tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46805953067739224822024-02-06T19:38:50.957-08:00Seduce and Confuse"You're going to start a fucking war one day."Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-83887416689880116402015-10-14T13:41:00.000-07:002015-10-14T14:03:15.824-07:00Reunited and Confronted"I really like your boyfriend. He seems nice."<br />
She sips her mimosa lightly with tightly pursed lips.<br />
<br />
I smile and gulp my coffee as butterflies fill my stomach.<br />
"Yeah. He's pretty great," I say, dreamily. I'm awash in my affections for a moment before I snap back to the present. "I mean, we haven't been together for very long, but we're having a blast."<br />
<br />
"You've had quite a lot of boyfriends, haven't you?" Her nonchalant tone and dainty British accent almost conceal the pointed curiosity behind her probing.<br />
<br />
I feel my entire body flush and instantly start to sweat. "Yes. As a matter of fact I have." Her question was bold for someone I haven't seen in six years. "What are you getting at?"<br />
<br />
"Oh I didn't mean it like that, I just mean..."<br />
<br />
Yeah. What <i>do </i>you mean.<br />
<br />
She somewhat stutters, "I wasn't trying to shame you or anything. I just remember that back in the day, you were more described as... whats the word? I don't know how to say it."<br />
<br />
Without emotion I offer the term, "Polyamorous Pansexual?"<br />
<br />
"Yes! Something like that, anyway. You had this aura around you... like you were too cool to approach but it was also like a <i>vortex</i> that people would fall in and never escape."<br />
<br />
It seemed like a somewhat sinister description, however she beamed in wonder and delight at being able to remind me of the personal power I once wielded.<br />
<br />
Now I take a gulp of my mimosa. "Well, at least I used to be 'cool.'"<br />
<br />
"If I could count the people who feel into your votex and never to recover... Danny tried to kill himself when you left him, remember? And Marc had it bad as well. And If I recall --"<br />
<br />
"Ok, yeah, I guess I was somewhat of a heartbreaker back then." I wasn't really enjoying these tales of emotional obliteration that I had left in my wake. And no, I hadn't remembered these ugly details.<br />
<br />
"Uh, saying that you were a 'heartbreaker' is such an understatement." She shifted nervously. "But what I was getting at was that you used to be with ... all kinds of people. Then something happened and you seem to be mostly interested in men." Cue nervous laughter.<br />
<br />
Oh the boxes I get put in.<br />
"I recently got my heart torn out by a lady, so. I'm glad to have gotten over that and now I can move on with my life."<br />
<br />
She looked surprised. I hadn't really blasted what happened on social media, so I suppose in that sense it didn't really happen (if not in front of all eyes). "What happened?"<br />
<br />
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______________________</div>
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<br /></div>
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I was on one knee behind her in the kitchen. She wouldn't stop washing dishes, ever the excellent home-maker. She reflected, whilst rinsing and drying, that ever day we spent together was the best day she'd ever had. I gently took her hand when it became available and she turned around to find me there, looking up at her. </div>
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<br /></div>
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"What are you doing?" She looked alarmed. </div>
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<br /></div>
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"It can still be the best day, every day." And then I proposed we get married. </div>
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<br /></div>
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She turned away back to the dishes, angry. "I can't believe you would do that."</div>
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<br /></div>
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"Why not? We're insane for each other. I love you."</div>
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<br /></div>
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"You think I'd marry for a <i>green card?!</i>" She whipped her body back towards me, and her eyes were livid. </div>
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<br /></div>
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"No! No, sweetheart it's not like that. I want to marry you for you. And yes, I want you to be able to stay here with me, if that's what you want, and take care of you." And I really did mean that. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Despite my sincerity, I lost the discussion. Not because she didn't say yes, but because I had embarrassed and upset her. She was not going to stay, and she likely thought that I was insane or worse, disingenuous. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
She left and days, weeks, months passed. I cried a lot thinking of her. I begged her to come back. I helplessly watched her fall into a pit of despair and drown in booze. She insisted during the day that she was happy, that I should be more supportive. But once night fell, there was a lot of <i>sturm und drang</i> in her phone calls and messages, and she drank like it was an olympic sport. Finally, the calls stopped coming. The last message from her I received was a post in the mail, containing a picture of her dancing. There was no return address. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Over the months, I stopped playing guitar. One of my favorite songs to play only reminded me of her, and inevitably whilst playing it, the lyrics would become choked in tears. I lovingly put away things that reminded me of her. One day, it stopped stinging so badly. I stopped thinking of her all the time -- things she would like, how I could surprise her if she was here, our inside jokes -- and I even was able to get drunk without getting sad about her. And finally, I was able to move on. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
___________________</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Honestly, love, it sounds like you're really better off. It seems like she was a whole lot of drama." </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I glance at her sideways for this assessment. She doesn't know everything. It's impossible to relay the details of something so complicated, amazing, and heartbreaking with any accuracy in a short conversation. But with a sigh, I decide it's best for me to accept this judgement as having truth to it. What's the point in fighting it, when I've moved on? Formerly described 'Polyamorous Pansexual' little ole me was in a bonafide monogamous relationship with a straight man. And despite the contrasting comparisons of this notion with a portrait of who I have been in the past, I feel just fine. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-39866444337855781612015-03-14T16:10:00.000-07:002015-03-14T16:27:09.329-07:00The Minotaur of Telegraph Hill<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>*This post, and all others, are fiction. Any characters or situations represented resembling those in real life are not intentional nor should be read as literal fact or testament.* </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I stomped in after 10am. Such a late entry should be embarrassing or worrisome, as these trespasses can lead to the end of a contract, but I felt little -- except the pavement under my hooves. My lack of feeling may be attributed to an unwavering confidence at my professional skill, as well as the fact that I have never had a problem standing up for myself -- however these attributes can sometimes seem problematic to my employers. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, the most relevant of troublesome points in keeping my employed stance in the commercial tech industry: I hate it. In fact, I fucking loathe it.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-4014e586-0c50-1d3e-6fa5-08b8ed2dc7bb" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I entered the ring with nostrils flaming around my septum piercing, which boys always told me made me look like an angry bull and ruined my feminine softness. Grecian literature of antiquity speaks heroically of women who have masculine qualities, such as bravery and even physical attributes. Boys today crave differentiation between the sexes: a clear binary. They don't know it, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>fashion </i>changed everything. Perhaps most applicably, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christian Dior's "New Look" of hyper femme, fit-and-flare dresses (celebrating the abundance of fabric available after the end of WWII which could be turned into a most decadently full skirt), was a symbol for putting women back in the homebound slavery. Women, now relatively immobilized for "masculine" work by the fashion trends were again fetishized for feminine qualities while Rosie the Riveter, and all the women who stepped in to take male jobs while they fought in war, was forced back into heels and onto their knees. Again, Rosie cried, "We can do it" with the strength of a heart who has known and lost respect. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's hard to be a woman, particularly a young, unmarried woman, in the tech industry. It's a male dominated realm and sometimes feels like I'm a cocktail waitress at an Elk's Lodge meeting. A friend of mine told me that she was rejected for a job and told, face-to-face, that as a woman she would be too distracting. I've worked in companies and faced massive sexual harassment, the only recourse of which was to cut out the cancer: the harassed. As a freelancer, there isn't much one can do about it except become more hard. With each trespass is another layer of shellac. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I as I walked faster and faster to my seat, I could almost feel my eyes turn red and horns curl out of the top of my head. In moods like that, I’d pierce anyone in my way. I nearly punched my leather bag into the concrete ground and whipped back my hair. I breathed a little and despite my fiery disdain, my human half gradually took san dominance. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With apologies in tow: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sorry I’m late, guys.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A guy in a red polo shirt and jeans spoke up. He was one of those guys who always had a response or quip for anything, whether it was worth the breath wasted or not. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What happened this time?” he inquired with attitude. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clothes in a professional environment are a tricky thing for me. I thought I had finally nailed it, with a well enough stocked wardrobe of costumes from Ann Taylor and the like. Blouses, slacks, full length stockings, sensible work flats. Frustrating my</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">expectations, the boss criticized me for dressing “too professionally” in the workplace-- making the rest of the employees look bad by comparison. I studied those around me, their costumes, and so today I had dressed down. That was part and parcel of my explanation. As we know, fashion can change perception. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I didn’t know how to dress, if not professionally, and if not un-professionally. Office casual is a difficult grey area for me: someone with 12 corsets, strappy kink wear, steel toed boots, half a walk-in closet made of leather, destroyed jeans, as well as band t-shirts of bleeding virgins. Telling me to play the role at the opera but improvise my own costume was kind of insulting, after all the work I had done to differentiate. Ann Taylor, my ass. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I delivered my explicatory monologue with lightly feigned heart: “Well, you wouldn’t believe it, but a forest of trees marched upon downtown San Francisco, demolishing skyscrapers. As you can tell by my monochrome "tasteful tye-dye" maxi skirt, I was involved in the peaceful political protest against such senseless destruction against capitalism. I chained myself to my agency’s building, along with many of the other talent, but the trees started to pelt allergenic spores at us, so we just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had to get out of there…</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of what I say is followed by silence at work, so I’m used it by now. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, Ralph Lauren in Red gave some notes on my story: “That’s ...pretty elaborate.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I had to park far away.” That part was true.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And some people just have an active imagination. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">________________________</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why do you sigh like that all the time?” my exasperated desk-mate finally inquired. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without taking my eyes off my screen, I responded: “I’m just breathing.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No, that’s not breathing, that’s sighing. I happen to be an expert on breathing, as I do it every day, all the time. You </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sigh.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> And they are these long, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">suffering</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sighs. It’s driving me crazy.” His lips were like chicken sausages stuck together and they sputtered as he delivered his complaint. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This guy: fat, bald, cocky. He had that sense of entitlement about his surroundings, his perceived talents, even his looks. Every seeming thing about him made me want to punch him in the throat. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I allowed my eyeballs to move first, make contact with his. I leaned toward him, forward between the gap separating our facing desks, and explained: “Humans often sigh, yawn, or cough as involuntary physical reactions.” </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I gave him a second to let that sink in as I imagined the toe of my boot crushing his balls. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“These symptoms usually occur when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">oxygen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is needed in the body. Perhaps you perceive me as constantly sighing with suffering...” </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After a pause, I looked down, then coquettishly up again to mouth the following words without sound: “because I’m suffocating sitting next to your sorry, fat ass”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I added, in case the message was unclear:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“...sucking in all the clean air.” </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I pointed to him and blew up my cheeks like a puffer fish. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I made a comical little choking motion with my hands around my neck and eyes rolled back. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At least I thought it was funny.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He responded with nothing but a blank stare. He eventually lost the staring contest by farting accidentally. Nobody in the office said anything, but he looked pissed when I winked at him as he left his desk. I sighed and turned my eyes back to the computer screen. That would probably be the most interesting part of my day and there were only…. 6 more hours until 6 o’clock. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">____________________________</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ordeeer uhp</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His voice was oily, slick, and yet it was hard for my brain to digest the sound of it in a salad stand -- therefore I got distracted by the thought of beef gristle spewing from his lips instead of words. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t trust the French, inherently, but the food is undeniably better once passed through their filthy, simple-minded, grabby hands. Maybe all this man did was hand me the box (it seemed to be all be was trained for) and yet somehow, the brussel sprouts tasted better -- even though I hated him for his stupid trout-faced expression and incomprehensible accent. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The French accent is a sound pushed forth from a mouth shaped as though it is constantly trying to suck on an invisible </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">petit sec saucisson</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. To be child about it, the French are tiny sausage suckers. Before I could linger on this thought too long, a voice from the local region pulled me back to San Francisco. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Kewl. Wellll… now that we have our salAAAAds, dew’yew wannna like munch here, orrr…. like, um I don’t know, go back to the officcccce?