Alien Wombat

Why the fuck would Drag Queen’s be Feminists?

2010-10-28T09:58:00.002+10:00

Recently, I started Reading some feminist blogs. I have a long running interest in gender and sexuality and feminists seem to be the ones doing most of the talking about those topics. I’m actually a pretty big fan of Clarisse Thorn after reading a bunch of her stuff, particularly after reading this article. Unfortunately, there are so many other feminist writers who are utterly infuriating – this being a prime example.

First and foremost, I should say that Feminism as a concept bothers me. Feminism is by it’s definition, a vehicle to advance the agenda of a single interest group, exclusionary to the interests of all others. Fundamentally – I think that’s disreputable. Masking that process as the pursuit of egalitarianism is I think disingenuous and misleading. I mentally cast that notion in with ethnic segregationists and and misogynistic patriarchalism.

In reality, I know that most feminists are actually egalitarian. Which is a concept that I support whole heartedly. I also know that most supporters of Men’s Rights groups and the like are also fundamentally supporting egalitarianism. But so very many activists are actually supporting their own interest group’s agenda with no real interest in egalitarianism, except in a creepy, Orwellian ‘Animal Farm’ context where they’re more equal than everyone else. So I try and filter my reading down to people who are smart and are actually interested in discussing gender and sexuality in a reasonable way – rather than pushing an agenda.

Today I read this. Convoluted series of links from something Clarrise posted. Wow that was a mistake.

The thrust of the story was that an alarming number of men who dress in women's clothing do not have an accompanying interest in women's rights. Which is frankly astonishing to me. Why on earth would Drag Queens have any interest or concern as a group, in Women’s Rights? Human nature is clear in that we’re self interest. If Drag Queens, as a group – were going to have an active interest in any kind of equality/anti-discrimination agenda – they’re much more likely to be concerned with anti-homosexual agendas. Discrimination against Cross Dressers, and the Gender Queer would also be a pretty big concern I’d imagine. But fundamentally, Cross Dressers aren’t Cisexual women. Most Cross dressers don't even self identify as women. The discrimination that they’re exposed to isn’t discrimination against women. And if any group of people was less likely to see a downside to being biologically female and not having the same rights and considerations as Cisgendered men – I can’t think of who they might be.

You would think that these men would be natural feminists. They are intimately aware of the performance of femininity; their gimmick is based upon societal discomfort with gender nonconformity; they are forced to perform absurd tasks in ridiculous footwear.

The writer was at the Dupont High Heel Race. Does she really think that the queens she was interviewing have a serious problem with ridiculous footwear? That they feel ‘forced’ to perform? Seriously? Drag performers are typically people who enjoy the role and enjoy the footwear. Cross Dressers and Transgendered parties moving towards a female identity aren’t the same Demographic as Drag Queens at all – and in the CD and TG communities – there is a reasonably visible propensity towards fetishizing the ludicrous shoes, but there are also many many people who wear comfortable shoes and pursue their gender role because they find more joy and truth in it. Who find joy and benefit in being feminine.

Also, and this is a little politically incorrect in a time when so many transgender parties are stressing that their change is based in need, not desire – but I know a good number of pre-op M to F, or fully transitioned parties who sought a feminine gender identity because they thought it was better. Sexually and socially – they compared masculinity and femininity and found either the middle ground, or the female transition to be preferable. I don’t mean to imply that it’s a universal truth, or that it’s even reflective of a majority of transgendered parties – but I’d estimate that among my personal acquaintances and friends it’s reflective of somewhere between a third and a half of the gender transitions that I’ve observed. And for reference, I think it’s awesome and those people are tremendously sexually interesting to me. But I think it’s indicative of why they’re the last people I’d expect to see being a woman as a disadvantaged position that needs balancing.

Also, and lets be honest, lots of Cis homosexual men, who typically make up a majority of drag queens, are kind of misogynistic. Again, it’s not universal or anything – but lots of gay men have issues with women and apart from close and trusted friends – see women as anything but sympathetic. Admittedly, among my friends and family – there’s some pretty profound misogyny – so maybe I’m seeing that as a broader characteristic than it deserves – but Alan Down’s excellent ‘The Velvet Rage’ gives some great insights into why men only club nights might about more than focusing attention on valid potential sexual partners.

So what's Drug sex like?

2010-10-01T03:45:00.000+10:00

When you first drop (swallow a pill, or put it under your tongue and hold it there while it dissolves, feel the tingle, acid burn, diesel and vinegar, powdered bass lines and throbbing dreams of togetherness); it doesn't feel dirty, hell it it doesn't feel anything at all. Until the first time you crush it up, put it in the mortar and pestle your mom bought you from that snooty kitchen store, grind it up with glucose, split it into long white perfect lines, railway tracks to oblivion on a mirror that you can't let yourself look into, acrid and horrible as you inhale, a drop of water makes the burn go away, but the feeling of being dirty lingers when it starts to drip down the back of your throat, burning mucous chunks of filth, that's when it starts feeling dirty, but hey at least you're not one of those freaks who puts them up other cavities, that's something right?; Its like being in an elevator the moment before the cord snaps. Something momentous is coming, but you don't really feel anything at all. When you've done it a few dozen, or a few hundred times, when you're a junkie to the core, you feel the anticipation, feel the intensity building. You're Pavlov's Dog and the dinner bell is ringing. You feel your jaw starting to wobble with an impatient sense of impending something. You never really know what. You hope its going to be perfect.

You go and you lose yourself. Throw yourself away. Burn away the trail of breadcrumbs with a chemical flamethrower, napalm on the wildflowers of your sanity. Hide in the dark and the anonymity of the crowds, Let the lasers wash away what you were in case you come looking for yourself. You dance because you love to dance, or because it makes the high come faster. You think it’s because you love to dance, physical exertion accelerates absorption, but you think you always loved to dance, maybe that was it, you never really know.

You go and buy a bottle of water. You throw a mouthful back and it tastes wrong, sweet, the acid dried saliva washing out of your mouth. You feel that rumble in the base of your belly, you feel your heart starting to pump faster, you can't relax your jaw, one thought burns your brain, "Get me to the fucking dance floor, I hear my train's a’comin."

You dance and you dance and you dance. You spin your hands through the air, little lasers or those stupid sticks you snap to make a glow, you space out and realize that the lights are just a blur. So many colors, so many lights, everything is wrapped in peach fuzz. You brush against something, fur covered pants, made by somebodies mom, you're hand brushes across them, lingering, sensual, Jesus you're shaking like its an earthquake, and baby it’s the big one.

You throw your head back in the lasers, tasting the lights as they wash over your face; washing you away, you find a water bottle in your hand and water washing over your face. You feel the temperature change but you don't feel the water. You're dancing with somebody, or maybe you were just dancing with the bass. You feel her hands on your thighs, fur covered patches sewn to your pants by your Nana. She just doesn't understand kids fashion today. Fuck those are on the other pants, these ones are just comfortable and ordinary, except for the perfect pair of hands wrapped around your ass, pulling you against the most perfect skin you've ever had wet dreams about. She asks if you've got a cigarette, you don't smoke, you put more shit down your throat and up your nose then you can remember, but you don't smoke, that shit will kill you. You tap your friend, or some guy who was next to you and smoking, you can't talk right now but you can put two fingers to your lips, your jaws are wobbling, your eyes are rolling, everything is a blur as he hands you the cigarette, you put it to your lips and she reaches down the front of her pants, fingers lingering over something in there before she pulls out a lighter and hands it to you. You take a drag and remember that you don't smoke, you hand the cigarette to her and blow the smoke out, coughing slightly, trying not to remember that first hit of meth, or the times when you promised yourself you'd never smoke, never end up an addict like your parents. You think she's got that look in her eyes. Is she really there or is she just the bass line? Fuck how good is this DJ? She's taking you by the hand and leading you off the dance floor. You linger, dragging your fingers over random people's flesh, fur, skin and hair as you trail after her. You stop to watch that guy doing that thing with the lights that you love but can never do right. Jesus Christ did you see that? That guy just did a back flip!

She's leading you up the stairs and into the bathrooms, the ones with the doors that stretch floor to ceiling. You blink, you've got her pressed up against the wall, your hands holding her wrists above her head, her body arched, aching against you, you open your eyes and read the graffiti on the wall behind her hair, one of her hands is free, pulling up your shirts, skin on skin, you can feel her, crushed silk and velvet, a kittens fur and perfection, unbefuckinglievable, Christ its hot, you're pouring water down over both of you, you don’t remember pulling the water bottle from your pocket.

You’re soaked to the skin with sweat and ice water, burning up, her hand wrapped around you, your hand in her hair, mashing your mouth against hers, her nipple in your mouth, she's got the cutest freckles and a tattoo of something, your vision blurs and you can’t tell what, you’re pretty sure its cute though. You know time passes but you can't remember it, she's on her knees, her shirt on the hook on the back of the door, don't want to get it dirty, Jesus Christ she's got her mouth around you, everything blurs and she's bent over and you're inside her; am I hard? Fuck! God what is this feeling? Pounding on the door? Bouncers are telling you to get out now. You aren't finishing any time soon with the chemical flood rushing though your blood.

You aren't sure how but you talk your way out of getting kicked out, you're back on the floor, she's dancing with you like you're still fucking, you've got your hand down the front of her pants, inside her panties, rough plastic baggie full of something crystalline and her wet lips against your fingers as you dance, and then she's gone and you never know if she was real. A hundred photos on your camera phone the next day, was that what she really looked like? Or was it her? Maybe it was that one? Maybe it was just the bass line.

What's the epilogue? Where's the morality tale? Every one of these stories has one. Eventually, if you push the recreational narcotics envelope far enough, if you're hardcore, old skool, last of the real ravers, dedicated to the pursuit of the perfect high, or just persistent in your stupidity, you reach a point. Some people see the point coming and stop early. Some people never really push themselves, their bodies or their minds far enough to reach the point. But if you push hard enough, long enough, everyone reaches the same point. You get depressed, nothing feels real, you feel sanity slipping away. You realize you can't stand any of your friends in the cold light of sobriety. You start to hate the scene, the bullshit, the desperation, the depression, the paranoia. You fuck up some friendships and you hate yourself a little more every day. You clean up or you break up, little pieces of yourself lost and gone away. You are never the same person again. But it's a long, fun road to reach that point.

Do I miss it? The journey? The chemical safari? Riding the Disco pony to funky town on a road made of rainbows and dream? Nah. I don't miss it. Not at all. It's not me any more. I don't still Jones. I don't hear Pavlov's dinner bell ringing. I hear the music now and it's cleaner. Pure without the drugs. My brain works now. I don't miss the drugs. The escape. Not at all. I'm not a junkie. Not any more. Not at all. I'm fine. 100%. A-Ok. Fuck I could do with a trip.

Drug sex - We bump and we grind
Drug sex - We lost track of time
And you never fuckin' done it 'till you done it fucked up
Drug sex - I can't believe I'm still up
~ Machinegun Fellatio

Give her a kick in the box and tell her to shut the fuck up

2010-02-24T18:18:00.001+10:00

I'd like to note that some of the people reading this are going to get sand in their vagina's and take my abstract rants as personal attacks. To those people, I'd refer you to some fairly famous Carly Simon lyrics. This song is not about you. But hey, feel free to get sand up your vagina if you feel the need.

That said, the drama llama has been doing his quarterly visit to South East Queensland lately. I'm thinking seriously about hanging out some llama baits and hiding up a nearby tree with a shotgun - cause christ I'm sick of this shit.

"He's a bad person, if you're friends with him, you can't be friends with us."

No, I can't be friends with you because you're acting like a 9th grader with her first bout of PMS. Fuck off with that bullshit. I don't care of your relationships has dissolved, or if he kicked your dog, or if he gave your mum herpes. I'll make the decision about who I'm friends with based on my interactions with them. Not yours. And it's ludicrous to expect me to pick my friends based on your say-so.

"I'm a poor innocent, won't somebody help me!"

Wait, did you safeword? Were you pissed off about this 10 minutes after the fact? What about the next day? Oh, you loved the entire scene until a week later, you got your panties in a bunch when some third party said something on the internet that made you paranoid? And now you want me to stick my nose into a situation to help make you look good and somebody else look bad, in regards to a situation that I had no involvement with, when you were happy as a clam until somebody said something that made you a bit twitchy? Riiight.

"All members of <Gender> are <something bad> because of <something stupid>"

Maybe if you hosed that sand out of your vagina, you'd get laid more and get over this bullshit. Plenty of people are stupid. Plenty of stupids have done 'something bad' - but frankly, their shared gender is far less relevant a connection to your problems with those stupids who did something bad than their shared association with you. Projecting your poor decision making regarding the character of people you associate with onto an entire gender is offensive and fucking stupid. Stop it.

"I'm a dominate!"

No, you're semi-literate.

"Nobody likes me because I'm old/young/a Sagittarius"

No, nobody likes you because you're not very likable. Plenty of old people, young people and Sagittarians get on just fine in the community without any of the problems you're having. Because they're not annoying. You're annoying in a way that's associated with being an old/young/Sagittarian and you're mistaking the fact that you're living up to a negative stereo type for those people being prejudiced against you.

"I've got too much free time to spend on the internet, so I'm going to manipulate people to create drama for my entertainment and to make me feel important."

There's a lot of house bounds or 'Pros' who fall into this category. Too invested in being entertained by the drama in the scene to survive without the drama and not enough other shit going on to keep them busy. Get a fucking new hobby - one that isn't 'provoking fights on the intarwebs'. FFS.

n.b. If you're a Pro or a housebound who just got sand up your vagina about the above comment - chances are I was talking about you. Otherwise you'd recognise that someone can criticize a group that you belong to without criticizing you. The reference to 'Pro' in the above statement was a description of a certain group of people who take the occasional paying submissive, but are about as professional as a 'Yo Mamma' joke.

"I base my kink on a set of arbitrary rules and expectations laid out in a work of fiction, intended to depict a fantasy world entirely disconnected from reality, and people make fun of me!"

No Shit. Srsly?

You've got a profile with 120 pictures and none of them are you? None of them even resemble you? They're all pictures of some cross dressing idiot with a sword riding a giant eagle in a world where all women are slaves, and people make fun of you? Oh my god that's horrible.

You probably didn't catch it, but that was sarcasm. If you do something ridiculous, people may not respect you and may well even laugh at you. Welcome to the real world - where our kinky sex lives revolve around the people we have kinky sex with, and the rules we've negotiated with them. Not the pretence that we're born warriors from a planet on the other side of the sun, or giant giraffes - and a set of rules dreamed up by a second rate sci-fi author in the 70's.

And if you're going to play pretend, I don't have any problem with that. But please try and keep track of the fact that you're playing goddamn pretend. You are NOT a giraffe/human hybrid from the planet Bleezel, you might be pretending to be, but you're not.

And unless you're a giraffe human hybrid from the planet Bleezel who plans on sucking my dick, I have no motivation to play pretendsies with you. Interact with me like a person and don't expect me to acknowledge your hierarchy in the herd, your status as a warrior or the fact that my She-Giraffe should be behaving differently. Very few BDSM parties are run by the Great herd of Bleezel and unless we're at one where that is the case - chances are you're at a party where the vast majority of the audience doesn't care about your herd, your giant flying birdy or the fact that you're the dominant warrior of the giraffe herd.

