I have long prided myself (maybe a clue there?) on not being a "joiner." I've never felt a compulsion to be part of a group, and have always been something of a loner. I don't see this as either a good or bad thing in and of itself, although a friend recently observed that as I only involve myself in groups in which I am or expect to be the leader, mayhaps there's a bit of arrogance and ego involved? I'm not sure - haven't really set that as a focus to explore, yet. Maybe someday. The truth of the matter is that when I find myself in groups I generally wind up in charge. My therapist has mentioned "charisma." We also discuss "arrogance" a lot. One and the same? I don't think so, but maybe there's a correlation...
Anyway, at my AA meeting this evening one of the members shared, again, his experience with a sponsor who had more than 40 years of sobriety, and who "went back out." That's AA speak, by the way, for "fell off the wagon." That would certainly be humbling. But what I found humbling tonight and find humbling at every meeting I go to is being in a room full of people who, through the gifts of the program, personal perseverance and resilience, and the grace of God (as they understand him/her/it), manage to rack up five, and ten, and twenty, and, yes, forty and more years of sobriety. If you've not wrestled the demon, you have no real way of understanding how truly awe-inspiring a feat this is for those of us who have. Wow!
Anyhow, my point in starting this was that, while I didn't go to AA to become part of a group, I find myself being just that. Not a leader, nor intending to be. Just another lowly drunk gathering with a bunch of other lowly drunks helping each other get through today. And loving it...
AA is about the most democratic sort of group one could imagine, with an openness and honesty and lack of agenda or judgmentalism that I don't know could be achieved in any other environment. I think this is largely because every one of us has, to a large degree, been where the others have been - spent enough time on the same destructive path that we come in the door with the same sort of camaraderie that combat veterans share. Shedding the self and the ego is one of the core components, and every person in there who understands the program in the slightest, understands that each and every one of us, from the shaking smelly first-timer to the grizzled half-century veteran, is exactly the same. One drink away from being "back out there"...
I've found myself more and more dodging opportunities to involve myself with my old circles, mostly political types. Not because I don't like or love them or believe in the cause anymore, because I do. Rather, its because I don't want to lead and don't know how to follow. So I take the third course and just get the hell out of the way. And I don't really miss it for the most part, even though for the longest time and in many ways my main reason for living...
I am thrilled to see many I mentored into political activism becoming effective leaders, and even more to see these mentoring more and more newcomers. I'm remiss to warn them that political activism is an addiction unto itself, because I understand the passion they feel and know the world will be better for them doing what they're doing than if it weren't being done at all. And they'll outgrow it, eventually. We all do. Politics is a grueling avocation that eats up the weak and wears out the strong...
They tell me I'm missed, and I appreciate that immensely. And I know that if I jumped back in I could do some good. What I know now, though, that I didn't know then, is that the world keeps spinning along just fine without me trying to run it or fix it. Truth be told, I was never, or at least not for long, really a part of the group. I was always at the forefront, leading some fight or other, because it was where I wanted to be, and where, for the most part, folks wanted me to be. Arrogance? Charisma? I don't know. The fact of the matter is, I know now, that if the fight is worth fighting, someone will step forward to fight it. And, as likely as not, it will be someone younger or stronger or both, better prepared, more talented, and less burdened than a tired old drunk doing his best to just stay upright on the wagon as it rolls along.
For me, I'm content to chart a new course, seek new understanding, focus on winning my inner battles and leave the others for others. And to spend a few hours a week hanging out with a courageous group of folks who damn sure don't need me to lead them anywhere, and who wouldn't follow if I were arrogant enough to try...
Kind of liberating, this humility thing.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Sins of the Parents
My therapist says that we spend the first 20 years of our lives being screwed up by our parents, who didn't really know any better, and the second 20-30 years screwing up our own kids, because we don't either. The vast majority of us get so busy starting marriages and families and careers and such, that we haven't the time or inclination to engage in introspection. Somewhere around mid-life, most people reach a transition point, which often manifests itself as a "mid-life crisis" or some such. I think that's where I am right now - not in crisis, but certainly in a bizarre and confusing transition mode. Its decidedly exciting, often painful, but occasionally filled with wondrous moments of enlightenment and understanding...
So, having started this post last night before I began surfing the net and finding out that the chickenshit Governor of AZ actually signed that state's anti-Hispanic race-war bill, I'm supposed to be thankful? Actually, in a perverse way I am, because I was going nowhere fast trying to write about some pretty deep internal stuff that I've barely begun to process. But, as luck would have it, and as often happens these days, I woke up with a bit of an epiphany regarding the correlation between my personal tale and what is taking place in this country. And while its going to take me a while to sort through and understand my personal psychological and familial history and how that affects my present state of being, we have loads of research an analysis on U.S. and AZ history, the history of migration and immigration that has led to the current state of affairs in that state and the nation. And certainly, it is easy to say that unresolved issues on the personal and familial front are only a microcosm of those which have our nation teetering on the brink of violent revolution...
Gangs of New York? No shit? That's what I woke up to playing in my mind this morning. Now you need to understand, I am not a big movie watcher or fan. I really am frightfully immune to POP culture, don't know the names or roles of actors or actresses, designers or entertainers, etc. I am totally unaffected by advertising, be it radio, TV, print, billboards. That world just slides past me like background noise. Gangs of New York? Really? Yep, really...
