Communication Problems In A Nutshell

I guess there were a lot of problems between my wife and I. But here's a story that sums up the point of failure that defeated my attempts to resolve them, and I think defeated hers too.

A couple of days ago we got together for lunch. I had found a pair of her socks, and told her to remind me to give them to her back at my house. I said I was hoping Saturnine Thespian (the new guy) was doing well. I mentioned how much I'm hoping for a letter from the judge, she told me she thought when it came it would be effectively backdated to when the 90-day wait was over. She told me about her upcoming trip to Greece, and her New Year's plans. After lunch I asked her for a last kiss goodbye, which she kindly granted, while I teared up badly.

I didn't think the divorce was backdated, so I looked it up later. I sent her two e-mails.

For what it's worth, I found my copy of the "Waiver Of Notice Of Intention To Request Entry Of A Divorce Decree Under 3301(c) Of The Divorce Code" that we both had to sign, which says in part:

"3. I understand I will not be divorced until a divorce decree is entered by the Court and that a copy of the decree will be sent to me immediately after it is filed with the prothonotary."

That's why I'm still wearing my ring when I'm not working with metal. It's part of why I was surprised when I heard you were already dating. I hope I'm not being rude to say this but if you want forgiveness for that, you have it already, without asking. I hope you find someone who will make you happier than I did.

Best regards,
[Mousie]

and

I still have a pair of your socks.

Regards,
[Mousie]

I got a cheerful reply to the socks one and nothing to the first one. Maybe this isn't the best example, what was she really supposed to say to the first one? But it's emblematic. She'd talk about trivialities and most immediate practicalities but I couldn't get her to talk about anything consequential to the relationship. (Appropriate music.) She's said I should already understand; which baloney I bought for a long time and felt guilty about.

Do me a favor? Next time you hear someone talk about men's lack of communication skills, kick them in the ass for me. Metaphorically! (I guess.)

Busy in the physical world

I've got stuff I want to talk about, but I'm also a slow writer and I've got a ton of chores in my neglected house. Please bear with me for a bit, I'll be back.

Home!

I am back home! My monitor, which I bought in a flush period for gaming, is freaking gigantic. I was using a hand-me-down laptop with a small screen at my parent's. Now I see why my wife used to say she felt like my monitor was shouting at her.

I have the rather ludicrous handgun I habitually carry back on my hip; I've been used to this as a constant companion for about 17 years, and I missed it. It was illegal where I was. It's part of my extremely prepared persona, like the Swisstool or the lighter (though I don't smoke).

The dogs are back on the sofa; they weren't allowed on any furniture at my parent's. (Here they have a sofa and one armchair besides dog beds.)

I have been thinking of indulging my exhibitionism by posting a picture of my face, and my paranoia by deleting it after about a week. Any of my friends who read this blog would know who I am anyway; how many Christians got divorced and broke their necks in Aikido in the same time period? So, I ask for advice; any repercussions you can think of that I can't?

The Canticle of the Sun

The Canticle of Brother Sun
by Francis of Assisi

Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor,
and all blessing.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon
and the stars, in heaven you formed them
clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which
You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord,
through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will
find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.

Source: Franciscan Friars Third Order Regular

---------------

I made myself kind of miserable this Christmas day by missing my wife and thinking about how if I were a better man she might have stayed. Often, I make myself miserable by focusing on my own inadequacies and self-doubt. Today, though, I'm remembering how much more there is in this world; how much I still have to admire and enjoy. My inadequacies don't matter when instead of focusing on myself I focus on the beautiful world God put me in to see.

Today is a good day.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas I still wish you a merry December 25th through January 6th!

Clean hair

I decided the holes in my head were healed enough to risk normal water-rinse shampooing it (three times). It's been over two and a half months. Used the no-rinse "astronaut" shampoo several times, but it's not the same.

Rejoice with me, for I have clean hair!

Unfair impressions

I have a problem with the word "feminism" and the associations it has for me. Recently I went over how it's exactly the same problem many people I know have with Christianity, and probably equally unfair; and perhaps equally fair.

Almost anybody will say that Christianity says lots of good things; but they think those things are or should be obvious. Certainly Christians aren't the only ones who say them. So when Christians are saying good things, they don't stand out. That's one of my reactions to feminism; the good things it says tend to be obvious.

One really stands out when one is saying things that are different or objectionable. And that space is crowded with the lunatics and the hatemongers. Which is why feminism is associated with prudery, repression, sexism, and guilt in my mind, just those things that people accuse Christianity of promoting.

Prudery, repression, sexism, and guilt. The idea that virtually all heterosexual sexual expression is predation by entitled men. The idea that a man may not be dominant without being evil and a woman may not be submissive without being victimized; and that even if it's the other way around it's probably fake domination to fill his submissive kinks. The idea that a man is doing a woman wrong by any expression of sexual interest. The guilt of still wanting those things. The guilt of having been born a man, and therefore always suspect. Born someone excluded by the very name "feminism". Catch-22, damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't, unavoidable guilt. If I spank her I'm exploiting her; if she spanks me I'm still exploiting her.

I'm not providing any links here because I don't want to assemble a case and provide evidence; I'm intending to report a perception not bring an accusation. I can tell this is perception is false from the self-identified feminists I read all the time. On the other hand I can tell it is true from other self-identified feminists who I don't read very much. Or self-identified former feminists. Or things like reading a female bisexual who only applies sadism to men because of feminism (sorry, that's sexist).

Christianity has an advantage here, if you want you can go back to the Book to see which Christian is presenting the true face. (Hint: it may be the one saying "I may not participate in this", it's never the one saying "You are horrible for participating in this.") Feminism doesn't have one central reference you can check things against. Maybe if it did I'd find I could call myself a feminist.

Looking Crazy to a Dog

I was just doing the Hsing I Five Elements Linking Form (my balance is thrown off a bit by my still-limited neck movement), and one of my dogs started barking hysterically and doesn't want to come too close to me now. Something I've noticed is that you generally shouldn't let a dog see you practice martial arts. They can see you fighting, they can see you taking it seriously, and they can see there's no one there. The only conclusion they can make is that you are insane. What would you think of a dog who was seriously biting the air, not looking playful?

Envy

Envy and jealousy aren't the same. (Sometimes I get annoyed that I can subdivide these so finely in English but I need to borrow from Greek to discuss love.) Jealousy would be a situation where I did not want my wife and the new guy to be happy; because I felt she was mine, or because I was not. I think I feel relatively little jealousy. I can hope that I'm wrong about how bad he is for her. I can think of several guys I'd be reasonably happy to see her with.

But Rogue Bambi in comments to the Forgiveness post made me realize that envy is where I have the bigger problem in this case. One of the things that had bugged me in our marriage is that I could not get her to wear costumes she wore at conventions at home for me. But she will apparently wear a slave collar for him.

envy (noun) 1. Resentful desire of something possessed by another or others (but not limited to material possessions). (Definiton from Wiktionary.)

I feel resentful desire for what she will do for him but wouldn't for me. I believe that would have changed everything. I have to face this down in myself.

I also have to face down her part, so I can forgive her. And so I don't exaggerate my own fault in the breakup, which I am prone to do. Because that sort of withholding in marriage is behaviour that I find wrong and contemptible; I would accept no such thing in myself, and I explained before we were married that I would not respect any such attitude in her.

Things like the costume thing have also always made it difficult for me to accept what she said about how hard she tried. There were a good number of things she did for me; they just were not what I asked for. Perhaps she was trying to get me to accept the real her, without being told that was the choice before me.

If I don't face her faults, if I just gloss over them and pretend they never happened, I cannot forgive them.

Dash Berlin - Till The Sky Falls Down

Almost exactly the same tune as the Dash Berlin "You Never Said" I linked before. No wonder I couldn't keep these straight.



Coming across it again, I remember how the lyrics spoke to me; before she actually left.

It's been so long since I have touched you
I can't remember how it feels
To have your loving arms around me
This is the pain that never heals
....
I'll be waiting
Till the sky falls down
Till you come around, baby
....
All I need is one good answer
To understand why you are gone
Everything reminds me of you
Without you I can't go on

Now, of course, I have to stop waiting and go on. But without easing my way through hate and rejection. It's not that I don't feel it, it's that I must fight it.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is central to life as a Christian; our doctrine of the forgiveness of sin is the primary philosophical difference between Christianity and other religions. We are offered God's forgiveness for our sins, when we repent of them, as we forgive those who sin against us and repent of it.