"I've been doing this for 92 years!"

That's funny, I was there when you started doing this and it was less than 18 months ago. Have you figured out some kind of time machine? Can I borrow it?

If you're going to lie - try not to pick lies that your audience knows are lies. 'I was in great shape a few years before I met you' is a plausible lie. 'I was a purely heterosexual male Pro Dom making $200,000 a year as an expert Master for the 18 years before I met you, even though I was introduced to you 6 months ago as 'at my first party' and had clearly never held a flogger before' doesn't fly so well. Especially when you're still visibly only border-line competent. And Ugly.

Male escorts who Pro Dom do exist. But they're rare. They very, very rarely cater to an exclusively female clientele and if they suck a LOT of dick as part of their business model - it's unlikely that they out-earn their female counterparts. And the guys who do make it work in that industry are almost without exception good looking guys. Being podgy, middle aged, balding and not terribly attractive on your best day - doesn't sell the bullshit.

'I was adopted into a native American tribe' is also a poor lie, Australian aboriginal tribes sometimes do that, Native American tribes? Not so much. As was 'I spend 20 years living in Japan learning Martial Arts with a Shinto master, 20 years in the navy as a special forces mercenary, 20 years in a gorean village in Dakota and 20 years 'maintaining' the harem of an Indian Mogul who was unable to look after them himself, if you know what I mean' is also a poor lie. Especially when you're only 65.

Why can't we all be who we are and get along? I'm fat, bald, and I've been playing for a long time - but for a fair bit of that time, I was an idiot. I made some money from doing something stupidly dangerous in the industry for a while. If anybody is impressed by me - I hope it's because they've seen what I've been up to lately, and been impressed. Not because they heard that 15 years ago I had a 14 inch (diameter) vibrating penis and ejaculated chocolate.

Mini Dom/me, Tiny Dom/me, Baby Dom/me - Ugh

2010-02-24T18:15:00.003+10:00

Is it just me that gets creeped out by people who project sexual roles on their kids? I mean nobody looks at little sally and say 'Oh, there's a tiny little reverse cowgirl! She'll ride cock's like they're a fair ground ride' or 'Look at little Tommy, he's such a little carpet muncher. He'll spend half his life flossing pubes out. But for some reason - so many parents in the scene have this obsessive idea that their child is a tiny/born dominant.

Here's the thing. Lots of kids go through a stage where they're pushy, arrogant, demanding. They're not being dominant. They're establishing boundaries.

Your 6 year old? Not a dominant. Just a pushy kid. Learning the boundaries. Demanding. Perhaps over exposed to your lifestyle. Perhaps over familliar with the use of rope and riding crops. Perhaps mimicking the mannerisms of a strong figure in said child's life.

It's not indictitive of your child's character, sexual identity or ultimate destiny to follow in your perverse sexual footprints. It's just kid behavior. That's why there are a million tiny dominants out there and very few people coo'ing over their grade schooler's submissive proclivities 'Oh, little sally's going to grow up to be such a good little slave for her Master' is much less common then 'Oh, Little Betsy's going to be a bitch of a Domina when she's all grown up. She'll be hell on her boyfriends.'

I wonder what that says about us as a group, and about the children of perverts.

Buying a Violet Wand

2010-02-24T18:15:00.001+10:00

This comes with some caveats. I have NOTHING TO DO with the person running the store I'm about to link to. I have never met the operator, and have no business connection with her other than being a satisfied customer. If the store operator kicks your dog or sodomizes your aunt Jane - please note that I take no responsibility.

That said, we bought one of our wands from her about 2 years ago. Two or three of our friends have bought wands from her since and have had experiences consistent with ours.

Slavic Beauty on Ebay

The kits from this vendor that we've had first hand experience with are less powerful than our antique units, and some other modern units that we've played with. But they are in our experience reliable and well priced. We have a custom milled copper infuser wand to give this kit some additional zap and we like that it's robustly made, travels well and great for taking with us to play parties.

The person who milled our infuser wand isn't taking commissions - he's just a bloke who had a metal lathe and calipers handy when we asked the question, and was nice enough to help us out. If you want to offer him a truly ludicrous amount of money persuading him to make it a commercial enterprise, let us know and we'll see if he's interested. For a very reasonable percentage of the transaction.

Again, I'd like to stress that I have NOTHING AT ALL to do with Slavic Beauty. It's just that a lot of people have asked us for the link to her store and this seems easier than emailing a dozen people after every party where we get the kit out.

The more expensive modern violet wand units that you see around for sale are usually modified neon testing units that are hard to get hold of and expensive due to scarcity. They're nice kit, but they're expensive. They're easy to find through google and the question is really just about how many times you want to mortgage your house for a really fun bit of kit. We're cheapskates - so we can't recommend any one vendor over another in that department. Google truly is your friend.

If you're looking to buy antique units, it helps to speak or at least read German. German ebay is consistently where we find the best prices when we're looking at antique units. We don't speak German, so we harass one of our friends who does when we're looking at antique units. If you don't speak German, you'll have to find your own multi lingual friend to help you read listings, as ours are busy.

Antique kit vendors tend to either be expensive, or not terribly reliable about having stock listed/on hand and ready for sale - so we can't recommend specific sellers. But we would stress that Ze Germans are consistently cheaper then any of the english language listings that we can find, and restoring and reselling kits seems to be a bit of a national past time.

First they came for the porn importers

2010-02-02T10:09:00.001+10:00

As I read about the current state of Australian censorship, in which pornographic images depicting characters from the Simpsons are considered child pornography. In which depictions of models over the age of 18, no more misleadingly edited then any other image published in pornography (oh, she's had her complexion flaws airbrushed in post production - and you think that the lack of visible pimples makes her look MORE like a teenager?) is considered to depict someone under the age of 18 (it depicts a model, who's over 18, how the fuck does it depict someone under the age of 18?) and video games which will be played primarily by men aged 18-34 and could legally only be sold or rented to people over the age of 18 are considered too harmful to children to be classified - I can't help but wonder if I'm living in the right country.

It bothers me that the government is intending to force import restriction level censorship on the internet. It bothers me that those restrictions are so impractical that they cannot help but have a vast range of false positive. It bothers me that they are so expensive and so ineffective that all they truly do is make criminals of honest people. It bothers me that Australia's already limited bandwidth capacity will take a massive speed hit. It bothers me that the obvious ways to avoid these solutions will make investigation of cyber crime virtually impossible. It bothers me that the obvious ways to avoid these restrictions were developed to bring democratic freedom to dictatorships and fundamentalist nations. It bothers me that no deployment of nationalized internet filtering has EVER been implemented without it being misused to suppress political opposition.

But mostly it bothers me because as a grown adult - my government shouldn't be determining what ideas I can and can't be exposed to. My government shouldn't be limiting what filmed actions of consenting adults are suitable for my exposure. And it bothers me that my government having determined that I'm too feeble minded to be exposed to these ideas, has started off with pornography - but continues to allow increasingly graphic violence to be shown to increasingly younger audiences.

I voted for this government. I voted for a leftist government with an eye towards increased social freedoms and a reduction of war mongering and repression of the rights of minorities. I recognized that I was trading a government with excellent fiscal policies for a government with I believed, better social policies. I'm increasingly finding that despite the campaign material - what I voted for was a right wing theocracy masquerading as the left wing moderates.

Stop the country. I want to get off. Without having to explain to a government censor that the video I'm watching is of a petite and youthful appearing 23 year old who gave her full legal consent to having the video taken, and that's neither illegal nor immoral under any reasonable interpretation of the law or common sense.

Blind Date

2010-01-17T16:12:00.000+10:00

I’d completely forgotten this story until I found it in the archives from the forums. This took place in about 2001/2002 I think.

I was once the wing man for my former roommate 'Ben'. Ben is from Australia's gold coast, and he is every cliche you care to mention. He is a shaggy haired blond guy with Tan, he plays bass for a band and is an environmental science / philosophy major, despite having such worthless majors he is surprisingly intelligent and all of my female friends have rated him high 4 star or better.

Ben desperately wanted to fuck some chick, and because I happened to be home and not busy when the girl in question told him she would come out, but she would be bringing her friend 'Dee' with her, promptly volunteered me to be his wing man, after reminding me that he'd had to take cold showers 3 days in a row because I'd used all the goddamn hot water.

Ben is one of those obnoxious people who will NEVER tell you that someone is ugly. He will always dwell on their good points because he is basically a little bitch and feels bad if he contributes to someone not being liked, so it shocked the fuck out of me when he warned me that 'Dee' was in one of his classes and I would probably fucking hate her, but begs me to be nice to her long enough for him to seal the deal. I assume she has a beard and a lazy eye or something and brace myself with a shot of vodka before we leave.

We got to the Bar and have downed our initial shots and started on beers when two girls arrive at the mostly empty bar, one calls out Ben's name in greeting. I turned and looked, one unquestionable 5 star, easily the best looking woman I had ever seen in a shitty student bar, and one low 4 star wearing a Pixies t-shirt, no where near par with the first, but easily the second best looking woman in the bar at the time.

I assumed naturally that the 5 star was the Ben's target, but hey the other one is still well above average and has excellent music taste. I was mentally thanking jeebus for whatever the fuck I'd done right when the 4 star bounced over and gave Ben a big hug and started flirting with him. I was instantly wary. Karma had to be fucking with me. There's no way a mind blowing 5 star needs her friends to find a guy with a wingman unless there's something seriously wrong with the bitch. Little did I know.

The evening started normally enough, she seemed like a relatively normal human being, maybe she has herpes, maybe she has 6 children from different fathers, maybe she's a lesbian and this is all just some cruel prank to get revenge for the hot water thing. Then out of nowhere, at the table next to ours, somebody mentions that they saw some politician opening some building or something. I see Ben cringe.

Miss 5 star whirls on the poor unsuspecting guy at the table next to us and unleashes her first salvo. The bitch started quoting Karl Marx passages on Class. This mind blowing body is attached to a goddamn communist. Her rant lasts for at least 10 minutes before the guys at the table next to ours give up trying to argue with her and just leave. I am jaw dropped. She goes after them pulling something out of her bag. Socialist party propaganda. She insists on handing them pro revolutionary material. I am cringing and and trying to drink myself deaf so I can appreciate her tits without having to listen to this shit.

She comes back and launches into an extended rant about what assholes those guys were. Ben is giving me the look which translates to 'Please don't fuck this up for me.' I am out of alcohol, so I offer to buy her a drink - hoping it will shut her up or at least chill her the fuck out a little. She turns on me. My little communist 5 star is also a femminazi. A RAGING femminazi. She barely draws breath while chastising me for being as big an asshole as those machine supporting assholes who left with my sexist and patronizing implications that she needs my money.

I roll my eyes and go the bar to get my own drink, knowing that anything I say will set this off further. I come back to the table, she is subjecting Ben and the 4 star to a diatribe about the evils of men and her theories that men will be made redundant in the next 3 generations and a purely female society will emerge into communistic utopia. I roll my eyes and drink quickly. She ends her diatribe with a comment that she is thirsty and is going to the bar to get her own drink, with a pointed glare at my chauvinistic ass.

I drink faster, hoping to not be able to hear by the time she gets back. The bar is now starting to get busy, and by the time she gets back I am finished my drink and immediately head to the bar for another. By the time I get back, Miss 5 star is staggeringly drunk and laughing obnoxiously. She is also trying to flirt in a very direct manner, with a support beam. I ask the 4 star what the hell she had to drink. Apparently it was a long island ice tea, it is all gone. I get the feeling the bartender, hoping to butter up a 5 star made it extra strong.

Ben and the 4 star have advanced to moderate making out, I drink more and watch miss 5 star molest the support beam. I give Ben a look which should convey 'Close the deal and lets get out of here' - he takes 4star by the hand and stands up... and then goes to dance. I drink more. I pour myself a drink from the pitcher of whatever the fuck he's drinking, its the least he can do for making me be nice to a communist femminazi. The communist staggers back over to the table and picks up my drink from the table and chugs it. Strangely enough - a large quantity of alcohol turns an offensively stupid mega-bitch into a barbie whore.

She decides that I am a suitable replacement for the support beam and starts flirting with me. By flirting I mean air humping the chair next to me and asking where I live. Ben and his 4star come back. I suggest we go home and hang out there. As grenades go, drunk, slutty and hot is certainly a fuck sight better then hell bitch or bearded lady - I've got something to gag her with at home if worst comes to worst. Its possible that I should have considered from her abrupt personality change that maybe these mood swings would continue, but irritation and alcohol do not combine to bestow on me great foresight.

We get home and Ben and his 4star immediately go to his bedroom. Thin walls lead me to believe that they aren't wasting any time. Drunk and Obnoxious whore asks where the bedroom is. We get to the bedroom and I start to take my shirt off. She bursts into tears and sits on the bed. I am confused, I put my shirt back on, but the tears continue, I know I'm not Brad Pitt lady, but what the fuck. She confesses that she just broke up with a long time boyfriend (I assume he was deaf or a retard), and its all really weird and she thinks the alcohol might be reacting with her bipolar medication. Ding! so many mysteries answered.

She tells me she is sleepy and wants to lie down. I say fine and go to get her a glass of water. Curse my stupid sympathetic ass. She is unconscious when I get back. I roll her on her side to decrease chance of drowning in her own vomit and go downstairs to play some computer game. Thin walls tell me that Ben and his 4 star are still fucking/fucking again when I go up to check on her a few hours later to make sure she hasn't died in my bed. She hasn't. She has thrown up though. Lovely. I sleep on the couch. The next morning when I wake up she is gone. Vomit still covers my sheets. Thin walls tell me that Ben and the four star are either still fucking, or fucking again.

I go and clean up my sheets, reminding myself that I used all the goddamn hot water 3 days in a row. Karma's sole redemption is that my mattress is undamaged. Ben and the four star emerge eventually, I tell Ben about the events of the evening. Four star hears and offers to pay for the cleaning. I am a fucking pussy and tell her that it's ok, as long as I never have to see that communist bitch again.

If this was a normal morality tale, I’d say I never used all the hot water again. But I really like long hot showers.

Dude, even by my standards, thats fucking weird.

2010-01-17T16:10:00.000+10:00

a few years back, I was at a friends place on a Sunday afternoon. We were chilling and drinking and listening to the radio. The radio announces some prize for the best embarrassing story about your ex, and one of the girls dives for the phone and starts frantically dialing, while giggling her ass off.

Now this chick had like 3 ex's in her life, she didn't do hookups she only did relationships and all of her relationships had lasted a while, so we'd met all these guys and none of us knew any good stories about this guy - we're looking around puzzled trying to figure out what the fuck, she goes outside for some quiet and we're listening to the radio when she comes on telling her story.