What is going on in AZ right now is a localized reaction to a national phenomenon, notwithstanding the stark reality that the U.S. has a very real problem with illegal immigration, border security, etc. I believe it is safe to say that our porous borders are in fact an integral part of our free market system, as is the flow of illegal labor and illegal goods. If there is no demand, the supply dries up. This is Adam Smith and John Locke stuff, friends. Americans demand cheap labor, and Arizona is trying to stem the flow of this resource. How un-American is that?
Yet, in a very real way, what Arizona is doing is as American as the annihilation and subjugation of our indigenous people from the earliest settlers, the fierce and violent resistance to the Micks and the Wops and the Chinks and the Krauts. the Spics, of course, and every other group of "them" which has striven to reach our borders and shores. We have a fine and well chronicled history of nativists who appoint themselves the true Americans and fight tooth and nail against newcomers, intruders, interlopers. Immigrants. As though God created the world, partitioned off America, peopled it with Aryans, and said, "This is good." So sorry, and not sure what you learned in school, if anything, but it didn't happen that way. Not even sort of...
This is about economics, true. But its also about race, notwithstanding the vehement denials of Tea Party activists and other xenophobes. And for anything in America to be about race at the outset of the 21st century should be major cause for pause. Have we not learned anything from our past errors, our history, our nature? Can we not, finally, grow up and see this country for what it really is, and for what it might be?
America today is a boiling cauldron of racial tension. If we are a melting pot, as is often suggested, why are we not melting? Is it that the heat hasn't been high enough? If that's been the case, I assure you we're rapidly reaching the boiling point...
The election of Barack Obama, while uplifting to many of us, was like the thunderclap of Armageddon to far too many whites. And the current economic hard times are generating the same violent anti-immigrant reaction that has manifested itself during every steep economic downturn in our and other nation's histories. The difference here, however, is that a subset of the progressively dwindling white majority is feeling more and more threatened, as the superiority which it has enjoyed since it first stepped foot on these shores carrying its thundersticks and its insatiable lust for land and wealth diminishes year by year. A lust, I should add, which isn't limited to pale skinned Europeans but which was and is totally alien to indigenous peoples throughout the world. Whites like to think that we worked a great deal in bartering for Manhattan with the natives, but in their minds, the goods they got were invaluable, as they had no access to such luxuries in their own local economy, while the whole concept of "owning" land was as alien to them as designer handbags are to me.
My closing point on the upcoming race wars in America, in which I dearly hope my darker-skinned brethren will let me play on their team, is that America is never going to be all that it can and should be, unless and until we overcome, once and for all, the archaic, outmoded and destructive concept of race and racial purity. And this necessity to abandon our native cultures and allow ourselves to truly blend fully and completely into something uniquely and admirably American is not limited to Anglos, but to all who aspire for our nation to be healthy and whole, once again and for better reason a beacon to the rest of the world. Only when we are forced to go to scholars and historians to understand the roots of this music or that dish or this bizarre custom or holiday, and where the whole concept of race takes on a curious, quirky, and altogether archaic hue, will we know that we've arrived...
...and so I came to realize that, much more than I ever could possibly have imagined, my subconscious worldview was significantly shaped by, of all things, being raised Roman Catholic in the Protestant Bible-belt south. Really! When yours is the only family on the block whose children attend parochial school, who eat fish on Fridays, who go to mass every single day, who don't go to Vacation Bible school and church camp (where I'm pretty sure they all lost their virginity), you can't help but think of yourself as different. And my mother regaled us with tales of the abuse the Catholic kids suffered in her Depression-era Midwest farm-belt childhood. I never in a million years would have imagined that that upbringing would have created in my subconscious a sense of "otherness," a sort of siege mentality that played a role in my erection of very stout defensive walls in my psyche. Certainly, there are other and probably more meaningful influences that have made me the screwed up individual that I am, but this one was more major than I ever realized...
I know just how those frightened Anglos feel, feeling their birthright slipping away. The Catholics are fighting the same battle and ironically for much the same reasons. In my case, they wound up with one less member, and now I'm getting over those useless and destructive feelings. There is a path for all who seek it...
Life is interesting, no?
So, having started this post last night before I began surfing the net and finding out that the chickenshit Governor of AZ actually signed that state's anti-Hispanic race-war bill, I'm supposed to be thankful? Actually, in a perverse way I am, because I was going nowhere fast trying to write about some pretty deep internal stuff that I've barely begun to process. But, as luck would have it, and as often happens these days, I woke up with a bit of an epiphany regarding the correlation between my personal tale and what is taking place in this country. And while its going to take me a while to sort through and understand my personal psychological and familial history and how that affects my present state of being, we have loads of research an analysis on U.S. and AZ history, the history of migration and immigration that has led to the current state of affairs in that state and the nation. And certainly, it is easy to say that unresolved issues on the personal and familial front are only a microcosm of those which have our nation teetering on the brink of violent revolution...
