Top Poaching

So, Illixim had been offering to play with people at parties, you know, those without partners, or those who wanted to try something new. Which is great.

Problem was, they started expecting it, to the exclusion of me. Normally, it's perfectly reasonable to just ask the top in a relationship, but we're also married. You wouldn't just be in front of one partner and be saying to the other, "Hey, so we're still going to fuck on Saturday?" without knowing how the other one feels about that. Just because something has happened once, do not assume that it will happen all the time. When I am not getting as much play as I would like, why would I want some outsider getting play from my wife?

I talked to Illixim about this and she was totally cool with it. We tried telling people that they had to talk to me first, but they all just did this really passive-aggressive asking her in front of me. Um, sorry. That's not asking me. That's discussing it with her in front of me, and making me feel like the bad guy for not letting you play with my dominant. Boo hoo. Get your fucking own.

It's one of those situations where there isn't really one person or incident that you can point to and go, "Ah ha, that was it!" It was just a bunch of little things, any one of them being petty, but taken together it was too much. So, she's not playing with anyone but me for a while, and hopefully they'll figure out that she's not just a prodomme or something, that they can just use to get their rocks off (and not even pay!).

I felt kind of shitty doing this, because I want people to play and have fun, and I really don't want to be the bad guy. At the same time, I was finding the whole situation extremely irritating and I don't like feeling that way.

I'm just getting really jaded about the whole 'community' here. And again, there's really not one person or situation I can point to and say, "If they were gone..." or "If this were to not happen..." It's just the whole scene. More and more I just want to say 'fuck off' and just play with Illixim. I hope I'll feel better after our vacation :)

**Edit**

I just read Illixim's piece about this topic and had a few things to add. Firstly, she's exactly right: if someone were to approach both of us or just her respectfully and say, "You know, if you're going to be at the next play party and you're free, I'd really like to play, if that's alright" or "Could we have coffee and talk about playing sometime". But it's the expectation, the pressure, the "Well, you're the head of this group, it's your duty to accommodate us" attitude. Well, no, it's not. We host munches. We put on parties. We are not here to entertain you or hold your hands or make sure you play. That's up to you. If you can't be fucking grown up enough to figure out that much, what the hell business do you think you have in BDSM? Be mature enough to take no for an answer, to realize that yes, Illixim is the dominant but we are also in a committed relationship. At least respect us both to ask what our rules and boundaries are. And that's what it is: a lack of respect. A lack of common sense and a lack of stopping to think. They don't respect her because they don't care about her. They're just playing with her to get played with, which I find very demeaning. They show me even less respect because they don't want anything from me.

Or what would be even better, "Hey, I realize that your wife comes first, but would you be willing to do a scene with me/talk about playing?" Or...well, pretty much anything than what has been happening, what Illixim said, "So, next play party...*blinkblink*"

Death

I'm watching "Dark Side of Porn--Does Snuff Exist" because...I felt like watching something and I have it, lol. And it occurred to me--isn't it natural that people would have a certain ('morbid') fascination with death? The old saying about death and taxes isn't entirely true--the only things that are absolutely certain in life (at least for humans), the only things that are without a doubt going to happen, are birth and death. It's ok to show birth in grade 8 classes, but death is this huge hush-hush taboo thing. I'm not saying that we should be killing people on film for the education of pre-teens, but I think that a video of cool, calm trip through an actual morgue, with no pretty CSI-esque actors or fancy camera angles would be ok, if not a good thing. Why hide death? Why make it scary? It's going to happen to us all, so why hide it? No, don't revel in it or glorify it, just tell it like it is.

I recently had a discussion with friends about death. One of them was saying that life used to be cheaper, but the other one (and I) didn't agree. There are places where human life is still extremely cheap--there are people in 'civilized countries' who consider human life to be very cheap. It wasn't that life was cheap, it was that death wasn't hidden. You could walk down a street and see corpses (you still can in some places, but they get cleaned up more quickly and there's a system in place to deal with them). My point was that more people are now considered human. People could walk by those corpses in the street because they were the poor, they were trash, they were sub-human. It's become less and less acceptable to have that attitude, and it's able to be applied to fewer and fewer people. I'm not saying that we should go back to the bad old days where people died all the time and it wasn't an individual tragedy every time because...people died all the time. If you grieved that deeply for everyone you knew who had died, you could never get on with your life. I heard once that humans only truly grieve for about fifteen people, because that's the size of family groups our ancestors had. If you whipped through those before you were out of childhood, you'd be a pretty emotionless adult! Maybe it was different. Maybe they really were able to go, "Nuts, lost another baby! Let's get makin' another!" I don't know.

But now we've almost become the opposite. We've become obsessed with living. Not with being alive, just with living--for making our hearts pump blood for as long as possible. We stuff our old people in homes, fill them with tubes, so they can last that extra month. And in some cases it's a great thing, because they'll recover or they'll get to see their grandkids that one last time. But at what point does quantity of life outweigh quality? At one point do we become so obsessed with a state of not-dying that we're not actually living? How much do we miss out on because of fear?

