Soul Pancake

Here's a cool website.
http://www.soulpancake.com/
People asking each other interesting and provocative questions.
Worthwhile activities to spend your time on.
Thinking is good for you.

Frivolous

I think the video says it all.

Polyamory

Dave J. thought I should post this. And as I told him, I was a bit worked up at the time.

So I found myself thinking about yesterday and then discussing today, open relationships.
Can anyone handle it? Do they always go to hell? Does someone always get hurt?
Let's start with the last first.

It seems these days, these days of serial monogamy that someone always winds up getting hurt anyway. And if you are married, well the odds are about 1 in 3 that you are going to wind up getting hurt as well. What did you do to deserve that? You got married. So married or not is no guarantee that you are going to be safe.

Let's say that you aren't getting everything that you want out of your relationship. And that's a fairly safe bet, very few ever do and it would be unrealistic to expect that you would.
So why is it realistic to expect that we should only be attracted to or only want one lover? Of course you are going to be attracted to someone else. But are you going to act on it?
Things are getting a little stale in the sack. Time to spice things up? Do you think that's going to work? If you do, you have a very active imagination, and it might work for you. But what about your partner. Whether you've got the school marm or the cowboy outfit on, it's still you under there with your cellulite and false teeth or armpit hair or the mole over your eyebrow and where that was once charming, now it is... well it's you. And your partner might love you but it's hard to pretend you're the someone else that they are looking for right now. You still smell the same. And that's become... comforting. Not sexy.

So you've found someone else attractive.
And you think you might. You might hit it. You might throw a fuck into that... Now are you are you going to do it behind your current lover's back or are you going to lay it on the line?
You are both open-minded progressive people. You understand the preceding couple of paragraphs. You understand that, "a little bit of strange" once in a while, might be a good thing. Intellectually.

And you know that's what's sauce for the goosed is saucy for the gander.
Now here's where the sauce starts to get sticky. Especially if you find it on the hilt of a double-edged sword. Or double-ended.

Like it or no, we live in a culture where romantic love, the ideal of romantic love is reinforced constantly. And when we say romantic we mean monogamous. Pair bonding for life yo. TV ads for Viagra show happy couples, not pick-ups in bars/libraries/grocery stores/public washrooms. Movies, music, literature, very rarely do we see a celebration of the polyamorous relationship. And, from the time we are born, we are surrounded by these images. Not to mention "the folks". If there happen to be two of them chances are they're hetero and married. At least for the first couple of years. Romantic love. Here it is in a nutshell. If you love someone, truly love them, you are going to be with them forever. That's the current party line.

But we are also thinking beings and we realize, if we think about it, that romantic love is a construct. We probably have broader desires than those that fit into the current definition of romantic love. And if we have any empathy and we feel this way then we realize our partners are likely to feel the same. So how can we condemn, judge if they come to us and say, "I wanna get it on with the cashier from the grocery store. S/he is hot and I think s/he might have a thing for me."

The sword is out of the sheath now; don't grab the blade.
You are hurt by this. You should be enough. But logically, we just agreed on this, you can't be. And you know this intellectually but there's a kid inside, emotionally, who grew up in a great family with two loving parents... OK, maybe not, but still the kid watched the TV, the movies, read the books, listened to the music, got the picture... And this kid sees it as "just me and you, kid".

What do you do? Do stand up and be the adult that you are and give your support? And trust that the faith that you are showing in your partner and your understanding will protect you both from the harm, the worm in the apple that you just found half of?

Or do you put your foot down and say, "No! No fuckin' way! What the fuck do you think I am?! Some sort of... etc.etc.". Here you take the chance that they are going to go ahead and do what they want to do anyway. And you might never know. Or you might find out in a year when they clean out the Bank account and fly off to Aruba. Or you might suspect, and that's going to eat you up. Or you can just watch them get bitter. You can go see a councillor together. Because we all know that that works.