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Silicone Valley. Computer chips and fake tits.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whilst searching for my keys, I handled my salad box, which was packed full enough of radicchio to supposedly justify the price tag, and my requisite designer bag. I felt like a juggler. If only I could contort as well -- I’d flee to Montreal and join Cirque. Still, those fucking accents. I pushed that thought of out my head, lest the leaning tower of salad fall to its colorful and expensive demise. With the focus of a sword swallower, I muttered: “The lot was full today. I have to move my car.” </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My coworker, who stood with the profile of a giraffe in her Vince Camuto stilettos and perfectly erect, anti-ergonomic body, responded thoughtfully: “Hmmmm?” </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wondered about the color of her tongue: was it pink or black? </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite our seeming incompatibilities, I’m pretty good at learning languages. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh, ummm, like, it was ker-RAZY parking and stuff. The guys at the lot were like “no entrar” or whatevs cuz they were super duper busy, so I had to find </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">street parking</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” I flourished with an open mouthed aghast expression -- yes, Barnum and Bailey, I clown as well. References available. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“OMG, you poor thing! What are you gonna do?!” Her eyes were so wide, she looked as if she could be patented by Mattel. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wondering if I had time to get a cappuccino, I became distracted. “Probably just move my car. It’s in a two hour zone, but I saw the meter maid go by, so I thought I could get away with more time.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She stared at me blankly and compulsively smoothed her already smooth hair, which is her body language for when I’ve spoken too fast and without enough emotion for her to know how to react. So naturally, she just kept talking, like most people who don’t understand what’s going on. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Wellllll… I’m going back to like work and shit cuz I don’t want to stay late and miss crossfit. Good luck or whatever with your car. Where is it, anyway?” As she smoothed and smoothed her bottle blond hair, I imagined her working up a sweat in spandex. This didn’t help me stay focused, as I thought of ways to discipline the affected stupidity out of her and what that would smell like. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Right up there. Montgomery and Green I think. I’ll take a shortcut and be back in no time. Do you mind tossing--TAKING my salad back to the office too?” In my mind I had four fingers deep in her whore cunt, slapping her tits until she would beg for deeps kisses to her clit to make her cum. All I see is red and how I’d fuck her so fantastically she’d believe it was mythical. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Uhhhhhh … sure.” She glanced at me sideways as she stacked our items. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Cool, thanks,” note to self: stop being a horny douchebag.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Whatevs.” Carrying our salads in one hand, she once again smoothed her bad dye job with the other. She had a flaunting, swinging gait as she walked away in her work-inappropriate footwear; and she left me with her Gen-X handle on the English language ringing in my ears. I watched her walk away -- always my favorite part of interacting with her. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, I too, have been brainwashed somewhat by Monsieur Dior. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, I took in a deep breath, and walked towards the bay. As I walked, I journeyed the streets, roads, and back alleys of my brain’s map and realized that I was a prisoner somewhere in the center of an explicable maze. I felt fierce most of the time, but I was also afraid. As I got lost, deeper in my own thoughts, I realized I was trapped and perhaps waiting for the human inside to show me the way out of this terrifying and dark place. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">____________________</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It had at some point become clear that I had made a wrong turn. The stairs where endless, and the path was labyrinthine. Wrong turn, dead end. No outlets to streets or thoroughfares. I kept climbing and climbing as my heart was racing. It had been so long time since I climbed a mountain that even a hill was slaying me. I realized with disdain that I had become weak in ways I hadn’t even realized. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally I ran into a mail person. I wheezed as I flagged her down and wheezed several times further before I was able to ask her: “Is this… goddamn Telegraph Hill?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She laughed and nodded. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I trudged past, feeling the pressure of getting back to work and my impending parking ticket as I exclaimed “FUCK ME.”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I made it to the top, somehow, someway. One clomping foot, then another, pushing the weight of the world in my mind and the heavy hate in my heart up the wretched hill.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A jogger lightly and easily drifted past, casually commenting: “Lotta steps, eh?”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mother fuck--” I said as I finally collapsed onto the pavement. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">____________________</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I came to, I saw the bay and the bridge. It was a beautiful day, and the water was glittering. My face was on the sidewalk, but I couldn’t stand, not yet. I thought of how lovely it would be to die like this, with this view as my final moment, when two tourists stepped over my limp body to get a better smartphone picture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two more groups of tourists did the same thing, one after another. Like most of San Francisco’s defeated, I had become invisible. </span>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-17366153235144331982012-11-08T06:25:00.001-08:002012-11-08T07:04:56.740-08:00Rape Culture<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a dull grey flurry of words, smeared spoken newsprint text, I hear two words before I zoom back into focus:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"...rape culture." </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"<i>what</i>?"</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm a bit spacey today. I think it's the meds. No, I think it's the company. Sometimes I don't know what to think. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've been staring at the bright oil cloth for a while, willfully distracted. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He had just got done saying that he couldn't imagine <i>ever</i> finding himself attracted to ("to physically love") a larger ("fat") woman and, thoroughly disgusted, I was too exhausted to pick yet another fight on the subject. The topic comes up perennially with him, perhaps as a very thinly veiled threat. At least, that's how it seems to me as he says these things and then looks at me out of the corner of his eye. Preemptive, tentative, accusatory periphery. I hate that. How could I not hate that? </span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"You should write about rape culture on your blog." </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"What about it?" </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"That we live in it." </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"What do you know about rape culture?" </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I read an article about it."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He's Lassie, trying to tell me something, bark bark rape culture bark, but I don't want to hear it right now. I'm stuck on the other thing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've known from the start that Igor is of the extremely vain sort, but really... Do all men feel that way, somewhere in them? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If I'm thin, am I more lovable? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(If I am physically desirable am I more lovable?)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">((or... maybe, because I'm </span>superficially<span style="font-family: inherit;"> valued<i>,</i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> am I <i>less lovable</i>...?))</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the pervasive mental dominance in our culture that has the potential to reach every girl and woman, an act of violence he commits without blinking while congratulating himself for somberly noting buzzword phrases such as "rape culture" -- as if, at this point, I could be impressed by him or what he has to say to me about women's issues. </span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These are things, I think, that are failing to compute. </span>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-15955040892766038522012-11-05T08:00:00.002-08:002012-11-08T06:28:35.126-08:00Sick Chic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This is how I lost a lot of weight in a few weeks without trying:</div>
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<br />
Reactions to my new look remind me of a particularly awkward moment I was witness to in my friend's apartment in Brooklyn: a goddess-like female was visiting from Haiti, where she had been on a midwifing mission, determined to save the world, one proper birth at a time. Let's call her Hathor, after the Egyptian goddess of beauty and fertility. Hathor had had a rough time of late.<br />
<br />
About a year and a half prior, she had a tough decision to make. She was in South Africa, the flagship country of her pilgrimage, and she got knocked up by a local man she thought she was madly in love with. As head midwife to the birthing program, she decided to set an example -- she kept the baby. The daddy then, predictably somehow only to Hathor's mother, turned out to be a dead beat. Single motherhood, in addition to being a power-housing saint, was really taking its toll and so she came home for a breather between godforsaken countries.<br />
<br />
Hathor was once shining, bubbly, blonde, and as voluptuous as the clay sculptures of fertility totems with big hips and mesmerizing, pendulous breasts. Looking at her after, she had gotten skinny. The light had dimmed in her eyes, replaced by a dull luster and dark circles. Even her flaxen hair looked retired in its exhaustion. Every time you glanced at her, you somehow caught her in a moment of exhale.<br />
<br />
That night at the apartment, our acquaintance joined us for dinner, arriving fashionably tardy. Upon seeing Hathor, the only aspect he noticed, unfortunately, was the weight loss.<br />
<br />
A partial hug and a kiss on either cheek, the superficial city embrace.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Wow, you look great!"</blockquote>
A brief silence in the room.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"... I contracted hepatitis." </blockquote>
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm calling it, time of death of a dinner party: 1 minute 32 seconds into the arrival of the relatively unobservant, situationally unfortunate guest. No other way to say it: that's awkward. <br />
<br />
So! Looking to lose some? You should probably diet and exercise.<br />
<br />
I absolutely do not recommend going to South Africa and drinking the water or somehow inducing life-threatening mental disorders to then medicate. You will be sick, and you will not give a damn what you look like. Compliments will seem hallow, and you will not know what to say to them because you will not feel grateful. Perhaps eventually, the compliments will stop coming from people you know. Worried glances will follow. Only strangers will still look at you and smile.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-46392037212382569052012-10-24T18:19:00.000-07:002012-12-06T13:30:04.858-08:00Porky's DiveA small, grimy, dimly lit room containing a pool table, a juke box, an ATM, a small, staggering throng of men, Janx and I. With the addition of a few beer taps and a wall's worth of bottom shelf liquor, I guess you could call it a bar.<br />
<br />
Janx is knee deep in it, hustling free drinks from a mid-life crisis situation. She's making all his dreams come true by listening to his smartphone app ideas. She's running circles around him, but he's too fucked up and stunned by her youth and attention to care.<br />
<br />
While I'm genuinely impressed at her ability to talk to anyone, hustle, and have a good time, I don't have the patience for it tonight. I'm getting on a plane tomorrow morning for Switzerland and need to get most of my packing done. I'm going through the list in my head when I'm interrupted.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You like beef jerky?"</blockquote>
A skinny man with close cropped hair and thick rimmed glasses throws the inquiry my way. I might have thought it had been tossed with the kind of detached casualness of two flies passing time at the same corpse except, despite what his unlikely svelte appearance might suggest, he's got the intensity of a butcher. Sweat glistens on his brow.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Sure do."</blockquote>
I take a piece from his boney fingers and set my molars to work until savory juice trickles onto my tongue. Tastes like beef and bourbon.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Mmm. 'S good." </blockquote>
He hands me another dark scrap, with pepper this time. A chewing moment of silence is paid in the destruction of the magnificent and delectable beast with four stomachs.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You wanna go out back and make out?"</blockquote>
Still chewing, I look the guy over. This time tomorrow I'll be with Fangs, last thing I need is bar fly all over me.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Thanks. No."</blockquote>
His face twitches in swift, mighty disappointment and he beelines for the door. I wonder how often the very direct approach works for him. I don't feel bad. Between the jerky and his game, I'm sure he does alright.<br />
<br />
The leather upholstered stool is empty only for a moment before he is replaced like a shark's tooth. A bigger, younger man wearing a trucker hat approaches. He's less sure of himself than the last gentleman, but he's motivated by his friends over by the pool table and plenty of liquid courage.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"So you're going to Switzerland, huh? Wanna drink or a shot er somethin to celebrate?"</blockquote>
I really shouldn't.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'll take a Jameson and a Guinness; Here's hoping I make it to Ireland." </blockquote>
His childlike grin that follows my toast betrays the fact that he did not think I would accept his offer -- he gives the bar an energetic pound with of the fist to show his rejuvenation.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"One of each, eh? Alrighty, 'tender, put 'em up!" </blockquote>
Janx leans over, all smile and charm.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"That's real nice of you, but this lady's gotta get home -- she's still gotta pack."</blockquote>
Bless 'er, she's trying to save me from myself. I divert my focus from the shark's teeth to listen in on her conversation. She's still hustling the drunk. It's a little hard to watch her shoot fish in a barrel. She does it with a shotgun. But believe me when I say she's not trying.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'll give you five dollars if you can guess what instrument I play."</blockquote>
The fading baby-boomer staggers back and forth. The task of guessing anything is too great. He just wants her to keep talking.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'll give you five dollars to tell me."</blockquote>
He hands her five sweaty, splayed out ones.<br />
She looks at them, looks at him, looks at me, and looks at him again with a grin before putting the money in her pocket.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'm keeping this five dollars."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I want you to."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But you still have to guess."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Ghuaghhhh...."</blockquote>
His moan sounds like a slow bleed from the side, like a deer having been hit by a car. He can only come up with cello and mandolin as instrument guesses before he gets bored and starts nervously talking about himself, claiming to have played with the Grateful Dead before and whatnot. He keeps snorting and sniffling, and the way he's talking, I think he's on drugs. Then he looks at me straight in the face and says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You are so beautiful. Were you beautiful as a child?"</blockquote>