Apparently her ex who she named on the most popular radio station in town had a slightly unusual habbit. Right as he was about to reach the point of no return when they were fucking, he'd whip it out and slap it against the wall and slam it back in. They always had to fuck near a wall so he could do it - blowjobs were the same deal, if there wasn't a wall nearby - he couldn't get it up. If they got it on in the great outdoors - he had to slap it against a tree. Apparently he quite regularly shot his wad over the whatever he slapped it on as a result.

I'd had beers with this guy. I'd heard drunken stories about his family and his childhood and all sorts of shit, I never heard anything even vaguely unusual, completely normal, to the point of being boring from everything I'd heard/seen. Where the fuck does that sort of fetish come from?

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?

2009-12-24T11:12:00.001+10:00

Io9 article here

Anna lee Newitz, wrote a piece for IO9, a blog about sci fi, arguing that Avatar is the classic ‘White Guilt’ story about a white man throwing in his lot with the oppressed natives to overcome his ethnic guilt at being white. I haven't seen avatar, but she makes some pretty valid points, and lumps in a bunch of movies like 'The Last Samurai and Dances with Wolves' and alleges that basically every sci-fi book written by a white guy is about the white guilt of cultural colonization.

It's interesting that Anna Lee seems to associate conquest and the defiling of conquered natives with Caucasians. Specifically the British empire's expansion phase and it's impact on South Africa and North America.

The story of one culture invading and destroying another culture is as old as the concept of culture. Perhaps the concept of guilt over cultural destruction has come about post the British empire's expansion phase - but very few of China's expansionist emperors were Caucasian. Genghis Khan, not Caucasian. Italians? Generally not considered to be Caucasian anytime before the 1900s. The Persians? Not Caucasian. The Zulu's and their expansion through the tribes of southern Africa? Not a Caucasian in sight.

"going to a foreign culture and colonizing it" is a story as old as time. It extends beyond cultural boundaries. It extends beyond ethnic divisions. It defines human history. It defines human evolution. Fundamentally, since the dawn of time we have gone out, found life and used it. We domesticated dogs and cattle. We domesticated corn and rice. We have wiped out uncountable species of life in our cultural expansions.

It's not terribly interesting or engaging to write about going out and conquering non sentient life and it's cheaper on the special effects budget to do bipedal, roughly humanoid aliens. But thinking that it's a white guilt thing is an interpretation so rooted in the narcissism of the cliché American traveller who complains about Italian pizza being wrong that i can't help wondering if Anna lee was trying to get published at the Onion and ended up with IO9 picking it up instead.

The pundit pieces from non Caucasian writers bemoaning the whole arch type of going to another culture and conquering it in particular make me giggle. Especially when they’re coming from people who’s ethnic groups of origin are right now in the middle of cultural conflicts (Hello Israel! Hi India and Pakistan! And a big Howdy to everybody in the audience from an Islamic nation!) pointing the finger at whitey and saying we’re warmongers with a guilt complex is the kind of racism that usually gets labelled ‘reverse racism’ like there’s a discernable difference between it and normal every day racism.

At the end of the day – There’s no one alive today who’s not descended from someone who fucked someone else over for poor reasons. As a fiction writer – I write about characters who behave (I hope) like humans. If my human characters have gone forth to conquer another culture (and they have) – It wasn’t any kind of white guilt. It was my observation of how humans behave. Quite frankly – if I’m writing a conquering villain, basing my model on the British imperial expansion sounds terribly boring. There’s much more interesting character models in the Asian and middle eastern cultural groups, or in the more modern, multi cultural west. Unless we’re talking Pirate conquerors – in which case Western Europeans certainly had their share of awesome.

Ask a Pervert – Point of clarity

2009-12-23T08:49:00.002+10:00

Don’t get too excited. This isn’t a fun entry – although I’ll post one later today.

I’m going to continue to archive my posts from the Ask a Pervert thread here, along with the rest of my writing that I’m keeping archived somewhere because I like it. But fundamentally, this is my blog – and a large part of the awesome with the original ask a pervert thread, was my wife’s contributions.

As we get a bit more organized – we’re going to break up these posts into individual questions and answers, edit them a bit more coherently and include both my answers to questions, and my wife’s answers and publish them as a shared blog – so that she gets the credit she deserves without having to feel like she’s playing in my sand box. As that happens – I’ll post redirection links on these posts to the updated entries.

Thanks for all the awesome feedback that’s come through in the last few days as well. It means a lot to me.

As an update - http://askapervert.blogspot.com/

Ask a Pervert 4

2009-12-17T11:38:00.003+10:00

A while ago, I did an ‘Ask a Pervert’ thread on a forum that I frequented. After a few requests – I’m re-posting most of the questions and answers now that the forum has gone away. I’ve filtered the names out from the people who were asking questions – but if they want credit, or want their questions removed so that their content isn’t here – drop me a line and I’m happy to do so. If you have questions that aren’t answered in the thread – leave a comment and I’ll answer it.

That said - I did have some content up here, but there wasn't really due credit to my wife Nikki, who was at least as much a part of the original thread as I was. We're now moving the Ask a Pervert stuff across to it's own blog - askapervert.blogspot.com with all due credit Nikki and some better editing hopefully to make it a bit easier to find stuff.

Ask a Pervert 3

2009-12-17T11:31:00.004+10:00

Ask a Pervert – Gender preferences

2009-12-17T11:28:00.003+10:00

Ask a Pervert – Divergence (a new question)

2009-12-16T13:53:00.003+10:00

Oops

2009-12-14T11:14:00.002+10:00

Comments were broken. They're now fixed. I don't think there's any other site bugs from my template tinkering, but if you find any - I'd really appreciate a note to scootah@gmail.com or something.

Ask a Pervert pt 2

2009-12-11T15:59:00.004+10:00

Ask a pervert, Pt 1

2009-12-11T15:54:00.003+10:00

A while ago, I did an ‘Ask a Pervert’ thread on a forum that I frequented. After a few requests – I’m re-posting most of the questions and answers here now that the forum has gone away. I’ve filtered the names out from the people who were asking questions – but if they want credit, or want their questions removed so that their content isn’t here – drop me a line and I’m happy to do so. If you have questions that aren’t answered in the thread – leave a comment and I’ll answer it.

That said - We're now moving the Ask a Pervert stuff across to it's own blog - askapervert.blogspot.com

Focus

2009-12-11T11:02:00.001+10:00

I was never diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD as a kid. Dad was a nurse with an intimate and very negative experience with the drugs they were giving kids when I was at the appropriate age and he always steered me away. In retrospect – I can see that my parents did all the things that you’re supposed to do with an ADD kid though, and I responded pretty well.

I still flunked year 12 because I was bored though. I wonder how I’d have done with the drugs?

A while ago, I noticed that I was having drug problems because I couldn’t pay attention worth a damn. Especially since the nature of the work I do means that I have unfiltered internet access… like right now. I struggled to focus and lost a job because of it. It contributed to my depression and anxiety problems for a while and eventually a psychologist had the idea to test me to see if maybe that was my problem.

So I jumped through all the hoops, and I’m now on Ritalin. I’ve had an amphetamine problem in the past – so I didn’t want Dexamphetamine. I’ve had suicidal impulses in the past so I didn’t want strattera, and I’ve read the components of Ritalin so I didn’t really fucking want that either. But unfortunately I was overruled. I’m still wondering why exactly it is that I can’t have fucking modafinil like I wanted, when all the literature a lay person can get hold of seems to indicate that it would be a much better targeted treatment for my symptom set, with a much less worrying side effect profile.

I’ve been on the shit for a week now and I’m seeing some changes to my behaviour – but nothing in the area that I wanted. I’m focused a bit more and I’m seeing a much smoother balance to my anti depressants. But I still can’t concentrate on boring things worth a damn. I still struggle to focus on anything that feels like work. And I can’t seem to convince myself that work is fun, no matter how hard I try. Unfortunately the more I talk to doctors about this, the more convinced I am that I know more about the drugs that they’re prescribing then they do – and that worries the shit out of me – because I really don’t know that much.

A friend told me ‘Dude, it just sounds like you’re a person to me’ and I wondered if I’m overanalysing this whole thing. Does everybody spend every day desperately trying to give a fuck long enough to get something productive done? Does everybody need a gun to their head to focus? It seems like the people I know who aren’t gulping down psychoactive prescriptions, trying to fix themselves have a much easier time doing boring things for money then I do.

Tell me a story?

2009-12-10T16:32:00.001+10:00

I’m trying to write a novel again. Or at least a decent length story. I feel like a complete hack though. It’s been in my head for weeks. I’ve seen scenes and character interactions play out in my mind. I’ve got some ideas that I really like.

But it’s a paranormal romance. Werewolves and vampires. I’m writing something significant that I might actually finish, and it’s for a genre so saturated and cliché that it’s fucking unbearable.

But I like the story. And my hero is so very much more impressive then Edward. My female lead is actually capable. I’ve got were-animals that aren’t completely boring. I’ve got motivations. I’ve got twists on the clichés! Unfortunately I still can’t convince myself that I’m not a hack.

I am however pondering what the reaction will be from one of my ex’s if I actually get published. She’s been trying to get her paranormal romance fiction published for 6 years, submitting story after story after story. It probably makes me a bad person that I want the story in my head to be good enough to sell, as much to see her reaction as for any financial rewards.

If writing cliché paranormal romance gets me into a creative industry though, I’ll be beyond delighted. Hell, if Harlequin’s bodice rippers with fangs division pays me something for the work I’ll be over the moon. I won’t tell anyone the name I’m publishing under. But I’ll be thrilled.

Which is better?

2009-12-10T09:24:00.001+10:00

I got an email today with this question -

Hey Scootah. Would you mind answering a question I've always been curious about?
As a top, what's more attractive: someone who can handle a lot of pain and endure it, or someone who breaks and cries and squirms?
I realize that everybody has different limits and preferences, but the whole BDSM thing is essentially based on consent and trust - so which is the better scenario?

I answered the email to say that it's not an either or question. It's like asking if you prefer someone with a vice grip pussy or a vibrating tongue. Or a guy with an vibrating penis or a tongue that can reach his eyebrows and tie his shoelaces.

Ideally, I'm looking for a combination of the pain threshold and the great reactions. But it’s not like I make a decision one way or the other because of either characteristic. I just want to play with someone who’s fun and who’s there and in the scene with me.

One of our play partners is an absolute pain slut who completely gets off on lots and lots of pain, but squirms and dances and cries - it's fucking great fun. We do evil shit like put a nose hook in and tie the hook to the ceiling and tell him that if the nose hook comes out he’s fucking toast – just to make his dancing and squirming that little bit funnier.

Some people are very stoic about pain - we play with a guy who's really not submissive - he just really, really likes pain. So every now and then he and his girl come over and we beat the crap out of him - he goes home happy we all have a good time in the process. He doesn't move much and rarely makes a sound when we play with him - but there's an incredibly deep and rich sense of satisfaction in making him make a sound and getting the reaction. We've had him pass out from the endorphin high mid scene and the only sign he was having the time of his life (outwardly) was that he started to sway a bit right before he passed out. He is intensely ‘there’ in the scene and he’s incredibly in to what we do to him. There’s a connection as part of the play that’s really intense even though he’s stoic and reserved. And the after scene connections are really intimate and close in a way that’s really rare for two guys who aren’t fucking.

We also play with a girl who I've seen have an orgasm from having lemon juice squeezed over fresh needle piercing wounds in her nipple (shed just had a couple of dozen needle’s pushed through her nipples and pulled out, and needed the extra kick to get over the edge). She’s also one of those people will actively shit talk back to you during a scene - which is also lots of fun. Having someone look back over their shoulder as you're bringing up welts across their back and arse and ask if that's all you've got and telling you that you hit like a girl is pretty funny and really entertaining if you've got an audience and you get the satisfaction of shutting them the fuck up as well.

I couldn't say any of them are 'better' for scenes. I mean some people are complete starfish and put nothing back into the play. No emotion, no connection, no satisfaction from the whole deal. They just take what they want and walk away. And that’s not what I’m looking for when I play. But as long as there's something coming back from the person you're playing with – as long as you’re getting what you need everything can be fun if you do it right. Everybody’s kinks are different.

Hey man, can you get me a fix?

2009-12-09T09:41:00.001+10:00

If you’ve read my writing in any detail you know that I I know a bunch of weird people and I have a history of drug contacts and black market associations. I’ve been interested in black market economics for years and as a former recreational drug user – I know people who know people.

Obviously, this isn’t something I normally tell my co-workers about. I work in a reasonably respectable career in a pretty straight laced office in a very straight laced town. Out of the blue this morning, one of our senior sales guys, a very straight laced and by the book guy, formerly a military officer in South Africa comes up to me and beats around the bush for a second before asking if I could help him out. He wants to buy a medical grade oxygen supply for recreational purposes and his Doctor won’t help him out. Do I by any chance know anyone who could help?

It turns out, he’s a licensed glider pilot, and at altitude they often need an oxygen supply to improve the quality of the air that they’re breathing because of the low Oxygen supply. He knows about all the safety issues (like 40 minutes of breathing pure oxygen will be fatal for most people) and all that shit.

Also, as it happens – I know a guy who breeds tropical fish, who buys medical oxygen to pump in with the bags of fish when he sends them out – so I said sure, I’ll ask him where he gets his from, since I’m pretty sure he didn’t need a note from his doctor or anything. But still. WTF?

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing that after less then 6 months on the job, without having told my co-workers any of the kind of stories that would peg me as the guy who can get medicinal supplies without a doctors note – I’m already tagged as the office fixer for that sort of thing.

Skin time

2009-12-08T17:00:00.001+10:00

Recently I’ve had a lot of problems with my attention span. A lot of problems. I finally sucked it up and got tested and found out at 28 that I do indeed have ADD and ADHD. I started Ritalin late last week and had one day of intense focus and concentration. Since then? I’ve had about as much focus as a kitten with a coke habit in a room full of mirrors.

Consequently, my blog has now been re-skinned. Ritalin is not nearly as delicious as I had hoped and I have been massively unproductive lately. But hey, my blog is kinda pretty right?

I don’t want to mislead anyone – the art and the colour scheme were edited and bolted on to a freeware theme. I have no artistic talent at all. I wrote some CSS and did some image editing shenanigans – but the core artsy stuff is the result of a bunch of other people’s talent.

That said, I do like the end result. Even if I really wish I’d spent the time actually working.

On a side note – is anyone actually reading this? I should really install some kind of analytics. FUCK. No installing analytics. Actual work to do. Stupid brain.

Marriage, Partners and some more thoughts on non binary relationships.

2009-12-08T10:04:00.001+10:00

I'm married and in a relationship that includes more then two people. I only have one partner - my wife means vastly more to me then anyone else in my life. I love with a little l all the people that we're involved with. I Love her with a big L and some implied exclamations at the end.

We use 'partner' as a word for the person that you're fucking all the time - and that works fine when you're introducing a fuck buddy at the office christmas party and you don't want that person to feel slighted. But we also use the word partner for our spouse and then get confused when the two ideas inter mingle.