One thing I've always found fascinating is post-mortem photography. Seriously. Check it out. These are just portraits of people who just happen to be dead. And that's my point. Why can't we have memorials like this, show things like this to our children? They shouldn't live their lives in fear of death, they should live their lives...and know that they will die someday.

My point is, it's going to happen if you're in denial or not.

So I don't think that people who watch accidents are morbid freaks, or people who watch Faces of Death or even horror movies. In many ways, modern society has taken away our ability to watch the natural world. How many of us have even seen a chicken being slaughtered? But that's where we came from. I would be more worried if people weren't curious. I'm not saying that we should traumatize people--when I was nine or so, my mother decided that we could only continue eating meat if we either a) went to a slaughter house or b) killed a rabbit. Luckily we didn't. But if someone makes a choice to explore their natural world, to learn more about something that will happen to them, to someone they love (to everyone they love, given enough time) why do we now look at them like they're perverse? We have lost our connection to ourselves, to the cycles that created us that we are still very much a part of. We stuff our dying into hospitals (I don't mean people that we're trying to save. I mean terminal cancer patients, people who are not walking away). Wouldn't they rather die at home, surrounded by loved ones? I know I would. But we might upset someone. We can't bring death home with us.

I recently re-read Neil Gaiman's brilliant Sandman series. My favorite character has always been Death, I've had a huge crush on her since the very first. I'm sure that says more about me than anything, but I was also very impressed by his concept of the Necropolis, a whole realm or dimension of undertakers. They spend their lives surrounded by death, but they learn to respect it and not let it become a job, while not having it bother them.

My point? I don't know if I have one. If I do, it's this: we are part of the cycle of birth and death. We cannot foreseeably remove ourselves from it, and an insistence on doing so just causes friction.

Listening to: Mein Teil by Rammstein

Germania/Rome

Here are Germania and Rome from Hetalia, all drawn by Arkham. I really like this pairing, apparently. It gives me historical glee.

Bamboo

More from Arkham. I love the bamboo frame going under his knees and shoulders, I think it would be very effective.

And another by Arkham. I really like this spanking/caning position as well.

Spankin' on an Airplane

I just love this! The way he's being held (I'm not sure if it's physically possible, but I definitely want to try!) the fact that it's all happening on an airplane, the old-timey postcardy goodness, the way his pants are down...prr...

This is from Arkham on Y!Gallery. Go there for your daily dose of Vitamin S (for spanking)

*edit* PS - this spanking position is not only possible, it's really fun! :D

Veils

I am so totally in love with this picture. It's from this article . I'm not usually that into Maclean's (or, well, any news) because it's always so fucking depressing. Not that this isn't, but it's interesting and informative and not just OMG
TEH WORLDZ IS SOON TO END!!!!!

Some background info

on me: during my summer after grade twelve, I decided that I was fed up with the bullshit the media feeds us about Muslims and Islam and the Middle East, so I came up with a sort of immersion program for myself--I read everything I

could: literature, poetry, history, commentary. I cooked Middle Eastern food, I listened to Middle Eastern music. I didn't go to a mosque or, you know, talk to anyone actually from the Middle East, because I am (and was, probably even more so was) very shy. But I did everything I could solo. I even had an Iranian e-pen-pal. It was extremely enlightening but I will keep my conclusions to myself, or for another rant.

Now for the controversial part: I find veils incredibly sexy. I love the air of mystery they automatically bestow. I like them on men (oh yeah, betcha didn't know about that? Wull...I didn't), I like them on women, I like them on sheep (only because I think that a sheep in a veil would be really, really cute. Jeez). My mother is one of those left-wing Atheist fundamentalist whackjobs that seem to be popping up more and more--she went (and I assume still does) up to Muslims, Sikhs, Mennonites--anyone who dressed 'differently' for religious or cultural reasons--walked right up to them and said "there is no God". *bashes head repeatedly against keyboard* I really, seriously have no idea why no one has cut her throat in an alley or at least beaten the shit out of her. It's more a testament to these people's good natures (or complete bewilderment) than anything else.

Whether or not her statement is true is not the point. All she does is sound like a total insane person who makes everyone (including me) want to become more insular and shun outsiders and nonbelievers. You're not going to convince anyone of anything like that, except the fact that we need more looney bins. My whole thing is always, 'cool' or 'what's the big deal?'

Yes, I understand the need for social freedoms and equality and democracy (at least until we can come up with something better). But so many people seem to have forgotten that freedom means just that--a state of being free. So that if they choose* to wear a veil or a burqa or several live possums...ok! As long as the possums aren't rabid and decide to bite someone's stupid toddler, who cares? Who gives a flying, monkey-propelled crap what people choose to wear (teenage daughters not included).