<br />
I put in my notice at the bar. When I get back from Switzerland I'm going to try to find a real job, ideally one that calls upon my intellect, my degree, my talents other than my taste buds, looks, and social graces. I don't want to wake up realizing that I squandered my youth swatting at flies. It's not exactly an honest living, taking their money, playing Rumpelstiltskin, nor is it a service. Either way, I'd rather be in a shit hole like Porky's Dive by hilariously misguided choice on occasion than have the name of it's ilk on the top of my checks.<br />
<br />
<br />
Janx doesn't know which way is up either. Perhaps that's why we are such good company for one another. We were sitting outside the bar, smoking cigarettes, and discussing our lives' paths when she said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I dunno. I've been trying to read the stars... but they're in fucking Spanish, man."</blockquote>
Just then, we were approached by a stranger, who asked Janx for a cigarette.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Not so fast. This cigarette wasn't cheap. You can't get something for nothin' these days."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What, you want a quarter?"</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I want something better than a quarter. I want a joke. You tell me a joke, you get a cigarette. Easy peezy."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Ahhh... ok. [<i>pause</i>] Christ. Uhm... I... I don't know any jokes." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Everyone knows at least one joke." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I can't think of one."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Not even a knock-knock joke?"</blockquote>
Poor guy was suffering.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"No. Can I please just have a cigarette?"</blockquote>
Janx is not one to bend in her stipulations.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Gotta play by the rules, man."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I just came from my grandma's house..." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What, G-ma doesn't tell jokes? Come on man, you've got to give me something to work with here. Help me help you."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She's very sick. And Russian."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"So say something in Russian, then laugh, and I'll <i>pretend</i> it's a joke." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I think she's dying. I don't feel like laughing." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Well, if you feel like a cigarette, then..."</blockquote>
He looked at her, and she looked back at him. I saw in her eye a glint that makes me wonder if she is a psychological and sexual sadist. He sighed, and started his soliloquy, <i>in Russian.</i> After a while he stopped, but no, he could not laugh. Janx did her best overdrawn fake belly laugh, just to make the situation as uncomfortable as possible.<br />
<br />
This is the point at which I stepped in.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I have a joke for you: Why did the chicken cross the road?" </blockquote>
Janx's eyes lit up, wide with anticipation: yes -- a player of the game!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Because it wanted a fucking cigarette."</blockquote>
She took out her bright yellow pack and handed me a cigarette as she stared with dominance and demonstration into the eyes of the stranger. She over-annunciated:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Hilarious. Now you get a cigarette." </blockquote>
The guy looked like he was going to cry. I threw the cigarette at him.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Get outta here." </blockquote>
He quickly slunk away into the parking lot and became nothing more than a tiny puff cloud of smoke rising from between parked cars. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Some people man, they got no sense of humor."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Can't take a fucking joke." </blockquote>
Bad apples hang out at bars. We're a couple of them.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-14426407424031559132012-10-06T22:00:00.000-07:002012-10-29T02:53:48.902-07:00CheersWaxing the lustre of morning's sunlight into the bar rail with a damp terry-cloth rag, I imperceptibly smirk in self-congratulations. I've made it through the early hours, and without incident at that. I stand back and sigh, admiring my work: I can see my own reflection in the wood and I don't find that despicable at all. It'll be another half hour before the lunch crowd comes to muck it up. This is the quiet time, the eye of the storm -- after the flurry of opening and restocking, before the rush of service. I can afford to steal this moment and keep it to myself.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZFbmcbj2A69cnXhYFaNryfHL9KyfhlkxwV-3tUd_fJxzk6UzdDfSLMMnyBKEVOiQVpTVq2Ga672ZfiNtoIT-AusZCq7GpAr6Ru-MzvOTSmN3J2wzFvKi6-OctPLqd8OWMgs9kpG7goXd/s1600/IMG_0836.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZFbmcbj2A69cnXhYFaNryfHL9KyfhlkxwV-3tUd_fJxzk6UzdDfSLMMnyBKEVOiQVpTVq2Ga672ZfiNtoIT-AusZCq7GpAr6Ru-MzvOTSmN3J2wzFvKi6-OctPLqd8OWMgs9kpG7goXd/s200/IMG_0836.JPG" width="150" /></a>A sip of coffee. The warm brown liquid hugs me from the inside out with soothing. Okay, organize: One medium, round, orange. One-half, small, pink. One big, long, white. Two long, big, reds. I stare for a moment at this handsome handful, then say to no one, "Bottoms up." One fell swoop, they all disappear. I'm a magician.<br />
<br />
Before I forget, I set a reminder for my next round. It will be several hours from now and consist of one medium, round, orange. One big, long, pink.<br />
Ten. Nine. Eight. (I'm already starting to feel it. Must have forgotten breakfast.)<br />
<br />
Seven. Six. Five. (I love this. The swift creep.)<br />
<br />
Four, Three, two, one... <i>Blast off</i><br />
and now i'm an astronaut <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
that's better.</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
____________________________________</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I have a problem with the way that psychiatric medications are portrayed in media and perceived in society.<br />
I am not a zombie.<br />
<br />
People sometimes say I'm quiet. I have a lot of thoughts. I quess I'm breathing shallow. I'm thankful I finally stopped gasping.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
___________________________________</div>
<br />
CONVERSATION WITH P-DOC<br />
<br />
- How are the meds treating you?<br />
- Well, at first I was experiencing a certain side effect, but then it went away... I think it had been helping, actually, so I'm a little disturbed that it neutralized. I was calmer, more pleasant, better rested, I think.<br />
- How would you describe the side effect?<br />
- Feeling "high as fuck".<br />
- ...<br />
- I miss that.<br />
- Ok.<br />
- Can we bring that back?<br />
- Are you drinking?<br />
- A little.<br />
- ...<br />
- Some.<br />
- ...<br />
- Excessively.<br />
- Alcohol is a depressant, and it will counteract the meds. If you drink, all you have left is bare, naked brain. That's why they haven't been working for you anymore.<br />
- ...<br />
- What you were feeling wasn't "high" -- that's close what a normalized brain might feel like. Your brain doesn't make serotonin or dopamine like it should, so you wouldn't know that.<br />
- Huh... so you're saying it sucks to be me.<br />
- <i>*sigh* </i>I'm saying that you're something like Van Gogh: a highly creative individual with manic depression and anxiety mood disorders. Back in his day, there were no psychiatric medications... What I'm saying is, if you continue to treat your imbalances with art and alcohol, you're going to cut your ear off, or worse.<br />
- There's some true romance.<br />
- There's nothing romantic about syphilis and insanity. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
______________________________</div>
<br />
Everyone knows Sam "Mayday" Malone's story from <i>Cheers</i>: He was a Red Sox relief pitcher with a drinking problem that ruined his career. He bought a friendly establishment called Cheers and made a new life for himself as a sober barkeep, ensuring a Sisyphean fate eternally reminding him of his shortfalls, masked by the hi-jinks of the wacky regulars. However, it's Diane's story that I relate to and is often over looked.<br />
<br />
In the first episode, she is swept inside the dive by her fiancé and boss, a university professor to whom she is assistant. By the end of the episode, she has been abandoned under Sam's watch at the bar with a half consumed bottle of champagne while her lover has fled to Barbados with another woman. Her entire world shattered, she sighs and rolls over into Sam's barely professional arms and he takes the prissy, verbose, overeducated Diane on as a cocktail waitress at Cheers. This topsy-turvy, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRmO3bwyEyk&feature=related" target="_blank">odd couple dynamic</a> drives the early portion of the series.<br />
<br />
My own professional track also having been derailed in a mirroring fashion, I may have been watching the series as motivational material -- a little fantastical fiction to adopt and get into character for work.<br />
<br />
I, like Diane, don't belong in the bar. But if I imagine the laugh-track and the moral-of-the-story to take home at the end of every shift, I can trick myself to think it quirky, fun, and therefore bearable. Every day I count the sticky, wrinkled bills in my pocket, which helps greatly. Identity differentiation, cosplay, theater, anything... A few more days, a few more dollars I didn't see before. Keep it to that. No investment, no attachment.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSDiscussion/comments/10uki1/hang_ups_about_sex_work/c6gwcmd" target="_blank">It's not an uncommon feeling</a> that food and beverage service industry jobs are more demeaning than sex work. But while the pay would be greater at that, there are several external factors that keep my clothes on professionally. Fangs has stated that he would have too many fires to start, for one. Next, I would have to shift professional role models from <i>Cheers'</i> Diane to YouTube's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpwAtnywTk" target="_blank">Jenna Marbles</a>. Perhaps the generational gap is too broad for a sensical comparison to be drawn, but let me assure you, the slope starts at sad and descends into a valley of much worse.<br />
<br />
Sobering up hasn't been an issue since I adjusted my meds and discovered a surprising fondness for non-alcoholic beer. I like having a clear head now. Whiskey and I are ex-lovers, parted on good terms, with the very brief and occasional stolen fling... but we don't make more of it than it is. We aren't meant to be and I know that now.<br />
<br />
Sure, occasionally I get the urge. But I have to look at the bottle and say to it: "You, Sir, will not make me feel better."<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpznIGacp0HKKwzMaMC_tsjJWeAoEVAuT0ImAM-7ck2mPuxyzV0QXIO1HD4WaBJOjbHW_3Hrdw4iHgtKL3gO54DVmZr246odrgaSTubLZjMiCHG2IsYlpdr_5XK79pVqDYmK_2njLb_FT/s1600/IMG_1205.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpznIGacp0HKKwzMaMC_tsjJWeAoEVAuT0ImAM-7ck2mPuxyzV0QXIO1HD4WaBJOjbHW_3Hrdw4iHgtKL3gO54DVmZr246odrgaSTubLZjMiCHG2IsYlpdr_5XK79pVqDYmK_2njLb_FT/s320/IMG_1205.JPG" width="240" /></a>All the same, I am a bartender. I have a craft, a trade, a nightly one act. In tribute to Fangs, <i>Cheers</i>, and professional ennui, here is my take on a Boston Sour -- a scotch cocktail for everybody. The egg white whips up into a frothy cold meringue and gives the drink a pleasing viscosity on the tongue. It's gotten great reviews so far at the bar, and is heading towards menu permanency. I invite you to try it out for yourself and do your best-worst fake Boston accent while you enjoy it.<br />
<br />
<u>BOSTON SOUR</u><br />
2 oz. Johnny Walker Black Label<br />
3/4 oz. honey syrup (1/2 honey, 1/2 water)<br />
2 oz. sweet and sour<br />
1 egg white<br />
<br />
Shake all ingredients vigorously with ice for about 20 seconds. Strain in chilled sour glass (or wine glass). Garnish with orange slice and skewered cherry. Cheers.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-63212596299111645042012-08-09T13:39:00.000-07:002012-08-10T15:58:57.948-07:00rail<i>by shibeari</i><br />
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<br />
shining bound. <br />
left for dead<br />
<br />
trains comin in. <br />
fluff in my headGrotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-52388394185973727342012-08-09T12:44:00.000-07:002012-08-10T15:46:22.774-07:00Scoundrel<i>by guest author <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/07/wild-cats-lady-beats.html" target="_blank">Janx</a> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The writer of this blog and I are very good friends who love more than anything to sip fine beverages and share the filthiest stories we have under our belts. Time after time I am defeated in our pissing game of smut tales- so I am honored that she asked me to write a guest entry for her loyal readers- as if I might actually get a rise out of what I have to share. What I decided- since this is technically a traveling blog as well- to tell a small tale on how I earned my stripes as a certified scoundrel.
<br />
<br />
When I left California to enter a four month artist residency in Prague, I had promised Ace that I would remain loyal to him and our love would be enough to satisfy all my sexual desires.
<br />
<br />
This concept was quickly swept under the rug the first night as I awoke next to my new favorite local bartender who slept with his half-smoked rolled cigarette wedged between his lower lip and unusually large mustache.
<br />
<br />
I could already tell it was going to be a great four months.
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
This thought was only reaffirmed when I spotted a devilish looking man at my first weekly meeting at the office of my residency. He looked like he could kill for pleasure, and then draw the corpse as the most delicate still-life. As it happens Birdie and a gaggle of other characters were all military architects on a different project, using the same space as a handful of painters. It wasn’t long before I got the one female army drone liquored up enough to tell me every little fact I wanted to know about Birdie. She told me he was only 21 but has been in a serious relationship (his ONLY relationship) for the past six years, and that he and his girlfriend lived in different states. This to me, was an entirely unacceptable fate for such a beautiful man-and so began a new game of cat and mouse.
<br />
<br />
I would be lying if I said my little mouse was easily persuaded. It took well over a month of me grabbing his cute little ass, and drunkenly whispered words before I got him in my bed.
<br />
<br />
I could tell he himself didn’t know what he was doing there, the guilt of breaking his six year monogamy had him tied up in knots. Almost paralyzed with indecision.
<br />
<br />
That is until I got my hands on his big, hard, army dick.
<br />
<br />
We had several heated sessions where I expanded his mind and sexual repertoire. At first he was so shy and hesitant, and then he was desperate and overly willing for the tongue tricks his prudish girlfriend would never allow him to experience. He became so intoxicated with our time that we both knew it was approaching the realm of being dangerously addictive.
<br />
<br />
Eventually he broke and confessed to his real lady what he had done, she was upset but so in love with him that all was forgiven in an instant. He told me we could no longer be lovers- but for some reason slept on my couch every night after.
<br />
<br />
While I understood his dilemma, I was still upset-and quite horny. You see- when breaking a noble character such as his, you have to make a man feel special, a singular entity in your heart. I had stopped seeing my other Czech lovers during our time together- so now that he had cut me off, it was time to go back into my little black book.
<br />
<br />
The next week we all went out to karaoke, and I had brought with me a fine German named Marec, who was anxiously awaiting our time alone. After one hour of 2-4-1 specials at the bar, Marec and I were one short skirt away from fucking on the kitschy velvet barstools. We were interrupted by a loud breaking of glass by our feet. I detached my face from Marec’s only to see Birdie standing there. His half-drank Pilsner shattered on the ground. His muscles were throbbing, and his eyes were filled with anger and unyielding tears.
<br />
<br />
Holding back his urge to scream, he choked out a “what the fuck is going on?”
<br />
<br />
I smiled at his heart-broken face, and as I groped Marek’s cock with one hand, I promptly flipped Birdie the bird with my other.
<br />
<br />
"Deal with it, buddy"
<br />
<br />
He slept on my couch again as my German lover and I enjoyed a night of two equally experienced partners, feeling no need to courteously hold back our moans and groans. In the morning after Marec left, enjoyed a well deserved cup of Jo- I looked Birdie in the eyes-so heart broken and distraught-and thought to myself.
