True story.

A guy tried to PUA me once. Did the ridiculous "think of a time when you were very excited and filled with lust" thing, the touchy thing, the whole bit. I fucked another guy right in front of him.




(The other guy's opening line was "hi" followed by actual conversation, and he was both a sweet guy and a nice lay. I actually didn't mean to be in front of the PUA dude, this was later in the night and not direct revenge, but we were out of bedrooms and ended up on a couch in front of everyone because we didn't really care who saw us.)

You'd think if it worked so well they wouldn't have to talk about it so much...

Sometimes I think I spend too much time picking on my own side. Feminists, perverts, girly girls, we may have our differences but ultimately I'm one of you. We should hug more.

Some people, on the other hand, are just complete pieces of shit.

Ah, that's harsh. They're not really hypnotizing women into being their sex slaves, they're just spinning elaborate fantasy worlds about it, and no one's really getting hurt. These guys aren't pieces of shit, they just wish they were. Which is just funny.

Random featured article: Women are Bitches... Don't get uptight ladies, it's just a metaphor for dogs! You know, dogs you want to have sex with.
Dont treat a dog like a person. Treat a dog like a dog.
Corollary: Dont treat a woman like a man. Treat a woman like a woman. My friends wife wants to "talk about our situation" but "today isnt right. Lets talk on Sunday". I told him, "Fuck that. First off, as soon as you start "talking" about the relationship, you're fucked, because women are incapable of holding a logical, honest discussion about solving a problem.
Well. There ya go. Do I really have to say anything about that? I don't think I could do it logically and honestly, anyway. Remember folks, at its heart PUA is about loving and respecting women! (Incidentally, this guy is also wrong about dog training.)

Jesus. Okay, how about The Ten Rules of PUA?
1.Be honest, Don't Lie
Well, except for the rather large lie of omission about you playing a massive bizarre Internet-based RPG in which she counts as an XP point.

2.Always leave a girl better than you found her.
Take her in for regular repairs and oil changes, and throughly wash and vacuum her as a courtesy to the next owner.

3.Logistics seperate Masters and Amateurs.
This was one of the most important things I ever learned. NVP taught me it. There is no point in trying to bring a girl home, if your roommates mom is there that weekend.
Ah yeah, that's a real high-level advanced move there, actually having a bed to put your conquests in. I'm fairly sure by "roommates mom is there" he means "my mom is home and my swanky basement room doesn't have a separate entrance."

4.It is very hard to say no while laughing
Actually, in certain cases it's hard to say no without laughing.

Christ, and so on. A lot of this article is just him telling ridiculously fake stories about women he seduced instantly and absolutely through methods he curiously never details. "At first she hated me, but I just, y'know, worked my stuff, and five minutes later she was sharing my cock with her best friend. This is totally normal for me." Yeah, whatever.

And then there's... whatever the fuck this is.



The weird thing is I do know a couple guys who get laid all the time, and not only are they not PUAs, they're really not jerks either. Jerks got laid in high school, but out in the real world most alpha-dog douches have pretty sparse and unhappy relationships. The men I know who have the most and best sex are the ones who genuinely like women (which is different from genuinely liking to bone them) and have female friends. Guys who can make sex a fun friendly thing get about a million times more casual pussy than guys who treat women like goalkeepers.

Softer.

Right now A Softer World is where my head's at.

Stuff like this and this is almost beautiful in its pretentious Canadian webcomic way.

I wish there were ways to arrange a quick seedy hug job. I'd do it with anyone.

Senses.

I'm not seeing a whole picture. I'm seeing soft brown eyes gone wide, the curve of neck to muscled shoulder, the pale-tan skin of a man who might be dark if he didn't live in Seattle. What I'm mostly seeing is the ceiling but I'm focusing about ten miles past that. I can't see most of his body but later I will remember every inch.

I can't hear the things I'm saying. Sometimes during sex I say things that I don't entirely mean. Or at least, if you did do in reality what I'm asking for, I'd prefer if you used lubricant.

