Poly, Weakly: Episode 376 (What's a sociopath? I'll show you in less than 15 minutes)

-It's only 14 minutes long.  Thank you, Jesus!  Wait, LG has Jesus hair. Hmmm.
-Hey guys, they're getting hand-fasted in Costa Rica.  It's in Costa Rica!
-Letter from a secondary who's partner's wife is dying and wants the secondary to bow out.  CM says she's been in this situation before.  I spit take before she can clarify that it's
just like when Graydancer's wife wanted her to keep her filthy whore hands of of their family silverware (worded based on the tone used.  She may have meant dirty homewrecker paws.
Just editorializing).  Point Minx.
-According to LG, anyone else's opinion "including the wife's, are only worth so much".  Listen close and you can actually hear the sound of CM's elusive conscience knocking.  Seriously,
listen to minute 6:10.  You can hear her sharp intake of breath.
-Whew, crisis narrowly averted.  CM compares this to her being willing to step in recently to fuck LG when his wife was feeling ill.  Minx, I've got the Nobel committee on the phone!  Their
sociopathy-based award has its first nominee.
-Nine minutes in.  Minx says LG just said something wise.  He wisely agrees with that assessment. The wisdom bursts from this podcast like a moist fart.
-The Happy Poly Moment has adults in tribes eating pizza while wearing footie pajamas.  Apparently, no ghost stories were told.  Happy Poly Moment my ass.
-Hey guys, they're getting hand-fisted on the beach in Costa Rica!  It's in Costa Rica!  Apparently this is the show's new tagline.  It's still worlds better than "It's not all about the
sex".
-Another minute of this episode and I would have been test-fitting my mouth for a .45.  Seriously.  I've done three in one night.  Put me down like a gimped racehorse.

Poly, Weakly: Episode 375 (Mommy, where'd the winter coat money go?)

-LG claims he used to make adult videos and that resulted in angry viewer mail.  Who the fuck writes in to people in porn? "Dear Ms. Hartley, regarding your last double anal scene, I
feel that you're interactions with your fellow thespians rang hollow..."
-Also, LG in porn.  Thank G-d I'm drinking and therefore numb to the effects of those words.  Sobriety, this is why we cannot meet.
-CM announces that she's doing something different this week by turning the light on her relationship.  She turns the spotlight on herself.  Bask in it, folks.  It ain't coming around
again soon.  Oh, there it is.  And again.  Look kids, Big Ben!
-Hey guys, they're getting hand-fasted in Costa Rica.
-LG just compared himself to Henry V.  They're both pale and bearded, I guess.  Point LG?
-They're doing this on the beach.  In Costa Rica.  With friends.  "Oh, and L, of course."  That really was the line, no BS.  Also, no homo, as I've seen LG's pictures.
-Apparently L didn't even pretend to give a shit.  L has apparently agreed to tie them together.  Take my husband; please!
-They talk about searching for rings.  My level of give-a-shit reached the point where I was ready to tie their hands together as well.
-Even the ring designer told them to fuck off and just go buy an antique. CM appreciated that LG didn't care about her ring choice.  How considerate.
-LG congratulates himself for being so cool about the ring shopping thing.
-CM congratulates LG for being so cool about the ring shopping.
-LG concurs with CM's praise of him in the ring shopping.  He likes her liking him.  Does this count as a triad?  Does this count as a Happy Poly Moment?  Either way, I'm bored.
-Blah blah; something from Sweden about polys.  Fuck it.  Someone gave the podcast $150! Take that, Scandinavia!  Minx get's excited about this in the way she only gets about
donations.  Meanwhile, the donor's kids ask if they'll be getting the reduced-price school lunches next year as well.
-Yeah, it just got dark.