<br />
<br />
This must be the definition of a scoundrel.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-20590226430224028862012-08-06T15:17:00.001-07:002012-08-06T15:17:37.555-07:00August is Guest Writer's Month<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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That's right, it's time to shake things up. Check back often this month for varied submissions from diverse authors from across the globe and blogosphere.<br />
<br />
Don't forget to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seduce-and-Confuse/361123087291672" target="_blank">like us on facebook</a>, follow us, and tell your friends where it's at.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-58874130893927762472012-07-20T17:17:00.002-07:002014-01-27T21:40:53.242-08:00Anti-Social MediaHi there. Will you, uh... be my friend?<br />
<br />
You see, I don't know how to do this unless you are hoping to fuck me one day. But. <i>Sigh</i>. It's in my best interests to nourish non-sexual relationships in addition to all these kinky, filthy fluids I'm exchanging on a regular basis, in irregular locations.<br />
<br />
My shrink, who I respectfully refer to as Dr. Homeslice, hooked me up with some pharmaceutical magic -- magic thus far for the stability of my moods and for correcting what may have been becoming a drinking problem, but not of course without its costs. Among the side effects is not being able to "find the right word." Examples given of especially slippery ones have been "garage" or "refrigerator," but Fangs and I had a hearty belly laugh at one the other day:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Thanks for this morning, Baby.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No problem. I couldn't stand to see you in so much pain from that rock-hard erection, so it was my pleasure to, uh-- damn...</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...what?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...What's the fucking word? Oh yeah: <i><b>blow you.</b> </i> </blockquote>
Dr. Homeslice doesn't bat an eye when I arrive looking like a purple and chewed piece of steak gristle anymore, bless 'im, so I haven't had to explain Fangs' fangs or defend my kinks or any of that time-wasting garbage. He did recommend that I occasionally make friends that I don't fervently bang, though, so here goes: see the sidebar to send me a tweet! Make my little day!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-27754535480798132562012-07-15T20:51:00.000-07:002012-08-10T15:47:10.647-07:00Delicious Evil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm not much into sweets. "Not much" as in: not at all. But my one of my organs is currently ripping out it's internal lining and <b>ejecting it<i> </i>forcefully</b> from my body. In response, for some curious reason, nature dictates that I crave something hot, dark, and evil to fill my belly to replace it. Something Satanic. Something... <i>chocolate. </i></div>
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Simple enough to whip up in compromised states, delicious enough to make your eyeballs roll back into your skull, and not-at-all too sweet, this fucker will do the trick. I got the recipe from my mother, and I share it with you here in hopes that another female or female-identified body will writhe in this dark pleasure's respite in a similar time of need. </div>
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I'm in too much pain to type it out. Good luck.</div>
Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-50625302023900889572012-07-15T19:38:00.000-07:002014-01-27T21:43:57.022-08:00Who's your Daddy?<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Uh, sorry, our credit runner's out of order. </blockquote>
Damn it all to hell. I love my little, independent, locally-roasted coffee shop, but these are issues to be expected: constant technical disfunction and general inconsistency. I can relate on a personal level, but I don't carry any cash on me as a general rule because it winds up slipping away like sand between a drooling child's open fingers. And so, frustration.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I got this one, Babe. </blockquote>
<a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2011/12/labeling.html" target="_blank">Igor</a> to the rescue! I smile and twirl one of my pigtails -- he likes when I put on a show. I lean over and give him an exaggerated peck on the cheek, look up at him with baby-doll eyes and squeak in a "little" voice:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Thanks, Daddy...</blockquote>
His eyes roll and then land in a stare that clearly communicates that he's over the theatrics. He puts his wallet away and as he turns, he throws his next words over his left shoulder like spilt salt:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Don't call me "Daddy". </blockquote>
Hurt and a little stunned, it takes me a moment before I realize that I'm standing at the counter alone. I absentmindedly pull the elastic out of one pigtail as I wander to the table where he's sitting in his usual Dominant stance. He's cooler than the iced coffee.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Why don't you call <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/05/multi-orgasmic-man.html" target="_blank">Bacon</a> your "Daddy?" He's old enough to be. </blockquote>
I hate to jump to conclusions, but it seems that someone's feeling a little insecure.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He's only 32. That would make him a very virile 7 year old. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whatever, Sweets. It's just not my bag. </blockquote>
Fair enough, I guess. The other pigtail comes out. <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
__________________ </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
I'm at the beginning of my cycle, and <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/06/drop-of-blood.html" target="_blank">Fangs</a> has been taking really sweet care of me. Belly rubs, back rubs, neck rubs, every kind of rub, basically. He took me to all my favorite places in the city and then he took me to dinner and a movie. He selflessly guided me to orgasm to relieve my cramps and he fed me chocolate. When I was moody, he held me and told me I was beautiful until I felt better.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As much as he treats me like a princess, Fangs really does look like a Nordic prince. His long, fine hair rests in soft curls on his broad, strong shoulders. He looks at me with his disarmingly golden eyes, smiles, and offers me a giant hand clad in every opportunity with silver metal to help me into the vehicle.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You take such good care of me... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Well, you're my baby, you know that?</blockquote>
The following debate takes place in my head in following .5 seconds: <i>I'm going to say it. I'm not going to say it. *Breathe* Don't say it -- Remember last time? Oh, for fuck's sake, just get over yourself and say it. If it doesn't go over well, just have a little grace and laugh it off...</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Does that make you my Daddy? </blockquote>
I'm afraid to make eye contact, but when I look up at him from the car, I see a wide grin and four fangs.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I guess it does...</blockquote>
He chuckles to himself as he goes around to the driver's side, and I bubble inside.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-79498201243656200692012-07-11T14:38:00.000-07:002012-08-09T12:54:37.652-07:00Wild Cats, Lady Beats<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Everything in the world is hilarious. It's like a cosmic 'your mom' joke.</blockquote>
That's Janx for you. She spits this gem of acerbic wisdom with a slanted grin as we fly down a California highway at 90 mph, her bare foot on the dash as she fingers a gem she wrapped in copper wire the night before. We had a meeting, a caucus of lady hens in Santa Barbara where we gathered our supplies -- cheap red wine, crystals, gems, bright wire, cotton thread in every color of the rainbow, weed, tobacco, instruments, and stories -- we took a big sit with all these things and we <i>rapped</i>. No topic was off limits, no limit was off topic.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The thing about masturbation that really frustrates me is that I think: I am way too cute to be doing this for myself.</blockquote>
<i>A pause in conversation as we all focus on our projects in a haze. Thin paper crinkles as a joint is passed, soft glugging as a glass is re-filled. Somewhere in the room, a bulldog farts and sighs.</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I hate those fuckin' fox tails people are wearing these days.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Why? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
They have to kill the whole fucking animal just to parade around looking like an ass-pirate's bitch -- it's disgusting, murderous, and wasteful.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Hey, do you still have your old dreadlocks that you cut off?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yeah? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You should die them and make a tail out of that. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What makes you think I want to look like an ass-pirate's bitch? </blockquote>
The thing about these ladies is that we aren't your typical ladies, we're cowboys. We will fuck you up from the inside out and laugh while we do it. Rough, a little hard, and gone with the wind, we out west are more like tumble weeds and hardly "the fairer sex." We also represent the modern beats -- just like <i>The Dharma Bums</i>, we're only romantic enough to be pathetic, only revolutionary enough to be self-indulgent. We are vain, and not without sensitivity or desire -- what kind of poets would we be otherwise?<br />
<br />
Each us of us are in constant conflict with ourselves; that is part and parcel of our self-indulgent vanity. We each contain a tarot card-like persona against whom we struggle, but it's these struggles that come to define us. Janx's impossibly long, thick dreadlocks in every color of the rainbow are a whimsical touch that attempt to disguise the fact that she is at heart the existential realist. Our mate and occasional ward, who is a brilliant crafter and dedicated boozer often prancing around as a middle eastern unicorn, is the drunken idealist. Sparky, who is here with us in spirit with her magenta hair and her wild eyes, is the emphatic. I, ever searching for sincerity in all the wrong places, am the romantic hedonist. We are each of us flesh hungry wild cats.<br />
<br />
On this road trip plummeting back up California's coast, it's Janx's hilarity I'm exposed to at full volume. A realist she is, but humor is the spoonful of sugar with which she shoves medicinal observation deep past one's esophagus.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So I've been questioning my relationship with Man a lot recently, as you know, as I'm sure you are sick of hearing about, and so I've devised a new test, a <i>relationship test</i>. Here it is: if you have a baby and it turned out to be exactly<i> </i>like your partner, and I mean in every way, would you be proud of him or her? Think about it... would you? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yeesh, I don't know. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yeah, well, think about it. That's what's going to happen. So thinking about this actually led me to come up with something else, which I like to call: <i>The Dead Baby Method</i>. I came up with this tactic because I don't use birth control or condoms. When my body starts to feel a little... different or when I sense my uterus go a-flutter, I simply meditate on dead babies. I say to it: Uterus, don't do it. If you make a baby, I'm going to kill it. These are all the ways in which I would kill it. Don't fucking do it. I figure, you know, you hear of those girls who convince themselves they are pregnant so much they start to blow up? Well, if they can convince themselves they are pregnant, I can convince myself I'm not. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Brilliant. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I know... but sometimes I worry about my mental health. </blockquote>
Yes, well. Her countering poignant depravity with questions of her sanity is why I can justify calling her a "realist" in my mind. <br />
<br />
This bitch is resourceful. Give Janx some powerful hallucinogens and 15 minutes alone and she will return to you having solved all your problems. She will deliver you unto the sweet warbling voice of Jesus Christ and bring you handsome gentlemen cowboys who will play country music, provide you refreshing beverages, and keep you warm when the night turns cold. They will say things like "See that ther' coffee stan' over yonder? Built it. Take mah jakit, lil' lady. Kilt a buffalo in that thing. Hey, Woodrow! Come meet mah new girlfrien'!" and you will never stop giggling... Janx will get on stage and play a stranger's banjo, leading a crowd in a chorus of meowing until the sun rises, and she will purr like a hooker until she gets bored. She will lead you on powerful journeys and quests as an impromptu shaman, a spirit animal even, and she will blow your freakin' mind.<br />
<br />
Full disclosure: I hated <i>The Dharma Bums</i>. Even so, in moments I find myself happy to be living it out less piously, and Janx is the Japhy to my Ray Smith.<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Was that sappy? Well, you can go fuck yourself. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-44926876169770981542012-06-22T07:21:00.002-07:002014-01-27T22:01:55.147-08:00SickI'm sick. Coughing, wheezing, sneezing, and dizzy with discomfort. I seek respite in the steam of a hot shower.<br />
<br />
I've been missing Istanbul intensely. I miss my old roommate: a man who barely speaks but somehow just radiates. I miss my neighbor and best friend there: her company, her energy, her stories.<br />
<br />
Almost as much as I miss these people, I miss the solitude. For three months at a time, two winters in a row, I enjoyed privacy of spirit. All the way across the world from most of my social habitat, I would hole up, sometimes for days. I would barely speak to anyone, happy to be mostly undisturbed in the dark, cavernous and warm room. When I occasionally did part the thick, green, velvet curtains, the light from the alley was sad and cold -- as it always seemed to be reflecting of the clean marble in Istanbul (only the sunlight over the Bosporus in the late afternoon was golden). Back then, I was able to be alone with the voices in my head, who muttered and hummed, made up stories to entertain us, and mused about things of little consequence.<br />
These days, they won't stop screaming. It's too much, toomuch, <i>toomuch...</i> and yet.<br />
<br />
I slip down in the tiny square shower to sit on the tiny square tiles. I close my eyes and let the warm water plunk on my face and knees. It sounds like falling rain. I curl myself into a ball and sink down to my side on the smooth floor. My long hair floats and waves a little. I let the sound and the warmth of the water take over and fall asleep.<br />
<br />
I dream in memories. I dream that I am back in the rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, where the rain was just as warm. I remember swinging in the impossibly thick vines, in competition with howler monkeys who, despite having the terrifying cry of a fierce jungle cat, are adorable, mischievous little things. I remember decorating the dreadlocks I used to have with hibiscus flowers. I remember the flavor of papaya water soothing my stomach. And I remember my lover at the time hugging a leaf that was bigger than he was. What different times! Nothing proves this to me more than thinking of him, the kind of person he was, and who I was in his reflection.<br />
<br />
The rain slowly turns cold and I'm in Madrid. I'm delirious from jet lag and having slept all day, but now it's the middle of the night and I'm being dragged down the street by the hand of a different man entirely -- and what a different life we led together. We run through the chilly rain and seek refuge in a sherry bar. The amber liquid comes straight from the cask; we drink it from tiny flutes and it warms our shivering bones. I deliriously munch on oily, skinned almonds and he makes up little songs to amuse me and crack a smile on my paled visage.<br />
<br />
Now the water is cold enough to drag me back into awareness. I laugh at myself a bit bitterly for being so sentimental, for missing so much, for being an avid adventurer who simultaneously: constantly craves, and yet is astounded by, change. It's the little things, the simple facts, the obvious conclusions that often seem so impossible to me.<br />
<br />