But when I talk about my wife as my partner, I mean 'together, we're greater then the sum of our parts, she's the largest part of my life, part of my core, I'd be less then I am if she wasn't here, every day that I don't see her is a day wasted' sort of partner. She's not just the other half of my kinky sexual practices. She's not a friend who I live with. She's this incredibly connected part of my life. And I don't think I could have two of those - it'd be too hard to keep my sense of self stable if I shared this much with more then one person.

But the other people in our lives are sex partners or play partners - they're partners in the sense that the sex positions that we're doing wouldn't work without their involvement, they're great friends and people we love - but it's much more casual then a Marriage.

But fundamentally, it's about distinguishing emotion from physicality. Fundamentally - a large part of my motivations and my biology are pure instinct. Evolutionary sexuality where species proliferation relates to how many different people I can fuck. The species proliferation also to a large degree has depended on our ability to dispose of our poop in a sanitary fashion and piss somewhere where bears won't eat us while we're holding our dicks.

We enjoy eating red meat and being in the sunshine because we need iron and vitamin D to continue the species. The fact that I've overcome those biological impulses enough to wear sunscreen, eat the occasional salad and not do a spot check for bears before I take a piss doesn't change the fact that we've got a bunch of hard wired pleasure/discomfort responses that are based around species survival.

We can fuck without any intention of procreation. We can take contraceptive drugs, wear condoms or get surgical procedures to prevent us from being able to breed and still the pleasure response from fucking is there. We've evolved our culture to fit that social need. We came up with Monogamy to fit a bunch of social needs. The argument about what social need it fits varies from 'Because god willed it' to 'because all men are pigs who should be removed from the gene pool' - there are some arguments about family modelling and disease spread that hold varying amounts of water.

But either way - there are a bunch of modern social conditions where monogamy doesn't fill any social need other then maintaining the status quo and continuing our social programming (unless you believe that god really did will it, in which case there's not much point in having a discussion about the topic).

Continuing a status quo with a pre defined set of ideas just because that's the way it's always been done and that's the name for it that we already have isn't really my thing. I think words change their meaning over time (hands up, who hears faggot and things of a bundle of sticks intended for burning? Who here's nigger and things a person regardless of ethnicity who is ignorant and incapable of changing that status). I think Marriage is a word that's become almost as emotionally laden as faggot and nigger - and I wish it hadn't. Fundamentally - I think as a society we'd all be much better off if we moved Marriage back to a religious ceremony - like a Bar mitzvah - Nobody gives a shit when a Jewish thirteen year old becomes a man - he can't buy beer or smokes - but he's got all the rights and obligations of the ceremony and he has the ceremony and recognition of his family and friends agreeing that he’s now a man.

I think a Marriage should be the same deal. Fine you're married. Nobody gives a shit until you pass the tests to be considered common law spouses. File an application of intention to become common law spouses for immigration purposes - give out civil unions (or whatever the fuck you want to call them) to any group of two or more financial entities who meet the tests as defined by law. Marriage should just be something you do if you want a ceremony or an excuse for a party to for your friends/family/superstitious union of occultists to celebrate your relationship.

Dude, you're FUCKED UP - pt 2

2009-12-07T16:47:00.000+10:00

I went through girlfriends, none of them lasted - but lots of them learned things and all of them taught me things. I suppose it says something abut me that losing my virginity is barely even an event in my head. It was with a girl on a park bench who had her hands tied behind her back with my belt. But I'd been through so much experimentation that it hardly stands out in my memory, despite the fact that it should. When I was 17 I went to my first public fetish event - a 'munch' - a social gathering of perverts in a public, non fetish location; at a coffee shop in the local entertainment district, a coffee shop I'd frequented with my friends from high school, although a few hours later then the usual high school gatherings.

I'd intended to go with a woman I'd met online, she was older then me and we'd fucked a few times. But she cancelled at the last minute and I went alone. There were other people who I'd talked to online at the munch who I made friends with fairly quickly and got along with well. When the social event was wrapping up - the crowd started moving towards a club that was on near by. A public venue held in the downstairs bar of a near-by club. I caught a ride with an older couple, a psychology professor and his partner. They hade to move the jelly sex toys from their back seat before I could get in.

I walked straight into the venue without being ID checked, but didn't have the nerve to buy alcohol from the bar, even though I'd drunk at bars before with my friends. I was too nervous about the consequences of getting caught out really. The couple I'd caught a ride with were doing a demo of an unusual toy. A Violet Wand - at the time they were rare in Australia. I'm not a bottom - I don't like people using toys on me, and I never have. But I was in love with the violet wand from that moment. It's a fetish that's lasted more then a decade now. I played with it for the better part of an hour before going to watch the other shows.

I only remember the rest of the night in flashes. An unsuccessful attempt to hit on a woman a decade my senior. A dominant woman enjoying my awkwardness as I turned down her offer of a beating and her amusement at my awkward offer of the same for her. Watching a stage show of wax and impact play, as a short Hispanic man in a trench coat next to me growled under his breath 'Yeah, Yeah, Hurt her, Hurt her' and trying to edge away from his creepy sketchiness. Watching a couple after playing retreat to the darkness in the corner of one of the side rooms for one of the most intense blowjobs i'd ever seen. In retrospect, what I was seeing was my first real external view of subspace and topspace meshing sexually. I'd glimpsed that sort of thing as a participant. But never as a voyeur, and never on the level that they were connected. Seeing that shared high, being part of that shared high is an addiction that I've never been able to kick.

There are a lot more stories that go into why I'm so fucked up. But fundamentally - that night set my path in stone. I was hooked. And while there was fall out from being underage at an event and more fall out from being an idiot teenager in a grownup culture. I never lost the jones for fetish nights after that first addictive taste.

Dude. You're FUCKED UP.

2009-12-07T16:46:00.000+10:00

This whole beginnings thing is really fucking me up. Figuring out what to write about and what Nikki is going to write about is hard. Figuring out how to go about telling stories about my friends on a blog for entertainment is insanely brain twisting and figuring out what parts of my life are worth writing about and what parts of my life are just emo crap is confusing the shit out of me. I wouldn't even try this if there wasn't someone (good looking, talented, patient, insightful) else to bounce ideas off and get editorial feedback from.

I'm an odd duck, and lots of things don't make sense without explaining some of that oddness, so vanity seems like the answer for what to write about next to bring you up to speed. I'm an odd duck. I was a child prodigy. Growing up I aced everything. I had reading and comprehension scores off the charts - I was topping out at maximum for post graduate college students when I was 8. I was always good at Maths and had a natural affinity for computers from the time I first learned to read. But I have no artistic talent at all. I can't play an instrument to save myself. I can't read sheet music. I can barely handwrite even. I'm ambidextrous with some things and I can juggle and do all sorts of things that are hard for everyone else - but I suck at throwing a ball or catching like a normal person. I had a speech impediment as a kid that made me seem that little bit more odd and I grew up untill I started school in a community where I was the only european kid.

Even though i had a bunch of aboriginal play mates - none of them lived close. In the bush - everything spreads out. My parents were caretakers for a camping ground that was owned by a drug dealer before they took it over. So big dogs and guns were around from as early as I can remember. All the isolation of farms - but none of the live stock. I remember my mum loading the gun while she was on the phone to the cops, and firing a warning shot to convince the police that they should get off their asses and clear the car full of strangers, looking for a drug dealer out of our yard.

I remember our German Shepard dragging me away from a billabong full of crocadiles by the diaper.

I've seen photos of myself in a backpack, with the sleeping bag and the saucepans, on my mothers back as she abseiled down a waterfall face, leading a tour.

When I was old enough to start noticing things about our family and other peoples families, I first noticed that I was an only child - which was rare where we lived. Then I noticed that my mum was about 12 years older then my dad, which was way weird where we lived.

My dad was a heavy drinker, but not a mean drunk - just the life of the party. I have pictures of my dad stuffing me down the barrel of a bronzed naval cannon and that sort of gag was very typical of my dad. We used to go out on the weekend to the beach with dad's mates - we'd fill the back of a pickup with beers and then top the load with a half tonne of ice from the ice factory, then buy morton bay bugs (like lobster, expensive and trendy now, but they used to be waste catch that was just thrown away) - by the 44 gallon drum and then split the drums, fill them with salt water and barbeque them on the beach while the adults drank beers and the kids played in the sand.

Untill I was about 6 - my social interactions were primarily with adults. Thomas was my best friend, an aboriginal kid from around the corner who didn't talk. His parents were always drunk or huffing petrol. Thomas came to our house to play, which as an adult I recognise is probably another way of saying to avoid being beaten or raped. Aboriginal kids have it rough up north.

But my dad worked for a youth support service, and we always had a house full of kids in their late teens and early 20's who dad was counselling or helping through random stuff. So my real friends were at least 12 or 13 years older then me and really just tolerating me because I was cute (it faded). I remember playing transformers and watching simba the white lion with hung over bush teenagers who'd been drinking at our house the night before. My real friends were troubled, alcoholic young adults who I think needed me to be their friend more then the other way around.

Through all of my young life there was a pattern of kids who needed me more then I needed them. My friends were all fucked up. ADD kids, kids who'd stabbed people. Kids who were named after candy bars and were violent about being teased. I don't think any of my early childhood friends finished highschool. A few of them got equivalencies in their early 20's - they were the odd ones. One friend got onto the Australian under 17's soccer team and got a contract in the UK - the rest of them are now either labourers, addicts, petty criminals or in the armed forces as far as I know.

I'm digressing I know. But I'm trying to establish that I'm socially not normal. I probably have some condition on the Autism spectrum. We think Aspergers (heh, Ass Burgers) but it's not a confirmed diagnosis. I also have Dysgraphia which affects my handwriting and drawing as well as fucking with my social behaviours a little. Whatever it is that makes me weird, it makes me noticably weird. I know more then any normal human about a few isolated topics - computers and kinky sex being the primary ones. A few obscure genre's of fiction following closely.

Some of my clearest memories are things like the smell of a leather handbag my mother owned. A scene in a movie where the male lead orders the female lead to strip naked and swim. Playing doctor with a girl I knew and having to hold her down for a proceedure. Games where one person was in control and everyone else was an Animal who had to do what the person in control said.

My dad fell into the IT industry through a job fluke (from nurse to ambulance driver to cab driver to piano salesman to youth councillor to demolitions instructor to IT guy, perfectly natural progression right?) and as a result we had computers around the house from the early 80's onwards. Being a child prodigy - I knew almost as much about computers as he did by the time I was 8. We had modems and access to Fidonets and BBS systems - the antique precursor to the internet. I knew more about sex by the time I hit highschool then the average 40 year old hooker. I was interested in fetishes early.

I took martial arts for several years, Judo and later Jujitsu. In Jujitsu I made a lot of older friends. 16 and 17 year old friends when I was 14. I was big for my age. I always looked older then I was. All my older friends as a kid and my social weirdness made me pass for older then I was. I got invited to a party and lied to my parents that I was sleeping over at a friends. It was my first teen party. My first party with more girls then parents. My first party with alcohol. I had no idea about the many powers of alcohol when mixed with teenager hormones. I nursed a beer the entire night and had half of it left when well into the night, sitting and laughing with a group of 20 or so kids, a very drunk girl who'd been drinking straight from the bottle of vodka slurred out 'Who wants a blowie?' - half a beer had my courage up and I thought it was just a joke anyway, so I volunteered. She crawled across to me, pulled me out of my pants and gave me my first orgasm in front of 20 cheering, drunken teens.

The word got around to some kids my own age and grew teeth, ears and extra legs. The fact that I'd been answering questions about sex for years anyway thanks to my hard earned knowledge of pornography added to the legend and I was rapidly elevated into a sex god in my own lifetime. It's a remarkable quirk of fate when an Aspie kid gets laid before he can afford to go to bars. When an Aspie kid gets my highschool sex life it's a goddamn miracle. I had a series of girlriends, none of them ever lasted long but almost all of them were experimental. Hands tied to the bed. Spankings. Hair pulling and control games. When I was not quite 16, still not legal, I lied about my age to some people I met online, lied to my parents about where I was going, took a bus 2 hours west of my house and met a strange older man at the bus stop and rode out to his farm with him. I spent the weekend with him and his 'slaves' - an older woman and a younger woman - in her mid 20's. I beat her with a paddle, ordered her around all night and she statutorily raped me several times later that night.... while tied up.

It's a miracle that I lived through that even really, much less that nobody got charged or caught an STI as a result really.

Homophobia costs you more then it saves.

2009-12-07T16:43:00.000+10:00

Before I met my wife, I used to frequent gay bars and backpackers bars. I have always maintained that if you are a straight man, and living in a town with no backpacker traffic, gay bars will be the easiest place in town to get a quick, no strings shag.

Obviously, this advice requires that your chosen gay bar not be men only. If the bar has a name like 'The Mine Shaft' and a 'No Women Allowed' sign by the door - you might want to try and find an alternate location to apply this advice. But if your gay bar is, like the majority of gay bars I've been too - open and friendly to anyone who is not an asshole, and probably playing really bad dance music, it will be full of women.

Obviously, many of those women are there to look for other women. Most towns just don't have a big enough gay community to have a really good lesbian club in addition to a really good general club. But don't give up hope. Bisexuality is ripping through the female population of the western first world like HIV through San francisco in the 80's. Everybodies got it and at least half the women in any popular gay bar are bisexual. They may not admit it infront of the other lesbians, and they may not ever go home with a guy from a bar (and they'll probably send me hatemail if they ever read this) - but deep down, a lot of those women have no particular objection to sex with guys. Add to that the inevitable hordes of fag hags who infest those bars and you have a target rich environment. Fag hags spend all their time around hot guys, drink heavily and never get laid. Their gay boyfriends will pimp them out like a used car salesman with 3 ex wives. The bisexual women who were out to find women? They might like dick - but they're not content with dick - or they wouldn't be hanging out in gay bars - they'll go away in short order to find a woman. Fag hags are all essentially in love with their boyfriend and will bugger off in fairly short order as well.

I know lots of straight men have an idea that you're either gay or your straight, that bisexuality is a myth perpetuated by girly gay men, and that a single crossing into the notion of same gender sensuality will send them crashing down into pink and mauve shirts and cocktails at a bar named after a bette middler character. But honestly, that's fucking retarded. The Kinsey scale, a basic education in biology and having once read a reasonably well laid out magazine article on child physcology, combined a functional intellect should really be enough to grasp at least in broad terms, how human sexuality works. Clearly however, for most men, it's not, but hey, as far as I'm concerned, it's their loss.

Case in point, we went out the other night, the venue was packed to the rafters with lesbians, mostly aged between 18 and 30, mostly good looking, all dressed in fetish wear, half of them a piece of string and some wishful thinking away from topless, and half of the remainder actually topless, I considered for a moment how awesome it is to be a straight man who goes to gay bars.

The club bills itself as a fetish club, but really, maybe a dozen people out of the 150 through the door actually played - and most of those are only doing light scenes. A little slap and tickle. For most of the crowd - it's just about a chance to dress up and been seen in the scene.