Poly, Weakly: Episode 374 (Mistakes couples make when getting into poly: this episode could be one of them)

-I'm going into this knowing it's going to be rough.  I'm doing back-to-back episodes today.  Pray for me.
-This is an episode about mistakes couples make when opening up.  How would CM know?  Seriously?
-Someone named Marcia Baczynski is talking about her educating people venturing into poly.  She also did something with "Cuddle Party" in the name.  Salt grains applied.
-Marcia has some good points to make, but seriously, what are her bona fides beyond an e-book and cuddle parties?  Oh, she has a degree in PR.  Well, the poly community
could use a PR sense.  And a stylist.  No more fedoras and Michael Bolton hair.
-Tristan Taormino's name gets dropped on poly podcasts like Wil Wheaton's at a D&D convention.
-Fuck.  Twenty-one minutes in and I give up.  I've always been able to power through before, but I just see this as 55% of the way into a banal, taupe-colored hell.  The
final straw was her kissing up to CM.  Oh you're right.  No you're right.  They blow each other into one big smug ouroboros.
-Jesus, it's minute 23 and I'm still here.  Why do I keep hurting myself?  Is it so I can feel?
-They were just saying that mistake number four is that people feel like they have to be the perfect poly partner, even when they're not feeling it.  Then it pivots to
something about a martyr complex, CM thinks that some of her partners couldn't do poly, unlike her.  Couldn't hear the dialog clearly, as the audio went smug.
- A self-taught life coach who charges a grand for cuddle therapy talking with a self-taught social media consultant about how people should do relationships.  We've reached bullshit
critical mass.  A giant imploding brown star.  Midway through this, words are losing meaning.  It just became babble.  As someone who once had his teeth viciously stomped into a curb by
an angry Texas cop, this ranks only slightly lower among life experiences I'd prefer not to repeat.  What I'm saying is, if this podcast was any longer, I'd be shouting, "Bring it on,
Trooper Butterfield!"
-CM closes by panhandling.  Why leave a crumb of dignity on the table?  I say this while listening to this podcast so I can post this to a blog that focuses way too much on this. FML.

Poly, Weakly: Episode 373 (They carried her on their shoulders; you should have seen it)

-CM tries to sex-up the word "blow-out"; the result is actually less sexy that a straight line reading.
-CM is podcasting from bed and then feels the need to tell us that it's less sexy than it sounds.  How does she do that?
-"Coming down the pipe," she said.  She could read erotica and it would sound like software source code being read through a loudspeaker by Ben Stein.
-She tells us that she will only take sponsorships that help the listeners.  Why take money unless it helps people?  Unless it's just panhandling.  That's still cool, right?  Right.
-She's doing this for us, who enable her con trips with donations.  Way to send conflicting messages, Minx.
-"We, activists".  There goes another term stripped of all meaning.
-Minx used to teach communications?  I can only picture her in a 70s community college classroom, wearing all denim and teaching CB etiquette.  Am I the only one?  Whatever,
liars.
-At 10:16, "Damn straight, take their money!"  Ladies and genitals, we have a new show tagline.
-Minx, when you have to say, "and this is funny," it's not. Ever.
-And this is where the podcast gets interesting!  See what I did there?
-She attended a lecture on monetizing talking and writing about sex.  Minx by way of Archer's Pam Poovey, "Sploosh!"
-Oh, it's not her goal at all, she laboriously explains, but man-oh-man did this lecture have some great stuff and yes, she took copious notes.
-"If your audience wants you to keep coming on the face, then keep coming on the face,"  so yes, audience she's been coming on your face.
for nearly 400 episodes.  It's empowering!?  No, that explanation always rang hollow, even here.
-She relays some really good information regarding assumptions about sex workers.  I wish I had heard the original lecture.  Seriously.
-Minx participated in an event where they tell stories on stage about sex, no notes.  She told a story about anal sex.  Okay.  Turns out it got the most riotous
laughter of anything she has ever done.  The crowd probably foisted her on their shoulders and carried her out like Rudy.  Oh, and she forgot to record it.
-The callers.  Oh sweet Jebus, one of them sounds way too much like my father-in-law.  Just as long-winded.  Oh never mind, he has a job.  Crisis averted.