Gangs of New York? No shit? That's what I woke up to playing in my mind this morning. Now you need to understand, I am not a big movie watcher or fan. I really am frightfully immune to POP culture, don't know the names or roles of actors or actresses, designers or entertainers, etc. I am totally unaffected by advertising, be it radio, TV, print, billboards. That world just slides past me like background noise. Gangs of New York? Really? Yep, really...
What is going on in AZ right now is a localized reaction to a national phenomenon, notwithstanding the stark reality that the U.S. has a very real problem with illegal immigration, border security, etc. I believe it is safe to say that our porous borders are in fact an integral part of our free market system, as is the flow of illegal labor and illegal goods. If there is no demand, the supply dries up. This is Adam Smith and John Locke stuff, friends. Americans demand cheap labor, and Arizona is trying to stem the flow of this resource. How un-American is that?
Yet, in a very real way, what Arizona is doing is as American as the annihilation and subjugation of our indigenous people from the earliest settlers, the fierce and violent resistance to the Micks and the Wops and the Chinks and the Krauts. the Spics, of course, and every other group of "them" which has striven to reach our borders and shores. We have a fine and well chronicled history of nativists who appoint themselves the true Americans and fight tooth and nail against newcomers, intruders, interlopers. Immigrants. As though God created the world, partitioned off America, peopled it with Aryans, and said, "This is good." So sorry, and not sure what you learned in school, if anything, but it didn't happen that way. Not even sort of...
This is about economics, true. But its also about race, notwithstanding the vehement denials of Tea Party activists and other xenophobes. And for anything in America to be about race at the outset of the 21st century should be major cause for pause. Have we not learned anything from our past errors, our history, our nature? Can we not, finally, grow up and see this country for what it really is, and for what it might be?
America today is a boiling cauldron of racial tension. If we are a melting pot, as is often suggested, why are we not melting? Is it that the heat hasn't been high enough? If that's been the case, I assure you we're rapidly reaching the boiling point...
The election of Barack Obama, while uplifting to many of us, was like the thunderclap of Armageddon to far too many whites. And the current economic hard times are generating the same violent anti-immigrant reaction that has manifested itself during every steep economic downturn in our and other nation's histories. The difference here, however, is that a subset of the progressively dwindling white majority is feeling more and more threatened, as the superiority which it has enjoyed since it first stepped foot on these shores carrying its thundersticks and its insatiable lust for land and wealth diminishes year by year. A lust, I should add, which isn't limited to pale skinned Europeans but which was and is totally alien to indigenous peoples throughout the world. Whites like to think that we worked a great deal in bartering for Manhattan with the natives, but in their minds, the goods they got were invaluable, as they had no access to such luxuries in their own local economy, while the whole concept of "owning" land was as alien to them as designer handbags are to me.
My closing point on the upcoming race wars in America, in which I dearly hope my darker-skinned brethren will let me play on their team, is that America is never going to be all that it can and should be, unless and until we overcome, once and for all, the archaic, outmoded and destructive concept of race and racial purity. And this necessity to abandon our native cultures and allow ourselves to truly blend fully and completely into something uniquely and admirably American is not limited to Anglos, but to all who aspire for our nation to be healthy and whole, once again and for better reason a beacon to the rest of the world. Only when we are forced to go to scholars and historians to understand the roots of this music or that dish or this bizarre custom or holiday, and where the whole concept of race takes on a curious, quirky, and altogether archaic hue, will we know that we've arrived...
...and so I came to realize that, much more than I ever could possibly have imagined, my subconscious worldview was significantly shaped by, of all things, being raised Roman Catholic in the Protestant Bible-belt south. Really! When yours is the only family on the block whose children attend parochial school, who eat fish on Fridays, who go to mass every single day, who don't go to Vacation Bible school and church camp (where I'm pretty sure they all lost their virginity), you can't help but think of yourself as different. And my mother regaled us with tales of the abuse the Catholic kids suffered in her Depression-era Midwest farm-belt childhood. I never in a million years would have imagined that that upbringing would have created in my subconscious a sense of "otherness," a sort of siege mentality that played a role in my erection of very stout defensive walls in my psyche. Certainly, there are other and probably more meaningful influences that have made me the screwed up individual that I am, but this one was more major than I ever realized...
I know just how those frightened Anglos feel, feeling their birthright slipping away. The Catholics are fighting the same battle and ironically for much the same reasons. In my case, they wound up with one less member, and now I'm getting over those useless and destructive feelings. There is a path for all who seek it...
Life is interesting, no?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Yin and Yang Online...
So, as anyone who reads this or any other blog is, in fact, part of the online community, today seems especially apropos to discuss the ups and downs of social networking. This week has been particularly instructive for me...
It all began several months ago when I encountered through a friend's Facebook thread a woman who seemed relatively insightful and compassionate, an ardent self-proclaimed Christian, yet one who seemed to manage to extract Jesus' true message from her reading of the Bible. While she didn't seem as dogmatically liberal as most of my political cohort, she was vehemently opposed to the approach and message of hate-spewing, vitriolic right-wing fundamentalist so-called Christians, and I am always fascinated by people willing to break out of traditional molds. After dialoguing with her for some time, through Facebook, email, and a few phone visits, I came to realize that she was a pretty troubled individual with a painful past and present, and that she was putting a bit too much of herself into her online relationship with me, and to my extended online community to which I'd introduced her. Additionally, before I fully realized what I was dealing with, I'd inappropriately shared with her far too much intensely personal information about myself and my family - a slip that would prove costly.