Forgiving my wife has not been so hard, for a couple of reasons. I can excuse most of the impact; and what I can excuse, needs no forgiveness. Jealousy really doesn't bother me as much as a normal person. She left me back in February, and initiated the divorce months ago, so she's only cheating on me in a rather technical sense. And I can certainly understand the loneliness and pain a divorced person feels; a new relationship slaps a band-aid on that. Still, I wouldn't have done to her, so some forgiveness was required; where you acknowledge that it was actually wrong but still forgive. But I love her, and that makes it much easier. I reminded her that we'd been talking about getting together for lunch sometime, so she'd know I wasn't holding this against her. (BTW, much thanks to the sexblogger world, especially Perverse Cowgirl and Rogue Bambi, for showing me that there is much better than her out there.)

The other guy is more of a problem. His offense against me was much smaller; he never made any vows. But my problem is I always had an instinctive dislike of this guy to begin with. He's got a fashion sense/style that I automatically dislike (oiled and saturnine). And there was always something about his conversation.

But, much more than that, I think he's hurting her. It isn't good for her to be in a relationship so soon. On his side of the balance, she and I became emotionally attached when she was still technically in her last marriage, and though I pretty much kept it from becoming sexual, now I know that the emotional attachment wasn't good for her either.

My instinctive reaction to this guy is that he is exactly the type to hurt a woman emotionally, so that instinct complicates my attitude. I still have a problem with him. There is a part of me that wants to irimi nage him into next week. Forgiving his sins against her is for her and God, not me. But I don't think I've even successfully forgiven his little sin against me.

Most Christian resources would tell me that I do not actually need to forgive anyone until they repent; in fact they go further and indicate I should not. These two are certainly not repenting (I haven't even pointed out the offense.) I don't buy that I should wait for them to repent though.

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified [Jesus] there, along with the criminals &mdash one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Luke 23:33-34 (NIV)

Jesus didn't wait for them to understand their offense or repent. And He is my model. But I'm going to need to pray for help in offering this guy Christian love. (If you're a praying person you'll know how hard that will be.)

If I could allow myself to hate, it would be so much easier in the short term; it's a great temptation. If I hated her I wouldn't have to acknowledge my own faults so much; if I hated him, likewise. (Well actually I do hate him a bit, but I'm working on that.) It would hurt me in the long term though. Christianity is certainly not different in that, I think lots of religious, philosophies, and even self-help seminars could tell me that.

Flirting

June Clever's comments on the Availability as a draw post prompted me to write out some thoughts on flirting. Especially as I realized I'd misspoken on that post. I made it sound like I objected to any display of sexiness without availability, and that's not what I meant. What I objected to so much there is the combination of invitation and harsh, sarcastic rejection.

Flirting in itself is pretty awesome. It's an indication of admiration, not a promise. Even if one or both parties are not really going to pursue any kind of relationship, flirting done kindly feeds both parties' self-esteem and usually does no one any harm. If there is a danger, it's usually to the self-esteem of a third party; say the spouse of one of the first two. And that was why I avoided it so long (and am incompetent now); my wife was cheated on in her first marriage. I always tried very hard not to flirt and to be either a bit cool or painfully earnest in my attitude, so nothing would hurt her with remembering the betrayal. I try to be careful with other's spouses for the same reason, but not everybody is that jealous so often there is no need.

Flirting taken too far to the outside of an exclusive relationship, of course is the first step in cheating; or in a different scenario, it may be the first step in a relationship. So I try to make some kind of concrete indication of where flirting isn't going in the very beginning, and then I don't take it very far anyway because I tend to feel that I'm unattractive and therefore my flirting is unflattering and unwelcome.

It's a skill that I'm going to need to knock the rust from sometime.

A story of mood swings through music.

A story of mood swings through music.

When I first found out my wife was wearing a slave collar and running around with that other guy; despair:
Metallica - Fade To Black

When I decided again that I didn't want to be the leader she apparently wanted, that as a man it is often implied that I should be; defiance:
Metallica - Escape

Remembering what these worldly troubles mean; resignation:
Kansas - Dust In The Wind

A song I don't agree with but still like; more specific and cheerful resignation:
Kaskade - Be Still

Facing the pain and getting ready to go on:

Bimbo Jones - Freeze (2010 Piano Mix)

Final version of Cockrub up on Literotica

The final version of my mdom/fsub story Cockrub is up on Literotica. It didn't change much from the version here, mostly grammatical changes.

No bolts in my head

I am no longer in a Halo brace but now in a cervical collar (Philadelphia collar), waiting for a call on whether I need surgery after all. I had thought that was ruled out, but if the still-partly-open vertebra opens further during neck flexion and extension, apparently I'll need surgery.
UPDATE: NO SURGERY!

But I no longer have my head bolted to a framework, which is awesome. I will now be able to shower in a more conventional way, albeit with a shower cap because the holes from the skull pins are still open; in a week or so I should be able to shampoo my hair. (It's been cleaned with no-rinse "astronaut" shampoo but it's not the same.)

UPDATE: It'll be a year before I can get back to Aikido. I will probably go back to Kung Fu and see how my knees hold up. I'm not supposed to wear the Philadelphia collar all the time; PT is me trying to hold my head up and move it around, get my range of motion back.

Less posting

Posting may be light and not very philosophical for a bit; I'm going to the doctor to see if my broken neck is healed enough to get the brace off my head. I may be busy trying to pull some bits of my life back together.

Best I can do under the circumstances

Despite my earlier catty comment, I want my wife to be OK. And I do think she's making a mistake. I emailed her asking if she were OK, saying I'd heard something surprising; she emailed back asking what I'd heard. I told her what I'd heard and said I was concerned since she'd told me she wanted to find herself and it was hard to do that in a relationship, especially a submissive one. She told me she was OK and promised she'd tell me if she wasn't.

So, I think that's the best I can do. I'm sure it's a mistake, but at least there aren't immediately obvious problems. And who knows, sometimes mistakes in judgement lead to happy consequences; just because you pick a guy at the wrong time doesn't automatically mean you get the wrong guy. I wish her luck.

I do really want the damn divorce finalized, though.

Not so embarrassing after all

A while ago I was wondering how I was going to embarrass myself this time around, in an insecure and desperate bid for attention and affirmation of my attractiveness. Between my first and second marriage I showed off my skill at cunnilingus by working the cream out of a cream donut with my tongue, for some rather horrified friends who didn't much want to think of me that way.

The pressure is off. Whatever awkwardness I'm going to commit, it will much be better than being a married woman running around with another man while wearing a slave collar.

Thank you

My parent's internet is down and I can't see how to comment from my cell phone. This is a quick post from my phone to say thank you for your supporting comments. It means a whole lot to me.

Worried

I'm kind of worried about my wife. The news is awfully different from her previous self for early in a relationship, especially one that's taking place so soon after the previous LTR that she's actually still married. If she'd taken more time alone to decide this is who she really is, I'd feel more comfortable with it.

Not really my business any more, of course.

In other worried news, I should get the Halo brace off on Tuesday; if I can persuade the hospital to rush the process of making the disk with CT scan images of my neck.

Fuck that.

So there was a guy that I was pretty sure my wife was going to end up with. Not really my business. Paperwork isn't final and I still wear my ring, but who she's going to end up with isn't really my business.

Just found out she was wandering around with him at a gaming convention a couple weeks ago (that I couldn't go to because of my broken neck), her wearing a leather collar that said "SLAVE".

Oh.

She poured herself into my mold, but I always wanted a loyal but independent ally and you can't mold that.

She said she lost herself and needed to find herself. I'm not even a tiny bit of a pushy guy, so I couldn't imagine why she couldn't find herself with me. She didn't need to find herself, she needed someone to tell her who she was.

She said she entrusted me with her emotional health and I failed to take care of it. Oh.

I had terrible trouble domming her because she wouldn't communicate and tell me what was OK with her. Because domming to me is only play. She wanted someone who would really dom her and tell her what was OK.

