Diaryland: May 2003 Archives

It's Memorial Day, and thousands of Americans are sleeping like logs right now while this Canadian is at work (I was going to say, "while this Canadian works". Hah.)

I realized that I don't think I've ever been "in love". I have certainly never experienced anything I thought of as "The One Big Love". And I am perfectly okay with this.

My two closest guy friends are both going to be 30 this year. I will be 29. They aren't anywhere close to getting married, and neither am I. We're not in a rush, either. There could be a number of reasons. Men tend not to worry openly about this, and if they do, it's not until the mid-to-late thirties I think. Plus, we live in Quebec. Marriage is far less popular here than just about anywhere. People just don't bother with it. It's just an expense and a hassle. My interpretation: Quebeckers would rather invest in a life together than one day of...whatever. On the other hand, the guys I know, the less close friends and acquaintances, are all married, every single one of them.

I am dating right now, and I definitely like the people I am seeing, well, I like Cat for sure. There are two others that I could really get into as well, but...I have to figure out where I am going with Cat and where she is going with me so that I can act accordingly and appropriately. I'm off track now. The point is that I am not "in love" with anyone (and I don't expect anyone to be in love with me, except BC Jenn, who I STILL haven't written about).

I don't read a lot of men's journals. Those ones are usually of gay men (single or otherwise) or single straight guys, at least, the ones I run across. And I rarely find one that has guys writing very much about the loves of their lives. If you do, please let me know. I'd like to read how they talk about their girlfriends/wives.

Women seem to go through so much anxiety over getting married off. There seems to be real familial and societal pressure to marry women off, (and men off, too, in certain communities) but it appears as though most of the pressure comes from the woman herself. And I cannot relate to this at all. I've been a little frustrated at times that I didn't have someone to sleep with, hold hands with, and do couply things with occasionally, but marriage? I just can't bring myself to give a shit.

I joked to my dad once and said that I was thinking of getting married. He looked at me as though I told him I wanted to jump out of a plane with a sketchy parachute, or as though I had bovine spongiform encephalitis. The president of my company still can't figure out why he bothered to get married. He was very close to saying that it was a waste of time, and that's probably what he thinks deep down, not that he doesn't love his wife. He does.

Liz said:

I think that NOT being in love scares people because it makes them fear that they are incapable of love. This wouldn't bother you because the love you do have that isn't being poured into one person, you spread around.

This could be true. However it doesn't mean that I can't pour it into one person, or that I wouldn't be happy doing it. It's just not happening right now, and for good reasons that I won't bother to get into right now. It might be easy to concentrate on Alexandra or Christen, but not Cat due mainly to her circumstances, though I might want to. (This could be a good thing, since she has expressed at least an academic interest in polyamory, and now would be a good time for me to try it if I were ever to do so.) I wish a certain person would concentrate on Alexandra for once, actually. She's like a thirsty plant; she needs and deserves nourishment. But I digress again.

So, love. I guess I'd just like to say that it might suck if I never experienced the thing that so many women absolutely require, but then again, it might not at all.

Update:I just remembered, my two closest male friends, Saab and Suj, both have been willing to marry someone. They've been there, willing to take that step, but it didn't work out for them, and it hurt them badly. Hmmm...I forgot about it because they are very much over it now. It's been years.

Regarding this entry on porn:

He said: "Going back to the formula - is it because your standard white male is so downtrodden in life nowadays that he feels he must get revenge on women?"

I think that's probably true in a significant minority. Not the majority that I can see, but in enough numbers overall. But one of the points that they make is that porn shouldn't be just about the men watching. There are women who watch, collect and enjoy, too. They themselves aren't dominated by anyone, either.

I say that while they make valid points, the fact is, they are in the minority of women. I have no idea what they get out of porn, or what porn they like. But most women do not want to be treated as the ones are in the porn, and I think it stands to reason that they wouldn't be interested in any portrayal.

He also said: "it seems to me that barring "normal" sex and cunnilingus that all the other things are basically male dominance rearing it's purple head."

I'm not sure how fucked this is. If I do doggie, I do it because I like it, but also because I have never met a woman who really doesn't like it at least sometimes (actually, at least once per session). Is this male dominance? It depends on how you look at it. I might feel pretty cool doing it, pulling hair and slapping asses (I am used to women liking it, but it still amazes me somehow. Only one has said that it wasn't anything they liked, and I didn't bother with another one), so that may be me asserting my dominance. But what if she's flipping me over to missionary from cowgirl? Or what if she's in doggie and telling me to pull her hair? Who's dominant now? I said, WHO'S DOMINANT NOW, BITCH?? And this is true for any position, I think.

She said: "I think men try to hold us back by portraying us as cold fish because if our sexuality were ever released in full force and every woman admitted that they enjoyed sex, the world would explode."

Well, every woman I have ever talked to about sex says that they enjoy sex. Not that many people (except the abused, maybe, I suppose) would say that they don't enjoy sex. The genderiffic difference? Women will say that they enjoy sex under certain conditions (Caveat 3, Subsection 2 [ii], whereas the parties sexually engaged with the parties of the First Part shall be emotionally and spiritually bound and effectively owned by the party of the First Part for as long as the party of the First Part deems appropriate). Men will say that they enjoy sex. Women have disclaimer after disclaimer. Men will say that they enjoy sex.