I hear the man perfectly. Every little grunt and breath means a lot to me. Some of it's my needy little ego and some of it isn't, but the noise he makes at climax, whether a scream or a squeak, will stay with me for a long time. It'll come back at odd moments. I'll be driving to work in the morning and remember a man who squeezed his eyes and groaned, I'll be buying lentils at the supermarket and my cheeks will suddenly go red and I'll even close my eyes a second when I remember a man who rolled his hips against me and muttered "you slut..."

The smell part is so individual. Every man smells different, and each man always smells like himself no matter how clean or cologned he is. It's not a subtle thing either. Like they've got their own face, everyone has their own sweat and their own come.

The taste is something like raw eggs and piss. I don't like it when guys try to ask me if it tasted good, because it didn't. I mean, I sure as hell wouldn't buy it at the supermarket. I'd rather a guy just ask me if I liked eating it. I usually did.

Touch is the only sense that isn't a "special sense", the only one that isn't isolated out to a single organ, a single bit of the brain. If sight is seeing and smell is smelling, touch isn't just feeling, it's being. Touch is my whole damn body and it's his. Touch is what we're here for. The other stuff is nice decoration but touch is sex. Sex is touch.

CFNM.

CFNM is a fetish interest in "clothed female, naked male." It's a femdom thing, not an exhibitionist thing--the idea isn't "hey ladies lookit my wiener" so much as "hey slave get out your wiener." Here's a very NWS site that illustrates. ("CMNF" doesn't seem to be as much of a distinct fetish, although it certainly happens in maledom. And in society, grumble grumble...) I'd heard of CFNM before but I got really thinking about it today.

I can't decide whether to love it or hate it. On the one hand, I love the idea of good-looking men submitting to objectification and ogling. CFNM porn, although aimed mostly at straight men, seems to break the mold of the ass-ugly or invisible male pornstar--all the CFNM models I've seen have been cute as hell, which is awesome. Somehow this seems more like real submission than femdom porn where the women are wearing crotchless nippleless leather fishnet getup things--the male submissives are the only ones sacrificing their dignity for once.

And it's acknowledging that women actually enjoy looking at cute naked men! From the men's perspective even! This is awesome!

On the other hand... the thought I have looking at a lot of these pictures is "gosh, if he was naked in front of me I wouldn't be leaving my clothes on." Even as they show women enjoying the sight of wang, the CFNM porn also seems to buy a little into the whole "women don't really like getting fucked" mentality. The women seem more amused by the naked men than aroused by them. "Dance for my pleasure, boy" just isn't as fun if there's no actual, y'know, pleasure.

There seems to be a running theme in BDSM imagery, CFNM and otherwise, that women are humiliated by being fucked and men are humiliated by not being fucked. That if I had total control over a horny slaveboy, I'd use that control to deny him my pussy. And... hell no. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a femdom, but if I had a slaveboy, the poor guy would have friction burns.

CFNM makes for some awful cute pictures, but I think NFNM is more my style.

Whistle pigs!

Today I brought home two new members of the Pervocracy family!



That's Rose on the left and Violet on the right. They're sisters, they're Teddy pigs, they're freakin' adorable and they give (well, receive, at least) the best fluffy little hugs.

You never stop learning.

Today I saw a man suck his own cock. It filled me with a sense of almost childlike wonder. It was like learning that the Loch Ness Monster really does exist.

...And that it can suck its own cock.

Slump.

I know, no posting, bad blogger, sit in the corner. I've just been having a busy, sexless, and sort of down time. My body's beat up and my mind's all stressed, it just hasn't been inspiring.


Um... ever notice how sometimes people will refer to men by their last names but women by their first names? What's up with that? (Partly that female names have more diversity; there are so many "Chris"s and "Tom"s at my work that last names are more useful. But that's not all because people will say "blonde Sarah" or "Sarah H." rather than refer to duplicated Sarahs by their last names.) I think it's sexist.

Regret.

I wish I'd let Tommy stun-gun me.

I wanted it, sort of, but I'm kind of phobic about electricity, and when I heard the noise it made and saw the size of the spark I was terrified all the way into flight-or-fight physically-get-away mode. Spastic shrieks of "augh no I changed my mind safeword safeword no" is not considered "enthusiastic consent" by your more considerate doms, so it never happened.