When I heard this, there was part of me that said some ugly stuff. That blamed myself for not being manly enough; if I had been more pushy, domineering, if I had taken a leadership role, I'd still have her. She'd wear a collar that said "SLAVE" when I wanted. I'm sure she's banging the shit out of him. It was pretty good when we first started, and, well, "SLAVE". Maybe that's what women really want.

Fuck that. FUCK. THAT. Even if it was what "women" wanted, which I don't believe, it's not what I want. I don't want to be a master or a slave. I don't want to have a master or a slave. I want a lover who will play both with me, yes. But I want her to be an independent, loyal ally; with a strong personality of her own. Sworn to each other forever from our liberty and for our benefit and security.

UPDATE: There's nothing wrong with being in a leadership position in a family. Am I just making a virtue of a weakness to make myself feel better?

UPDATE: Apparently I can feel possessive jealousy under the right circumstances and for a time.

Weird kind of pickiness

I think women are beautiful. In my eyes, most women of my acquaintance are absolute works of art and worth spending a lot of time just looking at. (Not that I do, because that would be creepy). Even the ones who aren't amazing works of art are still attractive to me. I think I'd make a very good mate for a woman who needed a lot of reassurance about her looks.

I feel very bad about the only exception, actually, because the her problems are serious medical ones; but I have a fairly sensitive nose and I struggle with the urea smell that tends to go with peritoneal dialysis. Perverse Cowgirl has written definitively on why you just have to admit a potential partner's looks, or in this case smell, does matter.

On the other hand, there's such a thing as too beautiful for me. While watching the video of Katherine Ellis's interview at Mynt that I linked the other day, I kept thinking "Quit with these clips of skinny girls dancing, I want to see Katherine!" When I search for porn I tend to go with a "mature" tag. Famous actresses do not stir me much. I can certainly see the beauty in a woman who is conventionally extraordinarily beautiful, but it doesn't make me want her as much as someone I see as more on my level; I feel an appreciation of her beauty more like the one I feel for a beautiful landscape or painting. One reason for that will be pretty obvious to people who've been following this blog; I feel myself inadequate to being with a woman who's too attractive. And that idea has worked itself way down deep.

This is deeper than some of my other weirdnesses. An example of a shallower one is that despite being a switch, because I put women on such a pedestal I have trouble with female submissive porn. I tend not to look for it; if I come across it there's an instant twinge of interest followed by an only slightly less instant feeling of guilt. But if I remind myself that there are women who like it, and I would be all happy if I were submitting to her, it's OK. So that's not too deep, I'll be able to get over that pretty easily as far (as getting over neuroses goes).

But I have a certain amount of trouble with porn because the women look too good, and something in my head goes "No way". Apparently a similar problem is quite common; some extremely conventionally attractive women complain that guys are afraid of them and only the really arrogant assholes ever approach them. I guess there's not so many men who commonly take the "too attractive" problem as far as applying it to porn. In porn I get over that by not thinking about it at all if the action is interesting enough, fantasizing about being more attractive myself, or fantasizing about a scenario where I am more attractive by environment or accomplishment (a fantasy or sci-fi theme helps here; mighty warrior Mousie and the grateful rescuee. Probably going to be a story sometime.)

This whole too-hot-for-me thing is something else I want to work on; because there are absolutely women who like my looks that I wouldn't ask out because I assume they wouldn't like my looks. There's a certain woman in my friend group that I think is the most conventionally attractive in that group, and hits lots of my personal hot buttons as well. She's going through a divorce too, and is like me presumably desperate and insecure. A few months ago I was playing a board game with her and others, on a floor in a crowded room. She climbed past me with what seemed like some unnecessary contact, which I admit was nice, then said "Don't worry I'm not touching you in a bad way." Then she put her hand on my calf and said "Unless you ask me to." (I just sort of pretended it didn't happen, to allow her to do the same thing; that seemed nicer than any other polite "no" I could think of. BTW I think we'd be incompatible in the long run in other ways.)

Since she's the very first person I think of when I think of "out of my league", I probably should just ditch the whole concept and not worry about who's in a higher league.

Body art

I don't want to lose the right woman because of a stupid issue of taste. It would be tragic and boneheaded, for example, to miss out on my kinky Christian match because she's blonde and I prefer brunettes. As far as I can, I want to train myself out of those before I'm back on the market. If I try to do it after meeting someone, there is the risk that the initial glow of romance will hide something that continues to bother me. On the other hand, some personal style choices can illustrate a genuine difference of perspective.

I recently read Charles de Lint's The Mystery of Grace, which features an extensively tattooed protagonist, which made me think of this. I have a real problem with tattoos, erotically; a woman with tattoos never looks naked to me. Tattoos, or even piercings, are basically clothing in my mind, clothing that the woman has decided never to take off.

I love working around clothing as a sometimes thing; a skirt with no panties or an open blouse with no bra, for example, can be super hot. But if a woman told me she'd vowed never to take them all the way off, I'd feel like I feel about tattoos. (Except for the "How do you bathe?" questions.)

The protagonist from the book I mentioned thinks of her tattoos as stories from her heart, written on her skin. One, for example, is a picture of her mother. So, it's great that you love your mother, and never want to forget her. That's beautiful. But wearing a picture of your mother every time you have sex? That's where it doesn't work for me. The same goes for any message. To take one of my own messages, it's essential to me to remember Christ in my big decisions about sex. But I don't want my partner looking at a cross tattooed on me, being reminded of His sacrifice, while we're fucking. There's a time and place for everything, and even our most treasured principles, memories, or associations don't need to be front and center ALL the time.

So, that's my problem with tattoos. I kind of hope someone can change my mind.

Availability as a draw

Svutlana says that sexual attraction comes from the perception of high attractiveness and low availability in each other. I do not believe that to be the case in general. Perhaps for some people; but I find low availability to be the most offputting of traits.

I've had a music video I wanted to post for a couple of days, and right now it's particularly apropos. I wanted to post it because I think it's about the sexiest thing I've ever seen. But if there's one thing it does not convey compared to other videos, at least in my opinion, that is "low availability".


"Harlem One Stop" by Bimbo Jones. That's singer-songwriter Katherine Ellis.

Compare with, say, Pink's "U + Ur Hand". The combination of the unavailable song message plus the obvious sexy intent of the video production should match the high attractiveness - low availability formula perfectly. But after watching each I would rather have coffee with Katherine Ellis than be the only man on an otherwise deserted island full of Pink clones. Nothing wrong with singing about wanting to be left alone, but singing about wanting to be left alone while suggestively stroking props with a come-hither look sucks.

What do you come up with if you try to imagine someone who finds the Pink video with the unavailable song message sexy? I come up with nothing good.

There's an interesting contradiction here between what I find attractive, and furthermore likable, and what I offer publicly. Because I think that a man's primary politeness trait is concealing desire and availability. I go way out of my way to either hide desire or strongly indicate unavailability because I assume that my desire is most likely offensive and creepy on its own; and that that offense may be neutralized by indicating my unavailability. Someone wanting to have sex with me makes me like them more even as a friend, as long as I don't get the impression that they are pining and I am torturing them by hanging out with them. Revealing I wanted to have sex with someone else is something I expect to have the opposite effect.



In other news, between Harlem One Stop, And I Try, Insatiable, When You Touch Me, and others, I'm totally in love with Katherine Ellis.

First draft of an erotic story: Her Birthday

Here's the first draft of a story I've had in mind for a long time, that tries to reflect how I feel about giving in sex. I started actually writing it after the What being a switch means to me post.

Vantem - You Never Said (Dash Berlin Remix)

Music post because I don't have anything especially interesting to say right now.

Stupid penis tricks

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What being a switch means to me

This has been edited to include things learned from the comments.

The reason I'm a switch is because of what submission/domination mean to me in the context of a Christian marriage; most of it applies in other LTR contexts. But who knows what it means to others?