Nope. You are the bigger human being. You lay a few ground rules... "No getting serious. They can't stay overnight."... that sort of thing. And you say go for it. Here's where your self-esteem, trust and whatever other mojo comes into play. You imagine them together. It eats you up. Or you get your partner to tell you all about it. And it turns you on. And eats you up. Or you feel it makes your relationship stronger. They keep coming back. You've had flings in the past, you know they don't really mean anything. It all seems to be working fine.

Where is the other half of the worm? Where is the other edge of the sword?

Well, your partner grew up around the same time you did. And they have both: the understanding of the romantic love that you have, and the intellectual ability to see beyond it into something bigger. Empathy, they have empathy, too.

The kicker? You just gave them permission to live their life the way they want to, to explore and grow and love and, and... Well that's great. Really, really great. And so understanding and human really.

But you just, let, them, go. And in the world of pair bonding and romantic love, you are supposed to protect, even if it's from themselves, you are supposed to fight. So doesn't it mean that you don't love them as much as they thought you did if you just let them walk away like that? By trying to love them more, you love them less. Go figure.

And this.
Give them an inch?
They'll take a fucking mile.

Story of O

And cellphone sales....

I was walking through the mall yesterday and as I always do, reading everything, I happened to glance at the title of the book that a woman in a cell phone kiosk was reading. Imagine my surprise, "The Story of O". Interesting choice for a shopping centre kiosk. Passes the time, I guess.

For those of you not in the know, T.S.O.O. was first published in English in 1965. In the story a French photographer is trained to be a sexual slave for her lover, René, who subsequently gives her away to another man who has her branded and pierced and then gives her to his guests at a party. She loves it, it's a supreme expression of love. I guess. Erotica. I guess.

Well, it was certainly hot when I was 9 or 10 and found the book kicking around in someone's closet, my grandmother's probably, she had some pretty interesting stuff in amongst the Harlequin romances, maybe the first time I saw the Marquis de Sade's work? But that's a story for another time.

So the woman at the kiosk. Reading erotica sitting there at her cash register. She's attractive but not really striking. Dressed relatively conservatively. But her choice of reading material gets my mind cranking. What's she thinking, sitting there in the mall reading about whipping, branding, piercing, anal sex? Is she aroused? Disgusted? It's a fairly innocuous cover and if you didn't know what it was about you wouldn't suspect anything but...

And I think about talking to her but this book isn't an invitation, is it? Is it? And really the glutton for punishment thing, it knows no bounds. Boundaries, sure, but how many people do you know who's fetishes grow milder as they get into it? And really, who wants to get it on, S and M wise, with an octogenarian. Better to stick with the Tantric practice and go forward with some dignity. After a while those piercings start to hang....

And for those who are interested, The Story of O was made into a bad movie as well.

Archy Weighs In - A Poem by Don Marquis

xxvii
quote buns by great men quote

one of the most
pathetic things i
have seen recently
was an intoxicated person
trying to fall
down a moving stairway
it was the escalator at
the thirty fourth street
side of the
pennsylvannia station
he could not fall down as
fast as it
carried him up again but
he was game he kept on
trying he was
stubborn about it
evidently it was a part of
his tradition habit and
training always to fall down
stairs when intoxicated and
he did not intend to
be defeated this time i
watched him for an hour
and moved sadly away thinking
how much sorrow
drink is responsible for the
buns by great men
reached and kept
are not attained
by sudden flight but they
while their companions slept
were falling upwards
through the night

archy

In a Hotel

And I don't spend alot of time in hotels so it's a bit of a treat for me. Checked in on Fri. evening. We went out and walked around to find a sushi restaurant that was open. Restaurants all seem close themselves up around 8:30 or 9 here. Wasps don't like to eat late; spoils their digestion.
Fun, though, staying in a hotel in your hometown. Makes you feel like a tourist. You see the place with fresh eyes, a little.
And they have beds with some sort of air bladders in them that allow you to pressurize to your point of content. Quite nice, really, just getting in to the thing made me want to go to sleep. I think maybe J. had other ideas but - not Fri. eve! No Casanova, me.
In any case it was an excellent sleep and sci-fi provides a better life once again.