Man, I hate panicking. (I also hate admitting to panicking, but confession is good for the soul, or good for getting attention, or something.) But there are a couple things that will make me panic at the thought of even touching them--fish, electricity, and skeletons. For some obscure reason they just set off the "run first, think later" switch in my head and it's impossible.

Which is why I wish I could have withstood it. I wish I could have that memory of looking down from the mountaintop and going "holy shit, I did that and I'm alive." I wish I could have the memory of looking in Tommy's eyes and thinking "I trusted him to do this and he didn't let me down." I guess I have those, sort of, about other things, but I wish I'd tackled a real challenge.

Confession: I often, often think about getting tortured with electricity when I masturbate.

I regret not doing it, and yet, I think if I got the chance again tonight I'd refuse it again tonight. Climbing a mountain is a good (if hackneyed) metaphor; it begins with making a decision, but it sure as fuck doesn't end there. To actually get there you've got to fight your body every inch of the way and it may turn out that you're just not strong enough.

I suppose it doesn't take strength to get stun-gunned, exactly. But to ask for it, to continue to ask for it after it's cracked like tiny lightning before your eyes, to hold out your tender pink skin for it, and to ask for it again even when the metal is cold against your body and a single finger flick would bring unknown pain, takes more than I have.

More than I have now.

Two new friends.

This week was my one-year anniversary with [ORGANIZATION] and I got an unexpectedly enormous bonus! I invested it responsibly.


This is Britney. (She's getting a scope and possibly some embarrassing decals.)


This is Marley. (I'm not sure about him yet. I hadn't really planned to get him but a friend was selling him off for stupid cheap.)

Looking at men.

It always bothers me when straight guys claim they "can't tell" if another guy is attractive. It's such an annoying form of overcompensation. (It's also not true; maybe a totally straight guy can't make fine distinctions or have a "type," but he can tell you whether Gilbert Gottfried or Brad Pitt is more attractive.) I didn't ask if he gave you a boner, all you have to do is use your eyes and a completely detached, theoretic sense of attractiveness. It won't make you gay.

Likewise, it's really dumb when guys think they have to react to any image of a naked or sexualized man with fifth-grader-ish squeals of "ewwwww!" Is there some rule that if you aren't aroused by penises you must be disgusted by them? Can't you just go "oh, huh, that's a penis alright" and be unmoved, like you were looking at a picture of a deer or a bulldozer or whatever? That also would not make you gay.

I'm always impressed--maybe unduly, considering that straight women and gay men have to do this constantly--by straight guys who are okay with sexy things that don't fit their orientation. A straight guy who can look at gay porn and be amused rather than act like Dracula encountering a cross is Officially Awesome in my book.

I'm not turned on by (most of) the images of half-naked women that pervade media and advertising, but I don't recoil in eye-shielding disgust from them either. The least men could do, in the rare instances where the tables are turned, is show the same decorum.

Free entertainment in the cafeteria.

Today I discovered the distaff equivalent of a woman licking a popsicle: a man eating a pudding cup without a spoon.





(My rib is probably just bruised; it's certainly tender but it's more of a ":(" pain than an "AUGH" and I was able to work today. So yay.)

Rib.

I think I cracked a rib at work today. CC was on one side of a big heavy thing pushing forwards, I was on the other side pulling backwards, and unbeknownst to me, a metal railing at an awkward angle was right behind me. Crash, crunch, "FUCK!", "uh, sorry folks, I'm okay, sorry about the language, sorry," retreat to privacy, "FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

So (this is still nominally my sex blog, huh?) I'm probably not going to be getting too wild over the next couple weeks. Bleh.

Basic Pistol, Day II.

Slight letdown: it turns out that your performance with a target .22 will not be entirely representative of your experience with a compact 9mm. Nonetheless, it's more about knowing what to learn than about becoming perfect during the class, and anyway I'm still massively better even with the 9mm. I'm also a bit safer and a lot more mechanically, legally, and practically informed. At $50 for 14 hours of extremely personal and helpful instruction, that class leaves me feeling like I ripped them off.