Without going into painful and excruciating detail, something as yet unknown set my FB "friend" off last week that, in an incredibly brief period of time, turned into the meanest and most vitriolic online attack and battle that I have ever personally witnessed or been involved with. The end result was a slew of pointed, hate-filled warfare, de-friending, blocking, etc. that proved very draining and hurtful for many parties, myself and my family among them...
When I told my therapist some time back about my online activity, she pronounced that Facebook and social networking were evil, that she didn't believe anything good could come of it, that it allowed people to create false impressions of relationships as substitutes for real relationships, and that her professional experience had convinced her that there was nothing healthy to be had in this arena.
I will be sharing this experience with my shrink at our next session, and asking her if there is any quick and easy way to recognize a malignant narcissist through either online or direct communication. I am generally considered a good judge of character, but, having failed so miserably in this instance, I hope she says yes and shows me the way. I'd just as soon not relive this experience in either the virtual or real world any time soon...
On the flip side, last night my mate and I joined more than a dozen "friends" whom we'd "met" at various times over the past year or so through Facebook - the vast majority of whom had never met or even spoken to any of the others in the real world. While most but not all were local, living as we do in a metropolitan area of more than 5 million people I am quite confident that, while we might have occasion to be in the same general area, perhaps even at the same venue at some point, there is very little likelihood we would have ever actually spoken to one another, come to realize our commonalities, and thus made the conscious effort to step out of the online world and into the real world to bring our "friendships" into the sort of full realization that is difficult nigh unto impossible online.
Notwithstanding the rather frenzied last minute effort required to change venues of our event to avoid the possibility of the aforementioned psychobitch showing up with her chrome plated Taurus .38 (yes, there really should be a law, but this is Texas, after all) to spoil our fun, the night went off without a hitch. We enjoyed a wonderful evening of meeting and getting to know - yes, really know, new friends. We enjoyed good food and drink, humor, laughter, music - all the sorts of human interaction that can't really be experienced through network apps, but that also wouldn't have been possible were it not for this strange new medium of online interaction that previous generations never had.
The moral I'm taking away from the story? Just as in every other aspect of our lives, there is indeed a yin and yang online. It is as unavoidable as the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the crests and troughs of the ocean's waves. Social networking, like anything else, can have its positives and negatives, and is thus inherently neither good nor evil. Anything which becomes an obsession, of course, will in the end have a damaging effect; be it a real or imagined friendship, a hobby or pastime, politics or religion. I would argue that there is no substitute for face-to-face human interaction, but equally that, on a planet of 7 billion souls, most of whom we'll never meet and which includes some very interesting critters, that the opportunity to interact with a much broader array of humanity, to learn about diverse people and cultures and philosophies and psychologies, is incredibly expanded by the online world. This is not an opportunity that I would willingly forego, but one which should be approached with eyes wide open...
And, as in all things except love for our fellow beings, moderation is a virtue.
Namaste
It all began several months ago when I encountered through a friend's Facebook thread a woman who seemed relatively insightful and compassionate, an ardent self-proclaimed Christian, yet one who seemed to manage to extract Jesus' true message from her reading of the Bible. While she didn't seem as dogmatically liberal as most of my political cohort, she was vehemently opposed to the approach and message of hate-spewing, vitriolic right-wing fundamentalist so-called Christians, and I am always fascinated by people willing to break out of traditional molds. After dialoguing with her for some time, through Facebook, email, and a few phone visits, I came to realize that she was a pretty troubled individual with a painful past and present, and that she was putting a bit too much of herself into her online relationship with me, and to my extended online community to which I'd introduced her. Additionally, before I fully realized what I was dealing with, I'd inappropriately shared with her far too much intensely personal information about myself and my family - a slip that would prove costly.
Without going into painful and excruciating detail, something as yet unknown set my FB "friend" off last week that, in an incredibly brief period of time, turned into the meanest and most vitriolic online attack and battle that I have ever personally witnessed or been involved with. The end result was a slew of pointed, hate-filled warfare, de-friending, blocking, etc. that proved very draining and hurtful for many parties, myself and my family among them...
When I told my therapist some time back about my online activity, she pronounced that Facebook and social networking were evil, that she didn't believe anything good could come of it, that it allowed people to create false impressions of relationships as substitutes for real relationships, and that her professional experience had convinced her that there was nothing healthy to be had in this arena.
I will be sharing this experience with my shrink at our next session, and asking her if there is any quick and easy way to recognize a malignant narcissist through either online or direct communication. I am generally considered a good judge of character, but, having failed so miserably in this instance, I hope she says yes and shows me the way. I'd just as soon not relive this experience in either the virtual or real world any time soon...