The submissive is giving their dignity, their trust, a measure of control over their body; they are accepting some humiliation and pain. They are saying "I will accept pain, I will abase myself, because I want to give you pleasure." My form of submission also pretty much always includes an element where the submissive is getting sexually excited with much less that the dominant has to offer; foot play is the major example of this for me. The submissive is saying "You are so wonderful, so beautiful, that only this little bit of what you have is enough for me". The submissive is expressing compliments and love through self-sacrifice; and that it is happy self-sacrifice is one of the greatest compliments. When I am the submissive, I feel good about giving, and thus about pain; I feel proud of humiliation. I enjoy it a lot within a marriage, but I would not enjoy it with someone I didn't love the way I would something simple and non-submissive.

The dominant has a much more psychologically passive role in my little world, even if it's more physically and mentally active. The dominant is receiving the compliments and the love and the trust. The dominant must dominate to allow the submissive expression. If the dominant is too hesitant, too mild, the submissive's feelings are not fully expressed. If the dominant goes too far, the trust is betrayed.

Missing from my analysis is any idea of why the pain and humiliation of the submissive is a good thing to me as a dominant. Certainly in an ordinary context it's bad. I'm all about giving her backrubs or my coat if it's cold. Why do I want it in a sexy context? I don't know.

In a Christian marriage the participants give rights over their bodies to each other; both the husband to the wife and the wife to the husband is specified in the Bible, not just one way. D/S play is the way I like to see that expressed; it's the fun way.

I figure domination and submission must mean very different things for people who are not switches, and likely in lots of cases for other switches too. What do they mean to you?

Chameleon Woman

I have a good friend, let's call her C. C. is an unfailingly kind person, honest and loyal. The friend I was chatting with yesterday, who we'll call N., is also a close friend of C.'s. C.'s deep traits, her virtues, are solid and do not change.

Her more superficial traits do. I've known C. for almost twenty years, and I've barely seen any of her hobbies. She does whatever the man she's attracted to does. I knew the men, not all of them were very good but most weren't manipulative or pressuring about these things; and C. takes them on when the relationship is just starting, not when she's trying to keep it. With hardcore RPG guy she was a gamer; with athletic guy she was an aspiring athlete; with fishing and hunting guy she's a fisherwoman. Chat friend N. and I talked with C. about this because it seemed a bit worrisome, but nothing came of that.

N. feels that my second wife who's now divorcing me, T., has changed enormously in recent years. Neither of us knew T. for very long at all before T. became attached to me. I came along at a very difficult time in T.'s marriage, as I've told, and comforted her and praised her and gave her backrubs and encouraged her to get back to sex with her husband since she still loved him. He left her for his best friend's wife and she fell in love with me, and I with her.

My friend N. thinks that my wife T. did the chameleon thing with me. T. became a regular churchgoer, which I don't think she was before; she started target shooting and carrying a sidearm; she thought highly of the value of regular sex in a marriage. But she didn't talk deeply about any of these things. All of them have disappeared now.

T. has said she lost herself and had to find herself. That didn't make a lot of sense to me. I wasn't pushing her into being something or other; I was no pushier with anything with her than I am online about monogamy. I pretty much encouraged her in every interest, when she wanted to travel for work, anything*. But apparently she could not be herself with me, and had to find herself somewhere else.

Before we got married I laid all that emphasis on the importance of sex to me in a marriage. She agreed, apparently wholeheartedly, but it was a superficial agreement. She fooled me and I have no doubt she fooled herself as well.

It's kind of weird that my first wife left me for her "safety" and my second left me because she needed to find herself, away from me. I've got a lot of flaws, but neither violent nor controlling are among them. Both cases point to areas where I'm actually already really good. It makes learning from the experience more difficult. Maybe lesson 1 is some people are really hard to please.

------

* There's an exception to this. We both were RPGers at first. I came to resent them because having sex with me was always something she didn't have the time or energy for at 9 pm, but she kept staying out until 2 am at RPGs; I kept asking her to wear costumes for me that she wore to cons, but she didn't; etc. Role-playing sex was a fantasy of mine, but here my wife was role-playing with everyone but me. In the last six months or so of our marriage I was not encouraging her much in gaming. There were probably some looks and heavy sighs when she'd tell me about the games afterward.

Cheered Up

Last night I had a little emotional collapse. For those not keeping scorecards at hand, in the past year:

One of my dogs was killed by a car when she escaped through a hole in the fence.
My job was outsourced. (Disappearing jobs happens a lot to software contractors, so I live well below my means and keep a considerable buffer of savings.)
My wife left me and initiated divorce proceedings.
The (totally fair) settlement with her wiped out my buffer of savings and left me in debt to my father, (but left me still owning my old fixer-upper house outright.)
I discovered that there were practically no software contractor jobs available in the recession.
I broke my neck and have a framework bolted to my skull to support it while it heals.
I had to move in with my parents because while it heals I can't drive or live alone or work. (Help with this kind of thing is one of the reasons I value marriage.)
I stopped getting unemployment because I'm not available for work.
Last Tuesday I found out I'm not healed enough to remove the framework and it has to stay on for another three weeks.
I just realized that I feel being born male is something I have to make up for.

So, I'm really not in the best emotional state. This blog is where I do almost all of my whining; I put on a pretty cheerful face in meatspace.

I need to fill in some backstory about my father too. He's an interesting guy; he grew up in the Depression (and had kids quite late). He makes large donations to charity. But when they send him a request for more money (they send a LOT) and he doesn't want to donate at that time, he'll take the SASE they sent, cross out the addresses, and write in new ones to save the price of a stamp and envelope. Debt is anathema in my family. It's part of the lives of virtually all Americans, but not us.

So some friends came to visit and took me out for burgers. My dad asked how I handled paying for it and I mentioned that I still had some left in my bank account, though I have some credit card debt. He said "Pay off the debt, they're probably charging about 20%", in a very imperative tone. I didn't say anything, but brought up so many of my troubles and so many ways I'm helpless right now. I feel guilty about carrying debt. I want to get back to work, but I can't. I've been wanting to fix up my old '95 Buick and sell my '04 Volvo to pay the credit cards, but I can't. There's an invention I've been working on, but I can't work on that. I want to get the hell away from here and go home, but I can't. I always put a huge premium on independence and now I'm trapped and dependent. So it kind of all came crashing down on me.

I sat in bed for a while praying and crying and feeling sorry for myself. Then I decided I should initate a long upgrade process I was meaning to do on the laptop I'm typing this on, and headed to the room where it is. Just then one of my friends who'd taken me to the burger place went online on IM and I totally and uncharacteristically blabbed to her for about four hours.

I think I made her feel a bit better; before we both married other people we'd been friends that danced around becoming something more. I never asked her out because of something she said that made me think I was too kinky to make her happy; I've regretted that decision a few times. She thought it was because of her weight, an ongoing problem. I think she felt a little better when I explained that and added some compliments that I tried to balance between heartfelt admiration and decent reserve for her marriage. (Her husband is awesome as well as her; way better for her than I would have been.)

I know she made me feel much better, taking all that time for me. We talked about my wife a bit and while I think I may have made things a little worse between them, that being why I generally don't talk about my wife with anyone who knows her, my friend had an insight that couldn't have come from anybody who didn't know her. I'll explain that in another post.

But something I think is interesting is that although I think this friend and I could have been happy together, we would not have been nearly as good for each other as she and her husband are. He was older than I am when they met. It's a good sign.

Dominant Male, part 0

(If you're just joining us, um, well, this may not be the best time. Here is context.)

So, I've mentioned before I that I'm a switch and have a dominant side as well. And I haven't talked about it much here. One reason is that I have some serious hangups talking about it. Partly I fear Ickypoos is going to show up to tell me that turnabout is not, in fact, fair play, which would bother me lots more than it would a normal person.

It would bother me because of fear that Ickypoos would somehow be right just because I am a lesser being. I am totally comfortable with how I put one of my wife's old belts over my neck, with most of the belt pulled through the buckle, as a makeshift combination collar and leash, and encouraged her to lead me around a little; I'm kind of uncomfortable with the way I asked her to do same thing. There's some fear that somehow I was taking advantage; taking advantage of the good nature of my better half.

Ugh. I really want to get myself over this. It's ugly. It's not going to be quick, either. After I get another job I'm going to think about talking to a professional about this. Which unfortunately I regard almost like "I shall consult a highly paid witch doctor," but, well, I really want to do something about it, and I'm not really used to my emotions betraying my mind on such a scale.