This particular club is run by lesbians. Hot lesbians. Not John Goodman lesbians. The type of lesbians who ride harleys around suburbia on weekdays, looking for bored housewives. And finding them. In droves. Of the 150-200 people in the club, I was probably one of the three or four most attractive men present. I'm 20lbs over weight, pasty as only a computer nerd can be, and bald. The standard for the evening was NOT high. There were only maybe 20 guys in attendance, most of them were well over 50, or looked like they'd seen the rough side of every branch on the ugly tree... and a good number of the roots.

The remaining 130-180 people in the club were women. Mostly hot women in their mid 20's and at least half of them single, and all of them at a club devoted to rough and kinky sex.

I pause now for the guys reading this to stop drooling and refocus their attention. While a good number of those women were clearly not into men, and an equally good number of them were just not looking to pick up last night - there were probably 40 or 50 good looking, kinky, dirty, bisexual women looking for somebody to fuck in that room - and maybe 5 guys who'd pass for human in the room. If a single, decent looking guy who knew how to be cool in a pansexual bar had been present - there would have been a fucking impromptu naked jelly wrestling tournament thrown open to determine which three women would get to fuck him.

I watched as my friend Mistress Rojo did a wussy scene with her boy Lucas. Rojo is one of the most interesting people I've ever met, and an absolutely lovely person as well, I'll tell her story some other time. She is normally quite an intense player - but given the tame vibe and the license requirements of the venue, it was a pretty mild scene. Mostly just to entertain the punters.

Stories from the Big House

2009-12-07T16:39:00.000+10:00

Despite a long history of petty theft, vandalism of state property, substance abuse, bar fights involving antagonizing bouncers or the NZ Navy, buying large quantities of narcotics, making and selling illegal weapons (or fetish toys if you aren't a cop) and sexual assault (You can't consent to Assault here, it doesn't matter if she asked you to flog her ass or not) and miscellaneous assorted stupidity; I never got caught. Never got sent up. I talked my way out of a bunch of things. I knew the right words to say, the right names to drop to make rent-a-cops forget they saw me. I knew how to convince the nice officers that I was a good kid was the wrong kind of friends.

But for a while I volunteered (when you get paid to go to a volunteer gig, it should tell you something about how fucked the environment is), at Juvie. My roommate was a teacher and he was doing some shit there. They needed some help with computer stuff, and I thought 'How bad can it be? Its only fuckin juvie'. I was wrong.

The first three or four days were pseudo-normal. The kids were rough and arrogant little fuckers - but I went to a pretty ghetto high school, it didn't seem that bad to me. The computers were all locked down in cages so the kids couldn't actually touch them to break or steal anything. The monitors were built into the desks and they had to use track balls instead of real mice - I thought it was ridiculous over kill. They were just fucking kids. Other staff told me a bunch of stories that I thought were just standard 'scare the new guy' stories. I was wrong. Then came Friday, about 11 o’clock I heard a scream from the next classroom, I recognized the voice. It was a teacher screaming. Not an angry scream either - it was an 'oh shit, somebody just slammed a pencil through my fucking hand and is twisting it right now' scream. I ran out the door and in my only vaguely sensible moment in the incident slammed the door behind me (that locks the doors so the kids can't run wild) - I should have called for security. I didn't. I charged into the room and saw a very large Maori kid (16, 6'5, 275lbs of steroid muscle) with a pencil stabbed through the teacher’s hand, grinding it around in circles widening the circle while the teacher screamed. He was in so much pain he couldn't even respond properly. He'd lost motor functions and pissed himself from the pain. He passed out while I was watching. The kid howled a fucked up victory call, pulling these demented faces (Its a Maori thing). I shouldn't have been in the room at all. Security should have been doing this shit. Even if I should have been intervening, I should have been putting him into a restraint hold. I certainly shouldn't have uppercut him hard enough dislocate his jaw and knock him onto his back, I probably should have then dropped a knee into his upper pelvic region (just above the balls, instant bladder release reaction and lots of pain, often better then a direct shot to the balls for someone who's had a long career of substance abuse) and then dislocated his shoulder putting him into a hold.

I should have been gang beaten by the rest of the class. I should have been fired. I should have been charged and I probably should have gone to jail. But juvie responds very well to kicking someone's ass. For the hour after you beat the shit out of someone - you're a fucking demi god. Nobody will say shit to you. Security arrived in what felt like an hour, but was probably like 10 - 15 minutes. I should have gone to jail - but fortunately for me - the kid was too stupid to stick to the events. He tried to convince the principal (Read Warden) that I had held him down and raped him in front of the class and beaten him with a weapon and all sorts of shit. His story changed every time he opened his mouth. Then warden was also a bitter old alcoholic and hated the fucking kids. He'd spent 35 years working with them and didn't believe a word they said. He tossed the complaint and it never saw a courtroom.

I got in a lot more trouble for leaving my classroom. I got back and the kids had trashed every monitor in the room. They had used shiv's or random shit to smash the monitors through the bars. They had kicked the cages in until they had trashed half the actual computers and none of them would confess and none of them knew who did it (naturally). I got chewed out for an hour, over that, and only the fact that I hadn't had proper security training before they dumped me in the class saved me from getting fired (which was bullshit, I totally knew not to leave my classroom and forgot, but I needed the extra cash).

About a week went by after that, where nothing normal happened, and then I came in on a Monday and noticed one of the kids I hadn't seen before who had a pretty fucking horrific looking injury. It had been patched up - but you could tell he'd had his face ripped open from just below his ear to the corner of his mouth. I asked one of the guards what had happened. Turned out that the kid was in for beating his mother and his stepfather half to death. His stepfather had been sexually abusing him when the kid snapped and in the middle of the night took a pick handle to the fuck, did the same to his mother. He was just in juvie until a spot in a corrective psyche opened up. But he was in juvie long enough to get initiated (gang raped), and predictably he didn't handle that well - he bit some guy's cock hard enough that it needed post event stitches (I hear in real jail, they're smart enough to punch out your front teeth before orally raping you, kids aren't that bright). There was a pretty big fight after that, that resulted in donkey (I'd never thought to ask why the kid was nicknamed donkey before I heard this story) knocking the kid unconscious - and fucking his face hard enough to rip open his cheek, among other assorted injuries.

About a week after that I got an offer to help a friend out with some shit elsewhere that paid the same money and didn't have the same high stabbing risk. Only time in my life I've quit without giving notice.

Non Binary Relationships

2009-12-07T10:59:00.001+10:00

In response to Dr Rob

I'm not sure if this is masturbatory - but just to establish where I'm coming from, I'm currently in a long term (12 months+) relationship, which has included sex, sexual contact and cohabitation with my wife and a third party. We have a variety of play relationships with people outside of our dynamic. We self define as a 'Leather Family' due to the BDSM/Fetish connotations with our relationship and we are closely involved as friends, family and former lovers of a large number of people in varying types of open relationships. My wife and I have been together for more then 5 years, but we've also both been involved in a variety of way, with a significant number of open relationships prior to our own relationship.

Fundamentally, the thing I see that builds the most resentment and the most unhealthy interaction in open/poly/non binary relationships is the lack of equality or the lack of fairness. There needs to be a pre-negotiated set of rules for any poly relationship, like there are for a standard binary relationship. The thing is - a binary relationship has rules that were debated and defined by dozens of generations of western culture, Dr Phil, Oprah, Cleo Magazine and hair dressers around the world.

In a non binary relationship, the framework for those rules isn't so pre defined. There's no clarity about 'Cleo says going to a strip bar isn't cheating unless there's touching' - it's all about what the two of you want and can make work. The problem is - a lot of non binary relationships occur between people who don't have a good grasp of what challenges they're likely to come up against. They don't have a lifetime of tested self assessment of what they personally can tolerate and what crosses their boundaries. And fundamentally - it's much more common to want to be in a poly relationship then to want your partners to be in a poly relationship. Greed and lust are a pairing that almost everyone is tuned to understand. Lust and sharing is much less culturally prevalent.

When the rules get set up - there's almost never real reciprocity. One partner is willing to share more then the other. One partner wants more security then the other. One partner wants their cookies but is still too culturally influenced to see their partner get cookies from elsewhere. And envy and a sense of unfairness kills poly relationships in a slow, painful way.

I don't know how many people I know who are in a poly relationship where one partner either doesn't have, or can break the rules - and the other partner is willing to let it slide, but if the willing and comfortable partner looks at one of those same rules funny - the relationship will explode.

I know a couple who devolved into a massive melt down and public explosion because the female partner of the couple sent an enticing email to the male partner and he responded positively. She knows his every trigger and button and wrote the email explicitly to appeal to him as a trap and their relationship went straight to hell because of it.

The same woman fucks on average a dozen different guys and a few girls in an average week. The male partner enjoys that dynamic and that play. But he's not allowed to fuck any of those people. Only she gets the window. Fundamentally - he's got no issues with her being physical with others - but he gets no reciprocation of that trust. He gets bear traps set for him instead.

I know another couple where the female partner set all the rules about no vaginal penetration and no kissing and no fluid exchange and etc, and ran the male partner ragged with her paranoia on the few occasions when he explored his options - then turned up pregnant to another man who she moved into the home. Her male partner has his own set of problems that motivate him to not leave despite the breech of rules and trust - but he's years into a passive aggressive dynamic that he never agreed to - where he scrubs the toilets with the other man's tooth brush and he's forced to be the provider for his wife and a man who he doesn't like. And he's still not allowed to kiss another woman.

I know DOZENS of couples where 'Open Relationship' is another word for 'We're fuck buddies, but you're only allowed to fuck me while I fuck anyone I want, and you get none of the consideration that you'd expect from a relationship while having all the obligations' - usually with a man controlling the relationship.

I watch so many of these relationships where I can only wonder if the guy involved has a vibrating dick made out of chocolate? If the self esteem issues of the involved parties are what drives the continued participation and how they'd react if they actually had a positive self image? I don't believe anything more then a fractional minority of those sort of massively unbalanced relationships are healthy.

I think that fractional minority are almost universally made up of relationships that are balanced in other ways. I don’t think relationships that are fundamentally unfair can ever really work.

Oof

I just found a thread about this topic on a forum that I go to sometimes and I thought a few comments there warranted a response.

So to sum up my question is, What are the effects, if any, on children and the relationship between partners in raising children during an open marriage or relationship?

I don't have kids. I don't particularly like kids. That said, my wife raised a niece from infancy to about 10 years old, while in an open relationship. That kid is now 20 and I know her pretty well and some of my friends who are in open relationships have kids.

The answer is I don't think it has less impact on a kid then say being raised by two mommies or two daddies. Ideally - your kids just don't know that fucking much about your sex life and if they do know too much - then you give them the very watered down version so it seems mundane and boring. It only starts to impact kids when you involve them in it - which is fucked up.

I've done workshops at fetish events to teach people how to shelter their kids from the digital side of their kinks. I've help people lock their kids out of shit. I've helped build the 'store rooms' where mommy goes with guests when the kids are at sleep over's. Most parents keep their kids from being too exposed to the whole deal because kids shouldn't know that much about their parents sex lives. That said, I have friends who's teenage children know WAY too much. I have friends who's pre-teen kids know way, way, way too much. That's nothing to do with the fact that mommy and daddy occasionally fuck Aunt Susan - that's a parenting decision where they've dramatically over educated their children at a very young age (in my incredibly biased, having never raised a child view). But they've consciously made the decision to let their children have that information.

There's certainly an impact from teaching your kids too much about the birds and the bees and the inserting peeled ginger into someone's urethra. But that's not an open marriage thing.

There are some things you can't hide from your kids though - like if one of your partners wears a collar all the time, and obviously isn't Goth or anything - the kids will catch on. If you have a live in third party who is intimate with you in front of the kids - that has to be explained. And how you handle that has to be tailored to the kids in question and how you want to raise them. My friends who I think do that well explain it in a very telly stubbies sort of way with lots of focus on 'different but ok' and 'consenting adults who've all knowingly chosen to love each other' and no details of how the mechanics of the sex works.

From what I've observed from friends, a SUCCESSFUL open relationship takes at least one of two things;
1. Not truly loving the other person. Being fond and kind towards them sure, but not true love.
2. Having a twisted and unusual psychology.

It's already been said in the thread, but this is nonsense. Fundamentally - there are millions of tribes in Africa and through the pacific islands (and Utah) where non binary relationships are working very well. Monogamy is a cultural expectation and the only thing required to not have monogamy in a healthy relationship is a personality that can function outside of cultural presets.

That might arguably be considered an unusual psychology - but I have personally met and know well enough to say 'their relationship works pretty well and isn't a negative part of the lives of anyone involved' despite being non binary - a few hundred people at least. That's not bumped into at a party or met at a conference - that's people I've spent time with and got to know them pretty well
Most of those people aren't standard thinkers, it's true. But Twisted? There's a lot of bias in that phrase that I don't think is warranted.

I'm of the opinion that while there is nothing wrong with an open relationship, it's something at upwards of 90% of the human population is not emotionally equipped to deal with.

This is why the rest of the world makes fun of Americans. I mean really. I know puritans founded your country, but lets try and keep up with some shit - like the fact that you aren't a majority of the worlds population. Through a lot of Asia - polyandrous relationships aren't a big deal, they're not idealized, but they're also not something most people give a shit about. Basically all of Africa's indigenous populations that haven't been converted by catholic missionaries (who coincidentally, have all the food) have non binary relationships.

One of the more interesting theories on why Suicide bombers became prevalent was the lack of available women in societies that prized sons above daughters where food was limited, and engaged in polyandrous relationship models. If you talk about the Christian Western World - maybe your 90% hold water. Maybe. But in the real world - that's not a majority share of the worlds population. Hell, even the very religious Scandinavians almost universally don't give a shit about people cheating in their marriages as long as the core family unit still comes first.

The only way that doesn't hurt is if you don't care

I disagree with the entire point that the person who posted this was trying to make - but this bit is true, to a point. You can't make an open or a poly relationship work if you can't get past the idea that Sex means EVERYTHING the way the Catholics have always told us it does. But not treating sex as an overwhelmingly gigantic sign of undying love is very different from not caring.

And? The only human societies throughout history that have had widespread polygamy (which was usually the men having harems, and women being stoned to death if anyone so much as accused them of infidelity) were ones where women had virtually no rights and were looked upon as mostly chattel. In other words, where no true love existed.

I'm not sure if you had shitty teachers, or what the deal is. But that's just not a true reflection of gender dynamics in a lot of polyandrous relationships - even where wives were bought with cattle, that's just not an accurate reflection. Sharia law can give that impression where it's implemented by fundamentalists - but in terms of the bulk population of Islam, that's not a realistic reflection of the culture or the power dynamics.

Can true love really exist between people who don't see themselves as equals? I love my pets, but I don't respect them as I've respected the women I've been in love with.

If you love your cat like you love your women, you'll run up a fortune in vet bills. I'm just saying - they're smaller animals and lube only goes so far.

In terms of people seeing themselves as equals - This diverges from Poly and moves to BDSM - but I know a lot of people who will actively fight to prevent the ones they love from seeing them as equals and would be very offended if you suggested that it in any way diminished the truth of their love.

Hetero-normative Judeo-Christian, post second wave feminist egalitarian relationships might be very politically correct. They might even be what the majority of the first world is looking for - but it's not the only way for two or more people to get down. And it certainly doesn't have a corner on the True Love market.