Maybe I feel so strongly about this because of my 'lifestyle'. BDSM gets a lot of flak. From a lot of directions, including my apparent sisters, lesbians. (Why does nobody like lesbians? Because even lesbians don't like lesbians. My 'straight' friends were like...how does that work? Because every time it's, "You're not like other lesbians" or "You're usually straight, but you just like me so much that you made an exception". Anyway.) Even within itself, BDSM gets a lot of flak--"OMG! How could you do _____? That's disgusting/horrific/repulsive/unnatural!"

As a band teacher I really hated once put it, don't yuck someone else's yum. I even hate how she phrased that, but it's always stuck in my head and overrides any better phrase I could come up with. But the point is, just because you don't like something, or even you think something is wrong...if it's not hurting you, and they've gotten into it voluntarily...leave it the fuck alone! It would be like if all gangs did was kill each other. They didn't recruit anyone and there were never any injured bystanders or property damage or anything. Well, they wouldn't be around for long, but they also wouldn't be much of a problem. Except to themselves. And that, of course, is my point. If I choose to coat myself in nail polish every morning, as long as I do it in a nicely ventilated space so I don't give anyone else headaches or other health issues...why do you care?

If someone else were coating me in nail polish every morning against my will, that would be a problem. Don't get me wrong. But "an it harm none do what thou wilt" (which I am about 98% is from something much more authentic than Wicca, but I can't seem to find the reference I'm thinking of).

Anyway. Veils. Sexy. Look at this guy! I can't see his whole face! He could have hideous warts. He could have massive scars. He could be the most beautiful man on earth and I'll never know! I read somewhere once that there is no single feature that allows for universal facial recognition (or UFR, lol). People have to be able to see the whole face in order to recognize someone. I think that's what it comes down to. People say, "Ho, yuss, women shouldn't be subjugated, turrible, harrumph." But their gut reaction is "Ahhhh!!!! I can't see their faaaaaace!!!!" And people's gut reactions, especially fear, are very strong. I don't know. Maybe my guts are just weird, but when I see them I just go "Praarrwr!" whether it's this:

Or this:

Or this:

(Ok, who am I kidding, especially this:)

Or this:

...waaaaait...

This:

is ok. But this:

isn't? Whaaaat?

One of the sub-plots of one of my favourite books of all time (FBoaT), Snow, is about how young women in Turkey are committing suicide over not being able to wear head scarves just like that one. They're killing themselves because the government isn't allowing them to wear a piece of fabric. Some people might say, what the fuck, why are they killing themselves over something so trivial? But they clearly don't see it that way.

And now for another weird episode from my life. Back in grade school, you know how they give you a huge stack of weird old magazines and you have to make a collage?

This picture

freaked us out so much that we ended up cutting out her eyes.

Many years later, when this was published:

I of course remembered that face, or more specifically, those eyes. They're unforgettable. And the thing that struck me about the interview with her, twenty years later or whatever, was how normal she was. She didn't care that she was 'being oppressed' or 'impoverished'. She had no idea! How dare she! If this sounds condescending, I truly don't mean for it to--I genuinely find her life admirable. She was just doing her thing, taking care of her family. She had no idea that her face had been everywhere, and she didn't give two shits. Wow.

Here she is wearing a veil, to bring me sort of back on topic:

Ok, it was apparently seventeen years. Anyway. Umm...here's some eye candy. I have no idea

what this is about, but I like it. And it's a veil. I'm sure part of the romance of veils is, for me, the pure sensual side of it. Yes, there's the mystery, but there's also the feeling of soft, gauzy material on your skin, on one of the most sensitive parts of your body (the face). You can kiss through a veil, a la Victor Hugo, and it's a totally different experience. Even the familiar becomes new, exotic, erotic. I even like walking around town with a scarf over my face and just my eyes showing during the winter. I'm invisible, or rather unidentifiable. I can be anyone and no one. The only thing anyone knows about me is my clothes and the colour of my eyes. I, personally, really like that idea. In conclusion: I like veils because they're sexy, sensual, and render a person incognito. Cool.

Anyway, it's a fantastic article and I highly recommend it. My one complaint about it is that it falls short of its magnificent cover picture (waaaaay back at the beginning) and the question it asks: what is more offensive and sexist and backward, covering every part of a woman but her eyes, or only covering her eyes? Which one makes women more of an object? How would you rather be seen?

If this sort of thing interests you, I also recommend The Terrorists of Irustan, a very well written (and very depressing) book.

*key word here

Gender

So, here're my thoughts on gender. They're not original, but here's what they are: I find it very true that whenever cis people talk about alternative genders, they're always like, "Myeh, I've always been happy in my body, why aren't you?"

I've always been happy eating peanuts, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go shove them down someone's throat and give them anaphylactic shock (whoot, spelled it right on my own!). (Ok, I can think of precisely two people I would do that to. But that's not the point.)

Just because something works for, say, 90% of the population and not for 10%, does that make it ok? I'm not saying we need to get ridiculous and have dolphin bathrooms. There's only so much we can accommodate, as a society. But I think we can at least let people make individual choices, so long as they don't inconvenience everyone. As a gay person, I would be pretty fucking pissed of if some straight person came up to me (as in times passed) and said, "Look, this works for 90% of us, so it had better work for you, too." (Come to think of it, that does happen to me. But I can still go home and fuck my wife.)