Why? I suppose that the world would explode otherwise.

But really? What is the advantage that men have by keeping women's sexuality in check? Apparently we do it here. I have no clue why. That's a good question.

Is it really the TV execs fault that women are portrayed this way and that men are portrayed that way? I tend to believe that as a society we get what we want, and I think that society does not want women to be sexually aggressive or enthusiastic. Society likes the notion that sex is something that women give and men either take, or trick women into giving. You know why men are rewarded for sleeping with women? Because the notion is that he probably had to spin a really good line. He was smart (read: respectfully sneaky). Good one.

I think execs would produce a show where men didn't beg for sex like dogs begging for food and women tried to get laid as much as possible. But do you remember when Ellen Degeneres came out as gay on her stupid show? Despite the big ratings numbers, there was some substantial fallout. People boycotted. Money was lost. People that wouldn't write their congressman to demand that they make the drinking water safe, wrote the networks and their affiliates and complained. It's not the men in charge of the networks, it's us.

He said: "Is this the magical formula to guarantee sexual happiness or is this just what white American males (the largest consumers of pr0n) want to see?"

If you listen to a lot of mainstream media, you would think that sex for het women of any age is bad (as in low quality) overall. If so many white males are getting their sexucation from formulaic porn, then I think this is why.

However, formulas are in far more than just porn. They're everywhere, especially TV and mainstream movies. Women are just as guilty of succumbing to this as anyone. This could contriubute to a lack of creativity that so many women (again, in the media, I have no idea if this is actually true) complain about. Well, they aren't so creative themselves. It has taken me years to find one woman that can give decent head.

Maybe one reason that so many men are drawn to porn, besides the obvious, is that they are expected to know everything about sex. I think that young guys put themselves under pressure sexually not only to be having sex, but to know what they are doing. We always assume the guy knows what he is doing, even when he has never done anything before. That could have to do with the older experienced man/younger virginal girl scenario that people idealize. Porn is an easy way to see how things can actually be done. It's not a good way, but it's the only way for some.

That's a lot of ramblings so late at night. And I am still nowhere near being tired. Tomorrow will be shitty for sure. Click here for earlier views on porn.

For the first time I have actually seen a half-decent argument against gay marriage.

I read the article in entitled, "Marriage: who needs it anyway?", by Russell Smith. I thought it was going to be an article slamming the ideal of marriage and The One Big Love. It is, sort of, but not in the way I expected.

Douglas Farrow, a McGill University professor right here in Montreal, suggests that allowing gay marriages will ultimately lead to the abolition of legal marriage, because it will lead to questions of what business the state has in defining what unions are. I think that's a good point.

Liz had this to say to me once:

Everyone likes to hear I love you. It's not a statement of commitment. It should be a statement of fact. Regardless of the hurdles one may have to face in a relationship, love does not conquer all (or much of anything). Love should be shared freely and without pressure. Love means to feel a lover's passion, devotion, or tenderness. It says nothing of what may be. Just what is.

I think that there is much that can be said here. First, I think she touches on something that I have noticed in almost all of us, women perhaps more than men (but I'm really not sure about this). There is a need to find The One Big Love. And if you don't find it (especially by a certain age) then there is something definitely wrong with you, deficient in you. This One Big Love is supposed to solve all your problems, make everything right in the world and massage your feet after a long day. This One Big Love is the be-all and end-all of relationships. You can die happy now that you've found The One Big Love. If I knew how to make the trademark symbol here, I'd make it after The One Big Love, henceforth to be known as TOBL.

Many of you think you have found TOBL, and if that's what you think, that's what I think. I believe, though, that we spend way too much time obsessing over TOBL. Why is TOBL even required for everyone? You might think, "Of course it isn't required, that's silly. We should just live our lives." But it doesn't happen that way, and very often we criticize or think less of those who don't have TOBL or aren't pursuing TOBL.

There are many ways to have and find love, and TOBL is only one of them. TOBL doesn't work for everyone. Love can be fleeting, or it can endure. It can be that searing flame, or the lasting embers. Love is easy, and it's hard. It can involve one person, no people, or many. So just because someone doesn't identify someone as TOBL, it doesn't mean that there isn't real love there.

TOBL is a derivative, or child of the notion of the Hero. As a culture we are obsessed with heroes, whether it be in war, politics or love. We love stories of how one person changed everything in his life, or other's lives. These things happen, and heroes really do exist, and they are inspiring. But there's a downside. It's why we rarely do anything collectively without leaders, or heroes. It's why things never, EVER change, regardless of whatever tyranny is there, unless heroes emerge. It's been said many times that we rarely think for ourselves. Is this true when it comes to love? Are we all looking for heroes, rather than finding love for ourselves?

Love can transform your life, but it needn't be a clap of thunder type of deal. It can be gradual. Like I said, it can take on so many forms. Why not an autodidactic approach to love? What are we afraid of?

If you think that love means commitment and/or vice-versa, I think that you've bought into the Hero/TOBL thing far too much.