One thing I absolutely need in a future wife is eagerness to talk about sex. The lack of this in my marriage is one of the major factors in difficulty in expressing my dominant side; it was hard to know what was OK until I actually tried it. Asking would likely kill her mood and I'd have to wait another two weeks for it to come back. Our play was never something that required a safeword, (and I'm think that for my part I want her 'no' to always mean no). But I don't want to deal with the situation where I'm trying to dominate and 'no' or wet are my only guide to what is OK, let alone what's hot.

I had a femdom/malesub story in my head that is totally going to have to wait. I thought about transposing it to maledom/femsub but I can't write that story at this time.

Neurotic by proxy

Most weekends, some of my friends come by my parent's house where I'm recuperating, for a visit. It's kind of a big thing for me because it's basically the only time I talk to them now; but I don't mention it to my parents other than the "I'm having friends over at X time" that's polite in someone else's house.

My mother keeps asking me, "Are they coming?", with a frequency approaching once an hour as the expected time nears. Telling her "yes" doesn't reduce the frequency but changes the question to "Are they still coming?"

Rrgh. To quote Fraggle Rock, "I fear I may lose my implacable calm."

My best antidepressant

The best thing I've found for depression is to do something constructive. This is specific to a couple of things about me. One is that what depresses me the most is my own tendency to laziness; thinking I'm useless and don't do anything. If you get depressed you know that it makes you not want to do anything; you feel like it's not worth it, you'll just fail at it, which is a vicious cycle.

The other thing is I value effort over results. So I remind myself of that. I haven't really failed until I've stopped trying.

I tend to do something fun to distract myself from feeling bad, but this doesn't really help because afterwards I feel even worse about not doing anything useful. Instead I have to do something I don't want, then later I can get back to something I do want.

So, I'm going to go write some thank-you cards, and sharpen some kitchen knives for my parents (I'm good at that).

Super Uncomfortable Self-Realization

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The Treacherous Adaptability of Libido

I find my fantasy imagination tends to adapt to a level that seems plausible at the time. To explain this, I need to make a distinction between the fantasies I let myself dwell on when I want to wank and the ones that keep popping into my head all the time whether I approve or not. The ones I let myself dwell on are safely unconnected to real friends and acquaintances who might not like being the subject of a fantasy; they're generally porn-assisted and don't change much. The ones that pop into my head almost always are about real friends and acquaintances.

It's the ones that just pop into my head that really change. I'm not going to describe them in my usual graphic way. I started this blog to give myself a place to talk, to work things out in my head. It has evolved into a place where I can also get really valuable discussion and advice. I hope it's interesting to others because it provides a very intimate window onto one man's thinking about sex, and thus a clue as to what people who are less open might be thinking.

I'm not going to describe these fantasies in my usual graphic way, because they could be taken as requests. Even though they're the ones that just pop into my head, not the ones I let myself dwell on, something that seemed like it could be a public request would change the whole feel of the blog in a skanky way. This is where I share my thoughts and feelings, not where I troll for cybersex. (Which isn't to say that cybersex is bad, or even that I will necessarily abstain from it after the divorce is final, just that this isn't the place.)

So let's just say that the fantasies are about virtual contact not physical contact, and often pretty simple, low-bandwidth virtual contact.

What is required to get me excited has really changed a lot since the last time I had sex in February. Even then, as I've described, I was feeling starved. Now, I feel like all I want is the littlest bit of personal sexual acknowledgement. Then, feeling starved, I was grateful to indulge my foot fetish by masturbating while licking my wife's feet, but also resentful that that was all I had to be grateful for. Now, even thinking about getting to do that is wank material.

I think it's important to know how these things change before embarking on a long term relationship. Foot-licking sounds super hot to me now, but that's the treacherous part. I know it's not something that can make me happy as a major component of my sex life. Before my first marriage, I didn't know what I wanted, and I thought the sex I'd never had would be enough despite what I'd fantasized about. And it wasn't.

When I marry again, I do not ever again want to be in the position of being so sex-starved that I'm grateful for foot-licking as the hottest thing available to me. I would like to be in the position where once in a while I do that exact same action as part of submissive play, as a way to show her how great and wonderful and desirable I think she is. (And if I don't think that of her I'm not going to marry her.) The difference in motive is crucial. A woman who liked the footplay would want a happy husband to show that her littlest acknowledgement was hot and desirable, not her desperate husband to show how desperate he'd become.

How to acquire a kink

I recommend this post by Ozymandias, on the subject of how to acquire a kink you don't already have. Pretty interesting stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have a theory about holiday wishes. People celebrate a lot of different holidays, and especially with people you don't know well it can be hard to keep them straight. Or even more with strangers.

Trying not to wish somebody a happy whatever if they don't celebrate it results in less well-wishes, and I think there should be more. After all, even if you don't celebrate it you still go through the time and it would be best if it were happy. So while it's great if you can wish someone a happy thing that they celebrate, don't let it stop you wishing them a happy thing that you celebrate.

So, even if you don't celebrate U.S. Thanksgiving, have a happy Thanksgiving day anyway!

Dark Sexy Secret Sharing Time

Over at Svutlana's someone asked a question that gave me what I think was a great idea that I'm going to repost here.

A woman wrote in saying her husband had suddenly bought a strap-on and asked her to do some BDSM play with him as bottom. She was horrified, and said How could I be married to this man for fifteen years with two children and what I thought was a good normal sex life and have no idea that he was thinking about this!!!???

I think that's all too common. People do not share their fantasies with their loved ones because they are embarrassed, they feel like their loved ones will be horrified. Sometimes they're right, especially because their loved ones will feel pressured to fulfill the fantasies. Often I wanted to actually do things less than I wanted my wife to accept me and love me as a person who fantasized about those things.

So I thought of Dark Sexy Secret Sharing Time. I intend to ask my wife to do this with me when I remarry.

Set aside a regular time for sexy fantasy sharing. The stipulation should be that sharing it is NOT a request or suggestion; you will never try something you heard about this way unless you hear about it again some other way. You should be able to share fantasies that you never want to try in real life, that are too weird or creepy or problematic, without having to explain which ones are which. The purpose is to allow the listener to listen and accept without feeling pressured; if you're the listener, remember this is nothing you have to do. And to allow the teller to be able to share things without feeling embarrassed or feeling like they're pressuring the listener; remember this is nothing they have to do.

To make it sexy and encourage the teller, the listener should slowly gently be masturbating the teller; and asking questions, making encouraging hot noises, talking along with it. If it's a submissive sort of fantasy perhaps the listener can demand the teller tell; if a dominant fantasy, plead with the teller to tell. After the fantasy finishes, the listener should finish up, bringing the teller to orgasm. The listener sitting behind the teller embracing them might work well, especially if the listener occasionally wants to hide the look on their face.

It may be all one way. Sometimes only one partner will have fantasies they'd like to share that way. But I think it would make me feel much closer.

Pride goes before a fall

This is a follow-on from my earlier post, Whore. The upshot is that I frequently made love to (word choice very deliberate) my first ex-wife when she wanted, despite the fact she was mostly treating me like a monster at the time and I really didn't want to, and that I am very proud of acting out love that way. Please don't read this post until you've read that one.

I think that bit of my history and the pride in it have a lot to do with the failure of my second marriage, and led directly to the thing I said that I'm pretty sure made it impossible for her to keep trying with me.

Back to the first marriage again. While I was still pretty happy with my first wife, while I was still sympathizing with the endless stories of persecution, I was very unhappy with our sex life. It was much too seldom. And too tame, almost all vanilla missionary, and I'm obviously fairly kinky. And she seemed to think even the vanilla missionary was dirty and shameful. It wasn't quite the classic marriage-destroying cycle, but it was horrible for me. Besides avoiding marrying a woman who was actually going to do horrible crazy things to me, I decided that though I'd survived the first time, I could not go through a marriage with that kind of sex deprivation again.

When I met my second wife, who we'll call T., she was in a very troubled first marriage. Among other problems, T. wasn't having sex with her husband. I told her about how I had felt; we had a lot of email conversations full of deep feelings. T. started coming on to her husband, but he objected to the idea that I had prompted her to. He left her and moved in with his best friend's wife. T. and I started dating.

