Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Hamburg / Intentional Vanilla

(Experimenting with dual post format. Unsure of wisdom of approach.)

Today was ordinary. I went with my dad to work, we had lunch with one of his friends (he's a paramedic and we were trading call stories in "neither of us knows medical terms in the other language"-ese, which was fun) and afterwards we went for a long walk and went shopping. Which I enjoyed; I'd rather have a slice of life in a different place than do the Official Designated Tourist Activities. We're going to go to the zoo and do a boat ride and all that, but it's not "doing Hamburg" so much as just living in it for a little while.

This trip is a little like being a kid again, in a weird way. I don't have any real responsibilities of my own, I follow my dad around because I'd get lost in five minutes alone, I let him do all the talking, and (me not having Euros) I have to ask him for anything I want. It's not a bad thing, but it's strange; I'm so used to setting my own agenda.

For some horrible IP-confusion reason Google is now speaking to me in Finnish. At least with the German I had a chance at guessing my way around. Finnish just looks like Martian.

---------

Anyway:
You know who I really respect? I have a couple friends who are strictly-heterosexual, monogamous, and vanilla as the day is long--but not by default. They're aware of other options, they've either tried or seriously considered them, and they've realized it's not how they're wired.

I think it's cool when people are in touch enough with their own needs that they don't take for granted that they're vanilla, but they're willing to accept it and assert it even when well acquainted with the pansexual/poly/kinky world.

(And the pan/poly/kinky world can be kind of jerks about "vanillas," if you couldn't tell by the name. The versions of "whatsamatta baby, you uptight?" that I've heard used to accost people--generally women--who declare they respect you very much but it's not for them, are positively shameful. Clearly if you don't want to get spanked by somebody else's girlfriend you just have a narrow view of sexuality and are probably some kind of *ptooey* Christian.)

7 comments:

  1. Worst that I've gotten is from poly/swinger type people. No, I don't remotely have a moral objection to any variant of the lifestyle except the one where some people use it to use people with a "license". No, I'm not a religious nut or even religious at all. No, I will not have sex with you, your girlfriend, or your hot friend ever, I'm married and monogamous because that's how *I'm* wired. No, I will not like it if I try it. No, I have no hangups, I'm just monogamous, DAMMIT. No, I am not "unevolved"...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also very annoying... people who make snarky remarks about how vanilla other people are based on exactly nothing. Some people are just discreet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've always been uncomfortable with the way so many people are obsessed with other people's sex lives, and the funny thing is that it doesn't seem restricted to any particular worldview. Everyone from sexually repressed conservative Christians to flamboyantly poly kinksters does it; it's only the specifics that change.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anon - True. As I've discovered MANY times, the inclination toward weird sex and the inclination to talk about it are not always linked.

    Aebhel - I'm obsessed with other people's sex lives! But I try (sometimes poorly) to keep it observational rather than judgmental, or at least not imperative.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You can change the language in Google to whatever you want. Go to the small links on the right side of the search area of the main page, click on the lower of the two links. You will be able to choose from 130 languages, including Klingon. If you're still on Finnish, English is "englanti". Or click on a picture of a flag below that.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That bugs me too. One time when I was mentioning to a friend that my boyfriend isn't into the kind of sub/dom play that I used to do with my ex (also her ex), she asked, "he's not vanilla, is he?" as though vanilla meant boring, or somehow sexually unsatisfying, or at least bad. It also seemed to imply that anything other than the specific kinks of our mutual ex is vanilla. My honey and I are certainly not what I would consider vanilla, but I don't like the idea that it would be a bad thing if either of us were. Shouldn't it only matter that we're both having fun?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I know this is an old post, but it reminded me of something I've always thought but never said: I LIKE vanilla. As a flavor. It smells lovely, enhances other flavors, and on its own can taste anywhere from subtle to intense. Using "vanilla" in a derogatory fashion makes no sense.

    ReplyDelete