Through the Looking Glass

For anyone in Chicago, or with friends there...

2009-12-21T16:16:43Z

Could you please boost the signal about this missing girl and of course, keep your eyes open for her? The police are considering it a runaway situation and so there hasn't been an Amber Alert, which means it's not getting a lot of media attention. Her family is worried sick; she's been missing since December 18th. If you see her, or if you could pass along the information to people you know in Chicago, that would be appreciated.

Livejournal and Gender

2009-12-15T12:36:18Z

The one thing about going to bed early on weeknights is, for good or bad, I often miss things that, upon getting up and doing my early morning rounds through LJ, show up in many of my f-list's posts.

The latest is news about LiveJournal and forcing people to choose a gender upon signing up for LJ. However, rosefox 's post is important, I think, because she received a response from LJ's General Manager here in the US:

hi Rose Fox,

thank you for your feedback.
However, the code update that you refer to is not live and did not have any chance to go live. That was a beta release, we always push code to beta to see if everything works correctly. In many cases it does not and we either fix bugs or pull the code from the final release plan.
We were going to add a gender field to the sign up user flow, which is fine, but by mistake it became a mandatory "female/male" field for everyone. This is why this is not going live. And this is what beta releases are for, to see problems and solve them before any user faces a problem.

I would appreciate if you share this information with your friends that are also concerned. I am sorry that you were misinformed.

Best regards,

--
Anjelika Petrochenko
GM, LiveJournal US

Yes, the code was horrid, but unless we hear more that contradicts what , at this point I think we can all take a deep breath and be thankful that it was either a genuine code bug, or LJ themselves realized what they were intending to do was unkind, or the quick response by the community convinced them, but in any case it appears this code will not be part of the next push.

I will say that I agree it was probably a bid to help advertisers narrow their market, but really, in this day and age where most of us have come to realize how fluid gender is (not to mention with loved ones buying gifts for one another), why would anyone worry about making people identify their gender? I suspect that many on my flist have purchased things which would normally be targeted at a gender they do not identify as - heck, I've got a sample of Creed's new Windsor perfume on its way to me...for me, not for any man I happen to know (roomette , this is your fault, you know, you had to link to it, and it sounded so scrumptious and habiliments it's your fault for enabling!...and Creed also has a new Vanilla perfume out as well so I've got a sample of that on its way, too). Really, advertisers, why would you want to limit yourselves to only displaying ads for one gender? That seems like bad business to me.

If you have any spare change...

2009-12-01T16:46:38Z

...please consider helping these two folks out.

mgrasso posted on his blog and I trust him. britgeekgrrl 's husband is terminally ill, and while I don't know her at all, I can't sit by and not do something to help. You can read a little about what's happening here.

I know money is tight for most of us, and many of you simply don't have the funds to help out right now. If not, would you at least consider boosting the signal? To have to plan for a loved one's funeral at this time of year - it's just awful.

The Electronic Cigarette Experiment

2009-08-31T13:10:01Z

First - I don't smoke. Never have, never will. Was never even tempted (which I state only because both of my sisters were; the youngest tried one and thought it was gross, and the middle actually smoked for a short while before quitting - I have no doubt that this is because they didn't live through what I did, which was multiple hospital stays for my mother because her lungs kept collapsing and living in friends' homes so my father could stay with Mom at the hospital).

On a tangent...why is so much of my life parenthetical?

Back to the subject. My mother started smoking again when she started dating Hector many years ago. She's since tried to quit multiple times over the years and never managed it. I finally decided that I was finished with pleas and exhortations about her health and instead got very selfish and started trying to figure out how to make sure that if she wants to kill herself with her smoking (and I can say this because of her past lung health history and also because we found out over the weekend that one of her sisters has lung cancer in both lungs after smoking for 39 years), she doesn't kill me in the process. That sounds really harsh, but I just reached a point where I realized that there's nothing I can do to make her quit. But since we own and live in a duplex (she has the upper unit and I have the lower) and since said duplex shares internal systems (including the central forced-air gas heating system), her habit was affecting my health as well as hers. This was exacerbated when the not-so-ex-husband moved back in because he smokes, too.), it meant that for six-eight months out of the year, I was breathing in lots of second-hand smoke because as soon as the heat comes on, it circulates throughout the entire building. Filters on vents and on the heating system itself didn't help (of course not, but that was all I could do). I wanted some way of letting her continue her smoking without it affecting my health and wellbeing.