I want a rifle now. I want a .22 bolt-action rifle and I want to put a nice scope on it and I want to shoot very teeny things from very far away. I think this would be fulfilling.


(I also want a single-action revolver in a big caliber and a shotgun and a .30-06 rifle, but my bank account informs me that as long as I'm dreaming, why not a pony too?)

Basic Pistol.

Today I took the first half of the NRA Basic Pistol class. I was worried at first that it wouldn't be right for me because I've already shot a bit--the class started out with the basic basic basics of "this part is the trigger" and I was skeptical. Then they got us out on the range and holy crap did I get my money's worth. They had four instructors for nine students and kept us shooting for hours and with heaps of extremely patient and observant teaching I was doing better at 25 yards than I was at 30 feet before. Not only was my performance massively improved, but so was my understanding of what I was doing, so I know what I need to practice in the future.

(I'd post a triumphant target scan, but I put so many rounds through each while trying so many different things that they're complete Swiss cheese. Still, it's rapidly progressing and deeply satisfying Swiss cheese, trust me.)

And that's just the first half! There's an entire day left to go! I'm very happy with this class.

PIV = PATRIARCHY

This one is GreenEarth's fault. I mean, okay, like everything else on this blog it's obviously my fault, but GreenEarth gave me the link.

A fairly minor Twisty post goes wacky in the comments. The OP is about a spray that reduces premature ejaculation, which is obviously a horrible thing because guys might enjoy it or something.

There was no point in imagining that the spray to which it alludes was, say, pepper spray, and that the scenario proposed incapacitating your would-be pronger long enough for you to get the job done yourself.
...Apparently the idea here is that you would fend off a rapist and then masturbate? Either that or you just mace your boyfriend and then masturbate. (If the test of a sexist statement is how fucked-up it sounds when you reverse the genders... yeah.) Either way, make really sure you wash your hands in between.

But in the comments is where things get kind of weird. Weirder.
Twisty:How long should “sex” last?
And doesn’t this assessment entirely depend on your point of view? What if you are a prostituted woman? Or you suffer from one of those conditions where penetration is painful? Or you’re one of those women in Afghanistan who is required by law to make herself available whenever Mr Dude wants it? Or a mama in a motorcycle gang? If such women were allowed to define sex, I imagine no ejaculation would ever be judged “premature.”
Gosh, I'd rather not be raped than be raped but it's real quick. I guess that's overreaching though.

Anyway, even "prostituted" (remember kids, women can't make decisions!) women, Afghan women, and biker mamas (what?) might still want to have consensual straight sex at some point. The fact that someone has suffered sexual abuse doesn't mean that they automatically become gay or asexual.

slythwolf:
I also seem to recall that women were likely to report two and a half minutes of penetration as having taken five minutes, which to me says we’re mostly staring at the wall going, when is this going to be over?
That's certainly the pessimistic way of looking at it. I might use phrases like "feels so fucking fantastic time stands still," but I'm sure that's just some man or other speaking through my helpless little puppet mouth.

Also, a thought: ejaculation is premature when it’s too early to have a chance of impregnating anyone.
...Huh?

rubysecret:I’d like to see a “Shut up about yer stupid weeny and bring me a sandwich” spray. Or a “Hon, would you please run to the store a pick up fresh batteries for my vibrator?” spray. That I’d buy.
"I’d like to see a 'Shut up about yer stupid coochie and bring me a sandwich' spray. Or a 'Hon, would you please run to the store a pick up fresh lube for my pocket pussy?' spray. That I’d buy."

FIGHT THE POWAH! REPLACE IT WITH A COMPLETELY IDENTICAL POWAH! *fistpump*

Jonathan:The men who fall over in bed after 5 seconds are seen as losers by the other dudes. It doesn’t matter if their foreplay* stamina lasted orders of magnitude longer than their weener did. It doesn’t matter whether their partners were happy, bored, or asleep. Their dudefriends are who they are having sex for.
Gosh, if that's the only reason, maybe they just shouldn't tell their friends about their ejaculations.

rubysecret: I don’t know if it’s been discussed in any studies, but I’ll bet that there are many women who say they enjoy penetration but are saying so because they know it pleases their partner - because it’s so ingrained that our sexual pleasure comes from pleasing someone else.
I'm so glad that you know what women really want even when they say something completely different. ("C'mon, baby, I know you really like it.") If we started believing what women said about their own sexuality, we'd never defeat the Patriarchy.