Back to the peanuts: just because they work for 90% of the population, they still make 8% of the population uncomfortable and kill 2%. It's the same with gender. (No, I don't know the actual statistics of peanut allergies.) Sure, 90% of people (or whatever) are perfectly happy with their bodies (or at least their gender. Maybe this whole fat thing really -is- women trying to make themselves more like teenage boys?). Great for them! Seriously, I'm happy and I wish them the best. Being happy isn't a bad thing, and being content with who you are is great.

But then you've got another 8% who are uncomfortable with their 'gender identity'. And 2% who, if they can't change, don't find life worth living. So they should just buckle under, because they've got the other 90% telling them how happy they are?

Shouldn't we be surprised (I don't remember where I read this first, so I can't give credit, sorry) that more people aren't unhappy with a binary definition of gender? You're either pink or blue? Sorry, no purple or green or orange.

What if one day we woke up and everyone had a mark (like a My Little Pony), and this mark indicated the job you would have for the rest of your life, and there were only two: janitor and carpenter. The carpenters build everything, and the janitors clean up.

People would freak!

"Yesterday, I was a nurse and now I'm a janitor? Screw that!"

And no, you can't change and go from being a janitor to a carpenter, or vice versa. Sorry, it's done. That's what you are. One or the other.

The only reason this works for gender is that we didn't just wake up and find it this way. Everyone has already been marked janitor or carpenter from the beginning, so they just go with it.

But some people can't. Some people want to be the other job, or be a welder, or a ballerina. And what's wrong with that?

Supermodels and Tulips

So, what do supermodels and tulips have in common? Less and less. But...

I'm reading Michael Pollan's fantastic book The Botany of Desire (I find it really sad that this is the first thing that pops up when I Google 'botany'. Yes, it's a great book, but it's not "Botany"! And that most of what came up was about the show, which, again, I was happy to find out

about, but...), where he talks about beauty, in nature and our subconscious, correlating to health: symmetry, size, colour, etc. The healthier something (a plant, animal, human) is, the more beautiful we perceive it to be.

There are, of course, exceptions. Like the tulip. During the 17th century Dutch tulipomania (great word, that. It's reading as a typo, of course, but it's a real word), the most prized flowers were 'broken'--they had a contrasting patch of colour on each petal. People noticed that these flowers had fewer bulblets (I don't remember the actual word and don't feel like looking it up) making them even more valuable, but they had no idea why until the invention of the microscope. That's right. The beautiful pattern was caused by a virus that weakened and eventually killed the flower, so now any tulip that emerges showing the broken pattern...is killed. We don't have them anymore. Beauty doesn't always mean health, especially with people. (Another wonderful example that Pollan doesn't mention is the 19th century vogue for looking consumptive. Logically, it makes no sense: people with consumption are not healthy [or particularly beautiful] but, for a time, it was beauty).

Which, of course, brings me to our own whacky time, and the reason I made the link in my sleepy brain last night. Illixim is beautiful. Like, freaking gorgeous. And built like Henry VIII, like a good, proper, round nobleman. None of this scrawny, peasanty shit. She's round and healthy and...fertile? ...that's just creepy. Anyway. But now, of course, our ideal has shifted. "She's not healthy. She's fat."* Well, how does the exact same person, shifted across a few centuries, become a completely different state of being, a totally different ideal? If most of our current ideal people were moved back in time, and had the privilege of being noble, everyone would be trying to fatten the poor dying things up! (they also would have laughed their asses off at body builders. Muscle meant you worked.)

Can't we find a happy medium, where we can move past our biology (or worse, culture) and realize that weight and health and beauty are subjective, if they're even very interconnected? My philosophy about weight (and no, I don't always remember this when I have to go buy new pants) is this: as long as you can do what you need to and you want to in your life, then be whatever weight you are. If you find that your weight is interfering with something you want to do (or muscle, or endurance, or whatever), then change it. If not, why not? Why let an arbitrary, and obviously fluctuating ideal influence your life?

(lol, I feel kind of bad for always posting long, boring rants. Illixim's the fun one. "Here, look at sexy, naked pictures. Don't mind my wife's ranting, here, pretty pretty!" Although, c'mon, that painting of Henry the Eighth is damn sexy. I'll give you a random oddity: if you scroll down to the bottom,

Preceded by "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones

Billboard Hot 100 number one single "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" by Herman's Hermits August 7, 1965 (one week)

Succeeded by "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher

Really? It comes right between that and that?)

*Not my views

Spayed!

So, I hate my period. Not just like, 'meh, I don't like it, myeh myeh'. No. I fucking can't stand it. The thought of having it for the next fifty-odd years (even as infrequently as I actually get it) fills me with dread and disgust. I hate the smell, I hate the mess, I hate the way it makes me cramp. I'm pretty sure that most of the depression I have during my period is strictly blood-related. And the fact that I can't reconcile being a non-woman bleeding out of a hole I don't even use. Seriously. Keeping a hole in your body thats only purpose is to bleed and drive you insane? I think not.