I sit up, let the blood rush back to my head, and turn off the tap.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-28094580245138614662012-06-21T15:21:00.000-07:002012-07-09T17:03:45.219-07:00Blood HungryThe wiry black hairs of his tarantula hands tickled my skin as his thick fingers crawled slowly across it. The sensation made me shiver and giggle. He grinned mischievously, revealing four perfectly pointed fangs that framed two rows of dull pearls. He drooled as a wet bit of lengua meat moistened his lips and his eyes rolled back into his skull. This possessed expression descended over him like a shroud and he sunk his fangs deep into my flesh. I writhed, moaned, arched, and grunted. He purred in a low growl as he decorated my neck, back, shoulders, and hips in blood blisters, encouraged by my guttural approval.<br />
He stopped, and I fell limp.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Tired? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No... it's just... it's relaxing. </blockquote>
I could barely speak and so he continued the delicious torture, raking his sharpened teeth over the landscape of my body. His hand slowly creeped its way up my leg and its probing mandible cautiously fingered the torn hem of my shorts at the inside of my thigh.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
May I?</blockquote>
I'm a sucker for a gentleman.<br />
<br />
He entered me, and I thought I might die. If I had, I'm not sure if it would have deterred him.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
________________</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So, what? You're writing spider porn now? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It's a metaphor. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whatever. But I mean, is it a spider? Or a vampire? Or what? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Like I said, the tarantula thing was an image. But it's non-fiction. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What are you talking about. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It happened. <i>(pause) </i>The guy has fangs. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You fucked someone who had their teeth sharpened? Jesus Christ, <i>of course</i> you did...</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No, they were natural. He has real fangs<i>. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What the fuck are you talking about? Nobody has <i>real fangs. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I don't know what to tell you. This guy does. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whatever. I bet you'll tell me he used magnums too. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Well, yeah. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jesus Christ... </blockquote>
For the record, fiction's not really my thing.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
___________</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Fangs could be a vampire, I suppose. From his long hair and massively broad stature to his sweetly romantic nature and comic Boston accent, there is something <i>mythic</i> about him. The way he smells drives me insane; it must be something in his blood. I could kiss him for hours, if only to keep my face in his and become intoxicated on his scent. It reminds me of what <a href="http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dr._christopher_ryan_sex_at_dawn" target="_blank">Dr. Christopher Ryan (co-author of Sex at Dawn)</a> said about <a href="http://www.nerdist.com/2012/01/sex-nerd-sandra-22-awesome-ancient-sex/" target="_blank">lovers' scent attraction and genetic compatibility</a>. What a sexy thought... <i>Evolution</i> <i>itself</i> wants us to fuck.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I told my buddy about you. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Oh yeah? What'd he think?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Well, <i>(blushes) </i>he wasn't surprised to hear you're an artist... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ah, you have a history with creative types, huh? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I don't want you to feel reduced to a <i>type</i>, but yeah, it's who I tend to go for. The ying to my yang, you know... I hope that doesn't offend you.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Oh no, not at all. I've noticed a recent pattern myself, and you're just my type. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Oh yeah? What's your type?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Tall goth metal heads with motorcycles and huge cocks.<i> </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Wicked. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Do you feel reduced?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yeah... but I like it. </blockquote>
If he is a vampire, he may just be the goofiest undead on this earth. I find myself incredibly endeared to him; his intimidating stature and harsh aesthetic are balanced by his undeniably human tenderness. I feel safe when I'm around him, protected, and sane.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-57642825071364501422012-06-11T17:43:00.000-07:002012-06-14T15:28:45.621-07:00Non-Verbal Communication for Alt-SexThe presentation I led at <a href="http://www.open-sf.org/" target="_blank">Open SF Conference 2012</a>, of Open, Poly, or Ethically Non-Monogamous in the Bay Area, had a mouthful of a name:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Honing Non-Judgmental Communication through Touch and Movement</blockquote>
It's the kind of name where one would have to chew on each and every word to really hear it as a whole. The kind of name where, when I said it, people would stare back blankly and nod: "Uh huh." I wasn't sure what turn out was going to be like. I wasn't sure if I could reach the sexy and political people at this sexy and political conference with my content: movement exercises introducing the basics of contact improvisational dance in a non-sexual touch-therapy context. <b>The alt-<i>sex</i> community tends to be defined by <i>sex</i>, and so naturally it crossed my mind that asking for <i>non-sexual</i> and highly tactile participation might result in mutiny. </b><br />
<br />
My mother asked me what some of the other workshops being presented were:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Debunking the Myths of Anal Fisting, Negotiating Successful Threesomes, Pansexual Poly-Sluts in Leather, Writing Group Sex, and Fat Sluts, Hungry Virgins." </blockquote>
All of these <a href="http://www.open-sf.org/sessions.html" target="_blank">real</a> (and very cool!) workshops came to mind immediately.<br />
While my mom is awesome, some things just don't need to be shared between us. What I actually said was:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Uh, I think... there's a writing workshop... some guided meditation or something... a thing where we take pictures of each other and talk about how we are perceived... and like, I don't know, some other communication-y stuff." </blockquote>
Yeah, I'm not so great with that thing they call "tact."<br />
<br />
But what did a <i>dance</i> workshop have to do among all this?<br />
<br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zkreiRt8GEY" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This workshop is less a dance class and more an exercise in bravery and openness. Improvisation is essential practice in releasing oneself to say "yes" and to play. Intimacy, while it includes sex, is not confined or defined by sex. It is defined by communication, and communication is not restricted to spoken language. As you can see in the video, these two people are communicating perfectly in their own language, though one is a pre-verbal infant. Through loving touch they speak to each in a language of movement, one that can't be translated into post-Babel meaning. It is pure communication, a language that only exists in the moment it is shared and it is without technique, symbols, or the possibility of real documentation. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Any relationship relies on communication skills, but the unconventional relationship structures enjoyed by the alt-sex, poly, and BDSM community require a particularly enormous amount of emotional bravery. While our specific lifestyle labels may often be defined by the sex we enjoy, the intimacy of our relationships and our identities are not. As much as sexual pro/recreation is natural and necessary, so too is the healing power of loving non-sexual touch, which is why we humans need and crave it. The goal is to gain awareness of how we interact physically with our loved ones, our community, and the world around us, to hone our connection to our non-sexual and non-violent physicality, and to learn to communicate with each other in new ways. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In terms of communication skills, we sometimes get caught up in the didactic. I'd like to share with you a visceral way of learning in the realm of loving communication. The majority of this workshop will be movement exercises in groups, but at the end we will discuss what we experienced. The aim of the ending discussion is to begin to mentally "pack it up" so that we may hopefully take something of it away with us and into our lives.</blockquote>
Igor was skeptical that I would pull off my presentation. I hadn't told him anything of it, any of the above, didn't mention my plans. I may have led him to believe I would just "wing it." He looked increasingly nervous before the class, probably in part for me but also because he is *not* a mover. Still, he had committed to participate and there he was, dutifully and bravely in front, on my right hand side. But there was a moment during the exercises as I went around the room checking on the groups where I caught a glimpse of him having a moment. His partner was a much older woman with very long silver hair and they had been strangers up until just a moment ago. Yet, here they were in beautiful physical harmony. The look of pure ecstatic joy on both of their faces was so moving, I had to look away to stay focused.<br />
<br />
After the workshop ended, Igor and others staggered out of the room with illuminated expressions and I knew I had, as Sparky would put it, "done a good."<br />
<br />Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-65604616468582483062012-06-06T12:50:00.002-07:002012-06-14T15:34:28.004-07:00Communion, of sortsI can hear the impatient foot-tapping, the intermittent sigh, and the awkward 2-foot pacing shuffle outside the stall. There's only one in the women's room, but all the same I'm glad we didn't go for the men's. This woman's irritated discomfort is absolutely tickling me, so maybe it's schadenfreude or maybe it's the simple fact of the public location, but whatever it is, I'm into it. This enthusiasm lends a particular gusto to my work and <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/05/multi-orgasmic-man.html" target="_blank">Bacon</a> has to be extra mindful to check his groans.<br />
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<br /></div>
I love North Beach. I love the strip clubs, the neon signs, the grimy pizza joints, and the shit-hole dives that are cheap and yet rich with literary and cultural history. I love imagining that one of the beat poets might have been on his knees in this very stall 50 years ago. And I, now similarly on my knees, can't help imagining myself linked to them in more ways than one. At least I know as well as they did that in this neighborhood, <b>sleaze is not a spectator sport.</b><br />
<br />
As I exit the stall and face the patiently fuming ladies-room martyr, I playfully wipe the corner of my mouth with fingers whose nails are perfectly painted black. I lock eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something, if she's got something to say to me, but she doesn't. Good. I recognized her as half of the couple that had been sitting next to us in the bar, and chuckle as Bacon and I return to our seats. Not two minutes later, the woman stormed out of the bar and her date followed her in confusion. Maybe she was a tourist to North Beach, harkening from somewhere fancier, like the Marina -- but here? What did she expect?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"So, where were we?"</blockquote>
Bacon can't wipe the grin off his big hairy face. I smile back, having taken great pleasure in satisfying him for the fourth time that night already. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I believe the flowchart of our conversation has been: whiskey, polyamory, marriage, death, motorcycles, suicide, and then fucking in the bathroom." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Ah yes. Well, we better get another round then."</blockquote>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-84401509887901422122012-06-04T16:14:00.000-07:002012-06-04T18:36:33.546-07:00Lost and Found<br />
The exhilaration of screaming my head off at 120 mph with only two wheels and a vibrating death machine underneath me sweeps it all clean. I am assured with a definite clarity that I am alive, if only because at any second I might no longer be. I scream until hoarse, not out of fear -- well, yes, fear -- but also because I'm so fucking happy to exist in these moments that it can't be contained. Igor chuckles evilly at my puny screams as we careen down the highway on his hot red CBR and, feeling generous, pops a wheelie.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_____________ </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"PREPARE TO DIE."</blockquote>
My proclamations are more ironic than anything as Igor and I lose to each other in chess. He grins at me from across the pathetic looking checkered battlefield and considers his equally futile counter-move, eventually choosing the rook.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Thank you for coming with me today."</blockquote>
I finger one of my conquered pawns, a brave lost warrior, as I scan my options silently.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You really mean a lot to me, you know."</blockquote>
I opt for the horse thing, which I move around his horse in a little waltz. Clearly, chess is my game. I sigh and bring up my eyes to meet his searching gaze.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'm glad I finally got to meet your mother."</blockquote>
We had paid her a visit, armed with a dozen pink roses for Mother's Day. He was uncharacteristically quiet, but I didn't wonder why. The weather was beautiful, clear, hot, I could smell the grass. After a long pause, Igor took from the bouquet a single rose, which he presented to me. I wiped at my tears and smiled. He is so brave, even in the face of grief.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She would be so proud of the man you've become."</blockquote>
We held each other for a long time before we hopped on the bike and left the graveyard.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_______________</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
An impromptu hike led us to pad through the redwoods in search of cool water in which to bathe our overheating bodies. Neither of us were appropriately attired, he in his usual steampunk regalia and I in gothic biker leather, but the trees didn't seem to mind. They were too ancient to care and besides, their sentience knows nothing of fashion. It seemed like a good place to talk things through.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I mean, he couldn't possibly be more compatible for you than me, so it's not that I'm threatened." </blockquote>
Part of me accepts his compatibility assessment as truth without question, but the majority of me disbelieves the perceived lack of threat in his mind. I kicked a pine cone with a steel-toed boot.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWIPgeG66ipnYUPe0AGOFpB6-BvsvISIB6z1kAaRJJFNDXv9mpZw5Nwo8SfxIbCxxBtQJbHwZGj7BUCIFis8GnLz3p0H6Mh9OsT7eUcncbhsWvvzXBew2_FxpHacVypcKSGsO0qnGLpSr/s1600/IMG_0699.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWIPgeG66ipnYUPe0AGOFpB6-BvsvISIB6z1kAaRJJFNDXv9mpZw5Nwo8SfxIbCxxBtQJbHwZGj7BUCIFis8GnLz3p0H6Mh9OsT7eUcncbhsWvvzXBew2_FxpHacVypcKSGsO0qnGLpSr/s320/IMG_0699.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
We've known each other for so long, since before we were individuals, it's almost impossible for me to conceive of our relationship in it's entirety. We were kids when we first kissed, and now we have evolved into what Igor calls, "black-belt relationship territory." Sometimes we still act like kids, but I think the key is to be patient with each other, and to know when to say, "I'm sorry."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I love you."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Love you back." </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: center;">_________________</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: center;"><br />
</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="text-align: center;">"Whatever happens tonight, don't fuck me with this."</span></blockquote>