I had heard about the electronic cigarette from a post on LiveJournal (and I'm sorry, I can't remember whose journal - whoever you are, you have my heartfelt thanks) and wandered around on the internet taking a look at them. The nifty thing about the electronic cigarette - at least for us non-smokers? No second-hand smoke. I figured - what the hey, it couldn't hurt to have them try them and see if they work, right? I talked to my mother about it, and she was skeptical. So skeptical that I knew she would never spend the money to try them herself.

So...

I decided that I'd buy a starter kit for her. That way, she had no cost outlay for giving them a try. There are a whole heck of a lot of them out there, but I finally decided on

Blu Electronic Cigarette

because 1) a starter kit was $60. Not a lot of money to lose if they didn't work. and 2) they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. They also seemed to be one of the more popular brands out there, and the last thing I wanted to do was get a crappy brand because I knew this was a "one-shot" experiment; if the first brand I bought was cheap and lousy, my mother would never try a second.

I should note that this brand is so popular they actually had stopped taking new orders for a while; in fact, I anxiously kept checking their website so that the minute they re-opened, I could put in my order.

The end result of the experiment? They work. My mother tried it, used it, and had no cravings or other "withdrawal" type symptoms, which meant she was getting the same nicotine dosage as with her real cigarettes. Plus, since the things look and operate just like a cigarette, she also got the psychological habit of having a cigarette in her hand and puffing on it as well (something the nicotine patches don't have). My mother also liked the fact that the light was blue and not red (some of the brands out there have a red glowy light on the end) - because that makes it obvious that she's not smoking a real cigarette, which allows her to easily use the thing in places where no smoking is allowed. She deliberately used it in her doctors' offices (both in the waiting room and then in the examination room), and even showed the thing to her doctors and they agreed that if she couldn't quit smoking, this was a much better alternative.

They come in a variety of strengths - light, regular, and super - so you can get whatever the smoker is used to when it comes to nicotine dosage. They also come in a variety of flavors (the starter kit offers one pack of all of their flavors: regular tobacco, menthol, cherry, vanilla and coffee - my mother found the coffee icky, but says they rest were OK).

As it turns out, the batteries in our starter kit were faulty (they weren't holding a charge for as long as they should), so she sent them back for new batteries. Which unfortunately means that she's back to regular cigarettes until the new batteries arrive. Thus, my one piece of advice to anyone wanting to give these a try is to buy two starter kits, not one. That way, if you get some bad batteries, you can work with the batteries in one kit while sending off the others, so the smoker won't go out and buy more cigarettes.

Anyway - if you are a smoker yourself, or if you have a family member/friend who smokes, I highly recommend trying these. It can't hurt to try, and if they work for you/your family member, it can certainly improve the health and environment of anyone who has to live with them.

Question about metals

2009-08-20T13:03:48Z

Since it's been kinda quiet here, I thought I'd ask all of you folks out there how you feel about various metals.

I'm particularly curious about how you feel regarding plating versus the actual metal - there's no doubt that it's much cheaper to get silver/gold plated findings than it is to get sterling/fine silver and gold-filled/gold and with things getting awfully tight for most, I have to say that the plated findings are becoming more tempting. Does anyone out there use them and if so, what do you think of the quality? Is it something most turn up their noses at?

Also, what about metals like brass and bronze (pretty sure bronze gets used sometimes, but I could be wrong about that) and other "base" metals? I've yet to find a really good supplier for either brass/bronze, despite really liking the look of some of them - does anyone have any links to online suppliers? I found Vintaj's website, and will be checking out their links to online suppliers, but there are a lot of brass companies out there that I haven't discovered yet.