Soooo my doctor learned that I'd never been to the gynecologist, so he made me an appointment. I was seriously freaked out. I mean, I don't like having things in there at the best of times. And I insisted on it being a woman. Illixim went to a man, and he was so super creepy perky. Totally unsettling.

So I get there, and it's a very tall, very mannish woman who could easily have been trans (even my grandma thought she was a lesbian, but I'll get to that). And she's totally cool with Illixim being there, and she gets that we're a couple and includes her in the discussion and asks what I'm there for. I tell her about the evil period of doom and how what I really want is for it to go away. And she's all "Have you considered a hysterectomy?"

[pause for rant. I really hate the word hysterectomy. You're not removing my hysteria. Which, c'mon, totally loaded word. It's fucking infuriating. Anyway.]

And I'm all, "Derrr...will it MAKE IT STOPPP?!!!!"

So, upshot. Yes. It will make it stop, and there are no non-surgical complications, and I got to have this whole discussion in a backless hospital gown tucked under one of those stupid sheets, which is always a great way to make Grown-up Decisions TM, but nothing got stuck inside me and I went away with hope.

[note: I tried the whole 'take birth control to minimize period' thing. I started taking it in the middle of my period. My period stopped, and then started again. Immediately. Everyone was all 'Oh, yuss, just take it for a few months and it'll settle down and maybe you won't get it." FUCK THAT NOISE! I would rather get my period every six months or so and yes, have a week of utter miserable hell, than have it settle down for a few months. Noooooo.]

So I went home with my handful of brochures and went to several semi-ridiculous sites. Ok. I get that for some women having their uterus removed is really traumatic, because they have cancer, or they want children, or whatever. But making a website where you can't use 'child related' things in your username so it won't offend anyone? Wow.

I had several people ask me about the whole having (or more to the point, not) children. And I did have a little unhappy Darwin dance in my head, I will admit, and some evolutionary guilt over opting out of the gene pool. But technically, I could still have children. They could still be my eggs, they would just need to grow somewhere else. But I would still be contributing as much to the continuation of the species as say, a man: I would be donating my genetic material in germ form. Also, I really don't want children. I hate the little fuckers. Sure, I'll hang out with them from time to time, and babies are amusing for about an hour. But I hate people. And I sure as hell hate what amount to even more ignorant people. So, no. And besides, I shouldn't have children. I would be an insanely shitty parent. I am -way- too involved in myself, my life, and my happiness to bring some attention-stealing parasite into my world. But at least I can admit it. And who would want to bring a kid into this shit world, while I'm on the subject?

At some point during this period I watched Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and I just loved the line "I barely survived my own childhood, I don't want to be responsible for someone else's" or however it goes. Totally sums up my philosophy. So, yeah, that was a total non-issue. Again, see above re: involved in myself. I was only worried about the consequences directly involving me.

But they sounded pretty minimal. So I made another appointment and went in to say yes, I want the surgery.

[At this point, I should probably mention something else about myself. I have a medical fetish. Like, a really big one. Since I was at least five. But I've never had any major medical things, especially not voluntary ones. When I was little I had a Sesame Street book about Grover going to the hospital to get his tonsils out, and I loved it. It was like preschool porn for me. But did I ever get surgery? Nooo. Did this influence my decision...maybe. A little. Yeah. Totally.]

And then I waited. And finally, on November 16th, Louis Riel's execution day, my surgery date was set for December 22nd, the day after Winter Solstice. Very significant seeming.

So, I set my affairs in order, got a will kit, joined my grandfather's memorial society (weird, very weird. But then, I have a morbid family. I come by it honestly). Just in case. And I waited. Then the surgery got postponed to January 4th, because some woman had the gaul (is that the right kind of gaul? gall? I think it's gall. But the other one is funnier and makes me think of Asterix) to have cancer. I know, right? (No, seriously, the woman who called to let me know was super apologetic. No matter how many times I said, you know, it's alright, cancer completely trumps my elective surgery, she just kept apologizing.)

[another rant: I hate when that happens. It really angers and depresses me. Like, how many people did the poor receptionist have to talk to who honestly thought that their shit was more important than saving someone's life? Those situations, when someone is apologizing for something a) reasonable and/or b) out of their control...Fuck, I hate people.]

So I got to have Christmas not as a cripple. Yay. Then it was just more waiting until...

The hospital! Illixim was going to work, because there was no point in her freaking out rattling around the hospital (as it turns out there was, because she was just freaking out rattling around work. Oh well.) So I got a ride from a friend, but he didn't stay, so I was all alone and a little anxious. I forgot my coat in reception and had to go back down and get it. But everyone was super nice and made everything really easy.

