actions and identity, or a consideration of love

I'm going to give a vague Glee spoiler alert here if you happen not to have watched any of season 2 or season 3 thus far. Okay?

Santana is in love with Brittany. She's come to the conclusion that she is gay/lesbian. Now, these two things could very well both be true, both in the world of brilliant television musical dramadies, and life, but the first does not necessarily make the second true.

What do I mean?

I mean that who a person loves does not encapsulate and define all of, or even most of their sexuality. Sometimes, a person just falls in love with a person, or for that matter, is just attracted to a person and that person may be of a sex and/or gender that they have never before or never again been attracted to, collectively or individually.

This is a tricky thing to talk about. "Okay Kinsey, so if who you love and who you fuck doesn't define your sexuality, what does exactly?"

The answer is: lots of things. Those included. Right now, for the sake of brevity, I just want to talk about this one person idea.

A person can be a revelation. I always had some sense that I was attracted to women and really didn't think much of it until I had been given a vocabulary and context for those attractions: lesbian, gay, dyke, and, the women with whom I wanted to get all dykey, or, specifically here, one woman. At the start of grade 11, when I had not yet turned 16 there was this new girl in my English class. It may have taken all of five minutes being in vague proximity to her, without her even flashing that heart-melting smile at me, or becoming my friend and cuddling with me while we watched movies to turn vague sense in to,

"WHOA BABY DEFINITELY DO I LIKE GIRLS!!!"

or at least "WHOA BABY DEFINITELY DO I LIKE THIS GIRL OH MY GOD SHE'S LOOKING AT ME WHAT DO I DO WHATDOIDOWHATDOIDO???"

That single revelation allowed me to understand that there were a whole lot of other women in the world who were going to make me feel and act like a complete idiot. I was right. There were, they did, I did.

It didn't take much time, maybe 3 years all told to go from crazy about the girl from English class, for whom I would carry a torch during the rest of high school, which included: her dating a boy with whom I had a brief flirtation thing the year before and him being super weird about our friendship and me thinking it was so funny how backwards he was on the matter that I almost told him, both of them getting expelled, her coming back the next year, me marshaling all my courage and asking her to go to the prom with me and her telling me she didn't want to be my date to the prom because she wanted to go with a boy, and later turned out also to be queer and is some roller-derby superstar now. I digress.

We were talking about some time later when I had mostly come to the conclusion that I was only interested in women. I solid in my identity as gay, BUT, even then, I did hope and believe that I was capable of loving people as people and not just social constructs and bodies. (again, tricky stuff)

This change was a little more gradual, but the big, HOLY SHIT, MEN! moment came again with an individual first. I was so unbelievably head-over-heels in love with this man that I didn't really consider for a while whether or not other men might possibly be appealing to me, because I was in a place in which I couldn't imagine ANYONE ever being interesting except for him ever again. Well, life happens, and as I mentioned Mon Amore and I went our separate ways over a year ago now, and I have found out that, yes, men are, if you will, 'on the menu' for me, they held appeal. I believe what I discovered somewhere along the line was that BOYS held no interest for me, where as MEN sometimes do.

Being as I am now one of those confounding fence-sitters who will not even allow themselves to be called 'bisexual' because it is a label that, for me, does not fit. I am frequently asked to explain myself in this regard, or break down my attraction into ratios or fractions. I believe I have addressed my annoyance at this point ad nauseum in the past. I like people, I love individuals for who they are, not 'what'. People are 'whats,' they are 'whos'

In brief review: loving a single person does not define a person's sexuality. Individuals can help personify and clarify desire. Identity is complicated. Love kicks my ass.

Yep.

You want me to kiss you after that!?

I have a hypothetical vampire-sex question. (Shut up, I'm watching 'True Blood')
So, there are those people who, for reasons I completely fail to understand, are unwilling to kiss their partner after said partner has performed oral sex on them, at least not before they gargle or brush their teeth or whatever. In the case of vampire-human sex in particular, because I assume this would be kind of a non-issue with vampire-on-vampire action, would there be those who after being bitten (presumably during sex) would refuse to kiss their blood-sucking lover prior to that lover cleaning their -the human's blood out of their mouth/off their face?
OR, is it possible actually that there would even be those vampires who would be unwilling to be kissed with their own blood on their partner's mouth?
OR, is it completely ridiculous that I'm making blood and sexual fluids analogous in this situation?

Vagazzle (NSFW)

Folks,
apparently the latest trend in very personal grooming is VAGAZZLING. It is more less exactly what it sounds like, the application of crystals to one's vaginal area. YEAH. Said area is, of course, completely denuded of hair. It seems to be that this is assumed for vagazzling - no one has pubic hair anymore.


IF PEOPLE JUST LEFT THE DAMN HAIR WHERE IT WAS MAYBE THEY WOULDN'T THEN NEED TO ADD RHINESTONES. just a thought. Are people really so terrified of the vagina that they need to make it look like a tiara? I can only imagine vagazzling being a SERIOUS turn-off. Naked pussy is bad enough, but excessively decorated pussy? My dear friend who alerted me to this trend made the excellent point, "What if they fall off when they shouldn't? Do people choke on them?" Any man or woman I encountered who, after removing their underwear was covered in crystals down there (because apparently the upscale places only use swarovski crystals, thank you very much) would have me laughing and then immediately running in the opposite direction. Rugburn is bad enough, I don't need my face, hands, or naughty bits getting chafed and cut up by fucking crystals.
It's like turning the vagina into a museum piece, locked behind plate glass - look, but don't touch because I can't imagine possibly being able to have any kind of sex comfortably with someone who's man or lady bits were bedazzled. And, oh year, penazzling is also apparently a thing.

the other kind of pussy

Finally watching 'True Blood' for the first time.
Sookie telling her cat to stop purring and watching her masturbate: priceless, and so painfully life-like.

just like a woman

To give this post some context, I first have to make a confession:

I watched a Romantic Comedy, willingly, by myself. . .