On the flip side, last night my mate and I joined more than a dozen "friends" whom we'd "met" at various times over the past year or so through Facebook - the vast majority of whom had never met or even spoken to any of the others in the real world. While most but not all were local, living as we do in a metropolitan area of more than 5 million people I am quite confident that, while we might have occasion to be in the same general area, perhaps even at the same venue at some point, there is very little likelihood we would have ever actually spoken to one another, come to realize our commonalities, and thus made the conscious effort to step out of the online world and into the real world to bring our "friendships" into the sort of full realization that is difficult nigh unto impossible online.
Notwithstanding the rather frenzied last minute effort required to change venues of our event to avoid the possibility of the aforementioned psychobitch showing up with her chrome plated Taurus .38 (yes, there really should be a law, but this is Texas, after all) to spoil our fun, the night went off without a hitch. We enjoyed a wonderful evening of meeting and getting to know - yes, really know, new friends. We enjoyed good food and drink, humor, laughter, music - all the sorts of human interaction that can't really be experienced through network apps, but that also wouldn't have been possible were it not for this strange new medium of online interaction that previous generations never had.
The moral I'm taking away from the story? Just as in every other aspect of our lives, there is indeed a yin and yang online. It is as unavoidable as the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the crests and troughs of the ocean's waves. Social networking, like anything else, can have its positives and negatives, and is thus inherently neither good nor evil. Anything which becomes an obsession, of course, will in the end have a damaging effect; be it a real or imagined friendship, a hobby or pastime, politics or religion. I would argue that there is no substitute for face-to-face human interaction, but equally that, on a planet of 7 billion souls, most of whom we'll never meet and which includes some very interesting critters, that the opportunity to interact with a much broader array of humanity, to learn about diverse people and cultures and philosophies and psychologies, is incredibly expanded by the online world. This is not an opportunity that I would willingly forego, but one which should be approached with eyes wide open...
And, as in all things except love for our fellow beings, moderation is a virtue.
Namaste
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Sex Sux!
Warning: This post will absolutely contain graphic materials unsuitable for tender minds or uptight prudes. 'nuff said...
So, those few readers who know me fairly well know that I love sex. So, what the hell's with the title anyway? Well first, being a guy, I can safely say that the worst sex I ever had wasn't awful. We guys are really pretty simple that way. So, no. As an act or an experience or a hobby or an avocation, sex is pretty darn good. But as a currency of exchange? Not so good...
Let's back up a moment. You know, sometimes, a thought comes into our heads fully formed. Just, bam! There it is. A-Z. Spit it out, verbally or on paper or on the keyboard & screen, a few minutes edit and we're good to go. This one, though? More like a blind person in unfamiliar terrain encountering a large irregular unknown object. I bumped into it from three or four directions before I realized it was all one and the same. The first bump was a few weeks back, during some lightweight walking meditation. A thought suddenly came to me that I could kind of, sort of, almost maybe a little get my mind around this voluntary celibacy thing. Now for me, that's weird. Celibacy, I mean. And my thinking suddenly I get it? Too strange. But I do, at least in the spiritual contemplative sense...
Let's admit, first, that for the vast majority of people, the most intense natural pleasure one can feel, for however concentrated a time, and excluding drugs, is the orgasm. It is the escape from reality to beat all escapes from reality. Now, if it happens to be with someone you're in love with and hopelessly attracted to, and the setting is right, and the circumstances perfect, and the timing ideal, and everyone in the game has pushed all the right buttons in all the right sequences with all the right pressure for just the right intervals, we might swear we've "slipped the surly bonds of earth," to quote the Gipper, who borrowed it from aviator poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Of course we haven't, we've just suffered a temporary sensory meltdown, following the triggering of every single nerve and muscle in our body. Who knew toes could really curl that way? Wow!
Point is, most humans have certain habits and activities and experiences which bring them particular pleasure, and it is normal to seek to repeat or duplicate these. The addict isn't able to control this urge - it is a compulsion. But in a real sense, as relates to sex, for everyone but the sex addict (no, we're not going there in this post), that's just a matter of degree...
So, if you, like I, accept the Buddhist notion that desire is the root of all suffering, and if we admit that the perfect sexual encounter resulting in the most spectacular of orgasms and afterglows and fireworks and rainbows and bluebirds singing afterward is a very elusive goal with the most fleeting of rewards, then you must admit that life would simply be simpler without it, and foregoing it would free up so much psychic and spiritual energy to put toward more productive pursuits and achievable objectives.
Don't get me wrong. I have no plans of going there. I just get it, as much as one can "get" anything one hasn't experienced...
Which brings me to the second bump in the dark room, triggered by a post of a Facebook friend a awhile back, querying whether, given the chance, respondents would voluntarily change genders, if they knew that they could change back without any negative repercussions. I didn't just say yeah. I said, hell, yeah! Because you know what? I've been trying to understand how women work, sexually speaking, for more than 35 years now, and I still don't have it all worked out. I mean most of it, sure, and I like to think better than most guys because I'm just curious that way, and stubborn as hell. But still, there is absolutely no way for a male to understand what a female is feeling, much less understand what she's thinking, during that magic dance we call sex. And vice-versa. And that sucks. Doesn't it?
