Tag: not actually explicit at all

This is an exception to the usual things I put on this blog. It’s something I probably should tell more of my friends about, because I suspect some of them have been worrying about me needlessly. I feel like people may assume, since Sparkly is the one actually dating more than one person, and since she’s so much more outgoing than me, that maybe she pressured me into having an open relationship. That’s not true at all.

I’ve known I would be comfortable with polyamory/an open relationship since I first heard of the idea. This was well before I started dating Sparkly. I didn’t have any strong desire to be dating more than one person (which is why I’m not) but I was sure I wouldn’t have any problem with my partner also dating someone else. I don’t think I really understand why anyone has a problem with that.

I didn’t bring it up with her at first, because she seemed pretty focused on monogamy, but I was the one who actually brought it up as a serious possibility when Sparkly started flirting with Reference Desk Girl.

Maybe I really should call myself gray-a

(Meaning, in a “gray area” where you’re sort of asexual but not exactly.)

I never really spent that much time reading about asexuality, the first time around (because a lot of what I found was aimed at people who are actively disgusted by sex, which I was already sure was not me.) I gave up on the idea for two reasons:

  • I actually had sex for the first time and discovered I could really enjoy it.
  • I got started on the idea that it was the kinds of things I noticed and found attractive that were unusual, not the attraction I ended up with.

But just now (because of something I was reading) I asked myself, would I feel satisfied in a romantic relationship without sex? And I think I would. I think I’d be fine with that. I enjoy sex (a lot), and I do have some “sex drive”/desire for sexual pleasure, but if my partner was okay with me masturbating occasionally, I think I’d be okay with not having sex. And that’s probably not normal, is it? Even if it’s not asexuality, it’s not normal.

I do sometimes (rarely) just out-of-the-blue want sex, and specifically partnered sex, not masturbation. I do sometimes look at Sparkly and think “I want to touch you/have sex with you/etc” instead of “you’re beautiful”– rarely. But the vast majority of the time, my mind just doesn’t do things that way.

kink stuff (sort of)

Just read someone saying that the problem with (some) kink is that it “fetishizes power”.

And, well– yes, it does. But I don’t think that makes it inherently bad.

Power isn’t some icky dirty thing that we should never touch. It is close to impossible for someone to have no power at all. There are some situations that should be avoided because they cause a big power imbalance, but there’s no point in trying to not have any power at all. Practically speaking it’s impossible. I think there’s equally no point in trying to never use power. Considering how easy it is for people to feel pressured and controlled without the other person consciously trying to have power over them, I don’t think anyone is ever going to succeed. (And there are situations in which people need to have some power over others and should use it.) So I don’t see any point in trying to strive for never instead of considering in each situation whether you should.

(This is the kind of thing I’m talking about when I complain about people who understand big institutionalized oppression but don’t understand that power dynamics between individuals are more complicated than just the race/sex/class/etc. of the people involved.)

WOO TRAUMA

I’ve always told Sparkly that she doesn’t have to worry about asking me for things re: sex, that I don’t feel pressured, that I won’t agree to anything I don’t actually want to do.  Turns out this is because if I try to tell myself I should compromise at all, my jerkbrain comes out with “You aren’t allowed to have bad days or moods or problems, especially not weird problems.  You should always be able to do that.  Or at the very least you should throw yourself at it and die trying, to prove that you really can’t do it.”

I didn’t think I had issues about sex, and I don’t, really.  And I don’t have issues about saying no.

But I have huge mountains of issues about saying “I can’t”, and about needing things that aren’t normal or that I “shouldn’t” need.

Nov 9. Random petty shit from like a year ago

There were a couple of times when RDG and Sparkly did things, and Sparkly essentially came to me for the “aftercare”– she came back to our room still all high on endorphins, and tired, and hungry, and I tucked her into bed and got her water and a snack.

And I always thought it was less than nice of RDG to not take care of Sparkly herself.

Fetishization and objectification are complicated.

Okay so this is a response to a specific thing but I don’t want to link to it because I’m a scaredy cat.

 

There’s a difference between being attracted to someone and sexually objectifying them, right?  It’s kind of one of those “I know it when I see it” indescribable things, but we agree that it exists, right?  It’s possible to find someone attractive but also treat them respectfully.  (And it’s possible to be reasonably respectful in overt ways, but still convey objectification.)

Sometimes, for some people, it feels awful to even think that people could be looking at you and thinking you’re attractive, even if they never show it in any way.

But there’s just no way for people to actually stop having a sense of whether people are attractive to them.  Most people are not asexual.

I think we absolutely can expect people not to show whether they find someone attractive when it isn’t appropriate to do so, and to only show it in respectful ways when it is appropriate, and to avoid letting their attraction affect their opinion of a person’s other qualities.