[I just thought of another of my Weird Deciding Factors. You should read that in John Candy's voice, like from Little Shop of Horrors. He was my favorite actor as a child, mostly if not entirely because of his last name. Anyway. Illixim, being a responsible pet owner, believes that pets should be spayed or neutered. And I'm a pet. So...]

So I read my book and waited for like three hours, until they had to take my book away and shuffle me down to the surgical waiting room, where I had the only magazine (it was also really cold, so me and the patient in the little booth directly across from me were both huddled under blankets. I had been cold since the first waiting room, where the only non-nice nurse had been all "Don't touch the bed if you don't have to, someone else has to use it!" but then I was cold so I grabbed the folded blanket and tucked myself in on the chair--which I moved to a better position. I also nabbed a chair with arms in the surgical waiting room. I always think, I am a human, and I adapt my environment to suit my needs! Anyway. And she kind of glared at me when she saw me with the blanket. Weird.

So, I had the only magazine, which was great. Unfortunately, it was from ICR. And worse, it was only like three pages long. So I didn't even have any length of religious wackery (I'm not one to bash religions, but some of it is just wackery, plain and simple. Like, when someone says "reason for the season" THE ONLY thing that comes into my head is Ned Flanders) to occupy me, but then people kept showing up to talk to me, like my gynecologist, who was also my surgeon, which was nice, and she patted me on the knee, which made me feel better. She also told me I would have to take a stool softener, and I'm not sure if she told me it would be a big red pill and I absorbed the information subconsciously, or if I just psychically knew, but it is indeed a big red pill. Then they put me in the operating room and started hooking me up and putting a railway tunnel...I mean IV...in and all that. They also gave me some funny-smelling gas and I started grinning like an idiot, and the last thing I remember thinking is, jeez, why am I grinning like an idiot, I should probably stop but I can't seem to...Luckily they didn't put me in the stirrups until I was out.

Then I woke up and two women were leaning over me, and I was pretty dopey and out of it. One of the first things I remember them asking was "Why did you decide not to have children?" Honestly. I shit you not. 'cause, wow, timing. Everyone joked later that I should have said, "What?! I can't have children?! What did you people do to me?!!!" But I just grinned blearily and gave them the Don't Be Afraid of the Dark party line.

Then they wheeled me into my room. A private room would have been $120/night, so I said no, but...I got a private room anyway, as it turned out. Yay!

And then I laid there for a bit and people ambled around and I really hated my catheter. Seriously. Nothing else hurt. Just the catheter. And eventually the IV. The holes in my abdomen? Nope. The stitches in my vagina? Nosir. That would make, you know, sense.

And then Illixim and my grandma (who was a huge hit with all the nurses) showed up, and I was so happy to see them! And I felt pretty good. Illixim had found a get well card in the hospital gift shop that had a picture of a cat that looked like one of ours, but it was a religious get well card. I'm not sure how that works. "Get well, or Jesus will kill this cat"?

Eventually my grandma left and we had some food and I was still feeling good (except for the damn catheter) so they decided I could get up and walk around. I walked to the bathroom and back and was sitting back on my bed when I really, really had to puke. I told the nurse as quickly as I could, and she brought me one of those stupid, tiny kidney bean shaped dish things. Like, yes, if a bee had to puke, it would be plenty. A human being? Not so much. Yeah. I felt pretty bad. So the catheter stayed in.

Then they gave me some Gravol, which made me really, really sleepy, and then Illixim had to go, so I read, but then I was awake, so I made them give me more--not because I was queasy, but because it had put me so wonderfully to sleep and I was feeling sorry for myself.

Of course, they kept taking my temperature/blood pressure/oxygen-finger-clampy thing all night, and it was bright, and there were crazy old ladies across the hall, so I didn't sleep -well-, but...the light string that attaches to the pillow is brilliant.

Of course, when I woke up in the morning, the catheter wasn't bothering me, and I had cream of wheat, which I've never had before, and now I know why. Because it's lumpy phlegm. But that's ok.

And then Illixim showed up again, and I was so happy. And then we signed my release and she wheeled me out and I found out about how our bank had fucked up, so my grandparents got my prescriptions, and then I went home.

And I've felt, overall, better than I do during my period. And now I won't get it. So, rad. Totally in favour. Everyone should go get one. I've been moving a little slow, but it's been rare for me to be in pain. Mostly it's just discomfort, which is totally worth it. And I can (I mean, have to) rest for six weeks. Which reminds me of Stupid Internface. So in the morning this guy shows up, literally two minutes after they took out my catheter, and the nurse is still standing there from having taken it out, and he goes, "Have you been up to pee yet?" Nurse: "We just took out the catheter." Internface: "Oh. Ok." Then he talked at me some more, told me I should just rest for two weeks, making me want to remove one of his organs and tell him that, and then asked if I had been up to pee yet. Nurse: "We JUST took out the catheter." And, you know, I've been laying here this whole time. In your view. Not peeing. Or walking. *facepalm*

Oh yes. I also wanted to email Adam Corolla and tell him I'm suing him for tearing the stitches in my vagina, because his book is freaking hilarious. Except that I hear it in the voice of Spanky Ham. Which doesn't seem to be entirely inaccurate.