Twisty:One of these maneuvers, which I try to explain in this post, is that men own and define women’s sexuality in this dudely world. Surely — may I call you Shirley? — you can see that because our social order is a patriarchy, and because women in a patriarchy are a subjugated sex class, submitting to penetration is not a politically neutral act.
"Submitting to penetration" does sound like a bad idea. How about craving penetration, welcoming it, asking for it, loving it?

(Terminology break: I actually agree that "penetration" is not the most even-handed expression for the act. One of the Twisty commenters suggests "envelopment," but that's just the opposite problem. Figleaf mentioned "interlocking" recently, which works. But for practical purposes I think I like "fucking" best. It's easy to use reciprocally--he didn't just fuck me, I also fucked him--and it's pleasingly street-level.)

Anyway, an awful lot of lesbians penetrate in one way or another, and an awful lot of women penetrate themselves with no dude watching. Jesus, it's like dudes are controlling us when they're not even there! Either that or there are nerves in the vagina, it's really a toss-up.

Narya:Members of a subjugated sex class have no other option but to “submit” to penetration, just as members of the dominant class have no other option but to own and define the sexuality of the sex class.
Actually you're pretty free to not fuck if you don't want, or to define the type of fucking in your own relationships in any way you like. If someone is forcing you to be penetrated you should probably stop whining on the Internet and call the goddamn police.

niki:Even if you’re on top with a whip and he’s gagged, if he’s penetrating you you’re still the sub, ultimately.
Well, what in hell would it take to make him the sub? You're just setting up your definitions so that the very act of owning a vagina means that I'm a natural submissive. Fuck that.

(Anyway, what if I am the sub? What if I'm gagged and he has the whip and I'm his dirty little slut... and afterwards we laugh, put our clothes back on, and treat each other as equals? Seems like making sexual submission structured, explicit, and thereby optional is really quite feminist... but honestly I'd come up with any excuse to keep doing it.)

hedgepig: As long as we hets (cises?) continue to take part in hetero activities we are preventing the revolution from taking place. The fact that I can’t be part of the revolution and am actually contributing to its failure is one of the biggest disappointments I have about myself.
Why the fuck should we hets even want that kind of revolution then? We can't fix things until ~90% of women give up something they're emotionally and physically wired to want? Yeah, good luck with that and let me know how it goes, honey.

CassieC: lotsa foreplay and short and sweet is how I like it - they can stop thinking about Manchester United or whatever it is they do to drag things out. As mentioned above, this leaves more time for hot chocolate, cuddles, playing with the cat, telling bedtime stories, tickling, running out to play on the swings, beer and sleep.
Women do like chocolate and cuddles more than sex, don't we. Also, sewing and cooking and aprons with little flowers. That shit soaks my fucking panties.



Ultimately, the Twisty crowd are making the same fundamental mistake as their favorite strawmen the "stripper pole feminists"--assigning way too much political importance to private sexuality because it's more fun to talk about than childcare or health coverage. I like pontificating about sex too, but I hope I don't pretend it's a Revolutionary Battlefront.

I like dude-stuff in my vagina, I like it there for a while, and the option to use a substance that furthers those goals is just fine by me.

Parental Control.

Man, there's nothing like Dad coming to visit your usually-private little den to make you realize just how many things you own need to be put in opaque drawers right quick. How many books and DVDs need their spines turned to the wall. My roommate and I both have our lube bottles right on the nightstands where they're handy, but now we have to put up a pretense that we don't have anything to lubricate. It's like being fourteen again for a day. I'm even going to clear my browser cache after this entry.

Not that he really cares. It's not like Dad ever ordered me not to have sex or porn, and I'm sure as my parent (as anyone's parent) he's already developed excellent skills in selective blindness. It's just a matter of courtesy and taste, two things that I have to work very hard to fake.