Tech Support Syndrome and a last Reply to Ryan for a while

2009-12-07T10:15:00.001+10:00

Started here.

I've never seen Ryan refuse to engage with his readers, I know Ryan has never refused to engage with me even when I disagree with him. There's a firm difference between refusing to engage, and discouraging stupidity.

That said, I think there's certainly value in Ryan being called on his shit occasionally. Cause the dude is 20 - and while he is unquestionably smart and 'gets it' - at 20, he's still going to get caught in his own arrogance, he's still going to misjudge things, and he's still going to fuck things up and need to be called on it before he'll get it. You can't be 20 and smart without being arrogant. You can't be told that you 'get it' by miscellaneous smart people (and morons from the internet) at 20 without starting to scorn the morons who don't get it.

Ryan has what I describe as Tech Support syndrome - he constantly deals with complicated concepts that relate to the lives of everybody he encounters, and he, and those around him, have internalized those ideas so soundly, that the people who can't follow those concepts through in a logical and sensible way, seem like fucking retards.

Tech support monkeys get shot down by a smart customer, college prodigies tend to be humbled by a professor they idolize or something. Or the lesson comes from parents or an employer or something.

Ryan's stepped away from his parents, and I don't think Tucker is the sort of person to demonstrate the lesson. I don't know where Ryan's going to get the right sort of experience to cure him of that experience and give him perspective - but I'll be interested to read the story when it happens.

Anger management

2009-12-07T10:13:00.001+10:00

My paternal lineage is quite interesting for anger management.

My grandfather came back from Kokoda with PTSD that was never diagnosed or treated. We're fairly sure he's repressed strong homosexuality. He's spent his entire life in a storm of fear and anger, making every person he meets miserable so that he won't be alone is his depression.

My father is the life of the party and generally very nice guy. He taught for years and was favourite teacher and later lecturer to thousands and thousands of students. He is a fantastic speaker and does radio and television bytes on a regular basis and his audience loves him. His temper is almost invisible until it flares.

Dad has what he describes as 'Joan moments' - they're called Joan moments because when Joan of Arc was on the cross, about to be burned, they said to her 'Say you're sorry, and we'll let you live' and Joan looked at them and said 'Fuck you. Somebody's going to die, it might be me, but somebody's going to die'. When dad's temper flares - he has no sense of self preservation - something gets destroyed - no matter the cost.

I once saw dad raise the height of a doorway in our house, with a chainsaw. He'd hit his head three times in a row on the door frame, the third time hard enough to put himself on his knees. He didn't say a word as he stormed out to the yard, grabbed the chainsaw and extended the door frame. My mother was standing near by, trying to convince him to check if there were any electrical cables in that wall, or if that wall was perhaps structural. He didn't pause.

On one hand, that anger makes him one of the most ruthlessly effective people I have ever known. As a manager - he is stunningly effective as a head kicker and change motivator - and he has some surreal gift that still makes people love him even after working for him.

On the other hand - I've seen his temper cost him tens of thousands of dollars, over the most retarded matters of principle.

My temper is a long, slow fuse. I am incredibly patient with people I like. But my anger is the biggest driving force behind my creativity. Rage has inspired every really great piece of writing I've ever produced. Rage has been the main motivator behind some of the proudest moments of my life. Rage has given me clarity when everyone around me was blind.

I think Anger is like any emotion - it makes fools of the foolish, but it's still a perfectly useful tool if you can make it work for you.

Replying to Ryan – Lose-Lose

2009-12-07T10:11:00.001+10:00

Another reply to Ryan Holiday that I kind of like -

it's very easy to lump yourself into the intellectual elite, or the moral elite. Or any other kind of elite really.

Finding flaws in the way that others behave is at it's core - a really easy thing to do. Declaring your way of doing things 'better' is equally easy.

What you're viewing as an oblivious asshole acting without thought to annoy you needlessly is in all probability a guy who can't afford another speeding fine or he'll lose his licence and his job. What you see as geezers stopping whippersnappers from speeding because they're old and shit, they see as stopping another moron from killing themselves or innocents - a part of their civic duty with an infinite reward of good karma.

I think it's probably solid advice to look around you when either you, or other people are upset - and figure out if you're the source of the problem and then figure out if what you're doing is worth the goddamn problem.

I've recently said some things in a public venue that have made life difficult, awkward and uncomfortable for a number of people. Several people who I would have described as friends prior to the incident would now probably spit on me for calling attention to their flaws and raising issues that they didn't want discussed.

I could have much more easily shut up and stood out of the way. I could have looked at the conflict and stopped being it's source - but I felt (and still feel) that they were doing something dangerous and fundamentally wrong - so I took the action available to me to reduce some of that harm.

I also routinely drive at the speed limit even though people are honking and trying to go past me. Even when there's no lane available for them to go around. Fuck them. I'm one ticket away from a suspended licence that will cost me a hefty chunk of income. I don't care how unlikely it is that I'll get caught. Them getting home 6 minutes faster isn't worth the risk.

Rules for life

2009-12-07T10:08:00.001+10:00

[1] – No Cunts in my life.

I stole this rule from my father, which is funnier when he says it then when I do, because he’s a homosexual mysogynist. But it’s still at it’s core a solid codification of one of my my firmly held principles for life.

Admittedly, I don't have to live in LA with this this rule... but I'm yet to find anything but positives in refusing to have any involvement with any person who I consider a cunt. I don't do business with them, I won't work for them, I won't hire them, I won't socialize with them, I wont even call them a cunt - in my private little world, they only exist in the sense that a dog turd on the pavement exists - to be stepped around and forgotten.

Replying to Ryan – Essence vs Efficiency

2009-12-07T10:05:00.001+10:00

If an automated process response is indistinguishable from a conversation with a human, either the human or the judge has failed.

But arguing against automation in general, or even arguing against the idea that Automation in general is a good thing is a a flawed argument. Throwing in the emotional reference to outsourcing is also an association fallacy to begin with, outsourcing can be a by-product of some automation - but the fundamental goal of all Automation is to reduce busy work and produce a purely creative environment.

The purpose of Automation is to take a task that currently requires a human that can be distilled into a standard function, document and detail that function and then replace the human time with an automated system.

A failure to review and constantly improve automated functions is a Monkeys in a cage issue, (http://freekvermeulen.blogspot.com/2008/08/monkey-story-experiment-involved-5.html), not a fault with automation. Part of any decently implemented automation process is a review and improvement process

Fundamentally - review of the system can't be completed by anything less then a creative intelligence - which for at least the next 15 years means a human. Even 15 years from now, it's pure speculation that computers will ever be capable of creative tasks like true process improvement.

In the ideal of an automated society, the only tasks that required human attention would be the creative - Coming up with and implementing ideas. Finding ways to make things happen. Reviewing ideas and improving them.

Every time you do something that requires more interaction then being creative - you're doing something that you shouldn't need to do. Why is technique a part of art? What if we could automate the process between thinking of something and sharing it with others? Why does the speed and accuracy of our typing or enunciation make or break communicators instead of what they're trying to communicate?

Hell, in a more pure business context - while Automation sometimes costs jobs through outsourcing and mechanical automation - it's a mechanism that's intended to free human time for more important tasks then whatever it is that's being automated. If I automate 50% of my day, and then assign 2% of my day, or 3 hours a month to review of those automated tasks - that gives me almost a thousand hours a year that I can spend doing something productive, something that can't be automated by a computer.

Automation sucks if you're building your career around being a drone who does something simple and repetitive over and over again. Automation sucks if you're a monkey in a cage who lacks the basic ability to overcome the way it was done and find new ways. Automation sucks if you're a cost center in the business and bring no inherent value to the business proposition.

Automation is a blessed godsend to anyone who's value to the business proposition is more then knowledge of a tool and time availability.

This is a reply to This Post over at RyanHoliday.net that I kind of liked

Scootah's law of self assessment on the internet

2009-12-07T10:00:00.001+10:00

The more extreme somebody's assessment of their own qualities is when reported on the internet, the more probable it is that the exact opposite of this assessment is true.

IE somebody who tells you that they're Elle McPherson, Claudia Schaffer and Angelina Joelie all wrapped up into one is probably a 5'1, 700 lb hose beast who hasn't been outside since 1997. The more somebody tells you that they're the bastard love child of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, the more likely it is that they're too stupid to tie their own shoes and too spineless to try bending over anyway.

The reverse also usually holds true. The more people depreciate themselves the less likely the depreciation is warranted. The Bunny is fucking smokin.

Talent and perception

2009-12-07T09:57:00.001+10:00

Originally from here

My dad is a painter. He thinks' he's not a painter because he was 45 before he took it up as a hobby, and he's never really satisfied with a piece and it's only paint on canvas that's not worth anything.

Strangely, everyone, and I do mean every single person, who knows my dad, asks him for one of his paintings for birthdays/Christmas/etc. He is fucking amazing. We started the trend when we asked for one painting that we loved, and he was stunned that someone would want his worthless piece of trash. He was stunned when 2/3rds of the trash in his house was snapped up by the first people to ask for it when the realised that asking might be possible.

He still insists that his art is worthless and won't give it as a gift unless he's giving something else that's worth while with it.

I'd rather have one of his paintings then almost anything he could conceivably buy me. I think just about everyone else who knows him feels the same way.

On a similar note - I think I would do many, many bad things to own a Bunny original. I can't think of many conceivable Christmas presents that would be better then that card.

Consolidation

2009-12-07T09:53:00.001+10:00

So I’m in a period of Consolidation in my life. My finances are fucked, the forums I’ve used as my default excuse to not work for 5 years are closed. I’m on a cocktail of psychoactives to make me a functional kind of crazy and I’ve moved twice in less then a year.

Everything in my life needs to get simpler. To be more defined. Everything needs clarity and review.

So I’m going through 3000 posts from the aforementioned forums, 500+ blog entries from different blogs I’ve started and ignored and various other bits of writing around the place and I’m consolidating them to this blog. I’m using the Windows Live Writer to have access to almost all of those blogs from a single resource and to update things as I go from that same single resource.

I’ve got pretty much every piece of recreational reading on the internet that I engage in tuned down to an RSS feed list and set up in a spiffy program called Feed Demon, sorted by groups and regularly updated.

I’ve got my IM accounts, email accounts and social networking accounts all hooked into a program called Digsby so I can monitor and update them all (as much as I ever update any of that crap) from a single interface.

I’m working through my bookmarks – and I’m still trying to find a way to consolidate them into a single useful format – if anybody has a good way to import and auto-tag from Delicious to say Mozilla Weave – I’d love to hear it.

I’ve sorted 500gb of Movies and television shows into suitable folders and pruned things down. I’ve still got 100gb of music that is desperately in need of sorting and god knows how many documents that are in varying stages of clarity.

I’ve got a list of reading material, reference material and training material that’s going to take me a decade to sort through. But it’s progressing.

I’ve thrown out pretty much everything I don’t value any more. Someday soon – maybe I’ll have what’s left sorted and clarified.

I’m not sure where this drive for organisation comes from. But if I can just manage to get on top of my to-do list for work – I’ll be golden.

Snickers, really satisfies

2009-12-07T09:34:00.003+10:00

My friend Snickers got married a few years ago to the Princess. Their wedding still resounds with me as one of the top five most surreal, relatively sober occasions in my life.

Snickers is a weird guy. He's very religious, but he firmly believes that you should never share your religious opinions with anyone who hasn't asked about them. He grew up poor, Middle child in a family of 15. His dad was an Irish born Lay Preacher and itinerant missionary/alcoholic and His mother was a housewife before she died in childbirth with the last kid.

At 14 or 15 snickers left home to travel with a touring ethnic boxing troupe as the only Caucasian in the troupe, doing shows at outback rodeo's and shit, sending all his money back to his ridiculous family so they could eat while his sisters raised his Siblings and his brothers who were old enough ran off to join outlaw motorcycle gangs. After he got his teaching degree through external study (while working two full time jobs to help his ghetto ass family) he started working in youth shelters and teaching at Juvie hall.

The Princess is from an old money family. Apart from intermittent stints in Academia, nobody in the last three generations of the Princess' family has actually worked. The last person in the family that actually worked was the guy who ran a bank in Europe somewhere. Before that her family owned a big chunk of the Dutch east India company. the Princess had poor little rich girl guilt and did volunteer work at youth shelters where she met and fell for Snickers.

The marriage was naturally on the Princess’ family estate (a huge acreage with full time butlers and shit where the families staff raises race horses). Her parents built a Chapel specifically for the event and catered the whole huge fairy tale style wedding, with some of the richest and most influential people in the country in attendance on the brides side. The ceremony itself was fairly tame, but kind of tense. On the brides side was the upper crust of White Australia's snobbery. On the grooms side was a fine collection of unwashed, toothless rednecks, outlaw bikers, native aboriginals who had literally NEVER seen so many people gathered before.

Highlights of the wedding reception included a 16 piece orchestra and 12 part choir, the impromptu boxing display featuring the former members of the grooms youth boxing troupe, the bride's 125lb upper crust father getting wasted on red wine and getting into a political argument and resulting brawl with the groom's father and oldest brother (who were both over 200lbs) and winning. The groom getting hammered on red wine and punching a federal member of parliament who drunkenly felt up the bride. The second eldest brother of the groom doing burnouts on his Harley on the immaculately landscaped front lawn of the brides family estate, including burning the initials of the bridge and groom in 10' letters inside a giant heart.

The police arrived towards the end of the festivities to arrest 3 members of the groom's family on outstanding warrants (including 2 counts of murder against the brother who did the burn outs). The Bride's mother had to be restrained and temporarily handcuffed when she tried to prevent the police from “takin’ little wuzzhisface because he's sush a nihce boy who couldn'a possibee ha dun whut theysa said he dun did!”

The Bride's father declared it to be 'the best party we've ever had' extended a general invitation to the Groom's family to come and visit any time. They bring their trailers and motor homes down every summer since and camp out on the lawns and get wasted on red wine with the bride's family for a month or so.

Chemical Reminiscence

2009-12-07T09:34:00.001+10:00

This is one of many of my recollections about my sordid history of drug use. I think they get more coherent as the drug use gets to be further into the past tense.

--

I have talked more then one person down from trying to jump off something while high, and given thanks to Bill every time. 'Dude, Why don't you try it out from the ground first? Check this shit it out slowly'. I have had many experiences that should have scared me away from drugs. I had an amphetamine habit.

For a year and a half, 3 weekends out of four, from Friday night to Monday morning I was fucked up. I have a high tolerance to begin with, so 78 hour benders were expensive, and fucked up my universe in a pretty intense way. But the first series of moments when I should have quit came when I was doing a one night party on one pill only. The first moment was one of my first few times doing drugs, fourth of fifth I guess?

I was at a friends house. There were maybe 50 of us in a smallish house. It was one of those weird 3 story town house deals, where's there's like 2 rooms on each floor. Late in the night, around four in the morning, we had discovered that nobody had actual beds, just mattresses on the floor. So we had piled a couple of queen sized mattresses on top of each other in the master bedroom, and we were running down the hall way, and diving across the room to bounce off the bed - it was fucking awesome. Until one girl bounced off the bed and through the curtains, knocking the screen off the window and going straight out the window.