I said this with a stern look on my face as I held up my wooden cocktail muddler. Old Fashioned's are my specialty and for this drink, a muddler is key. It did have a nice rounded dildo-esque shape to the handle, so I assumed it would have crossed his mind. Judging from the smirk that grew across his face as he stared at the tool, I began to realize that I shouldn't have said anything at all. I reasoned in vain.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I don't want... splinters."</blockquote>
<br />
Hours later I found myself bound in industrial saran wrap and lain prone over a large ottoman. My mouth was gagged and I was blindfolded. I was bound so thoroughly in the plastic I could only futilely writhe like a pathetic fuck-larvae as I was being beaten by several hands and fucked by one of our guests. My blindfold was removed as Igor kissed my face. He had something to show me.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"See? No splinters."</blockquote>
He replaced my blindfold and proceeded to fuck my cunt with my cocktail muddler, which he had protected with a condom. I giggled as much as I could in said state, and was awash with love for the insolence that can also drive me crazy.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/search/label/Igor" target="_blank">More Igor!</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The latest and greatest from Seduce and Confuse can be found on the <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">main page</a>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Don't forget to follow us (we just love that)!</i></span></div>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-76769050464006003812012-05-21T19:25:00.000-07:002012-06-04T18:04:45.487-07:00The Multi-Orgasmic Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The environment was impressively well-curated with tasteful prints, a small, respectable library of vintage hardcover volumes by Foucault and Vonnegut among others, curious accoutrements such as brass knuckles, motorcycle mufflers, animal skulls, attractive yet masculine jewelry, and an antique Turkish throw woven from goat hair. However, I wasn't paying attention to any of this as his low growls drove me wild.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Oh, I'm so... yeah... I'm reaching... orgasm..." </blockquote>
My hand slick with spit was working hard as I writhed and purred from the reciprocation of his hands.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Yes, cum..."</blockquote>
Following were a series of grunts that sounded something like:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"No, I'm not cumming, I'm orgasming..." </blockquote>
A deep moan, a slight spasm, barely a second of rest, then he flipped me onto my back and kissed me deeply as he continued to pet my body. His hands and his lips were searching insatiably across me and he was somehow still hard.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Are you... do you... practice <i>tantra</i>?" </blockquote>
He couldn't possibly... The man reeked of cooked bacon.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I've already orgasmed four times."</blockquote>
He was still ready for more. Love drunk, I stroked his beard as he grinned widely.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You know, I think within the last fifteen minutes we've done six different positions..."</blockquote>
I smiled as I pushed him back and climbed on top.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Variety is the spice of life." </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: center;">____________</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I hadn't planned on staying over that night. It was only our third date and I had counted on leaving him wanting more, of being a "lady." Bacon was a gentleman indeed, treating me very sweetly and promenading me around the Mission district arm in arm. As my friend put it when I recounted the tale to her:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"He gentleman'd his way right into your pants." </blockquote>
Indeed.<br />
<br />
I sat on his lap as we smooched, my tiny shorts revealing the entirety of my legs. He pet them softly and kissed me tenderly. After what seemed to be an eternity of sweetly innocent making out, I stood, wavering in my heels and I picked up my purse.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I should get going."</blockquote>
The man stood tall at 6'4" but he looked me straight in the eyes as he slowly took the purse out of my hand and laid it on the ground. With the slow assurance of a man seven years my senior, he carefully picked me up and gently laid me on his large bed. I felt like a precious thing, a fragile bird: he had been so careful not to hurt me. Then he placed a hand around my neck with gentle but firm pressure. He ordered me softly:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You're not going anywhere. Are you?"</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Like it spicy? Then you'll love this post set in Istanbul: <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/02/sweetie-part-ii-snapshot-post-coitus.html" target="_blank">Snapshots</a>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Or check out <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">what's new</a>! </i></span>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-70010893255572660282012-05-08T11:39:00.000-07:002012-06-02T12:33:53.532-07:00Other GirlfriendI would have never chosen to get in bed with this person whose hands and feet I'm trying awkwardly not to touch as they wrap around my lover, but here we are for the second time. The middle man appears to be experimenting with sleeping on his back for egalitarian reasons and I clamp my eyes shut in futile effort to quiet my brain. Once he drifts off and shifts, whose body will he pull close? This isn't the loneliest I've ever felt in a bed with two other people, but it's pretty damn close. <br />
<br />
It's been about a year since Igor and I got together, and I feel it's generally the right time to assess how things are going. At the moment, I'm annoyed and frustrated. I feel pressured to play along, to put in the "work" to make this poly situation function, but I'm realizing that I just don't like what's happening. He can date whomever he wants, but I don't want to be in a relationship with her -- not the kind that involves the intimacy of brushing our teeth together, anyway. She's actually a lovely girl with whom I get along just fine, but I resent feeling consolidated into a single outing or a single bed. I resent that every decision we make together has to be run by her, but then again I am rarely consulted about my feelings. There are a lot of double standards happening, which are hard not to notice when we are both considered equal partners, and it drives me crazy.<br />
<br />
It's hard to resist the thought that even <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/igor-conquerer-of-my-heart.html" target="_blank">while I was doting on him from abroad</a>, he was replacing me. Since getting back, we haven't been as intimate as we once were and he's started doing things with her that used to be our activities. I hardly get to see him, and when I do, she requires periods of extra attention to "make up" for it. I feel like I'm living in her debt, this forced family member, and unfortunately because she affects every decision I make with Igor, she also affects the decision of whether I fight for him, fight to traverse the distance that has come between us in the time I was abroad, or let him slip away, breaking my own heart in the process. <br />
<br />
Conversation with him quickly fluctuated from one extreme to another. We talked about the possibility of cohabitation, which is something that we both admitted to wanting, but when he talked to Other Girlfriend about it, she expressed a familiar and irritating, if understandable, sentiment: "Hey, wait a minute! She maybe gets that? I want that too!" I let him know that if it's always going to be like this, an endless tug of war between two "primary" girlfriends, if we aren't going to move forward, get to spend time together or be sexually intimate, then it won't work for me in the long run. Companionship is a great thing, and we always have the best time together, but frankly I want more.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But you have to appreciate that there's another person who is really important in my life whose feelings I have to consider!"</blockquote>
I appreciate it. I appreciate it so much that if the greatest I can hope for out of our relationship is a sexless triad living situation, I want to let him consider her feelings without having to consider mine. I love him so much, but it wouldn't be the worst thing to acknowledge that our poly styles are incompatible. The worst thing would be living in frustration because we <i>won't</i> admit that they are incompatible. <br />
<br />
My mind wanders to Slater and his chillingly perverted smirk. Him and I talk on the phone frequently and one day we chatted about future plans: maybe we'd meet up in this country or that country, maybe he'd come to California, what kind of work could we find him and how would we live. I'm not sure what's real or what's a fairy tale but all the same, it's intoxicating to think about and I do miss him quite a lot. Maybe hearing it in my voice surprised him, but by the time I got off the phone with Slater, Igor was sulking.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You left part of your heart in Istanbul..." </blockquote>
Maybe. A part. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...and I feel like you are punishing me because I don't believe in getting married and having kids."</blockquote>
Nope. Not punishing. But at this point I firmly acknowledge clear relationship goals including cohabitation, abundant recreation, and yes eventually down the line, procreation. Some people might think that having all that in an open relationship is too much to ask for, which is fine, but I don't want to date those people. I'm confident enough to lay it all out on the table, not to be difficult or punishing, but because I'd simply like my lovers and I to be on the same page. If he isn't interested in the kind of future that I'm after, he shouldn't be surprised when I choose to invest in a relationship with the potential I'm looking for, because all the polytard justification talk in the world couldn't make this corner of the bed less lonely.<br />
<br />
But as I lie there, I try to tell myself to have faith. Give it more of a chance and don't make any rash decisions, rash decisions being my specialty. Play nice and stay positive. As the Shins sung, "you wanna fight for this love, but honey, you cannot wrestle a dove."<br />
<br />
In a gesture of good will, I designed Other Girlfriend a cocktail. Mirroring the nature of our relationship, the drink is somewhat complicated and made with rare ingredients. It's a bit bitter and yet a bit sweet, musky, refined, and chock full of bourbon. <br />
<br />
<u><b>The OG</b></u><br />
Rocks glass, fill with ice<br />
2 oz. bourbon whiskey, stir to melt ice<br />
Several dashes bitters - I use aromatic and orange bitters<br />
1/2 oz. Firelit coffee liquer<br />
1/4 oz. maple syrup, stir well<br />
2 cherries, soaked in brandy<br />
<br />
Flame an orange peel over your cocktail, rub around rim and drop into glass.<br />
Add 1/2 oz. - 3 oz. of club soda, to taste.<br />
Make a silent toast to your lover's lovers and suck it down, Cupcake.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Meet the charming fellows: Igor <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2011/12/labeling.html" target="_blank">HERE</a> and Slater <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/04/doesnt-take-much-does-it.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Want more tough moments in polyamory? <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/distance-emotional-problems-of.html" target="_blank">HERE YOU GO!</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>For something completely different, check out the post <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/bisexual-women-and-cattle-fetish.html" target="_blank">Bisexual Women and Cattle Fetish</a>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>And of course, the latest and greatest can be found <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">on the main page</a>. </i></span>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-88955979174021553502012-04-30T20:04:00.001-07:002012-06-04T18:33:19.761-07:00Flight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8jo2HTnE2-sbkxSu3qquXd9j2d_wJRn7b7xIPnx-XnHW7VlJ8IxBeCqobAZaRI7PzyCcuFK5ZZt4pEL8Y-zdN3kqiljKuy0HVDwC1v4k2RdmStEEuv6rv9jJYG5MIrZ2oa1Bg2BTfP39p/s1600/s&c+suitcase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8jo2HTnE2-sbkxSu3qquXd9j2d_wJRn7b7xIPnx-XnHW7VlJ8IxBeCqobAZaRI7PzyCcuFK5ZZt4pEL8Y-zdN3kqiljKuy0HVDwC1v4k2RdmStEEuv6rv9jJYG5MIrZ2oa1Bg2BTfP39p/s640/s&c+suitcase.jpg" width="628" /></a></div>
<br />
I stood there stupidly, just past Customs with my whole life in tow. It was only a carry-on sized load. All I could do was stare dumbly at the black screen of my phone.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Miss, you have to move on."</blockquote>
Yeah, tell me about it.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Connecting flights to the left, exit to the right."</blockquote>
I almost explained to the guard that I didn't know what I was doing, that I had a big decision to make and many factors to consider. But, too exhausted to find the words, I didn't bother. I went to the right and got in a cab.<br />
<br />
I had knots in my stomach all the way into Manhattan. What was I doing? I had willfully missed my connecting flight out of New York and I didn't have any money to pay a cab. I was trusting the word of a man that I had never met in person who had told me not to worry about it. He was a good friend of a good friend, but still, was I insane?<br />
<br />
When I left Slater in the Istanbul airport, we were both in tears. His were silent, masculine, and graceful, and mine were hot, messy, and snotty with terrible facial contortions and body convulsions as accompaniments. My expressions of grief only worsened as I passed the point of no return and headed toward the boarding gate, his smell still in my hair. It didn't seem possible that in the few weeks we were together that we could fill holes in each others hearts that neither of us knew we had, and yet... there we were. Ripping ourselves out again, cutting the cords, pulling ourselves away before the idea had fully formed, imaginations running wild with the thick spread of idealism and the glitter of day dreams. I took off with a barely brave face streaked with those tears.<br />
<br />
Two glasses of white and a couple painkilling sleeping pills later, I woke up an hour away from New York, having processed nothing. And yet, in that time something emotionally significant had transpired. I left Istanbul behind in an ancient dream universe and found myself literally plummeting forth into another adventure, another city, and another man.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Meet Slater in the <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/04/doesnt-take-much-does-it.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>For more considerations of polyamory and the traveling lifestyle, check out <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/distance-emotional-problems-of.html" target="_blank">Distance: Emotional Problems of Nomadism</a>.</i></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-91029804354854673152012-04-30T20:04:00.000-07:002012-05-06T20:45:02.056-07:00Doesn't Take Much, Does It?<br />Developing further intimate attachments wasn't part of the plan. But in the six weeks by which I extended my Istanbul trip, I lost people in my life back home who were frustrated by my extended absence and irresponsible decision making and I gained a community in Istanbul. Like that Burning Man saying: the playa giveth, the playa taketh away...<br />
<br />
Like I said, attachment wasn't what I was in for, and here he was talking about love. Every other sentence used that loaded word and I heard them being popped off like BB's from a newly acquired air gun. Finally, I felt I had to confront it, though I felt silly for doing so. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When a man loves a woman like this--" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Are you trying to tell me you love me?" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"No... </blockquote>
I guessed I was paranoid and indeed, very silly. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...well, fuck it, yes. Yes, I'm crazy about you. I love you. Which is dumb because I know it's fast, and all it can do is serve to hurt you, but I love you. And I want to tell you all the time."</blockquote>