Which brought me to the third bump, which occurred when I was visiting with some gay friends, during which visits we do not discuss sex. Why? You know, I don't really know. I think I would be cool with it. The conversation, I mean. I'm so straight that gays, many of whom I dearly love, are as much a mystery to me as straight women, but I totally get lesbians. How weird is that? Dude, I love women, they love women. Hello? Oops, sidetrack. Anyway, coming out of my visit with these gay friends, I suddenly thought to myself, sort of like the celibate thing, that I could get, from a sexual standpoint, the attraction. Ok, maybe not the attraction, but the compatibility, if that makes sense. I mean, men are all plumbed the same way, and we are S-I-M-P-L-E. I mean, really. And we all feel pretty much the same thing, physiologically. And, because we know what feels good for us, and why, we should be able to, err, relate? Yeah, relate to what a same sex partner is feeling at any point, more than an other sex partner ever could. Ditto women, notwithstanding the fact that women are just way, way more complex, in every way possible.
So, now that we have some background, sex as a currency of exchange, sucks. And yes it is, and everyone knows it is. This was brought triply home the other evening when a friend and I were at a local festival, sans dates or spouses, and were being hit on shamelessly by semi-soused, apparently well-off married women who seemed to have trouble keeping their boobs covered or their hands to themselves. Dudettes, you're married. What is it you're looking for that you don't have at home? Aha, now we're talking sexual market economics - something we can all understand, if we're brave enough. So, are you coming with me?
So, let's say you're walking down the street and somebody walks up and offers you a fistful of rupees or shekels or dinars or won or yen or... You get the drift. You have no clue what its worth. Fortunately, there is a global currency market for global currency. Now let's say that you find yourself nekkid (or not yet, take your time. Enjoy yourself. No hurry...) and you're handed the mission of making your partner feel as good as you possibly can. Yeah, call me crazy if you want, but I've always found the best sex is about giving. But still, we are totally clueless. Effective communication can only occur when there is a point of shared understanding. Now, I know I'm not offering a bunch of answers tonight - you know I much prefer questions. But I will spill a few beans about guys in hope that my lady reader friends might be compelled to reciprocate, thus enlightening the male readership and making the world a happier place for everyone...
First, guys don't want anything for sex. They/we just want sex. And we're really simple that way. This is pretty much always true. Okay, I'm making an assumption regarding my gay friends, but am guessing its not that different. (Damn, I really do need to talk with them about sex, now. Am suddenly curious...hmmm) Anyway, we don't want anything but sex, and we don't think while we're having sex. About anything. Except sex. And sometimes, not even that. Okay, now that I think of it, that's probably an oversimplification. I'm saying sex but am meaning intercourse. If we're doing anything else, we're thinking. A lot. Like, how the hell does this thing work? Like, does she like this? Really like it? Or is she just trying to make me feel good? Does it feel good for her? Should I be going faster? Slower? Harder? Softer? Oh! My!! God!!!
Yes, its true that when partners are together long enough, and if they communicate really well, and if they care, and if they're giving and generous and honest, eventually they learn what works. Hopefully. Or do they? Or do they only learn what they think works, because their partner finally got tired of trying to communicate something that can't really effectively be communicated? No, I'm not the only one who wonders these things. Again, men being simple, women know. The converse is not true...
Is it fair that men are all built pretty much the same? Which, as I mentioned before, is simple. Basic. All out there. We have maybe ten erogenous zones if we're really self-aware, and only care about two or three. Usually the same two or three. Women have about a million, and every woman is different, likes something different, prefers more or less pressure, this or that position, one sequence versus another. And no, we know you're not trying to be difficult. Its just nature's little joke to counterbalance our disgusting simplicity...
Which wouldn't matter, much, really. Except that, as I mentioned before, women use sex as currency, at least much of the time. Sometimes, at rare points and in rare circumstances, they just want sex. More often, they may be trading for something simple like love, or security or a little peace and quiet- if I just give him what he wants maybe he'll go to sleep and let me work on the grocery list. Or it might be for a new car or a diamond ring or a trip to Aruba or marriage until death do us part. Which is generally about security and hopefully about love. The problem is, currency values fluctuate in the real world, and in the sexual world they fluctuate wildly. There's stress and outside pressure and phases of the moon and age-induced physiology changes and maybe you're already married and you've got the diamond ring and you've just gotten back from the trip to Aruba and that's paid for already dammit and leave me alone you clueless clumsy buffoon. And of course these aren't always conscious, so when your partner asks what wrong you may not know and you may tell him so and he may believe you and he may not. And, did I mention, that he's really, really very simple when it comes to sex?
Anyway, here's what I think goes on in the mind of half-soused married women who can't keep their boobs in or their hands to themselves, and in many cases in the minds of their male counterparts as well. I think that maybe, just maybe, they're foolishly hoping to recreate somehow that perfect experience they had once upon a time but haven't in a long time when with they were with someone they were in love with and hopelessly attracted to, and the setting was right, and the circumstances perfect, and the timing ideal, and everyone in the game pushed all the right buttons in all the right sequences with all the right pressure for just the right intervals, and they swore they'd "slipped the surly bonds of earth." The perfect sexual encounter resulting in the most spectacular of orgasms and afterglows and fireworks and rainbows and bluebirds singing afterward. And it took two days for that cramp in their toes to work itself out...