It's not "a condom? you WHORE!" that I'm worried about, it's just "uh, I see you left something out... never mind, well, tell me about your work now..." Which, in a way, is worse.

Everything But.

Lately I've had a spate of everything-but sex. In the last three months I've had sex like twenty times and I don't think I've been properly (penisly) penetrated once. There've been orgasms aplenty, male and female, but all from hands or mouths or toys.

I guess this is supposed to be the ideal? Seems like one of the few things Cosmo and most feminists radical and non could agree on is that "foreplay" is the real play and that everything-but is better for women than sex. Even relatively enlightened sexpert-types often describe intercourse as something that women trade to men in exchange for receiving orgasms the genteel womanly way. Fucking is for boys, diddling is for girls.

And yet I can't help but feel unfulfilled being unfilled. Partly this is because of baggage: if a guy can't get it up for intercourse that means I'm not sexy and if he refuses intercourse that means he doesn't really like me. (Especially as popular wisdom holds that guys never refuse intercourse, therefore if it happens to me it must be really bad news.) Some of that's probably true, too. Not "augh I'm a warthog," but "I don't have a close enough relationship with anyone for them to be fully sexually open to me" really is true, I think.

Partly it's physical. Dildos and hands can give me the deep penetration and vaginal orgasms, but even just physically, sex is more than genitals interlocking; it's a full-body experience of muscles and sweat and hips and arms and mouths. Fucking is everything at once, pleasuring and being pleasured, watching and being watched, losing control of yourself as he loses his own control. Everything-but always feels like a dissection of fucking, a deliberate and piecemeal simulation.

And hell, maybe it is only a cultural expectation that "fucking is the only real sex," but I'm in that culture and recognizing it doesn't make it vanish.

Man, I just want to get fucked. Man.

Cosmocking: May '09!

It's "The SEXY Issue"! Not like all those other issues! Whitney Port (who???) on the cover! I actually like her dress! But she needs a bra!

A confession: this issue was somehow less reprehensible than most. There were points when I thought "You know, I could cherry-pick a couple silly sentences but there's nothing really wrong with this." The article on "fun things to do naked" struck me as awfully sweet and free-spirited, there's an article on date ideas that sound fun and reasonable, and a sex-advice article I even agree with. The theme is "fuck like a man," which contains an assumption worth quibbling with, but the messages within--don't be self-conscious, love your genitals, seek your own pleasure, don't have sex until you're really turned on--are solid, I'm embarrassed to admit. I just can't hate on an article that contains a section headed "Your Crotch Is Awesome."

But don't worry, it's not all puppies and hugs in this Cosmocking. Because there might've been three or four decent articles (plus the fashion and makeup articles which I can't even judge, it's complete Greek to me), but there were... others.

Guy Truths They'd Tell If They Had The Guts
We're not fans of your hamster-size dog. It's high-maintenance, temperamental, and embarrassing to be seen with.
Ah yes, men have labradors and German shepherds, women have chihuahuas and toy poodles. And the man dogs are the only "real" dogs. Women get small breeds not because we live in an apartment or we genuinely like them, but because we're silly little girls who like silly little things.

Threatening to revoke sexual privileges is both cruel and unfair and leaves us no equal measure of recourse.
Hurrr, funny joke, I know, but still. My body isn't like the community pool that you can visit any time the door isn't locked, it's not something left open by default and occasionally closed as a punishment, it's attached to a goddamn person. The thing a lot of guys don't seem to get is that for a woman to not deny them sex, she has to have sex too. Giving a guy "sexual privileges" doesn't amount to handing him a key and walking away, it means her whole naked body is going to be wrapped up in his and that's awfully unpleasant to be doing if you don't actively want it yourself.

Ooh, an article on aphrodisiacs! I do love when Cosmo does "science."
Asparagus
NO. I don't care what chemical it has that supposedly enhances whatever, do not eat asparagus before sex. Please. You know how it makes your pee smell all weird? It does that to other fluids too.