Not so silly after all. This was the last thing I was expecting to result from our beginnings, which for all purposes should have remained a one night stand. Now it seemed that some investments had been made. I'm not sure that either of us had bargained for that, especially just after my rocky road with Sweetie and my imminent return to the States. That we both knew I was leaving soon put an interesting immediacy on everything we experienced together, but I found him to be surprisingly emotionally forthcoming for an American-raised man: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I feel like I have to show you every thing at once... I mean I want to. But I'm scared, darlin'. And I'm hurtin'." </blockquote>
At first it was innocuous enough. Who seduced who we still quibble about. As he would describe things, I gave him a look that spoke loudly and clearly. He set his sights on me and I tested his persistence with off-handedness. We played a sweet game of cat and mouse and eventually we ended up at my place to chow down on some midnight <i>mantı </i>(Turkish ravioli in a spicy butter and yogurt sauce)<i>. </i><br />
<br />
Next thing I knew, my arms were pinned to the bed. Though I hadn't begun the night "on the prowl", I was happy to play with him. He was handsome and charming enough -- he instinctively knew how to make me laugh. And though he had many physically admirable qualities, being tall, blonde, fit, and Danish, as he pressed into me I found myself distracted in admiration of his teeth. They had character. He was full of character -- he grew up in a traveling circus and continued the charade all the way through the Ivy League. His life had always been fascinating in summary, if lonely in practice, and as an adult he seemed to seek out his fascinations in... adult realms.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"Nothing says 'I love you' like semen on your chest." </b></blockquote>
I was relatively impressed by the perversion leaning towards violence with which he was forthcoming on our first time, and yet I was a bit put off: he was cocky and yet a little cautious in bed. "Can you take this?" he whispered. I rolled my eyes... if he only knew. Granted <i>he didn't</i>, in fact we barely new each other, it was perfectly reasonable that he was checking in and making sure I was OK. But I was hungry for abandon. I purred:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It's OK, you don't have to hold me down."</blockquote>
He tentatively released my wrists. I smiled at him, he smiled at me, and then I slapped him hard across the face. He was stunned.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If I have to piss you off to get you to fuck me like a man, l'll do it."</blockquote>
I caught a glimmer in his eyes as a hungry smile spread across his face. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Well alright then darlin'. I guess I don't need any more permission than that, do I?"</blockquote>
His voice sounds just like Christian Slater circa True Romance. Our rhythm quickened and ferocity increased. Sedated with the pleasure of being taken voraciously by a Hollywood B-list daydream, I didn't hit him again.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
____________</div>
<br />
A couple weeks later, our story had evolved into that of star-crossed Istanbulus: a charming <i>Cihangir</i> guy fate had paired with a somewhat feral <i>Tarlabaşhi</i> girl. The irony of the situation didn't escape Slater: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Sometimes I think to myself: I want to show you off. But then I think: you're going to scare people. So then I consider: who can take it, and who do I hate?"</blockquote>
Some of his expat friends weren't so bad, I admit, but furthermore, Slater was not immune to my criticisms. He lived in Turkey for a year and didn't know the word for "apple" in Turkish, but I liked him anyway. Like I said, I didn't mean to get attached, but these things tend to happen, don't they?<br />
<br />
However the stress from the time compression of our relationship began to express itself in tense ways. When the flame of my sex drive was more engulfing than his, he would make an offhanded "slut" joke or comment that, depending on my mood, would hurt my feelings. Once he asked me why I was wearing clothes and so in obedient response, I started to take them off -- to which he said: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Doesn't take much does it?"</blockquote>
I guess it's easiest to hurt those who care. But why did I care so much? <br />
Igor has a theory which he calls my "super power", an effect against which mortal man is helpless. According to his observation, a person will fall madly in love with me and the "spell" will last two months. For that period of time, they will become enraptured and hopelessly enamored. After, they will wake up as if from a fever dream and back away with a self-protecting ferocity, as if to suggest I were akin to the deadly but alluring sirens sung about by bards such as Homer. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"By my estimation, Slater has about two more weeks. Then he's gone."</blockquote>
But of course this effect isn't one-sided. I guess Igor is sick of witnessing me get hurt. It seems like a bleak prediction, but Igor tends to be more accurately observant than I give him credit for. I'm willing to keep it in mind as I see how the long distance aspect of my relationship with Slater pans out, also keeping in mind that perhaps he is thinking wishfully. Whenever I mention Slater to Igor, his commentary is usually:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I want to punch that guy in the throat." </blockquote>
Despite the cattiness my male lovers exhibit towards each other, I'm fairly confident that if they met, they would get along splendidly. But regardless of that, the thing that gives me greatest hope for my distance-cleaved relationship with Slater is what he said to me when I couldn't find the words to return his professions of adoration: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You don't have to tell me you love me for me to know that it's true. They're just words, after all."</blockquote>
That is the kind of confidence that makes me in turn confident.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Who the hell is Igor? Meet him <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2011/12/labeling.html" target="_blank">HERE</a> (and get intimate <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/igor-conquerer-of-my-heart.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>).</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>For more nihilistic relationship adventures in Turkey, read this post: <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/gypsy-love-curse.html" target="_blank">Gypsy Love Curse</a>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The latest from Seduce and Confuse can be found <a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>, I promise. </i></span>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-79322552829725852172012-04-12T15:57:00.000-07:002012-06-04T18:13:16.208-07:00Hunting Bambi<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“So, you come to these things
often?”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What a line. Sparky clearly
has a way with women. Bored and annoyed, I wrote my review of her off-handed
seduction techniques in the form of bar snacks (<i>çerez</i>) thrown at her head. <o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Ow. Ow! So... you’re a pianist?”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKWjGWZW-qKBQVi2RA4w0-JsN3uc6ZUOp9830gQeOqKcmtfuRHlTO0RqD_FAUJjr6LvJVmrEAAJyxiIr4Ot1vxyUM1AsTdSr7wq83x5Mo06nA5K77t5XzUpgavH_Zm5DAFokSklxo1TLFt/s1600/bambi.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKWjGWZW-qKBQVi2RA4w0-JsN3uc6ZUOp9830gQeOqKcmtfuRHlTO0RqD_FAUJjr6LvJVmrEAAJyxiIr4Ot1vxyUM1AsTdSr7wq83x5Mo06nA5K77t5XzUpgavH_Zm5DAFokSklxo1TLFt/s320/bambi.jpeg" width="284" /></a>She ignored me and the flying pistachios admirably and
kept on luring the wide-eyed little thing into her experienced bisexual lech. With that knowing smirk, she may as well have been asking, “Would you like to
have your first lesbian experience, little girl?” To me at the time, it was
disgusting. What could possibly be
interesting to Sparky about this Girl Scout cookie? She was the kind of person
who’s name I would forget before she even finished introducing herself, and the
way she was dressed, it was as if she was trying to force me to
underestimate her. She had her mousy blond hair back in a ponytail and was
sporting a light pink sweatshirt paired with baby blue sneakers. She looked
like a twenty-year-old infant. There were many things wrong with the scenario,
but I got stuck on the sneakers.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Sneakers? SNEAKERS?”<br />
“Yeah, whatever, lots of people
wear sneakers."<br />
“Yeah, athletes and children.
She didn’t look like an athlete, so that makes YOU a fuckin’ perv.”</blockquote>
I was being needlessly
critical, I admit. Sparky sighed into a reminiscent smile.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Didn’t you just fall into
those big, doe-like eyes?”<br />
“I wanted to hit her with a
car.”</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s how we came to name her, and
others of her kind, Bambi.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
________</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Expat parties are an
excellent hunting ground for Bambi’s -- those cute, fresh off the boat girls
who just graduated college and came abroad to do the first interesting thing in
their lives, which after getting their hearts broken once or twice by the
charming locals, usually devolves into teaching English and hanging out
exclusively with other expats. Lets get one thing straight: I am a traveler, not
an expat. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is an expatriate? And
expatriate is a person who temporarily or permanently leaves their country and
culture of upbringing to terrorize a foriegn one. As a
function of their emigration, expats define themselves by their dissatisfaction. Most of them make a living teaching English and they seem to hang out mostly
with each other, inventing incestuous little fuck circles in whatever country they
infest. For further entertainment, they come up with other annoying amusements such as theater groups reeking of mediocrity
and pub quiz trivia nights in all too expensive bars. They congratulate themselves
on their internationality while never bothering to learn much of the local language
or culture. Their adopted country is an organism off which they simply feed,
all the while doing their best to recreate their homeland and inherently
representing it, usually in an unflattering light with their bad cocktail of entitlement
and cultural insensitivity. These embarrassing ambassadors come from all over the
world, but when I find myself stuck at a loud and obnoxious pub quiz with drunk
people spilling beer and arguing about George Lucas factoids while blank faced Turks
look on with that same bored and slightly insulted lack of expression that I recognize
from also having to serve people I despise, I can't help but sigh and think: "This
is why the world hates Americans."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
When in a sea of expats, hunting Bambi’s provides an
excellent distraction from my fiery disdain. Besides, it’s good for me to maintain
a certain level of sociability, even in “enemy” territory. Sparky has since
illustrated to me that <b>the pleasure in corrupting the innocent is like pissing on a
freshly fallen and undisturbed bed of snow.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
________</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Several nights later, I
stumbled into a bar to meet Sparky. I was two hours late and dragging in a girl
by her tits. <o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Whattya think of this Bambi
I brought ya? I bet she’d fuck us both, the little slut.”</blockquote>
I slurred, not trying to flatter myself in the least.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I dunno man. She’s not
wearing sneakers. Sneakers kind of do it for me, Bambi-wise, remember?”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wavering in my seat, I looked
over my prey. I had already soul-slaughtered her and moved on to the victory
parade wherein I offered her up to the scavengers as leftover kill. She was a hot mess
with eyeliner was streaming down her face. I followed these black trails up
puffy cheeks to two big wild eyes that expressed mixed emotions of humiliation and
gratitude for the attention. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of the time, I work hard
to be considerate of others, thoughtful, aware, and well spoken. But sometimes despite my efforts, I prove myself to be the most
fucked-up asshole I know. On these occasions, I abandon my better, more articulate self and get in bed with a stranger to my standards who acts with wild selfishness. I don’t always get away with the crap I pull, but when I do, I
wonder how. Amazingly, friends like Sparky have a high tolerance for my bullshit and
chauvinism, even a certain revelry in it.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You
wan ‘er in sneakers? I’ll put ‘er in some fuckin’ sneakers. Let’s go, sugar tits.
Daddy’s gonna get you some new shoes.”</blockquote>
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">For hot girl-on-girl action, check out the post <b><a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/bisexual-women-and-cattle-fetish.html" target="_blank">Bisexual Women and Cattle Fetish</a></b>.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">The latest from <b>Seduce and Confuse, </b><a href="http://www.seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></i>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-72834966549617580072012-04-10T18:01:00.000-07:002012-06-04T18:16:25.521-07:00Disorder and the Cure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmJwrbRaLM_fgmi-SprnPRcSFMj68kiMVOykWtkU3SsyXj394vyXgmhhZHipJbAMuFaS49qzk6FtFwNnKVIJfsX-CkA8y-UYI1UvMTdTiu_w_8DQnrHbcUSpJd_mggOvtcO6eKFlXnZmf/s1600/antidepressants-celexa-cardiac-dysrhythmia-arrhythmia.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmJwrbRaLM_fgmi-SprnPRcSFMj68kiMVOykWtkU3SsyXj394vyXgmhhZHipJbAMuFaS49qzk6FtFwNnKVIJfsX-CkA8y-UYI1UvMTdTiu_w_8DQnrHbcUSpJd_mggOvtcO6eKFlXnZmf/s320/antidepressants-celexa-cardiac-dysrhythmia-arrhythmia.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
Even at rest, my heart is pounding uncomfortably. My mouth is dry, and my stomach is churning itself into knots. I realize in surprise that for once I don't feel like doing the following things: eating dark chocolate, watching porn, or talking to literally anyone. I don't feel much like existing but like all things, I know this will pass. I have to remain calm. I have to acknowledge my diagnosed psychopathological condition as being a medical reality and not a slight against my existence or validity as a human being, and I absolutely have to take my medication.<br />
<br />
I'd been off of it for a couple months now, or at least I think so. At some point I lost track. Memory problems are a symptom of major depression, I'm not surprised when I have large black outs in my timeline. Most times I can't even remember what I did two days before, and not in a cute kitten-brained kind of way, in a way that sometimes terrifies me. I focus until it hurts, but I just can't access the information. I've forgotten more than I've ever learned, and that is why I like to write things down, make lists. I've written journals since kindergarten, proof that it's always been this way. I am sometimes congratulated for living in the moment, but for me I'm afraid that's all there is, there is no big picture. Each journal is a pained volume in a large narcissistic collection of tainted, disparate, and flawed points of view. <br />
<br />
I can feel it exploding in my heart and brain: the medicine that doesn't keep me from drinking but keeps me from getting drunk, doesn't keep me from fucking but keeps me from reaching orgasm, doesn't keep me out of trouble but keeps me in check. Maybe I should have started back into it with a half dose, but I was too scared to think of it. Yesterday I scared myself, because yesterday I experienced rage. Not just intense anger: real, consuming, violent, irrational rage.<br />
<br />
Why did I ever stop taking the meds? Perhaps I was convinced that the Turkish generic was somehow making me sick -- I'm no stranger to hypochondriac mind-cycles, so this wouldn't surprise me. I remember sobbing in an ER, reporting a "terrible skin condition" that neither the doctor nor Angel could see, both of them staring at me slack-jawed, wondering with what kind of gloves to handle a seemingly cracking mind.<br />
<br />
I think I got greedy. I wanted to feel something more than detached anxiety, I wanted to cum, I wanted to overcome the nervousness, and I wanted to enjoy eating again. But all of those desires, human as they might be, were instantly overcome when like a zombie chimp I lashed out at a loved one in rage. My partner laughed at how riled up I was getting because it was ridiculous. But then I saw red and was unable to control myself as I screamed bloody murder and thrust forth at my demons with my clenched fists until he stopped laughing. Unfortunately I can't attack the phantoms of my mind with claws and fists because, unlike my partner, they aren't made of flesh and blood.<br />