I told T. all about what I'd been through with my first wife when we were dating. We talked about sex a lot; intercourse, oral, anal, manual. I licked the cream out of a cream doughnut for her a couple of times; she used to fellate baby back ribs. (This doesn't count as embarrassing for either of us because we both were really into it; it was embarrassing when I did it for other friends.) I thought I explained how I felt really clearly and repeatedly; that if you love someone, and are married to them, you have sex with them, in the mood or not. If you don't get the mood, you do it for love instead. She agreed at the time; but I guess it was hormones.

Many years later, we'd told each other all our stories. In a boneheaded mistake, I'd asked her not to tell me about the bad things from her work, because of the echoes of my first wife's complaints. She only seemed to talk to me about work; and not anything interesting to me, but procedural minutia, details of meetings, panels. I was interested in her field on the popular level, I'd read some of the classic sources on my own before I met her, but I'm nowhere near following her on a technical level; she couldn't really discuss the papers she was trying to publish with me. She said I only talk about guns, religion, politics, and sex, which is close enough to true; there's lots I'd like to listen to or talk about but those are the things I brought up. I guess a classic example of the conversational divide would be if she was taking a group of students on a trip to an historic location. I'd want to hear about the history and she'd want to tell me about what permits she needed to get and which other teachers were going along. Also I'm bad at small talk; I'm a pretty good listener but unless I imagine I'm imparting some information I don't talk much.

I made most of the money, she did most of the housework. I had some kind of problem with low energy that I thought was just depression. (Been to a lot of doctors about it since, found a borderline autoimmune reaction problem like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, only acupuncture seems to help). She'd ask me to help with the housework more, and I'd improve for a week or so then fall back.

We gave each other orgasms once every week or two, in a frequently great mutual scenario. I gave her orgasms at least twice a week besides that. Mostly cunnilingus quickies before she showered in the morning; sometimes she asked to make sure it was on a day that fit her scheduled but usually I offered. I didn't need a special mood, all I needed was that I loved her. I was really feeling sexually deprived and unloved; she was feeling unloved but not deprived. I told her sometimes in a painful scene how I felt, but she'd improve for a week or so then fall back. I considered ceasing to suggest the cunnilingus, in the hope she'd start to understand how I felt if she felt deprived too, but loving her is required of a Christian husband and besides, I really enjoyed it. I don't like to come before work, it slows me down too much, so we started out not doing anything for me on these occasions.

But after the cunnilingus, when I ached for a sexy touch from her, some confirmation that she wants to do me too, she'd thank me and start telling me about her meeting schedule. Evenings she'd always be too tired, though, so morning is my only choice. I told her repeatedly about how I wanted something after licking her; some touch, an invitation to a handjob or a footjob in case I wanted something in the morning anyway, but it didn't change. Sometimes I'd ask for some compromise in the evening; like I'd ask her to put an arm around me, or let me suck her toes, while I masturbated. I wanted to be sharing it with her instead of doing it alone; but despite her being polite and kind I always feel ashamed after something like that. Not like I was too servile, but like it was coarse and disgusting of me to ask when she wasn't in the mood. She was doing me a pure favor that she'd prefer to skip, and I felt it. I felt masturbating alone was less offensive but still an offense because of the porn. Porn was another thing that she told me would be fine before the marriage, but she began to dislike it.

I withdrew a bit. She didn't want to talk about sex, guns, politics, or religion with me. So I'd talk about something else that interested me. I'd say something like "Aw, I just found out the tuatara isn't really a living rhynchosaur. But maybe it's for the best because it made a really disappointing rhynchosaur; just a weird little lizard." (True example.) What was she going to say?

I tried not to withdraw. I'd walk into her home office and sit down and try to chat with her, but I was disturbing her from the work that seemed like the only thing she cared about.

At several points over the years I suggested we talk to a marriage counsellor, but she never wanted to. We got into the classic marriage-destroying vicious feedback cycle; insufficient sex made me feel less loved, feeling unloved made me express less love, me not expressing love made her feel less loved, feeling less loved made her less in the mood for sex. Repeat.

A bit before she left, I tried talking with her about the problems again. I talked about the sex problems, that I just wanted a handjob the same way I gave her cunnilingus, and she explained that she wasn't in the mood and didn't feel good about it if she wasn't in the mood. I know most people feel this way, and though I've really really tried, I just can't get it. You love someone, so you smile at them, put your hand on their genitals, and move it around. I can't understand not getting your spouse off, I don't sympathize. And she knew that, and it must have made her feel deeply judged and found wanting.

And that's where I said the really wrong thing. I'd been sensing she felt the necessity of the mood, but depending on mood was my nightmare that I'd tried so hard to make sure she didn't feel before we were married. When she said it I started crying and blurted, "Then I'm trapped." And that, I'm pretty sure, is where she gave up. She said, "No you're not. You could leave." I said "No, I can't."

I tried to resolve it after that, but her mind was already made up. With what I'd said, I made sure she wasn't doing it for me, but she wasn't. She didn't want to spend any more energy explaining the problem; the only thing I got from her was that she had trusted me with her emotional well-being and I hadn't taken care of it. (And I felt that was too damn much to put on me.)

Not yet

Well, the good news is that my neck is healing and I won't need the plate.

Three more weeks till I can get the Halo brace off, then I have to wear a Philadelphia collar and do rehab before I can drive.

Wiped out my contractor unemployment savings and in debt to my father so I could keep the house in the settlement. (Totally fair settlement). Can't live in my own house, have to live with my parents at 41, can't drive, dependent on them to get everything. Unemployed, had a job prospect but may not be able to interview. Three more weeks before the holes in my head can start healing so I can WASH MY GREASY DISGUSTING HAIR.

Fuck.

UPDATE: Nice to get that off my chest. Maybe sometimes complaining really does make something better.

Tense 2

I woke up unable to sleep anymore, and saw the dawn twilight at the window, and thought I might as well get up. I went to let the dogs out; my older dog didn't feel like getting up yet though, not too unusual, and my younger dog refused to go out without the other dog, normal. When I went out to look around I realized the "dawn twilight" was a full moon and it's only 4:00 am.

I'm working on a long post trying to explain why my wife left me, and I'm thinking about the ways I failed her and all I lost, and I think that is bothering me more than the brace thing. Certainly thinking about that has kept me awake like this before.

Tense

Tomorrow I go to the neurosurgeon and find out whether I can get out of this Halo brace now, or whether I have to wear it another two or four weeks, or whether it's not healing at all and I have to get a plate surgically inserted into my neck that will leave me with very limited head movement the rest of my life. It feels like it's healed up a lot, so I'm pretty confident it's not that last possibility, and I'm optimistic about it being the first one. But I'm feeling very excited and apprehensive; please send me good thoughts and, from those who pray, prayers.

Whore

Something I've talked about on various other people's blogs and want to put here is my thoughts on the duty of sex in Christian marriage. Especially since before I marry someone I want to refer them to this blog. (Although with things like this that are important to me I will certainly not leave it just at a passive communication like that.)

3. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. -- 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, NIV

On this blog mostly I've talked about the woman who's currently my wife, at least for a month or so while we wait for some bureaucrat to finish with the paperwork. On this topic I've got to talk about my previous marriage; I've been married twice.

My first wife, as far as ex-post-facto diagnosis based on my stories can determine, suffered from severe Borderline Personality Disorder. She and I got together with me kind of in the role of her knight in shining armor (which would scare the snot out of me if I met it again, for reasons you'll hear.) We met in college. She told me she had been P-in-V raped by her father. (He's the guy I've mentioned I flirted with the idea of killing, because of this.) I tried very hard to provide her with a safe, secure and comfortable environment. I waited to propose until I got a job; I figured I should be able to support her. We did not have P-in-V sex until we were married. First time we did, she bled. I knew the hymen doesn't always break the first time, so I didn't think much of it, but in retrospect it was one of the earliest bits of evidence.