Poly, Weakly: Episode 372 (Swingers explain non-monogamy to Minx)

-The Swingset people are remarkably articulate.  It throws a stark contrast on the maturity difference between the voices of the poly community and those
of the dirty swingers CM dislikes so much.
-They spend 5 minutes explaining how close swinging is to poly, even two sides of the same coin, and then CM asks if they're trying to bring the
different communities together.
-Minute 9, CM manages to be a real ass.  She's not open or a swinger so why does she need their community?  They talk about voting blocks and
collective power, and CM seems lost beyond the concept of her clique.
-He makes a good point that swinger-open-poly needs to band together like LGBT.  Minx's snort almost sounds like feedback.
-Is CM not a swinger?  She hasn't pointed it out in a while.  Oh wait.  Nevermind.  Could it be clearer that she looks down on it?
-"Don't dom me," CM tells a joke and it's actually funny.
-Oh shit, Cooper calls out poly people for saying casual sex is icky.  Sadly, it whooshed over CM's head.
-OFFS, she's calling out donations again.  She always brings up the amount.  Damn it's vulgar.
-Hundreds of thousands of people helped?  Seriously?  If only the UN had her efficacy.

Poly, Weakly: Episode 371 (I can't finish this now. It is too shit to deal with)

-Hey there's a new conference and the podcast gets money for it.  Not directly said, but you know, it's the thought of money that counts.
-Oh shit, there are classes oriented toward secondaries and talking to metamors.  Wait, a polyamory bootcamp?  Seriously?  Do they break fingers too?  Please!
-Wooo! the conference includes poly speed dating, also known as speed dating.  Still stupid.
-LG is back...yay...
-a letter from some whose short-lived relationship was failing. Oh fuck.  I don't care.  I really don't.  This podcast just makes me weep.

Romney the verb

Romney: v.
1. To defecate in terror.

As in: When faced with the possibility of a GOP president, I romneyed in my pants.

Asexuals and the Bush Era

Sorry for the lack of updates.  I have been taken in by the tractor beam known as Tumblr, where one doesn't have to construct coherent, well-reasoned posts, or use grammar, but can engage in pointless pissing matches with obnoxious modern identity politic groups.

Like asexuals!  But fear not, I am not here to shit on asexuals.  At least, not exactly.  But during a Tumblr-inspired discussion between the boy and I the other night, two things occurred to us.

a) Asexuality, as an identity, is a relatively new phenomenon, and
b) The vast majority of people who identify as asexual or as part of asexual culture are young - under 25.  I'd say anecdotally they bulk tend to skew even younger, teens through early twenties.

I'm not pulling this shit out of my ass.  The asexual community has done (non-scientific) surveys.  The results are actually quite fascinating, particularly if you're a research nerd like me.  A 2008 survey, for instance,  showed the mean birth year of aces as 1981 and the mode (largest grouping in respondents) was 1987, with a standard deviation of about 10 years.  The population was only 288, so for that small a population those slightly wonky results are expected, but it did tend to show that aces were generally young-ish, with some very far outliers on the older side of things, which makes the mean not a particularly useful descriptor of the actual ages of most respondents.

This year's survey creates an even more interesting picture.  Within 3 years, the number of respondents has increased by more than a factor of ten.  So the asexual community is clearly growing at an incredible rate.  Even more fascinating, it's getting much younger.  76.2% of the respondents are currently between the ages of 16 and 25.  That is an incredibly young group.

(Speaking of, the compilers of this "research" used fucking pie charts to represent questions that were marked "check all that apply."  That is pretty much the worst thing anyone has ever done.)

I go through this boring data to make just one point: the vast majority of asexuals are not of my generation, but what is loosely called "Generation Y" or "Echo boomers."  These are people who were in elementary school and middle school during the Bush years, as opposed to the boy and myself, who were teenagers and young adults in the 90's.  The 1990's were a halcyon time of riot grrrls, zines, interesting pop music, and of course, sex-positivity.  I may have a bit of the rose-colored glow about this era that most people do when speaking of when they came of age, obviously.  But the 1990s were obviously very different from the 2000s politically, pop-culturally, and sexually.