But I don’t think we can expect people to not have sexual feelings.

Even feelings that most people would find disgusting or just generally unwelcome if they were expressed.

I don’t think it’s true that fetishes are only acceptable if they involve something that can be taken off and put away.  (I’m considering that “fetish” doesn’t really mean anything other than “a thing someone finds sexually attractive”, incidentally.  I don’t think there’s any relevant difference for this discussion between the things that we usually call fetishes and the things that we consider it normal to find attractive.)

I don’t think I need to take my breasts off and put them away to avoid being objectified because of them, for instance.  Sometimes I reveal them more and sometimes I cover them more, but there’s never actually a time when you could look at me and not realize that I have breasts.  And yet I expect not to be sexually objectified by people who like them.  It’s kind of a catchphrase in various areas of feminist advocacy that even wearing highly revealing, “sexy” clothing is not a reason to objectify or disrespect someone, after all.

In the same way, I would expect someone who’s seen me naked once to refrain from picturing me naked every time they talk to me.  I’d expect someone who knows that I like to be submissive sexually to not assume that I am helpless or in need of orders in other situations.

I don’t actually need to be able to put away or hide anything that could be sexual in order to have a boundary between times when I want to be sexual and times when I don’t.  I need to have the people around me recognize and respect my preferences about when I want to be sexual.

And no, I am not willing to have a discussion based on the assumption that people will never actually respect those preferences.  “Now it’s time to be professional” cannot possibly be harder to enforce than “never even have that thought, about anyone”.

A sidenote for people who want to be critical about kink.

Before you get stuck on a particular kink being self-destructive, consider:

People can do absolutely anything out of a self-destructive mindset.

I mean, some people’s self-destructive actions that they take out of hurt and confusion actually look like they deserve the label “self-harm”.  Like cutting, or abusing drugs or alcohol.  They cause diagnosable physical harm, and/or they totally interfere with a person’s life in a way that’s obviously bad.

But some of them don’t.  Some people eat vegetables to punish themselves.  Some people exercise to punish themselves.  Some people throw themselves into their jobs, or schoolwork, or hobbies in a self-destructive way.  On the other hand, some people do things that look like relaxing and treating themselves to something nice, but internally they’re hating themselves for needing rest and enjoying treats.  Some people have apparently wholesome sex with reasonably conscientious, caring partners, and use it to punish themselves, or do it because they think they ought to, not because they want to.

Anything you can think of can be an instrument of hurt.

And of course the corollary to this is, lots of things can be good and wholesome that you would not expect to be.  It all depends on each person’s individual mindset and history.

For instance, some people fast because they have eating disorders.  Other people fast for religious reasons.

I was going to try to describe both of these and how one is destructive and the other isn’t, but I don’t want to put words in people’s mouths, and I don’t really think that briefly describing them could even help.  Either you know what that destructive mindset and that wholesome mindset feel like, and you can imagine how it would apply, or you can’t.  That’s my point.

Please don’t assume that anything (at least, any easily-defined, concrete thing) is always healthy and wholesome.  Please don’t assume that anything is always fucked-up and self-destructive.

What I mean by that parenthetical is, there are some things that are close enough to being identical with the idea of wholesomeness that you can get away with saying that they’re always good.  But most specific actions are not like that.  Actually, I have an example of this:

Many people will tell you (I think I was told this in elementary school) that when you’re upset with someone, it’s best not to go accusing them of things, all “You always _____!”  It’s better to say “I feel ______.”  The concept of being honest and open instead of accusatory is pretty much innately a good thing (assuming the person you’re talking to actually cares how you feel.)  But the method is definitely not always a good thing.

Sparkly learned from her parents that people who are upset will take it out on anyone who draws their attention, sometimes in extremely disproportionate ways, completely regardless of whether that person was at fault or not.  Sparkly reacts to “I feel angry” more like most people would react to “I have a knife in my pocket.”  There is no way to tell her that you feel upset that will not feel at least a little bit like an accusation and a threat to her.  And Sparkly is definitely not alone in feeling this way.  Shit is complicated.

 

Yeah, I know I didn’t actually talk about kink anywhere in this post.  That’s because of what I said earlier.  If you can’t imagine a particular kinky activity ever being wholesome, it’s pretty unlikely that I’d be able to stretch your imagination for you.  My point is that the way things are is a lot more varied than we usually imagine.

I also want to add that there is a whole other way of critiquing kink that is more like media criticism– it’s about whether a particular kink is good for society in general, not whether it’s good for the individual people involved.  And I have kind of complicated feelings about that, but it’s not what I’m talking about here.  I think there are worthwhile conversations to be had, at least, about “is this kink responsible storytelling?”  Whereas I think the only thing you can really do with “is your kink good for you?” is ask the person involved and trust that they put some thought into their answer.