Family occasions with her side of the family always made her nervous, but she always wanted to go anyway. I couldn't understand why she wanted to keep seeing her father every month or so, she was obviously uncomfortable with him, but I went along to comfort her anyway. Then, her jobs always involved trouble; sometimes sexual harassment. I made ten times what she did and we were saving money at a reasonable rate, but she never wanted to quit. It wasn't just the work; her life was an unending series of persecutions. I was endlessly comforting her. I worked a nasty job so she didn't have to work, but she still worked for people who she said sexually harassed her. She refused to avoid the situations, refused to do anything about them, she'd just come to me with the trouble afterward. On one occasion she slipped up and told me about a persecution that was supposed to have taken place at an event I was at with her, and I knew no such thing had happened. I got tired of it. After about five years of that (three into the marriage), I wasn't very sympathetic anymore. I didn't want to hear about it. I was still gentle and soothing, but would withdraw when she wanted to complain.

Her attitude toward me changed. I didn't understand how it was changing at the time. I knew we were more distant, and I was sure it was connected to the fact that I just couldn't stand the complaining anymore no matter how hard I tried, but didn't recognize how. Her reactions to my gentle, soothing behavior didn't make sense and I couldn't identify what they were. In retrospect it's obvious: I was her new persecutor. She didn't tell me about it of course. I never hurt her, or used mean language, or raised my voice, or anything, so how could I understand how she was acting toward me? When she left me, after seven years of marriage, she disappeared one day while I was at work, leaving me a note, and sending an email out to our friends and family explaining that she could no longer stand the physical abuse I was subjecting her to.

The point of this story is to explain why I didn't want to have sex with her. Although she never said anything to explain it, she was sort of, and inconsistently, treating me like the horrible scary monster she described in her email. I've never been able to figure out how much of the whole thing she believed, she believed it some of the time in some ways but not other times or in other ways. It's one of the mysteries of BPD in general. But anyway, I have no interest in having sex with somebody who regards me as a horrible monster. Despite the attitude, she still came on to me, about once a week, always for P-in-V. She was still my wife, and I still loved her in a conscious, determined sense, though my feelings of affection were largely gone. When she'd come on to me so I would ask explicitly because I could see her general defensiveness. Then when she said yes I'd do it, cheerfully and with as much enthusiasm as I could possibly scrape up. Often so she wouldn't have to ask, I'd make the first offer if I could tell she was in the mood.

Because I usually didn't want to have sex with her, I often felt like a whore. The last three years of the marriage I felt like that most of the time.

But I'm prouder of that than anything I've ever done. I did it because of conscious, volitional love, not attraction, not even affection. When my emotional desire was to withdraw, I loved her, intimately, consistently, and generously. I hope I never have to face the same situation again, but I would absolutely do it again. That was one thing in my life I truly did right.

The passage I've quoted has been horribly abused, to justify spousal rape. If I owe you $20, and I don't pay on time, and you break into my house and take it, you are guilty of burglary the same as if I didn't owe you. But more importantly, look at the passage itself. It says the husband yields his authority over his own body to his wife, which is what I did. It does not say that she may take it if I fail to do so. It says the same thing the same way for men and women. And, of course, the whole thing is to be done out of love. The Bible repeats that over and over and over.

Some people, I think, don't understand love beyond a feeling. Feelings don't last by themselves; they're like annuals. They are the beauty of a garden, but determined love is the soil where they grow; and acts of love and kindness are the way they are replanted. The best sex is a flower in the garden, the expression of a feeling. But the most worthy sex is planting a seed in a bare spot.

UPDATE: There's a sequel to this post, Pride goes before a fall.

How am I going to embarrass myself this time?

I'm at the stage in the emotional process of separation where I'm ridiculously desperate for any confirmation that someone finds me sexy. I wonder how I'll embarrass myself this time? Nine years ago it was a show of cunnilingus on a doughnut for some rather horrified friends.

Peeping Tom: Can of Worms

I'm not sure what to think about this Peeping Tom issue addressed by Svutlana. I'm talking about it here, rather than there, because I don't know what to think and because this raised a lot of tangents in my head. The issue:

I've got in the habit of spying on my neighbour as she gets undressed at night and have watched her having sex with her husband.

I know it's wrong, but it makes me really horny.

My very first reaction is pants-shitting hysteria based on sex + lack of consent = rape. OK, I got over that. He's just looking. Actually my hysterical reaction reminds me of my plan to become a supervillain by hacking into England's Orwellian public camera network, combining the feeds, and then holding England for ransom by threatening to objectify their entire female population with my male gaze.

Still, he says he knows it's wrong, and he's right. It's still lack of consent. I think upskirt porn is wrong too.

Another thought is that this is a fetish I just plain don't share. Like I've talked about, I want volition. I want her participation. A woman putting on a show for me would be tremendous; looking at a woman unawares is not. I'd rather see porn than spy on a naked friend or neighbor. I'd rather stare at a blank wall, in fact. That makes it hard for me to understand this issue; I don't understand the motivation. (Though I'd be more turned on by a fraction of a second's deliberate boob-flash by a friend or neighbor than the best explicit porn; the flash has volition).

Another thing that makes it hard for me to understand is that I don't understand the harm. Yes, I concluded that it was wrong based on principle. But I have some exhibitionist in me. This blog is evidence of that. The principal reason I don't put naked pictures of myself up on this blog is I don't think anyone wants to see them. (How much will Chatroulette spend on filtering software to remove images of what I've got?) It's hard for me to see someone wanting to see me naked in any terms except compliment.

Unless they're TSA, which is lack of consent again, which is principle again.

The exhibitionism raises another point, which we don't have any evidence for one way or another. What if this is exhibitionism on the part of the neighbor? Generally not too hard to close some drapes. Maybe the display is deliberate, maybe the display is the consent. Would that kill some of the excitement for our Peeping Tom? If so, his motive is definitely wrong.

Awesome post at Quizzical Pussy's

Quizzical Pussy has put up an awesome guest post by Auntie Gibbon, telling you pretty much everything useful that you could learn from thousands of dollars of marriage counselling. If you're in a long-term-relationship, or plan to be in one, or want to understand friends who are in one, go read it.

First draft of an erotic story: Rub

UPDATE: The edited, improved final version is up on Literotica.

I woke up last night unable to sleep and wrote this story, or most of it, between 1 and 3 in the morning. Obviously, my libido is back to a considerable extent. Also obviously, first draft. I took my attitude toward women and women's genitals and turned it around, put it in the female character's perspective.

"You be in charge this time," she said.

"OK," he said, "Lie down on your face and close your eyes."

She did, wondering what he had in mind. It wouldn't be like him to go straight to anal from nothing.

He stroked her back, the back of her neck, her butt. He feathered his fingers down the insides of her thighs. She could feel his concentrated attention in the way he touched her, his admiration of her. She knew her flaws too well, never felt herself to be beautiful, but sometimes the way he looked at her and touched her made her see herself the way he did. Sometimes, the power of feminine beauty that he saw so differently, that always brought his cock up so soon, would get past the modesty she felt was so sensible and deserved, and make her realize that she was stunningly desirable in his eyes, just as he so often told her.

He climbed onto the bed and up, over her, on hands and knees above her head. Something touched her hair, and stroked down the side of her head, brushing her ear. It was his cock, hard already just as his touch had promised. It rubbed back up through her hair, down the back of her neck, to her spine, his weight shifting to keep it in contact. He slid it over her shoulder and down her arm, shifting over her on the bed. It lingered on the inside of her wrist. In that unaccustomed place, she noticed again the softness of the skin with the firmness of the shaft; there was nothing else quite like it. It continued down to her palm; she took it in her fingers but he slipped it out. He moved back up to her head, again rubbing against her hair, then tracing down her spine.

With her eyes closed there was nothing to think about but the feel of his cock wandering over her body, exploring her. She felt herself getting warm. The cock rubbed down to the end of her spine, then rubbed between her buttocks. She squeezed them together, catching it for a moment.

"Mmm," he said, pausing there to rub it between her cheeks a little more. He continued down, stroking along her thigh, the back of her knee, her calf, her foot. He pulled away. "Turn over," he said.

She rolled over, keeping her eyes closed, concentrating on the feel. The cock was exploring her whole body, every bit of her, taking her, owning her. It started back at her foot, stroking up along her leg, on the inside, approaching her pussy. She realized she was wet. She moved her other leg out, opening herself to it, but it wasn't time for that; it went up over her mound, and teased at her belly button.