It suddenly struck us all that we were three floors up, and below that window was a basement car park - so a four story drop onto solid concrete. It was this intensely surreal moment as she just vanished through the curtains, the laughing stopped and it was dead silent as we contemplated the drop in that intense moment before complete panic sets in. We were all realising that a girl had probably died and shit the house was full of drugs and we were all going to jail. Then her head appears through the curtains like something out of a bad television magic special. Apparently there was a balcony outside of that window that we'd all forgotten about. It was easily the most panicked 15 seconds of my life.

The other incident that really stands out took place at another party, my second drop (I had an interesting first few times), I was spitting e-tarded game at this very hot girl and going nicely when she goes to the bathroom. Both of us were new to the scene and had dropped like one pill. I had a second one I was planning to split with her later to seal the deal, I'd heard drug sex is amazing (I later found out that it is, if you can actually get it up) and I was trying to keep my shit together while she was in the bathroom when I realised she'd been gone for a while. Somebody else went to use the bathroom and when it wasn't locked, assumed nobody was in there and went right in. Hot girl is on the floor, unconscious.

Most of the people at the party are hardcore. they've been doing this shit for years. Yet I'm the only person who can get it together enough to check her breathing and her pulse. Nada. I start CPR while screaming for somebody to call an ambulance, everybody is freaking out about the house full of drugs, I'm trying to tell them that they just need to call an ambulance, not the cops, and tell them it was a drink spike. Finally somebody calls the ambulance and babbles bullshit at them. I'm screaming 'Drink spike, no pulse, ambulance here NOW' in the background to try and clarify the situation for emergency, as they get the address out of the fucked up freak on the phone.

what felt like hours later (but was probably only a minute or so), the girl's pulse restarted. As I'm giving her mouth to mouth. Her gag reflex kicks in again and she projectile vomits, into my mouth. All over my face and my clothes. I reflex vomit into her mouth, and all over her face, other people vomit over us. It is highly romantic. I pull it together enough to help her clear her airways and put her into a recovery position, sweeping away the vomit from under her face with my hand and trying not to vomit more. More people are vomiting outside from the smell. The ambulance guys arrive and I tell them the story, they laugh at me when they hear the vomit part and tell me that that happens.

They write it up as a drink spike despite the drug paraphernalia all over the house and the entire room full of obviously fucked up junkies. She never sleeps with me. Next weekend I wanted more drugs. A few years later I eventually quit after one of my famous 72 hour + benders. A bottle of absolute, half a dozen top shelf pills, a gram of speed, 3 cartons of bulbs, some marijuana, some meth, some ice (like meth but more fucked up), some GBH and some coke. I come down and hit a huge depression cycle. I spend the week depressed and next weekend get fucked up to make myself feel better, spend hours making out with some ancient, fugly crone. I get home, still fucked in half and have all sorts of intense hallucinations and panic attacks and decide to quit.

I hold my resolve until the next party where my friends hustle me out of a party before I get my ass kicked for pissing all over the bathroom. I get massive depression and shame issues on the come down and go clean for about 6 months. I partied a few times after that, but completely sober but for the occasional beer (no more then 3 at a time) or vodka shot (no more then 2 in a session) since Easter last year. (this was written in early 2005)I never believed the ‘drugs make you stupid’ shit when I was on. But I took a few tests while I was partying - aptitude tests for jobs and shit. I scored mid-average at best. I've taken some pretty heavy aptitude testing for law school since I quit and scored in the top percentile for the country on the nationally assessed shit. That’s probably the biggest persuader against starting up again, that and the post party depression.

My how things change

2009-12-04T17:29:00.001+10:00

I wrote this not long after NYE 04/05 – It’s funny thinking about how much shit has changed. It wasn’t like either of us were new to BDSM then – but I feel so much more jaded about the whole thing now.

The house described belongs to people who are now really great friends of ours. Several of the people described as strangers being observed in this story are now among our best friends.

--

After writing this, and replaying the nights events in my head - it does feel pretty goddamn surreal. And its a more then a little disconcerting that none of this seemed particularly odd to me at the time.

For NYE my wife and I went to a fetish party. We arrived a little late, so the party was good and started by the time we got there. The venue was just some couple's house - we'd never been there before, all we had was an address. I'd met a few of the people at the party before, but only in passing.

Maybe half a dozen of the people in attendance we (my wife and I) had met through a friend at a party just before Christmas. The house itself was interesting. The last house on quite a long, dead end street, it was pretty isolated to begin with. But the driveway was huge, pitch black, and at least a 400'-500' walk from where we parked (at one end of the driveway) to the house. The house was big and quite nice, with a large pool, a dozen or so naked people in it. At the back of the house is what can best be described as a stone igloo. It was maybe 20' across and a circular base with a lockable door. But it was essentially a stone fucking igloo, there were maybe a hundred assorted floggers and paddles, a couple of benches, a 50's era gynaecologists table, and every available surface was lined with Eye bolts, heavy eye bolts, the sort of shit you could safely hang a fridge from, or a couple of people if you were that way inclined.

Outside in the main party area, there was somewhere between 75 and 150 people wandering around at various stages of the night, mostly dressed in black, a few French maids outfits (mostly on guys). We sat down and got drinks and started chatting to a few people we'd met at the last party when a Dominatrix sat down next to my wife, with a strap on dildo attached to her thigh. She had some guy (not her submissive, just some guy who was there) sit on it, I sculled my drink. The pool was starting to fill up, maybe 20 people were in there. Mostly naked. Around the corner from us there was a pretty heavy needle play scene going on (various gauge needles are inserted into someone, either temporary piercing style, or like a way more painful sort of acupuncture.) And next to us a naked girl was tied to a table while some dominatrix dripped hot wax to her.

An older lady was talking to us and telling us that she wasn't allowed to play because she was 'So Drunk!' (she was) while the dominatrix was still bouncing this guy on her knee. She had random other people pushing him up and down to add to the flavour. Some tall (like 6'6 and wearing stiletto's) guy in a French maids outfit was being bent over an old gurney (wheeled hospital table I guess the house owners had a thing for medical scenes) when we decided to head over to the dungeon (all the play that was described above was happening on the veranda of the house not actually in the dungeon). In the dungeon I played with my wife.

The standard flogging/cane/clamps/hair pulling that's at every fetish party. We also have a thing called a violet wand that is cool as shit. By far my favourite toy. Basically you plug it into a power point and it produces a high voltage unbroken supply of static electricity. There's a bunch of wand attachments for zapping people with but you can also make yourself a conductor so that when you touch/kiss/etc people they get shocked. Hours of entertainment and always draws a crowd.

When the countdown came she was naked but for panties and boots bent over a spanking bench. I was conducting large amounts of electricity through my body and into hers for the midnight kiss. We played with the wand for a while after that and had a bunch of people ask us to use the wand on them next time we were out. We watched some girl who had never been to a party before get beaten. It was her first time she worked with one of the party regulars who was playing with her. Girl on Girl beating always look kind of wussy but they're still hot. When you play with someone its a pretty intense adrenaline/endorphin rush. Its like a drug. So after a hot scene you usually spend a while cuddling/chilling out while you 'come down'.

We were watching other scene's and chilling out when a fun thing started. A guy was hooded and put in a lycra sort of straight jacket deal - no buckles or anything but a bitch to get out of without help. Then they stood him on a stool with his back to a pole and started wrapping saran wrap around him from his shoulders to his ankles. Constant wraps around the pole. Then they started duct taping him in place. He was mummified in duct tape and saran wrap by the time they were done. I went over to help then. He was a big guy and they weren't sure the restraints would hold him when they pulled the stool away so a couple of us had to be there to catch him just in case. They pulled the stool away and we stepped back and he was suspended there 2 feet above the ground mummified in saran wrap and duct taped to a pole. We watched them do all sorts of evil shit to him while he was stuck there and then helped them cut him down before we decided to go home and fuck.

Post scene sex is always mind blowing. Its an intense prolonged and massive turn on to do that sort of scene and your body is hyper sensitized by the rush from the scene - My wife announced afterwards that she had no idea what the fuck I had done to her but she owed me forty hundred blow jobs to compensate for the intensity of her orgasms. 39 hundred and 96 to go."

I’m Special.

2009-12-04T11:45:00.001+10:00

This was written in late 2004. It’s still a good story though.

I am currently taking ice skating lessons. I was a childhood klutz. I fucked up my leg while riding my bike when I was 6 and was always kind of nervous about anything involving me on wheels afterwards(strangely, I could rock climb/abseil/skydive with no fear at all, but anything involving me on wheels and I turned into a pussy) - and as such never learned to skate.

So now at age 24, I resolve to confront my fear, unable to find rollerblading lessons, I started taking ice skating lessons (yes I'm aware of the stupidity inherent, scared of wheels so I strap knives to my feet). The last time I tried to ice skate, I was 15. I managed to fall and shred my jeans with my own skate, actually splitting the skin on my nuts and down the inside of my leg with my own skate - almost no blood - but never the less, almost cutting off my own nuts with my ice skate.

And yet, I'm voluntarily trying this shit again. When wife and I saw ice skating lessons at the rink near us we decided to try it out - we rang and asked, they said lots of adults do it. They also said everybody on the ice must wear a helmet. We showed up first week, including the instructors, not a soul over 16 on the ice. Even the people teaching the classes were still in fucking high school. And nobody else has a helmet. (adult instructors arrived later, I am not in adult instructors class, I am being taught by 15 year old, fuck). We start the lessons. I am unco as fuck. I get relegated to the tiny totts class.

I am so bad, they put me in a group composed kids who are 5 year olds and under. They are better then me. I am too stubborn to let 5 year olds beat me, I keep going to weekly lessons. My wife starts skipping lessons because she is tired, or so I can catch up to her skill level. This means I am the only adult in a class full of 5 year olds, being taught by someone who is too young to drive. I remain too stubborn to quit. 10 year olds come up during lessons and give me encouragement. 10 year olds are too nice to laugh in my face, and apologize for making fun of me. 5 year olds however freely mock me - because they can skate away faster then I can lunge after them to beat them. Bastards. I remain too stubborn to quit. Various parents and other adults begin to join in classes, inspired by my stubborn yet dorky example. I am the spiritual leader of geriatric dork klutzes. fucking perfect.

Boom.

2009-12-04T11:20:00.001+10:00

This is the first of a bunch of posts that are just reposts of things I said on a message board once. These are not well edited and I don’t care.

When I was a bit younger, my Dad was an instructor at an Agricultural college in butt fuck nowhere (technically a place called Burdekin Australia, which is in the north east part of the country) - A redneck hell hole. They fairly regularly did 2 week short courses on various stuff farmers might need to know. Butchery, cattle midwifery, small motor repair, sheep shearing, and of course - demolitions (and a bunch of other shit I don't remember). Its more or less standard that pranks will occur when you gather a large number of yokels into a relatively small space with lots of high explosives and large stupid animals. One year the butchery instructors had played a prank on the demolitions guys - by stuffing several car exhaust pipes with sections of cow intestine, fresh from the cow. So the demolitions guys got a little revenge - they threaded about 240' of cow intestine with det cord (courses on rendering a live cow into steaks produces a lot of excess offal), and strung it in the tree line, about 25 feet up surrounding the butchery instruction area (Classes were done outdoors mostly - no indoor space). During the classes lunch break - they detonated the cord sequence. If you've ever played with det cord - you can set timing and direction of the blast when you detonate. The blast was directed down and towards the middle of the very large instruction area. The contents of 240' of cow intestines, and the majority of the intestine tissue covered literally everything, and everyone in the immediate area. I cannot describe the horrific nature of 20 or so guys, holding sandwiches and cups of coffee, surrounded by tables and butchers saws and knives and shit - covered in half cooked, half digested cow shit and cow intestine. When you make farmers on a butchery course puke - you know you've done well.

“Rage, Loathing and Discontent”

2009-12-03T13:43:00.001+10:00

I’m an aging hippy railing against kids in designer flairs. A middle aged punk, scorning kids who pay a small fortune for a hair cut that looks like it was done with spray paint and super glue. I’m the saddest cliche of an angry youth – I’m old and watching the things that I was angry about taken away, washed out, made lame and corporate by hipster douche bags.

A friend made a post in his blog, suggesting that Loathing was a product of Fear and Ignorance. I protested – I loathe most the things I know best. Anger and powerlessness, the inability to influence the things that make us angry – that’s where loathing comes from.

I feel antique talking about my generation in the past tense. I’m not even thirty yet. I’m on the bleeding edge of technology. I have so much counter culture that it’s leaking out of my ears. But apparently it’s time to start chasing kids off my lawn or something. Because kids wearing baseball caps with the brims flat and stickers still on them infuriates me – that’s how kids with downs syndrome wore their hats back in my day. How am I supposed to know which kids can’t get out of the way when I try and run them down with my car now? Fuck!

My generation doesn’t have a name. We’re the bleeding edge between Gen X and Gen Y – We grew up with the internet and learned about biology with highly pornographic learning aides. Our major pop culture influences started when Kurt Cobain died and ended when My Chemical Romance weren’t laughed off the stage.

My generation was characterized by anger, at the world and everything that was wrong with it. Sarcasm, Irony, loathing, apathy and rage were our club membership badges. Bill Hicks was our prophet. Nivana, Nine Inch Nails, Rage against the Machine and Tool wrote our protest songs. There was a swell of anger against the world and everything that was wrong it. Racism, sexism, reverse sexism, stupid political correctness that gave us nonsense phrases like reverse racism and reverse sexism, homophobia, all these social wrongs that we were trying to change.

Now I see those same hall marks of association, sarcasm, irony, loathing, the humour and the musical styles parroted and parodied by hipster douche bags. But when I look through their anger and see them wearing slogans coined by my heroes, on fucking t-shirts and baseball caps that they bought from mass marketers, I don’t see anything directed towards the world at large. I don’t see any altruism or any selflessness in the motives. All I see is bitterness and longing. Self deception and dellusion.

An actor I heard give an interview once said that in the old days, you were famous because you were special. The most remarkable people were heroes to the world, everyone knew them and wanted to know what they were doing because they were special. Children idolized them and strove to be like them because they wanted to be special as well.

Now the world has changed and people are special because they’re famous. The world treats famous people like they’re special and now instead of seeing children idolizing the qualities that made someone famous – we’ve learned that you don’t need to do anything in particular to be special. You just need to be famous. If your daddy is rich enough and you stop mid fellatio to answer the phone, and then let the video leak – you can make yourself one of the most famous people in the world. You can be paid millions just to go to parties. You can get a record deal even though you can’t sing. You can be in movies even though you can’t act.

All the echoes of my heroes, all the secondary characteristics of the people I admired and respected, all the secondary characteristics of my own youth are being adopted and perverted now by people with none of the primary characteristics. Their rage at the world is all about unfulfilled narcissistic fantasies. The only thing they want to change is how much attention everyone will pay to them.