Bananas: Another reason to think about sex when you wrap your lips around this phallus-shaped fruit: Chiquitas deliver potassium, a nutrient key to muscle strength. So when you orgasm, the contractions will be superintense.
If you weren't getting enough potassium to have an orgasm, you wouldn't be able to stand up. But it doesn't work the other way; you can't turn into Wonder Woman and lift cars with your vagina if you get extra potassium, you're just going to pee it out. It's like gassing up a car--filling the tank to overflowing isn't going to give it extra horsepower. It just Doesn't Work That Way.

There's a section called "The Single Girl's Bible" with various factoids for women who have not yet landed themselves a reason to exist man. In this issue, two of the boxes are "How to use the self-timer on a camera" and "Tips for dining solo at a restaurant." Apparently when they say single, they mean alone. Damn.

Sorry to be positive again, but the model for the "50 things to do naked" article has such an exceptionally real body and smile that I wonder if Cosmo had some sort of editorial turnaround. She's in good shape and she's wearing makeup, but she's just not... Cosmofied. She looks like she's having fun rather than trying to seduce the camera. She's got small breasts and visible hip fat and she's laughing so hard her face is scrunched up. I kind of love these photos. Damn, which magazine am I reading again?

On the other hand, there's an article on home security for women living alone that basically comes off as "you fool, a woman can't live alone, she'd be a babe in the woods!" (Naturally, it doesn't even mention guns. This is a magazine for women, sillypants!)

Plant something thorny, like a small cactus or rosebush, in front of your windows to keep Peeping Toms or potential thieves at a distance.
I'm pretty sure thieves don't care if they have to destroy a little bit of landscaping, and as for peepers, maybe you should just close your curtains when you take your clothes off.

20 percent of all violent crimes occur in the victim's home--more than in any other venue. The greatest number of rapes and sexual assaults (33 percent)... happen in the victim's home as well.
That's because you're massively more likely to be assaulted or raped by someone you know. These statistics don't represent home invasions, they represent truly shitty boyfriends, and there's nothing you're going to plant in front of the windows to get rid of those.

And the improvements it suggests to make your home safer: good locks, 911 on speed-dial, a panic alarm, a dog. (Pictured, bizarrely, is a tiny West Highland terrier.) What's missing from this list?



Actual self-defense.

"Adjustable Posture Collar"?!?

I'm hopelessly amused by the picture and copy on this bondage-gear website. For high-protocol training and/or high-speed impacts! I have this great idea for a scene where I put the collar on her and then I strap her whole body to a board and tie her wrists together and tape her head down...

(I'm not entirely sure you can "train" someone's collar height, that has a lot more to do with bone structure than obedience, but whatever floats your crazyboat, I guess.)

I notice they've adjusted the pricing to reflect the BDSM market, too. I can save you fifteen bucks.



P.S.: Dang, I might need to order these, I didn't realize they were so cheap. Even the good ones are downright reasonable.

Predictable Ending.

"Well, that was fun."
"Sure was!"
"Well, goodnight."
"Well..."
"Yeah..."
"Uh..."
"...Seeya Monday!"


Much as I hate to admit it, I think the work thing just complicates things too much. The question "is this person going to break my heart?" is hard enough without adding in "because if they do, I'm gonna live with it for eight hours a day, five days a week."

I just need to get myself some less complicated propects before I do something stupid.

omg omg omg

brb, goin out with cute coworker


squeeeeeeeee

Patriarchy!

Today I was fixing a piece of big metal equipment, squatting next to it with pliers and a wrench and a lot of stupid-frickin-thing-argh grumbling. Cute Coworker was nearby, sitting down and doing paperwork. A total stranger, a woman, walked by and saw us. "You're just letting her do that?" she asked CC.

(No, she wasn't kidding. She even came over to me and asked if I was "okay.")

It was all kinds of weird.

The Average American.

Here's a statement that seems to come equally from snotty jerks on every point on the political spectrum and never fails to infuriate me: "The average American is a moron." You know, the average American can't find Iraq on a map labeled "IRAQ" and "EVERYWHERE ELSE." The average American thinks the winner of American Idol is more important than the president. The average American believes everything they're told and misunderstands half of it. The average American eats nothing but McDonalds and watches Jerry Springer fourteen hours a day. And of course, the sheer thickheadedness and gullibility of the average American is the only reason the opposing political party exists.