From there it traveled up to her sternum between her breasts, then over to play with a nipple. The hard shaft rubbed lightly, the soft skin sliding over the shaft underneath. It felt like nothing else. She moaned. He stayed there a bit, rubbing against her hard nipple, then continued up. His cock slid over her throat and to the side of her head, touching her ear, then up and rubbed over her face. She kissed it when it came near her mouth.

He shifted his weight sideways a bit, leaving his dominant cock on her face. His hand touched her, moving down to her wet pussy. He began to stroke her clit, and she responded immediately, but in the twisted position his cock lifted away. "Stay there," he said.

She heard him reaching under the bed where the vibrators were. He got back on the bed, positioning himself above her head as if for a 69. He moved his cock back onto her face, the head near her mouth, and put a vibrator against her clit on low speed. She moaned, then tried to get his cock into her mouth. But the angle was wrong, his shaft pressed straight down her face, and she couldn't get it. She licked the underside. He moaned too, working the vibrator against her clit. It was driving her crazy. The vibrator was working her, driving her toward orgasm, but her thoughts were all on his cock, laying on her face. In a flash she understood some of the near-worship he showed to her pussy when he was giving her cunnilingus. His cock was beautiful, and wonderful, and it was gracing her with its touch. She had never been so intimate with it, not when it was in her pussy, not even in a blowjob. It dominated her and she loved it. The vibrator sped up. She moaned again, then licked frantically at what part of the cock she could reach. She wanted it to cum. She wanted the cum spraying over her face, filling her mouth, in impossible quantity. Showing how much she had pleased him, her master this time. She could hear him groaning, letting her know how good her licking felt. He set the vibrator on its highest setting, and heat washed through her body. She could no longer focus. The orgasm took her. She gasped and spasmed up against his body, pressing his cock against him, screaming with the release of submission.

As soon as she could, before her aftershocks had subsided, she took his shoulders, tugging him down onto all fours, angling his cock. "Please," she said.

He moved down and she took him from below, sucking hard. He turned the vibrator down to it's lowest setting but kept it on her. She shuddered with her own aftershocks even as she sucked him. He gasped and moaned, letting her know how close she had already brought him. She took him deep, deeper than he ever asked, deeper than she normally liked, in the urgency of giving. He didn't like her choking herself, but he couldn't see this time and she just wanted to go as hard as she could. Like that, it didn't take long. He shouted his ecstasy and came; she backed up and got her tongue in the way just in time to keep the cum from going straight down her throat and starting her coughing.

As she was swallowing it, he removed the vibrator and kissed her all over her mound. Then he turned himself around and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. He collapsed next to her. "That was wonderful," he said, "You are the BEST!"

"For me, too," she said, "YOU'RE wonderful!"

They rested, snuggled in each other's arms.

Paperwork

In PA there is a 90-day waiting period when filing an uncontested divorce before it takes effect. That does not bother me. (It's now over). What really annoys the crap out of me is that after the 90 days, the divorce still does not take effect until a judge rubber-stamps it and that takes typically about five or six weeks. (That's the period I'm in now). The legal waiting period is not a problem, but the waiting a random period for some bureaucrat to process it seriously is. This is important to me.

Related, God I wish she would try marriage counseling, or give me another chance. She always hid how bad it was for her until she gave up entirely. I still love her and I miss her so much.

I've got to get over that though. It's selfish. There's never been a hint that she misses me; I think she's happier now. I think that has a lot to do with her neat new apartment instead of our ugly old fixer-upper house.

Problematic

I started this blog as a place to talk about the things I didn't feel comfortable talking about with my IRL friends. With the broken neck and recuperating with my parents far away from my friends, I'm pretty well cut off from them, and I've sort of been trying to make blogging substitute for them entirely. That, and a couple of other factors, mean I've been taking things way too seriously. Probably going to be slower on the updates for a while.

Quizzical Pussy Explains

Quizzical Pussy makes a fantastic post on things to know before discussing rape on the Internet, without the usual sarcasm to derail the message.

Why People Victim-Blame Whenever Rape Comes Up

I've seen a number of comments wondering about this, and in many cases someone suggests rather horrible motives. I think sometimes the motives are rather horrible, like I discussed here. But I think often the truth is much less horrible and much simpler, especially with random commenters on the Internet; what is victim-blaming in a rape case is the same ex-post-facto advice we get all the time in every venue.

Men are especially known for this. For an unpleasant example, when one of my fellow Aikido students got his arm broken*, a certain highly abrasive though highly skilled senior student rushed immediately over to where he was lying and said, "You know what you did wrong, right?" For a pleasant example, when I mentioned getting mildly shocked while disconnecting a car battery, my brother explained that one should remove the ground terminal first**, and it never happened again.

These two examples are off because the advice involved was actually pretty good, and the Internet advice focuses on the rare case of stranger rape; totally unhelpful with the more common cases like date rape. But even when the advice is useless, it's not usually*** motivated by blame, it's just run-of-the-mill, annoying, after-the-fact unsolicited advice like we always get.

----
* Yes, I intend to discuss this cluster of accidents with the teacher before going back.

** Because there's no voltage between the ground terminal and the frame (which connects all the things you're likely to be touching), and after the ground terminal is disconnected there's no longer significant voltage between the frame and the other terminal.

*** Again, sometimes it is.

Civil Unions For Heterosexuals

I generally stay away from politics here because I think they are much too prevalent and polarizing in the modern world. Too often people feel that the other side is all stupid or evil, and everyone gets their news and commentary from sources that treat the other side unfairly, e.g. repeating every slip of the tongue to put the other side in the worst light.

Gay marriage is relevant here, though. My take is that governments should do only civil unions for everybody, gay or straight, exactly the same. Government has an interest in matters like the proper disposition of property when a member of a couple dies without a will, that legitimizes them defining civil unions.

They have no business defining marriage at all. For religious people, marriage is a religious sacrament, and in the USA at least the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;". If a Unitarian church is prevented from marrying a gay couple, (or a Baptist church were forced to), their free exercise is abridged. Marriage should be up to whoever the couple wants to solemnize their marriage in the eyes of their community, including if that's nobody but only each other.

I have no idea what the civil union rules should be for polygamy (how inheritance should go etc.), but I'm sure it'll be much easier to settle them logically if we can agree that their LDS church or Muslim mosque or whatever organization has ALREADY married them according to their own practices.

Madonna/whore paradox

After mentioning the Madonna/whore or virgin/whore paradox a while ago, and being someone looking for another kinky Christian, I thought I'd give my take on it. I hope for a woman who would like to be a free love type but is constrained by principle, like me. If you'll forgive a bit of bragging, I think it says something good about a person when they follow principles that do not match their predilections (the opposite says nothing negative of course). I'm not picky about her history if she doesn't have anything infectious. At first I wrote "I don't care" about her history, but that's misleading. I'll be very interested in her history and I think lots of history would be kinda cool, but no kind of requirement.

So there is some paradox, but only the same one that I am.

When I think about the unlikeliness of this and despair, I remind myself that she'll be as happy to find me as I to find her.

I always feel desiderata posts like these are pretty self-absorbed but I'm kinda fascinated by them coming from the opposite sex, so I figure, what the heck? Easy to skim or skip.

Also I confess I wanted to change the top post, and this was handy in the started-then-abandoned post bucket.

Going Out For Halloween Dressed Like Emmanuel Goldstein

The reaction I got here, and many of the comments, really bothered me, and I've been dwelling on it the past couple of days. I was basically accused of being a rapist, so was Orphan and I don't think that accusation was justified in his case either (even if he is infuriating). The whole thing was divided in some commenter's minds into "my side" and the "pro-rape side". LabRat pointed out that it wasn't meant as a serious discussion, the original post was light-hearted mockery, but that hardly explained the way accusations were being thrown around. Now I think I understand where the thread went.



I stood up in front of the telescreen and started suggesting improvements in Oceania's strategy.

(The most important differences being, of course, that rape is real and evil where Goldstein may not have been either; and that Holly isn't in any way comparable to INGSOC.)

(I've never gone back to a post trying to adjust my wording so often as this one.)