Alcohol, I'm afraid, does not make fantasies come true...
Disclaimer: I've been married for almost thirty years, probably have as good a sex life as any of the few couples I know who've made it as far as we have. So no, hon, this isn't about you. Now come back to bed, you silly thing...
So, those few readers who know me fairly well know that I love sex. So, what the hell's with the title anyway? Well first, being a guy, I can safely say that the worst sex I ever had wasn't awful. We guys are really pretty simple that way. So, no. As an act or an experience or a hobby or an avocation, sex is pretty darn good. But as a currency of exchange? Not so good...
Let's back up a moment. You know, sometimes, a thought comes into our heads fully formed. Just, bam! There it is. A-Z. Spit it out, verbally or on paper or on the keyboard & screen, a few minutes edit and we're good to go. This one, though? More like a blind person in unfamiliar terrain encountering a large irregular unknown object. I bumped into it from three or four directions before I realized it was all one and the same. The first bump was a few weeks back, during some lightweight walking meditation. A thought suddenly came to me that I could kind of, sort of, almost maybe a little get my mind around this voluntary celibacy thing. Now for me, that's weird. Celibacy, I mean. And my thinking suddenly I get it? Too strange. But I do, at least in the spiritual contemplative sense...
Let's admit, first, that for the vast majority of people, the most intense natural pleasure one can feel, for however concentrated a time, and excluding drugs, is the orgasm. It is the escape from reality to beat all escapes from reality. Now, if it happens to be with someone you're in love with and hopelessly attracted to, and the setting is right, and the circumstances perfect, and the timing ideal, and everyone in the game has pushed all the right buttons in all the right sequences with all the right pressure for just the right intervals, we might swear we've "slipped the surly bonds of earth," to quote the Gipper, who borrowed it from aviator poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Of course we haven't, we've just suffered a temporary sensory meltdown, following the triggering of every single nerve and muscle in our body. Who knew toes could really curl that way? Wow!
Point is, most humans have certain habits and activities and experiences which bring them particular pleasure, and it is normal to seek to repeat or duplicate these. The addict isn't able to control this urge - it is a compulsion. But in a real sense, as relates to sex, for everyone but the sex addict (no, we're not going there in this post), that's just a matter of degree...
So, if you, like I, accept the Buddhist notion that desire is the root of all suffering, and if we admit that the perfect sexual encounter resulting in the most spectacular of orgasms and afterglows and fireworks and rainbows and bluebirds singing afterward is a very elusive goal with the most fleeting of rewards, then you must admit that life would simply be simpler without it, and foregoing it would free up so much psychic and spiritual energy to put toward more productive pursuits and achievable objectives.
Don't get me wrong. I have no plans of going there. I just get it, as much as one can "get" anything one hasn't experienced...
Which brings me to the second bump in the dark room, triggered by a post of a Facebook friend a awhile back, querying whether, given the chance, respondents would voluntarily change genders, if they knew that they could change back without any negative repercussions. I didn't just say yeah. I said, hell, yeah! Because you know what? I've been trying to understand how women work, sexually speaking, for more than 35 years now, and I still don't have it all worked out. I mean most of it, sure, and I like to think better than most guys because I'm just curious that way, and stubborn as hell. But still, there is absolutely no way for a male to understand what a female is feeling, much less understand what she's thinking, during that magic dance we call sex. And vice-versa. And that sucks. Doesn't it?
Which brought me to the third bump, which occurred when I was visiting with some gay friends, during which visits we do not discuss sex. Why? You know, I don't really know. I think I would be cool with it. The conversation, I mean. I'm so straight that gays, many of whom I dearly love, are as much a mystery to me as straight women, but I totally get lesbians. How weird is that? Dude, I love women, they love women. Hello? Oops, sidetrack. Anyway, coming out of my visit with these gay friends, I suddenly thought to myself, sort of like the celibate thing, that I could get, from a sexual standpoint, the attraction. Ok, maybe not the attraction, but the compatibility, if that makes sense. I mean, men are all plumbed the same way, and we are S-I-M-P-L-E. I mean, really. And we all feel pretty much the same thing, physiologically. And, because we know what feels good for us, and why, we should be able to, err, relate? Yeah, relate to what a same sex partner is feeling at any point, more than an other sex partner ever could. Ditto women, notwithstanding the fact that women are just way, way more complex, in every way possible.
So, now that we have some background, sex as a currency of exchange, sucks. And yes it is, and everyone knows it is. This was brought triply home the other evening when a friend and I were at a local festival, sans dates or spouses, and were being hit on shamelessly by semi-soused, apparently well-off married women who seemed to have trouble keeping their boobs covered or their hands to themselves. Dudettes, you're married. What is it you're looking for that you don't have at home? Aha, now we're talking sexual market economics - something we can all understand, if we're brave enough. So, are you coming with me?