Scarification

My pet's scarification, done by me.

Nyotaimori

Delicious sushi stuffs! These pics are of me and my lovely wife. Though technically the only part that's me is my fingers in the last shot.

Mmm, sushi.

...not at all what I was looking for

I came across this delightful picture while I was looking for something completely different, but I just love it. First of all, I love those little sailor hats. And the asses. And how snuggly they are. And their fabulous costumes.

Also, the original name of the photo was "French Navy". Which made me lol.

Death of an Institution, Institutional Deaths

Illixim and I were discussing Famous People's Deaths the other day, and de Sade came up. We both thought that he would have died of syphilis or something extravagant, or that he had died in prison.

Sadly, this was not the case.

"In 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the arrest of the anonymous author of Justine and Juliette. Sade was arrested at his publisher's office and imprisoned without trial; first in the Sainte-Pélagie prison and, following allegations that he had tried to seduce young fellow prisoners there, in the harsh fortress of Bicêtre.

After intervention by his family, he was declared insane in 1803 and transferred once more to the asylum at Charenton. ...In 1809 new police orders put Sade into solitary confinement and deprived him of pens and paper, though Coulmier succeeded in ameliorating this harsh treatment." He died in 1814 in Charenton.

On an interesting side note, "He had left instructions in his will forbidding that his body be opened upon any pretext whatsoever, and that it remain untouched for 48 hours in the chamber in which he died, and then placed in a coffin and buried on his property located in Malmaison near Épernon. His skull was later removed from the grave for phrenological examination. His son had all his remaining unpublished manuscripts burned, including the immense multi-volume work Les Journées de Florbelle."

You know what helps make crazy people better? Leaving them all alone with their thoughts and no way to let them out! Hurrah! I'm surprised they didn't come back to find that he had scratched words into his skin with his own nails or something. I've come close to that under nowhere near as desperate circumstances.

So, then our conversation turned to Masoch. Neither of us knew how he had died, so we looked it up.



"In his late fifties, his mental health began to deteriorate, and he spent the last years of his life under psychiatric care. According to official reports, he died in Lindheim, Germany in 1895. It is also claimed that he died in an asylum in Mannheim in 1905."

So...either he was crazy or he was crazy and died in an asylum.

Both of us found it very tragic and disturbing that the 'creators' or 'fathers' of sadism and masochism...both died in asylums. Sigh.

On a more amusing side note, we found it rather amusing that they could never have met and theoretically buggered each other. And that they wouldn't have. Even if they could have.

Mine

My wife. Clearly, I am a little possessive. 

Mine.

How BDSM Saved My Life

So, because I can't sleep and I've been meaning to write this for a while...here it goes.

I'm not going to get into my X Men-esque origins, I'll just start with November of 2005. D had just broken up with me because I was fucked up, which fucked me up more, so I was, in a nutshell, fucked up. We'd done quite a bit of D/s, a little bit of SM, and I'd learned just how much I needed it. And now didn't have it.

I wandered aimlessly for a year or whatever (I could look it up, but I don't actually care all that much) until my desperation finally overcame my apathy and I joined a livejournal BDSM group, where I (contrary to the rules, gasp!) posted a personal looking for a master. I was, of course, instantly snapped up. By a person I assume was black and American....he talked about me being the first white girl he would sleep with, anyway. Basically, he just wanted pictures of me, and to tell me to do things like go commando. Which was ok, in that it was better than nothing, but...not really what I wanted, even then...which is pretty amazing, actually. Anyway. So, I said, you know, this just isn't working for me....and he was all "It's like breaking up with a girlfriend!" ...dude, you've been my online master for like a week. I'm sure you'll be ok.

So then I puttered around for some more time that I honestly don't really remember. And then I went to a party and met Illixim and fell honest-to-god, head-over-heels, love-at-first-sight in love.

Now we get to the life saving part. When I say I don't really remember, I mean it. If I didn't have my (rather sparse) livejournal entries from the time, I'd pretty much have nothing. I was so fucked up that my memories are almost non-existent. So we moved out, and things got better. I mean, we were poor. Very, very poor. But we had each other. And lots to explore. You might say, oh, that's not really BDSM, that's just love. Which was a big part of it. But by now I had the taste and there was no going back, and this love of my life filled my gaping, oozing BDSM hole perfectly.

So, we moved on together, and eventually we thought, hey, why not see if there are other people worth talking to out there, some sort of community?

So we looked up an area munch, and we went (almost chickening out when we got there), and the people weren't big scary crazies. That was May 2009. Then it was summer, and I had no life, so we didn't go back until September. The people who had been running the munch were pretty fed up, and were looking for someone to take over. We were like...so...what would we have to do? Tell a restaurant we're coming on the first Thursday of the month? We can do that. So we hosted the October--our 3rd--munch.