Now that I'm done being embarrassed,
I've been noticing a trend of female characters that I can actually identify with in these kinds of movies lately, or at least the previews for them, as I'm usually more into blood-guts-explosions-zombies kinds of movies, or depressing/foreign/arty/indie flicks. At any rate, in the course of RomComs of late there seems to be a trend in the presentation of strong, busy, unemotional, successful characters for women.* At first I think yay! Smart women in movies! Characters with which I can identify! The thing that these women need to learn over the course of the two-hours of the film is that they need to get in touch with their feelings/express them, not try so hard, and that its okay not to be perfect all the time. These are things that it seems I am having to learn of late. On the surface, this made me feel a little better in this hey I'm not a total freak kind of way. Upon closer examination though, it makes me kind of angry.

Women that are outside of their prescribed gender roles by being all of the above mentioned things/possessing said qualities need to learn to be softer, kinder, more emotive, less pushy, etc. in order to fall in love and live happily ever after. THEY NEED TO RETURN to the cultural script of who and how they're supposed to be in order to be lovable and gain happiness.
The message is basically that you can't have it all. For a woman, their is success and fortune OR there is home and hearth and the leading man.** A woman need to give up her success in some measure in order to be romantically fulfilled. It isn't quite The Stepford Wives drastic of CEO to homemaker, but it does seem always to involve some professional compromise, or stepping down. Either as a condition of their personal happiness or a consequence thereof. If they don't have to make the choice between love and career, the choice is made for them, because somehow by being in love, and all the things implied thereby, they become less able to be the successful powerhouses that they were and find themselves crying in the board room and loosing their job/the big client/case/etc.

What worries me the most about this is my fear that it might be true. I've spent the better part of my life working hard and being busy, throwing myself into everything possible and giving it all my all. I've been avoiding feeling by doing. This had to stop. I was headed straight for destruction in a heart-attach at 35 kind of way. I was bottling everything up, and it WAS going to come out, one way or another. I definitely feel as though I was forced into dealing with things more than that I chose to do so in a lot of ways, although it seems that I knowingly put myself in the position that would force me to do so - my course of study, my extra-curriculars, contemplative practice, etc. I made the choice to attend a Graduate program that I had been forewarned, 'tears you apart completely and then rebuilds you piece by piece'. I'm in serious doubt some days as to whether or not the re-building process has begun and simply feel dismantled. Now that I am allowing myself to feel things and express them, I'm not as efficient, less prolific, less of all of the things that I was and did in order to avoid the things that I'm not feeling. I feel as though I'm less intelligent. Is it possible that this is a case-by-case basis? If I had not grown up in a world of playing through the pain, feeling the burn, sucking it up and getting on with it, could I potentially have learned to be both expressive and successful at the same time? Or could I even learn to do so from here?

Is the criticism and the message of these movies actually about our culture as a whole, and not just a commentary on women being in their rightful place?

*No Reservations, Bride Wars, The Holiday, The Women, In Her Shoes, The Proposal

**Clearly I'm operating in a heterosexist system of the popular culture and this genre in particular right now.

Keep Life Sexy

I know you've seen the commercials. They're hilarious. You've probably looked for them on YouTube already.

KY Yours and Mine

Is this what it takes to get mainstream (straight) American to use lube? I suppose its all about the 'exciting sensations.' People need to be convinced that it will somehow infinitely improve their sex lives, which must mean that it needs to feel remarkable in some way. I confess, I have not product tested these products. Maybe they do something incredible that feels tingly and special in some way I don't understand. Honestly, I'm convinced that its really.just.lube. Hello world - discover lubricant! Sex works better when things are slippery. This is a design of nature that can do with a little help, like so many can. How is that the mainstream culture can embrace plastic surgery, but not a little grease for the ol' wheel?

Need I mention that the 'him' and 'her' concept is remarkably heterosexist and obnoxious?
"He puts the purple one on her. She puts the purple one on him."

Though honestly, if it convinces more people that lube is a normal and good thing to involve in sex and that it doesn't mean that anyone's naughty bits aren't working right, I can get behind it.

Mon Amore works in community health at a major university, which includes providing information and accouterments of safer and healthy sex.
One day, several gentleman belonging to organizations with greek letters on their residences came in looking for condoms. YAY! Way to be responsible gentlemen! One of M.A.'s coworker's suggested that they take some (free) lube with them as well, in handy single - use packs. They insisted they didn't need it. Obviously. Coworker tried gently to explain to them that it was rather um, helpful for their intended partners in coitus. They maintained their position that it was unnecessary. Coworker asked if they had considered discussing the issue with the owners of the orifices they enjoy, and they laughed it off and said there was no need, girls they slept with clearly didn't need it or they would know.
Coworker "Well you've obviously never been penetrated have you?"
Following their departure, "I hope they get penetrated without lube."