So, let's say you're walking down the street and somebody walks up and offers you a fistful of rupees or shekels or dinars or won or yen or... You get the drift. You have no clue what its worth. Fortunately, there is a global currency market for global currency. Now let's say that you find yourself nekkid (or not yet, take your time. Enjoy yourself. No hurry...) and you're handed the mission of making your partner feel as good as you possibly can. Yeah, call me crazy if you want, but I've always found the best sex is about giving. But still, we are totally clueless. Effective communication can only occur when there is a point of shared understanding. Now, I know I'm not offering a bunch of answers tonight - you know I much prefer questions. But I will spill a few beans about guys in hope that my lady reader friends might be compelled to reciprocate, thus enlightening the male readership and making the world a happier place for everyone...
First, guys don't want anything for sex. They/we just want sex. And we're really simple that way. This is pretty much always true. Okay, I'm making an assumption regarding my gay friends, but am guessing its not that different. (Damn, I really do need to talk with them about sex, now. Am suddenly curious...hmmm) Anyway, we don't want anything but sex, and we don't think while we're having sex. About anything. Except sex. And sometimes, not even that. Okay, now that I think of it, that's probably an oversimplification. I'm saying sex but am meaning intercourse. If we're doing anything else, we're thinking. A lot. Like, how the hell does this thing work? Like, does she like this? Really like it? Or is she just trying to make me feel good? Does it feel good for her? Should I be going faster? Slower? Harder? Softer? Oh! My!! God!!!
Yes, its true that when partners are together long enough, and if they communicate really well, and if they care, and if they're giving and generous and honest, eventually they learn what works. Hopefully. Or do they? Or do they only learn what they think works, because their partner finally got tired of trying to communicate something that can't really effectively be communicated? No, I'm not the only one who wonders these things. Again, men being simple, women know. The converse is not true...
Is it fair that men are all built pretty much the same? Which, as I mentioned before, is simple. Basic. All out there. We have maybe ten erogenous zones if we're really self-aware, and only care about two or three. Usually the same two or three. Women have about a million, and every woman is different, likes something different, prefers more or less pressure, this or that position, one sequence versus another. And no, we know you're not trying to be difficult. Its just nature's little joke to counterbalance our disgusting simplicity...
Which wouldn't matter, much, really. Except that, as I mentioned before, women use sex as currency, at least much of the time. Sometimes, at rare points and in rare circumstances, they just want sex. More often, they may be trading for something simple like love, or security or a little peace and quiet- if I just give him what he wants maybe he'll go to sleep and let me work on the grocery list. Or it might be for a new car or a diamond ring or a trip to Aruba or marriage until death do us part. Which is generally about security and hopefully about love. The problem is, currency values fluctuate in the real world, and in the sexual world they fluctuate wildly. There's stress and outside pressure and phases of the moon and age-induced physiology changes and maybe you're already married and you've got the diamond ring and you've just gotten back from the trip to Aruba and that's paid for already dammit and leave me alone you clueless clumsy buffoon. And of course these aren't always conscious, so when your partner asks what wrong you may not know and you may tell him so and he may believe you and he may not. And, did I mention, that he's really, really very simple when it comes to sex?
Anyway, here's what I think goes on in the mind of half-soused married women who can't keep their boobs in or their hands to themselves, and in many cases in the minds of their male counterparts as well. I think that maybe, just maybe, they're foolishly hoping to recreate somehow that perfect experience they had once upon a time but haven't in a long time when with they were with someone they were in love with and hopelessly attracted to, and the setting was right, and the circumstances perfect, and the timing ideal, and everyone in the game pushed all the right buttons in all the right sequences with all the right pressure for just the right intervals, and they swore they'd "slipped the surly bonds of earth." The perfect sexual encounter resulting in the most spectacular of orgasms and afterglows and fireworks and rainbows and bluebirds singing afterward. And it took two days for that cramp in their toes to work itself out...
Alcohol, I'm afraid, does not make fantasies come true...
Disclaimer: I've been married for almost thirty years, probably have as good a sex life as any of the few couples I know who've made it as far as we have. So no, hon, this isn't about you. Now come back to bed, you silly thing...
Saturday, April 3, 2010
What's love got to do with it?
Ok, I told everyone last week that I would blog on this topic this week. And I was kind of sort of onto a good plot last week and might be tomorrow, but I just spent 4 straight hours on my less than fancy schmancy bike, and I'm sore and not thinking too clearly. I did have a few thoughts on the topic while riding, however, so will share them with you. And yes, I know, haiku isn't done in stanzas. These aren't stanzas - they're separate haiku. If you feel like putting them together, I can't stop you, and am frankly too tired to try.
Happy Passover, Easter, Nowruz, Holi or whatever you celebrate this season. But by all means, celebrate something!
Second Chances
Great meeting last night
Talk turned to second chances
Glad that I got mine
Spring Ride
Riding by the stream
Children laugh at diving fowl
Spring flowers dancing
Passover
Late Seder feast
Noodle Kugel, Matzoh balls
Family thankful
Love
People often ask
What has love to do with it?
I say, "I don't know."
Happy Passover, Easter, Nowruz, Holi or whatever you celebrate this season. But by all means, celebrate something!
Second Chances
Great meeting last night
Talk turned to second chances
Glad that I got mine
Spring Ride
Riding by the stream
Children laugh at diving fowl
Spring flowers dancing
Passover
Late Seder feast
Noodle Kugel, Matzoh balls
Family thankful
Love
People often ask
What has love to do with it?
I say, "I don't know."
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