We started getting to know some of the people extracurricularly. Specifically because I, at said 3rd munch, blurted that we would be interested in playing with K. So we went out for coffee with him, and saved our lives god knows how many times by doing so. After discussion, he ended up becoming our mentor, which seems to translate as "someone who saves your ass repeatedly, in many, many ways".

We also got to know R and A, which turned into a massive cluster fuck that I won't get into here, but also got me a horse (another M.C.F.T.I.W.G.I.H) which has been my life goal since I was like five, and has I'm sure saved my life on several occasions.

Huzzah and hats off to you, BDSM. May you continue to open doors and change lives!

Slave bells

More of our personal pictures. This is my wife showing off her bells. I got the idea that she should dance for me while wearing bells, but instead of having them tied around her, I decided to sew them under her skin. The last shot is probably one of the best I have of how the bells were attached. I want to do this sort of scene again soon.

Feeding Time

So, a fun activity to do with one's master/mistress/top/dominant (and so on): have a bowl of small tidbits (we've used pistachios, grapes and mandarin orange segments so far), and feed them to your dominant other. A nice variant is using something like pistachios where you actually have to work to prepare them, and the dominant can just have the tasty food popped into their mouth without having to work for it. It's enjoyable for both people, on several levels: it shows submission, love and caring.

Rape

I happened to get my Kindle to define 'rape' for me, and its definitions bothered me.

"the crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, esp. by the threat or use of violence against them"

"the abduction of a woman, esp. for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with her"

Now, several things bother me about these definitions. In the first one, the fact that it specifies that rape must be committed by a man. While " The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of U.S. rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male," there is still one percent of rape being carried out by women--that's reported.

The same is true of the second definition--why does rape have to happen to a woman? Just because something is more common doesn't mean that nothing else happens. Take homosexuality. I'm not saying that everything should always try to be about everyone ever, but using very specific words like that isn't necessary. (I've missed blogging).

Here's a gender neutral definition: "an act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person;

the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse."

The thing that really bothers me about all those definitions is the use of 'sexual intercourse'. If you ask most straight, vanilla people, (who, last time I checked, are the majority) they will tell you that sexual intercourse is: "heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis : coitus."

So, if you only got raped in the ass or mouth, or masturbated on, or anything else...too bad for you.

Now, in a lot of jurisdictions, certain non-sexual intercourse rapes fall under the category of sexual assault. Sexual assault is defined as " assault of a sexual nature on another person," with assault further meaning " a crime of violence against another person". Um...so...rape? Isn't that splitting hairs juuuuuust a little? To me, it goes like this: sexual harassment is if something says something to you: "What are you wearing under that?" "Women can't do _____", whatever. Sexual assault is if someone makes a pass at you, shows you bits of themselves you didn't want to see, but they don't touch you. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as they touch you in a way that YOU consider sexual (I don't give a flying fuck what they think) -- It's rape. This includes kissing, fondling, stroking, patting, squeezing, whatever. If you didn't ask for it, it's rape. A lot of those things are considered by many people to be more intimate than sex.

This brings me to my final definition (not destination):

"The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark 1998 judgment used a definition of rape which did not use the word 'consent': "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive.""

This means that even if you give consent, if you give it under any sort of duress, it is still rape. So that if someone convinces you to have sex, through peer pressure, threatening to break up with you, or substances, even if you say 'yes', it is still rape.

It also says 'a physical invasion', which pretty much jives with my 'no-touchee' rule. And they don't mention gender anywhere.

I think that this should become THE ONLY definition of rape that is EVER used ANYWHERE. And no, I cannot stress that enough. How many people would feel so much better about themselves and their loved ones if THIS was the definition of rape that they knew? I can only imagine.

The definition continues to the following inferences:

"Valid consent is also lacking if the victim lacks an actual capacity to give consent, as in the case of a victim who is a child, or who has a mental impairment or developmental disability. Consent can always be withdrawn at any time, so that any further sexual activity after the withdrawal of consent constitutes rape.

The law would invalidate consent in the case of sexual intercourse with a person below the age at which they can legally consent to such relations. (See age of consent.) Such cases are sometimes called statutory rape or "unlawful sexual intercourse", regardless of whether it was consensual or not.

In times gone by and in many countries still today marriage is said to constitute at least an implied consent to sexual intercourse. However, marriage in many countries today is no longer a defense to rape or assault. In some jurisdictions, a person cannot be found guilty of the rape of a spouse, either on the basis of "implied consent" or (in the case of former British colonies) because of a statutory requirement that the intercourse must have been "unlawful" (which is legal nomenclature for outside of wedlock). However, in many of those jurisdictions, it is still possible to bring prosecutions for what is effectively rape by characterizing it as an assault."

^{Oh, here's another good definition: Sex with a woman, other than the perpetrator's wife, without her consent. No more, "Not tonight, I've got a headache"! Once that ring's on her finger, you can rape her til the cows cum home.}

The whole Wikipedia article is very interesting.