Maybe I’m just romanticising my own faded memories. Maybe I’m just another bitter old man, waving my cane at the whipper snappers on my lawn. Maybe my anger and my inability to change the direction that the world seems to be moving will just lead into loathing.

Maybe I’ll dress like I’ve got downs syndrome and go fit in with the crowd.

Hold this space

2009-10-19T12:46:00.000+10:00

This is a placeholder blog. Over the next few weeks I'm going to consolidate some existing writings here and start placing my future writings here.

I intend to talk about writing, common sense, self awareness and self improvement, sexuality and technology - and whatever other weird shit I'm thinking about.

Fucking banks.

2009-03-17T11:34:00.000+10:00

Dear bank name comma

In the last few months I have been making service of a bank name visa debit card full stop The product itself is excellent but bank name customer service puts me in mind of being beaten with a dead cat full stop

Nothing ever works the first time full stop

Getting my card set up for use and phone banking was an exercise like drawing teeth that required visits to a branch and multiple phone calls full stop When I eventually tried to use my card to pay for a taxi hyphen my transaction was declined hyphen 20 minutes on hold later I finally managed to find someone who realized that oops comma a button had not been selected full stop No offer was made to compensate me for the 20 minutes of meter running in a taxi while I waited for bank name to correct their own error exclamation

Not 5 minutes later comma trying to check into my hotel hyphen the card was again denied full stop After a 40 minute phone call hyphen another bank name oopsie was fixed full stop Already short on time comma I had now spent an hour embarrassed and on the phone hyphen hoping that any time now I would be able to access my money and get some sleep full stop

The next morning after checking out of the hotel comma I caught a taxi to the airport and discovered that pre hyphen authorizations decrease my balance even after the final transaction is processed comma leaving me overdrawn full stop As this event happened at 5:30 in the morning comma the only person I could speak too hyphen as I tried to pay for my taxi with the only funds I had available was a lost credit card security point hyphen who was completely useless and appallingly rude full stop She suggested that I call back after 9:00 AM so that I could access my money and pay for the taxi that I was in comma at the airport about to board another flight full stop I was forced to under pay the taxi driver and leave him an IOU for my next trip through town full stop

When next I called bank name to check my balance comma I was informed that my pin had expired hyphen I have to change my bloody pin number every 5 weeks question mark Surely god this was a joke full stop When I eventually spoke to someone hyphen I advised her that I just wanted my balance and she offered to transfer me to the phone system where I could enter my pin and receive the information full stop After pointing out that the pin I had entered had apparently expired and I had been redirected to her hyphen she advised me that I must have incorrectly entered my pin full stop When asked why the IVR had replied that my pin number had expired instead of that it was incorrect comma she was unsure full stop Not willing to admit that she was wrong comma but unsure full stop

She then proceeded to ask me a number of authentication questions to try and give me balance directly comma including asking if I knew what my balance was exclamation I would stress that this was after repeated conversational mentions of the fact that I just wanted to know my balance full stop

Since I didn apostrophe t know my balance comma she was unable to give me my balance and also unable to reset my pin full stop I apostrophe m not sure if the frustration of this moment is entirely clear hyphen but this circular logic trap seems like surely it should have an available work around hyphen perhaps an option for the operator to request another question instead question mark

On my next call comma the randomly selected questions did not include apostrophe please provide the information that you are calling to obtain apostrophe and I was eventually hyphen with not inconsiderable difficulty obtain my balance and reset my pin full stop I was only able to alleviate my migraine with the aid of strong pain killers and a stiff drink full stop

So endeared towards bank name by my experiences comma I reviewed my personal finances hyphen which I agree are in an undesirable state and decided that a consolidation loan would be an excellent way to reduce my monthly payment burden and make my record keeping substantially more clear full stop

I was just called by a lovely comma but completely useless gentleman who asked me to enter my bank name identification number hyphen as I was at work at the time comma I did not have my wallet with me and advised him of such full stop He then proceeded to ask me approximately 15 questions hyphen including asking for a home phone number hyphen despite the fact that my home phone has been disconnected since well prior to the establishment of my accounts with bank name and my driver apostrophe s license number full stop Unfortunately my driver apostrophe s license tends to reside in close proximity to my wallet so this I was also ubank namele to provide him full stop However I established my name comma date of birth comma place of residence comma details of my accounts with bank name including other parties sharing the account comma details of my employment history and short of a DNA sample hyphen every piece of identifying information that could be reasonably known by a person not currently in possession of their wallet full stop I was advised that this was insufficient for him to continue discussion of my loan application or update my details to reflect the fact that I haven apostrophe t had a home phone number in the time that I apostrophe ve had an account and that he would be unable to call me open bracket or arrange for someone to call me close bracket when I had finished work this evening full stop He also advised me that because my home comma an asset worth some dollar sign 100 comma 000 more than is currently owed against it is jointly owned comma it would be considered a dollar sign 200 comma 000 debt when considering my financial position full stop I have apparently moved from being in the black regarding my overall financial position but poorly positioned in terms of cash flow and seeking are hyphen adjustment bring my payments into a manageable structure comma to being virtually bankrupt and I assume an absolutely untenable loan prospect full stop

Unfortunately comma as I apostrophe m at work hyphen debilitating pain killers and a stiff drink aren apostrophe t currently an option full stop

I then discovered your web hyphen page requires me to provide you with not only an unreasonable amount of information that is hardly relevant to my complaint hyphen but defaults to opt me in for a spam email list exclamation

I also fully expect that I have passed 2000 characters at this point and note that I am only allowed to have complaints that can be qualified within 2000 characters hyphen despite the fact that both email and databases such as are likely to be involved with a web based feedback form hyphen commonly are capable of accepting significantly more than 2000 characters when correctly configured full stop Despite being at work hyphen I find myself yearning more and more for strong drink and heavy pain killers full stop

Detailing the outcome that I seek becomes more complex full stop I would like your telephone staff to in future provide service that is more in parallel with that which is expected in a customer context hyphen rather than the equestrian context which I seem to have been on the receiving end of thus far full stop I would like my banking products to work as I expect them too comma without extended comma embarrassing phone calls to rude people who insist on my disclosure of extensive personal information despite having no privacy full stop

I would like my internet banking pin number to remain current for more than a month full stop

I would like compensation for the hours of frustration open bracket approximately 8 thus far comma my day rate as a consultant is dollar sign 2000 forward slash day for a single days work or dollar sign 550 forward slash day for roles lasting more than 3 months full stop If an additional 2 months and 30 days of frustration will be required comma please note that I would prefer to forego this fee in favor of an acknowledgment that un hyphen ending frustration and the absence of customer service are inherent in dealing with bank name close bracket full stop

I would like to be remunerated for 20 minutes in a taxi with the meter running because somebody made a bit of a mistake activating my card full stop This came to dollar sign 26 full stop

I would like someone to discuss with me my loan application comma taking into consideration the fact that while my financial history is far from ideal hyphen that apostrophe s why I apostrophe m seeking a consolidation loan and noting that while my history is not ideal hyphen my income is significant and my assets are not insubstantial and that I would easily be able to manage the payment schedule for the loan in question full stop

I would ideally like these things to happen in a fashion that recognizes the facts that I work in a remote and rural location and my time in metropolitan areas is at a premium full stop

In the far more likely circumstance that the outcome from this complaint will be a form letter and no response comma I would at least appreciate if this communication was forwarded around internally so that I might one day become an internet meme demonstrating the useless fury of bank customers comma helpless at the hands of institutions who are in competition to see who can be the least beneficial to their customers full stop

Ah comma unsurprisingly it appears that Only the following characters are allowed a to z comma A hyphen Z comma 0 to 9 full stop As my complaint contains unsuitable characters full stop such as punctuation full stop I can only assume that a skilled torturer was involved in the development of this process full stop In the spirit of ensuring that my complaint remains contextually correct comma I have replaced the punctuation with strings as allowed by your web hyphen page full stop I would note that this has added rather a number of characters to my complaint and may lead to this complain arriving in an even larger number of segments full stop If this inconveniences you open bracket as it has inconvenienced me close bracket please take this issue up with your website developer full stop I can apostrophe t imagine that he forward slash she is unfamiliar with complains of this nature if this is his forward slash her default method of sanitizing data inputs full stop I would also note that when creating this form, it has been misleadingly implied that a maximum of 2000 characters can be input full stop More correctly comma a maximum of 1999 characters can be input full stop On behalf of all future parties obliged to make a complaint of more 2000 characters hyphen please correct this misleading information. I would also note that despite returning to the complaints page after submitting a complaint hyphen the page does not retain the identification information previously input full stop An irritating factor that forces unnecessary duplication of effort that could be easily avoided by a website developer or usability tester who was paying attention full stop

In fondest hope comma
My name was is already on all of the form submissions full stop
open bracket N full stop B full stop this complaint may arrive in multiple parts comma as I appear to have found more than 400 words worth of things wrong with bank name full stop close bracket
P full stop S full stop in some places, the segments of this complain may not match exactly as I was forced to return to my document editor numerous times in an attempt to reformat my document to meet this form apostrophe s bizarre requirements full stop I trust that it will not be as difficult comma tiring comma frustrating ampersand unnecessarily irritating to reconstruct as it was to construct in a fashion that your form would accept full stop In other circumstances I would apologize for any inconvenience however at this juncture comma I do not feel that apologize to your company are warranted full stop

Big Gay Day @ the Wickham

2006-03-10T03:46:00.000+10:00

This was a review of Big Gay Day - a Brisbane gay pride and dance music event that I covered for a music magazine a few years ago. I kind of like it.

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An inflated condom floating over 11,000 outstretched hands, a slamming bass line slowly fading into white noise nothingness, two barefooted trannies sitting cross legged next to me on the roof of an old and dilapidated pub. Quiet descending across the crowd, not just the fade out of white noise but actual quiet... Utter insanity. But more on that later.

For those of you who have been under a rock, Big Gay Day is Brisbane's biggest, gayest day. A summer street party and charity fundraiser in those streets behind the Wickham that anybody with a valley PO box knows so well. BGD may not be mardi gras, but its still a great (Faaaabulous?) day out. This year's line-up, headlined by Special Guests the Rogue Traders (and Marcia Hines!) and some great local talent (DJ Duo the Double-up Bears playing 'The Bears Upstairs') screamed un-missable from the word go.

You don't need to be gay to really enjoy Big Gay Day. The music is always quality, if a little eclectic. Even if you can't bring yourself to listen to (or laugh at) the lesbian folk pop, you can always head into the bar and check out the Dj's inside, or get a few drunken photo's of yourself with the trannies. No matter what your sexual preference, Big Gay Day never fails to be an experience to remember.

We wandered over about 2 for our first view and some daytime photos. The guy at the gate told us that they'd already had about 5,000 people through the gates. There was already a reasonable crowd in the dance spaces, outside and inside and the tail-gaters were already getting settled in in the car park. We headed up with the tail-gaters to get some down shots, standing between A big dirty Ute with a plush pink interior and princess stamped on the seat covers and a couple with a baby strapped to Dad's back (tilted so the little tyke could see the trannies) we watched as two guys competed at handstand dancing competitions, showing all the signatures of a background in capoeira before they ended up collapsed on top of each other on the pavement laughing.

The heat drove us back to a friend’s apartment at McWhirters for a few hours before we decided it had cooled down enough to head back. The entry line up stretched from the eastern front corner of the Wickham back up past the post office and it wasn't in a hurry to move anywhere. God bless those press passes. Directly in front of us on the way in was a rather cute girl with her phone number on one shoulder and a running tally of hook-ups on the other shoulder (separated by gender). We took a photo, I'll text her if I can read her number and find out what the tally ended up at, watch the gallery for that. We saw a few people who'd come with a similar tactic as we wandered around. It was a constant wiggle to get anywhere - the space and the crowd (we heard 11,000 a bit later on, I'm still trying to get someone official to give me the actual numbers) just didn't match up. There were at least 150 people up in the car park looking down, half of them with bracelets on showing that they'd paid to get in, but had to head for higher ground above the sea of people. We were constantly pressed between daddy bears in leather and trannies in 5-inch heels. A girl(?) in a policewoman's outfit with giant stiletto’s and a well worn truncheon posed with her tranny partner for us before we headed inside.

Some more wiggling got us to the balcony. Like every one else we were just trying to spot our friends in the crowd. We just had the advantage of zoom lenses in the ridiculous game of Where’s Wally. We were constantly stopped by drunk or gurning camera whores who were begging to show off. The trannies were the only ones to show us their tits though, so disappointed.

Our passes said VIP, and we could see a VIP area over behind the DJ booth, so we wiggled over there from the bar, after half an hour of sweaty pressing we found out that no media were allowed into that particular VIP area, but if we headed back to the bar there was a balcony we could get to that was VIP only. After another half hour wiggling to get back, an emergency vodka stop at the bar and another 20 minutes of wiggling, a climb up some death defying stairs, some directions that involved going down the stairs, up the stairs, around the corner, down the stairs, through the little grungy laundry thing, past the machinery and around to the left, we eventually found it. Oh my god.

Above the crowd and too the right, we had an almost unobstructed view of the stage (ok, except for a light pole and speakers) and almost nobody else persevered to find the balcony. Chatting to the trannies we found out that it’s a staff only area usually and nobody else really knew about it. We had a shoebox-sized balcony for the most part to ourselves with one or two other bar staff or trannies on a smoke break for company. Apart from a few excursions (Slack photographer made me go every time!) to the bar for more Vodka, we didn't move until about 10. We sat and watched the beautiful people, and the drunks and the gurners, the make out sessions in the crowd, and a few people who were moving past 'making out' as such. The energy was spectacular. And I even got to use the bathroom with only one person in front of me in the line.

When Marcia hit the stage, the crowd insanity was impressive. And Mega-Drag and DJ Ish's bloody awesome set kept the crowd at an impressive fever pitch for well over an hour. And then we come back to where this story started. An inflated condom floating over 11,000 out stretched hands, sudden silence and the boom of mass insanity as Rogue Traders hit the stage.

It was madness. Take it from someone who spends the majority of Big Day Out at the front of the main stage mosh, the crowd was loosing its shit on an industrial scale as Rogue Traders absolutely destroyed the house. The photographer and I both agreed that we would absolutely fuck Natalie Bassingthwaighte (Natalie if you're reading this, email us!), my god she sang her gorgeous little bum off. The boys weren't half bad.

In all seriousness, I've been a big rogue traders fan for a while, even before they got Natalie involved, I was a big fan of the boy's work, especially their live performances. Seeing them play around the traps a few times had definitely put them well up there on my 'favourite artists' list, and Sunday night's performance certainly did not disappoint.

I do however feel a little sorry for the poor DJ that had to follow them. Watching the crowd pour out of the venue like they'd run out of booze had to be disinheriting. About then we ducked inside to catch a little of the double up bears, before running away from the leather daddies who wanted to make me into a glove puppet and home to fall down. Overall an officially top shelf evening. I just wish there was some way they could make the venue a little roomier for next years party. I’d really like to have enough room to get my camera up to my face somewhere other then the VIP balcony next time.