It made me wonder if a lot of my disconnect with the asexual movement has to do with not understanding what it would be like to grow up and come of age sexually when the government in control in the U.S. had an extremely sex-negative, homophobic agenda.  Abortion rights were being stripped away left and right.  Abstinence education became the only kind of sex education in many public schools.  The administration was openly hostile to GLBT people, and DOMA passed.  I grew up with Madonna letting her freak flag fly, but Gen Y kids grew up with Brittney Spears yammering on about waiting til marriage.

In the 2000's, the overall political media landscape with regard to sex shifted.  While AIDS was a big deal in the '90's, no doubt, the focus was on teaching young people how to protect themselves and still enjoy sex.  In the 2000's a major cultural backlash occurred, with the safety message turning into blatant fear-mongering.  And with public health services for STI testing and abortion being eradicated, being sexually active suddenly had a lot more consequences for many teens.  It's not hard to see how sex might have seemed, well, scary.

Now I know many asexuals will say their asexuality is an inborn trait and that they aren't scared of sex, but simply lack sexual attraction.  And I'm sure that is true for many.  But societal messages also have a huge impact on how people interact with and define their sexuality.  The standard liberal view now is that sexual orientation is something you're "born with" yet a far greater percentage of the population identifies as GLB now than in, say, the 1950's.  And it's not because humans went through some micro-evolutionary process where there's just more gayness.

So you take the reality of growing up in a very sex-negative culture where sex has a lot of risks and couple that with the popularization of the Internet, which has created thousands of sub-groups and identities that barely existed before but can now connect and communicate, and it's not at all surprising that asexuals suddenly seem to be everywhere.

If the U.S. suddenly took a turn towards utopia and sex-negativity in culture was eradicated, I am sure there would still be plenty of people who identify as ace.  But I don't think that we can discount the ways in which the Bush-era may have affected Generation Y and how they view sex as a result, either.

Respectful Disbelief

Identity's is not a touchy topic. Race, religion, and money are touchy topics; on the Internet engaging identity issues is like the kid from "Christmas Story" sticking his tongue to a frozen electrified subway rail. It's an invitation to a Chernobyl-style meltdown on one's blog, Tumblr, or LJ.

So it's rare that a bit of subtle, reasoned response creeps in. Recently an individual (is that the wrong term, in case the person is a fictive-identified collective?) was discussing feelings of being a man-made structure. In the one-on-one discussion, this structure noted an appreciation for the other person's "respectful disbelief".

That term really struck a chord. I've been happy to laugh otherkin, fictives, demisexuals, objectum sexuals, and Randian Objectivists in the past, but I this one phrase stuck with me enough to consider all that. Okay, all except objectivists. They're awful people. Fuck Ayn Rand.

Even if we're devout Christians who don't believe homosexuality is anything beyond proof of Satan's touch, or Dan Savage who feels the same way about bisexuals, we can at least approach identity with basic respect for our fellow humans (and non-humans).

So that's my holiday wish. This season, and in the ones to follow, please, when confronted with an identity that you doubt, dislike, or question, at least be respectful. But seriously, fuck Ayn Rand.

Problems With Asexual Identities: Part 1 of 634

Before you string me up as an asexual-hating bigot, please carefully re-read the title of this post.  I'm not saying asexuality is a problem, but I want to have a discussion about the issues that asexual identities raise.  This is not saying that asexuals are faking it, or there's something wrong with them, but an attempt to examine and yes, at times, critique what is a chosen social identification and the issues it brings up for non-asexuals, particularly women and queer people.