<br />
Immediately after the intense bout of temporarily enhanced insanity passed, I rested my forehead in my hand, pressing my temples with my thumb and forefinger. I thanked the universe for the restraint my passenger seatbelt had provided and I became painfully aware of the embarrassment of the situation, of having spiraled so far out of control. "Not again..." I remembered the last time this happened and then promised myself to get a prescription refill. "Never again."<br />
<br />
I hate the way the medicine makes me feel at first: jittery, with hot flashes in my face, and unreasonably amplified bouts of paranoia, which would seem contrary to its intended effect. I can feel my heart beating all the way down in my stomach and looking at food makes me feel sick. I don't want to talk to anyone or make a single facial expression, I feel trapped and restless. I have a mild headache and an intense thirst which cannot be quenched. But all of these combined complaints don't compare to the weight of the guilt for lashing out physically or the fear of what I could have done if I were stronger, unrestrained, or if the fit had lasted longer. <b>Notes on dating: assault is usually "deal breaker" material.</b><br />
<br />
It's important that I don't feel sorry for myself or beat myself up. When I first started taking meds years ago (what was that first one, Lithium?) every time I saw the pill in my hand, I saw defeat and confession. I couldn't hold it together and at least one person with a lot more schooling than me felt fairly confident that I was "crazy." But I can't think like that. It's just a serotonin deficiency. A person with a heart condition needs to take medicine in order to continue to live a healthy life, and this mental condition is different only in that empirical test-based diagnoses don't yet exist and as a result often go dismissed or invalidated. I get told by friends and family that I don't really <i>need</i> therapy or psychiatric medication, but I've learned that it's important not to let others minimize the severity with which I should care for my mental health simply because they can't relate to my experience. Many people can't, but often refer to the vocabulary describing these experiences flippantly. Depression isn't common situational sadness, it's a medical disorder, one that has been affecting my life and my relationships for too long.<br />
<br />
There is no cure. There is only management, which at best is a tedious match of pharmaceutical Russian roulette. I was afraid to be medicated again because of how it might affect my visual/performance art or my written work, but now I'm too afraid of being without it. I have to look past these side effects, think of my friends and family, and tell myself lovingly, "Time to be brave, sweetums," as I put the gun to my temple and hope for the best.Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4680595306773922482.post-71618841003902813482012-03-29T03:41:00.000-07:002012-07-16T00:48:26.134-07:00Sexuality in the World [Aggregate]Things are going well for me these days. Though I fly home in less than a week, I'm reminding myself that the adventure never ends. I'm gearing up for excitement that the summer brings, such as presenting at San Francisco's polyamory conference <a href="http://www.open-sf.org/" target="_blank">Open SF</a>, as well as wrapping up here in Istanbul and reflecting on my experiences over the last three months. My mind is buzzing.<br />
<br />
In the meantime as I collect my thoughts, there are a number of fascinating reads I've come across that I find to be worth sharing: some of them illustrate more objectively what I've already written about quite experientially, and others bring to light phenomena of sexuality in a world view that shouldn't go unconsidered. Context is everything!<br />
<br />
Articles are arranged loosely by these categories:<br />
Gay Rights in Military, Perverse World History, Women in North America, and International Gender-fuck.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>GAY RIGHTS IN MILITARY</b><br />
<br />
• <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17474967" target="_blank">Proving you're gay to the Turkish army</a>, by Emre Azizlerli<br />
In my post <a href="http://www.seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/02/enterprising-on-bigotry.html" target="_blank">Enterprising on Bigotry</a>, I wrote about the transvestite prostitution racket in Istanbul and how it survives, flourishes even, due to the Turkish conception of homosexuality -- a strict definition requiring that one be the sexually "receiving" partner to be considered gay, and perhaps additionally have a preference for women's cosmetics. I also mused on the strong presence of a lesbian community in this very unique part of the Muslim world and mentioned the process of avoiding mandatory military service if one is gay. Well, here you have it, put forth by BBC News Magazine, accounts of the humiliation and weird procedure one must face to avoid being put forth on the front lines or potentially bludgeoned to death by fellow soldiers behind closed doors. But classifying this issue as gay "rights" is a little misleading: homosexual exemption from serving in the military is not to the end of protecting a gay citizen from prejudicial violence and attack, rather he looses his right to serve once he proves that he has what is considered in Turkey to be a psychosexual disorder. Doctors are forcing themselves to pathologize sexuality and empirically prove preference to please the government, using such evidence as photographs of the "patient" wearing a women's clothes and notes of his favorite perfume. If that fails, one must conduct the most awkward photo-shoot ever, of which the resulting captions would seem to read:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Who has two thumbs, loves some anal sphincter-ramming butt sex, and lives in fear of violence and disownment? THIS GUY."</blockquote>
<br />
<b>PERVERSE WORLD HISTORY</b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
• <a href="http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=195" target="_blank">The Silk Rope and the Golden Cage</a>, by Curious Expeditions<br />
"Bring me the fattest woman in the world!"<br />
Though I'm not usually one for history lessons, this account of unbridled lust, filthy luxury, and brutal blood baths in the Ottoman Empire is truly a fascinating read. The post <a href="http://www.seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/bisexual-women-and-cattle-fetish.html" target="_blank">Bisexual Women and Cattle Fetish</a> quotes Sparky relaying a morsel of this fascinating history, and this is a source she later provided.<br />
The take away lessons are that men in power can be children, the women in their lives will then naturally but secretly rule, and also, beware of eunuchs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>WOMEN IN NORTH AMERICA</b><br />
<br />
• <a href="http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/" target="_blank">Schrödinger's Rapist</a>: or a guy's guide to approaching strange women without being maced, by Phaedra Starling<br />
The other night I found myself out dancing with a male friend. We had a good time, and at the end of the night, he kindly walked me home. We shared a smootch or two, after which I said, "Good night, see you later." Having had a different idea in mind, the man didn't take the hint that I wanted to be alone and hung around dopily trying to paw me. He was then hurt and shocked when I flat-out but kindly asked him to leave. His tactic for increasing his sex appeal? Complaining like a child told to go to his room.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But <i>why</i> don't you let me sleep with you? I want you, I'm attracted to you, and you are making me feel rejected!" </blockquote>
English is not his first language, so he actually said these awkward, stilted words. It would seem that I am painting him to be a caricature simply to serve my feminine indignation, but I promise you, I am not.<br />
I replied to these pathetic whines without pity.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>Because</i> I'm not your mother. It's not my job to make you feel good about yourself. I'm also not your whore, so it's not my job to fuck you."</blockquote>
Some might say that I overreacted a bit. I was incensed when he resisted my request for privacy, and although I knew I was in the right, I couldn't quite articulate exactly why other than in this insulted reactionary tone. However, Starling's <a href="http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/" target="_blank">Schrödinger's Rapist</a> hits the nail on the head, and gently at that. Addressed to the good natured, if perhaps clueless, man who wishes to find love and/or companionship in the realm of the unknown, it highlights several issues that may explain to him why his attentions aren't always reciprocated or immediately applauded. To some of us these considerations may seem obvious, but unfortunately, as has been demonstrated, this kind of awareness is not universal. <br />
<br />
Though my personal example was with an acquaintance and not a stranger, the ideas still apply, especially when one considers that many women are raped by men they already know and don't see as a threat.<br />
<br />
• <a href="http://being1732.com/?p=11269" target="_blank">Will Activist Law Student Group That Backed Fluke Condemn Chapter's 'Slut-Pride' Celebration</a>, by Snips<br />
No need to read this one, here is a SUMMARY:<br />
Respectable Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who I've written about in my post <a href="http://www.seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/slut-shaming.html" target="_blank">Slut Shaming</a>, and her stance on contraception and insurance coverage is backed by nationwide organization LSRJ. Harvard's chapter of LSRJ will sponsor (in part) workshops at the school's Sex Week, an event based on education and positivity training. One such workshop, presented by Good Vibrations, has the words "Slut Pride" in the title. The question posed by the article is: will this language stand with the organization as a whole?<br />
<br />
While I think this particular article is snarky, sex/sex-education negative, and written with mediocracy at best, I find the question of language for insult vs. empowerment to be an interesting consideration. Progressively "reclaiming" a word, as in the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUC675a4us0" target="_blank">Vagina Monologues</a>' treatment of the word "cunt" or as in many "Slut-Pride" events and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol-ND8oQREc&feature=related" target="_blank">slut walks</a>, is successful when target audiences (read: everyone, everywhere) understand the context of the protest against the word's use as degradation and its newly spun meaning of empowerment for all women, regardless of style of dress or behavior. However, in the attempt to de-escalate the meaning of these words, there is an issue in that taken out of context, these attempts may preemptively familiarize the words in society as an acceptable label for women -- especially as long as that society is neo-puritanical, regressive, and contains personalities such as Rush Limbaugh who is too dense to understand that, similar to the treatment of the "n-word," these are things that he is not allowed to call women. In short, many people are simply <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InCbA4FjQbc" target="_blank">missing the point</a>.<br />
<br />
Can we expect people to know the difference between what we may call ourselves in jubilation and what they may call us in degradation? Should we popularize events named "Slut-Pride," thus popularizing the language in society, perhaps before its time? These are questions better worth pondering.<br />
<br />
• <a href="http://virgietovar.weebly.com/1/post/2012/01/cleavage-shaming.html" target="_blank">Cleavage Shaming</a>, by Virgie Tovar<br />
Virgie Tovar is fat positivity activist with a MA in Human Sexuality and a fellow presenter at <a href="http://www.open-sf.org/" target="_blank">Open SF</a>. Though I don't share her enthusiasm for fashion, I enjoy her writings, particularly <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvirgietovar.weebly.com%2F1%2Fpost%2F2011%2F10%2Flove-sex-mental-illness.html&ei=CC90T6GbFI2cOoXggE0&usg=AFQjCNGDEnEDZSkQv2AXyZKovA5upnxWOg&sig2=9J9c-2tm0XbDFtOiozvkCg" target="_blank">Love, Sex & Mental Illness</a>, which was originally published by Good Vibrations Magazine.<br />
More immediately relevant is her post Cleavage Shaming. I was tickled upon its discovery for the contrast it provides: shamed for displaying a certain amount of cleavage (measured in inches) and ignored as a legitimate sexual being, Tovar's experiences are one extreme in the slut-shame spectrum at which the other end is Sandra Fluke and her battle for reproductive rights. The simultaneous contrast and similarity of their situations at first seem ridiculous, but the bottom line is that they are all legitimate examples of sexism, and additionally in Tovar's case, sizeism -- which is something that I (admittedly) had rarely considered before reading her work.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>INTERNATIONAL GENDER-FUCK</b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
• <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15262680" target="_blank">The Afghan girls who live as boys</a>, by Tahir Qadiry<br />
Another by BBC News Magazine, examining families in Afghanistan who dress and raise young girls as boys. Reasons for doing so include appearing to live up to the pressure of social expectation to produce male offspring, bringing luck to the family, or having the children work in the street selling wares with relatively increased safety. The children live this cross-gendered life until they become "of age," at which time they must cover their hair. Some of them, however, resent this game of musical genders:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If my parents force me to get married, I will compensate for the sorrows of Afghan women and beat my husband so badly that he will take me to court every day."</blockquote>
• <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KgS3G9W-XM" target="_blank">Sworn Virgins - Albania</a> (video)<br />
Kosovo is a small, young, Balkan country born out of what was formerly southern Serbia's cultural Albanian community declaring its independence as a nation in a bloody war of identity after the collapse of Yugoslavia. As I have mentioned before, and will likely someday tell about in greater, juicier, detail, I moved there for some time for the same reason most people do anything stupid: for love. During this time, I became acquainted with certain aspects of Albanian culture, the least of which are not blood feuds that last for generations and a predilection for nightly alcohol consumption of impressive volume and morose tenor.<br />
<br />
Most interesting to me was the phenomena of "sworn virgins" -- women who swear celibacy, take on the male gender and all of its performative aspects such as clothing, social interaction, and mannerisms. In doing so, they may live and work with the respect and freedom usually only afforded to men in northern Albanian culture. Motivations for making this social sex-change (sans operation) are generally related to providing support for their family, who may be missing a male care-taker figure as a result of illness or blood-feud killings. It is important to note that sworn virginity is strictly about gender and not about sexuality. As the video points out, gender is a sticky issue in Albania, usually a thick dividing wall between binaries, which makes sworn virginity even more fascinating.<br />
<br />
It's a long video, so here are some highlights:<br />
0:00 - 2:00 - Introduction to Albania's blood feuds<br />
2:00 - 2:55 - "There are still a few living relics of blood feuds past" - introduction to sworn virginity<br />
2:55 - 5:22 - Interview with Qamile, a sworn virgin<br />
4:59 - A photograph is shown of the 90 year old sworn virgin and her young female relative in a wedding dress that illustrates a chasm between a gender's performance in a striking way<br />
5:06 - On Albanian women and vengeance:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Although women appear to be the innocent victims here, the country's leading blood-fued expert says that it is in fact Albanian women that keep revenge culture alive: '<b>Women don't forgive</b>.'"</blockquote>
Ain't that the goddamned truth.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">For more link-TASTIC aggregation, check out <b><a href="http://seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/2012/03/slut-shaming.html" target="_blank">Slut Shaming</a>.</b></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Find the latest from <b>Seduce and Confuse</b> <a href="http://www.seduceandconfuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. You know you want to. </i></span>Grotesque_Humanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02027342811310913498noreply@blogger.com0