I've now heard variations on this viewpoint from so many people, from liberals going "we're in danger from the ignorant oil-guzzling of the average American" to conservatives going "the average American just wants the government to support them on welfare forever" that I'm fairly sure the average American thinks that the average American is a moron. (Wait... that might make them right.)

Have you ever met an average American?

I have a job where I talk to strangers every day. Of course some of them are fulminating imbeciles and they tend to stand out in my mind, but really they're just a memorable minority. The majority of people are in the majority of cases pretty reasonable folks. Everyone's got a few things that they're irrational about and a lot of things they just never learned, but I really believe most people do a decent job of understanding and implementing the knowledge that they're exposed to. Look around you, at the technology and businesses and structures in just your immediate vicinity, and you'll find that you're for the most part surrounded by competence.

I really believe that the average American is a capable grown-up who's putting in a decent effort to make the best of what they've got, and who holds political beliefs they've thought about and can justify.

An attack of horny.

I woke up at about three this morning with the kind of sexual appetite I haven't had in a good ten months. I was just lying in bed and my mind started racing through every good fuck I'd ever had. I put my hands up to the headboard and I was holding on to it on to it for leverage and dear life with my feet on a man's shoulders. I rolled over and I was riding a man and feeling him thrust up at me with my hands pinning his wrists above his head. Another man, behind me, rocking me forward with the force of his thrusts. They were all memories and they were all so real the feelings shot through me like electricity.

I masturbated of course, and it wasn't like normal. My hips were rolling with it and I had my teeth clenched, willing myself not to scream out loud. When I came it seemed to last for minutes, an orgasm that went on and on as I writhed helpless in its grasp. Afterwards my whole skin was so flushed and sensitive that the mere touch of sheets on my skin was druglike ecstasy. The feelings took hours to fade and I didn't fall back asleep until dawn. Even now I imagine a strange hyper-real quality to the world, my sense of touch amplified and weird little twinges of pleasure coming from the most mundane actions.



The really funny thing is that the feeling I'm getting from all this is not "whoa, this is kinda crazy," but "oh thank God, I'm returning to normal." My sexuality over the last year has been kind of weirdly muted and reluctant, trying to be slutty and kinky not because I must but because I sorta figure I should, and I think this is what it used to feel like to be me.

I'm going out on a slightly silly Internet Self Diagnosis limb now, but I blame my weight. I've gone up and down a couple times in the past and I know that when I get really fat I don't menstruate. This has been the case for about ten months. (No, I'm not pregnant.) Now, while hardly thin, I'm shopping in the L section rather than the XL again and I wonder if it's changed my hormones somehow. I would bet money that I'm going to get my period within about fourteen days.



Whatever the cause, I love being horny. I hope I stay this way forever.

Agony Aunt Holly.

Yes, in addition to all the other services provided herein, I will give you advice on your personal problems! Not good advice, I'm twenty-three and rather limited in worldliness and in the perfection of my own love life, but hey, I'll always try.

N.T. asks:
my girlfriend dumped me because i had sex with her on the second date wat the fuck PS YOU SOUND HOT
any tips for next time

If things only got to two dates, she wasn't really your "girlfriend," was she? Unless she became your girlfriend and then retroactively dumped you because of the second date, that would be weird. Although regardless of timing, "because I had sex with her" is a rather messed-up reason, because she hopefully also agreed to have sex with you. It may just be a (poorly chosen) excuse to cover that she doesn't really want a relationship or doesn't want one with you. It may mean she didn't like the sex. It may mean she's having a guilt thing about the sex and blaming you. I can't really say.

PS GOSH THANKS

My biggest advice for next time is not to think of someone as your "girlfriend" until you're a bit further along than that. Up until the fifth (or so?) date it's kind of a probationary period in which a relationship can just fail to coalesce. Also, don't have sex with a new date unless she's way into it. Not just consenting but all over you. This girl may feel that you pushed her even if you asked and she said yes; next time hold back until she's asking for it.

Love,
Agony Aunt Holly