Because the fascinating thing to me about asexual identity politics is how it often challenges and appropriates concepts from other movements, particularly queer movements.  And I should start by saying that from my perspective, how one identifies is a choice.  This doesn't mean I don't believe there isn't (usually) a biological or inborn component to queerness - or asexuality, for that matter.  But identity - how we choose to label ourselves - is a choice, within a social context.  This applies to virtually any category of person on the planet, really.  Today we tend to take the categories "gay," "straight," and "bi/pansexual" as gospel, forgetting that these are actually modern concepts.  While there have been people who have engaged in same-sex relationships throughout history, our concept of "gay" is actually a pretty recent label to describe a group of people who have always existed.  Likewise for "asexual."  And I reject the notion that exploring the validity and appropriateness of these labels within a political or activist context is inherently negative, although it's often incorrectly dismissed as "identity policing."

My goal is not to say, "asexuals don't exist" because I very much believe asexuals' own reports of their own orientations and identities.  But I don't think it's inherently oppressive or even mean-spirited to explore what informs a person's choice to identify as asexual and to think about ways in which such an identity may be problematic.  I think this is an important distinction to make.  There is a huge difference between disbelieving a person's reported person experience, and critiquing the ways in which they present that experience to the larger world.

One of the most pressing problems with asexual activism online is the insistence by many that asexuality is fundamentally queer.  Many queer people feel this is approprative and deeply offensive, particularly given the nature of "queer" as a slur reclaimed by the people it's directed against. Queer activists who feel strongly about this define "queer" as someone who experiences same-sex attraction, and do include homo and bi/pan-romantics under the queer umbrella, but reject the notion of asexuals who do not experience same-sex attraction or relationships as belonging in the tent.  Some asexual activists counter this by claiming that they're not straight, since the definition of straight is "heterosexual" and they aren't sexual.

That refutation is inherently troubling, however, because it falls into the fairly typical asexual trope of defining non-asexuals on the basis of their sexual activity (and I can't fail to point out here that this is something that homophobic society does all the time to queer people to begin with).  As I mentioned in the previous post, the standard word asexual activists use to describe non-asexuals is "sexuals", which is also really fucking offensive for a number of reasons - even more so when applied to queer people specifically.  I am a rather slutty woman with a higher-than-average libido who hasn't experienced an ounce of personal shame for my sexual behavior in a decade yet even I bristle at being categorized as "sexual".  It feels so reductivist and simplistic.  My sexuality is a lot more complex than "person who has sex."

And this leads into another problem within the asexual community, which is the somewhat understandable yet still often offensive misunderstanding of the spectrum of how non-asexuals experience sexual attraction, desire, and sex.  This is particularly evident when discussing demisexuals, or people who define themselves as a variety of asexual who only experiences sexual attraction once an emotional bond has formed between them and the desire object.  Of course, this is how a huge part of the world experiences sexual attraction, and most of those people wouldn't dream of identifying themselves as the identity-within-an-identity that demisexuality claims to be.  The implicit statement within the definition of demisexuality is that all non-asexuals experience sexual attraction to people they don't know (or don't know very well).  While some of us fall into that category, it's not true for most of us, and it really calls into question whether demisexuality is a useful identity with regards to political activism, particularly given that it mirrors heteronormative and misogynistic notions of how womens' sexual attraction is supposed to function.  I've spent the last two weeks reading endless wanks on Tumblr and blogs about the validity of demisexuality and yet I haven't seen a coherent, convincing argument that what people call "demisexuality" is not simply a rather common sub-group within the non-asexual group.  One does not have to experience sexual attraction to everyone, everywhere, at all times to be a "sexual" person, yet many asexual activists still seem unwilling to listen to the voices of non-asexuals who are sharing their experiences of sexual attraction and desire.

But the problem is, this variety of asexual activist has adopted the framework and language of other oppressed groups, particularly queer groups, to claim that they are actively oppressed by non-asexuals and as such do not need to listen to or empathize with the experiences of the "oppressor."  This is also the argument that is used to justify calling non-asexuals "sexuals" despite repeated pleas to recognize how offensive this is.  Next time we'll examine the concept of "asexual oppression" and "sexual privilege" in-depth and also hopefully get around to talking about the intersection of sexual dysfunction and asexuality and the problems that exist there.