between dolls and robots.

Today I’m having the most bizarre, painful bout of nostalgia.  It’s a mixture of feeling too complacent in my life, like I’m not growing, and the realization that my greatest adventure may have come and gone in 1993 when I was 15 and I  ran away from home to Boulder, CO.  The details are fuzzy – but key things stick out in my memory as vividly as if it were yesterday. 

On the way to Colorado, I remember stopping in Ashland, Oregon.  There was this park that seemed like something out of Mary Poppins, and I remember streams flowing under bridges, and a thousand colors in the leaves.  They were selling ice cream cones, and I remember thinking if I stayed there, life would be like that always.  I can’t even remember what month it was. 

When I arrived in Colorado, there were about 3 days when I was homeless.  I was “adopted” by a homeless man named Ian.  Here is what I wrote about him, years ago.

The old graveyard in Lafayette Colorado is like something out of a movie. The air is tentative and still, the sun peeks through the branches like it’s afraid of seeing a ghost. The random placement of the gravestones, from the extravagant shrines to the simple wooden crosses, makes it seem ageless and eternal, as it should. Many of the dates on the stones span a hundred years, but some are merely a day, echoing the tragedy of a mother’s broken heart. There were trees in this graveyard, spindly and broken, as though the depression of their home had finally worn on them.

I remembered you today, your face slipping into the back door of my memory. The way you had cared for me those nights in Colorado, giving me your sleeping bag when we slept in the graveyard. It took me almost eleven years to realize you were a hero. I was only 15, an innocent in a strange land, an entire new world before me. You were a homeless man in your forties. The things you could have done to me haunt parents at night. But you sheltered me, you befriended me. You gave up the last thing you had to call your own, your grey sleeping bag, which held enough memories to build a museum of your life. You placed me in it, zipped me up and covered yourself with your jacket, a patch of leaves as your pillow. I innocently gave you my trust, placed my life in your hands during those few cold nights.

There came a time where I found my place, to live in and to belong. I kept in contact with you, visiting you in the graveyard on summer afternoons. We’d sit in the shade of the life-size angel, somehow finding things in common. If nothing else, we shared the drive for adventure, or so I thought. Your world doesn’t look so pretty to me now, and I’m ashamed that I never invited you into my home. I promise you, as an adult, things would have been different.

When it was time for me to leave, I walked through the center of town, looking for you. The fall had come suddenly, as it does in Colorado, the leaves were changing rapidly, and it was time for me to return to my family. But I’d felt I had a family in you too, and I wanted to say good-bye. I’ll never forget the look on your face when I told you I was leaving, as if I’d stolen your heart. We exchanged ways to keep in contact, promising we would, and we never did.

Thank you for reminding me how beautiful people can be. I trusted you with my life, and you didn’t disappoint me.

 

When I finally arrived on the scene at the place that would be my home for the next two months, it started as any free 15-year-old’s would.  I stopped on College “Row” or “Hill” or “Ave,” or whatever typical name you would chose for a street full of drunk jocks and sorority girls from the mid-90’s (think “Heathers”), and within 5 minutes I was invited to a frat party.

When you’ve just dropped out of the 9th grade and hitchhiked your way into date-rape land, how do you answer the obnoxious valley girl who says with a thick Boston accent, “So. . . (smacks gum). . . what’s yer major?”

What’s a major?

“Umm, English?”  I’m fifteen, lady!  Can’t you see that I don’t belong here?  Can’t you see the dark fear that has swollen my pupils into gigantic black orbs, so I look like that freaky cat-child from “The Grudge”?

“Oh,” she says with a vanilla smile and moves onto her next cookie-cutter conversation.  I breathe a sigh of relief as though her finding out I wasn’t a college student would somehow blow my cover.  When you’re 15, the world revolves around you.  Especially when you’re 15 and you rule the world, which of course I did because I gripped my fate by the horns and rode it off into the Rockies.

And now. . . as an adult (or something like it). . . I can’t believe I made it out alive.  Worse yet is the fear that I’ll never experience that kind of freedom again.

I remember walking through Colorado University, which is located in Boulder.  It’s a giant brick building, and I remember it was snowing when I was there.  Looking around me, I took for granted that a college could be so beautiful - I assumed all colleges looked like that.  Now, though the University of Washington does in fact rival Colorado U, I realize that it has its place in the Top 10 Most Beautiful Colleges.  This picture doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

 

 Finally is my memory of the house I ended up living in.  This was a 9-bedroom house off of South Boulder Road, and in the 2 months I lived there, I think four people showed up out of the blue, “just to see the house again, we used to live here.”  This house was truly special, with an energy all its own.  It was on several acres, and in the back yard was an oval swimming pool surrounded by grape vines.  The pool wasn’t in use, and I can imagine how it sparkled in its earlier years, or even perhaps now, if it’s still standing. 

This place was magic to me.  To the right were the mountains (always in the West, that’s your navigation system) - huge, looming, beautiful.  To the left was a creek with a tree hanging over it, the rope of a tire swing still dangling, like a Norman Rockwell painting.  Stretching for miles before me were acres and acres of land, dry and holey from prairie dogs.  I remember shooting at them once, in that other life.

At the end of this, all I have are these memories, and the fear of going back, should the reality not be as beautiful as the images permanently etched in my brain.  Perhaps I’ll end up there someday.  Perhaps I’ll stick with what I got.

if i were a woman

i’d be a sex goddess

yes,

i’d be the queen of sluts

every key would fit my lock

if i were a woman

i’d be an ocean of sexual passion

and pity the fool

who could not swim

if i were a woman

i’d have sex

at least once a day

twice on saturdays

and all day sunday

if i were a woman

i’d give out

sympathy fucks

and i’d do it

from my heart

if i were a woman

my passion would not be

the drip drip drip

of some leaky faucet

it would be a torrent

and everybody

would get wet

if i were a woman

i’d be bisexual

out of fairness

but still prefer men

if i were a woman

i’d want you

just because

you are worthy

of being wanted

if i were a woman

i’d take your man

and he would have a hard time

coming back to your bed

after being in mine

if i were a woman

i would lust openly

fuck freely

and never regret

if i were a woman

i’d be talked about

behind my back

scandalized

and invited to all

the right parties

if i were a woman

i’d be insatiable

and unsuitable

for marriage

independent and callous

if i were a woman

i’d surround my self

with bawdy sisters

and laugh at your timidity

if i were a woman

men would tell tales

about being lost

in my sea of sex

and drifting for days

in my embrace

if i were a woman

i would rejoice

to find a man like me

(Written by David, formerly of Little Red Studio)