Boosting the Signal for Oyate

2009-07-30T15:47:13Z

Got this from popelizbet:

Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us. For Indian children, it is as important as it has ever been for them to know who they are and what they come from. For all children, it is time to know and acknowledge the truths of history. Only then will they come to have the understanding and respect for each other that now, more than ever, will be necessary for life to continue.

The great Lakota leader, Tatanka Iotanka—Sitting Bull—said, “Let us put our minds together and see what life we will make for our children.” The great Cuban revolutionary, José Martí, said, “We work for children because children know how to love, because children are the hope of the world.” Our work is to nurture in our children a sense of self and community. Our hope is that they will grow up healthy and whole.

Our work includes critical evaluation of books and curricula with Indian themes, conducting of “Teaching Respect for Native Peoples” workshops and institutes; administration of a small resource center and reference library; and distribution of children’s, young adult, and teacher books and materials, with an emphasis on writing and illustration by Native people.

Our hope is that by making many excellent books available to encourage many more, especially from Native writers and artists. Oyate, our organiztion’s name, is the Dakota word for people. It was given to us by a Dakota friend.

Oyate has been offered a generous grant that will help them do a major website overhaul. Information on the grant and Oyate is available here. According to Beverly at Oyate, as of ten minutes until ten central time, they are now at $3,217.00 of the needed $5000. They must raise the remaining $1783.00 by Saturday, August 1 in order to receive their grant.

If you have a few dollars extra - and goodness knows in these tough times you may not - and see fit to use it to help Oyate continue to do their good work, that would be awesome. If not, and you still think they are worth supporting, maybe do what I did here and repost to boost the signal?

Blog Against Racism

2009-07-30T14:33:21Z

Instead of posting a long entry, I think I'm simply going to link to this rather short post, by sartorias:

This is why we have to keep talking about the subject. This is why it's not "over" as some would like to believe.

Tickets! I can haz them!

2009-07-09T20:03:50Z

For the upcoming SJ Tucker concert tomorrow night (insert signs of squeeing here). This time, I'm taking both of my sisters, and possibly their significant others as well. If you're in the Colorado Springs - Denver - Pueblo area, you should really come on out tomorrow night!

www.skinnywhitechick.com/

Solidarity

2009-06-16T11:42:49Z

Re-posted via one_hoopy_frood:

If you are reading this right now, you have more luxury than someone in Iran could ever hope for right now. If you are watching TV or a video on youtube, updating your status on Facebook, Tweeting, or even texting your friend, you are lucky. If you are safe in your home, and were able to sleep last night without the sounds of screaming from the rooftops, you need to know and understand what is happening to people just like you in Iran right now.

They are not the enemy. They are a people whose election has been stolen. For the first time in a long time, a voice for change struck the youth of Iran, just as it did for many people in the United States only seven months ago. Hossein Mousavi gained the support of millions of people in Iran as a Presidential candidate. He stands for progressiveness. He supports good relations with the West, and the rest of the world. He is supported with fervor as he challenges the oppressive regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On Friday, millions of people waited for hours in line to vote in Iran's Presidential election. Later that night, as votes came in, Mousavi was alerted that he was winning by a two-thirds margin. Then there was a change. Suddenly, it was Ahmadinejad who had 68% of the vote - in areas which have been firmly against his political party, he overwhelmingly won. Within three hours, millions of votes were supposedly counted - the victor was Ahmadinejad. Immediately fraud was suspected - there was no way he could have won by this great a margin with such oppposition. Since then, reports have been coming in of burned ballots, or in some cases numbers being given without any being counted at all. None of this is confirmed, but what happened next seems to do the trick.

The people of Iran took the streets and rooftops. They shout "Death to the dictator" and "Allah o akbar." They join together to protest. Peacefully. The police attack some, but they stay strong. Riots happen, and the shouting continues all night. Text messaging was disabled, as was satellite, and websites which can spread information such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the BBC are blocked in the country. At five in the morning, Arabic speaking soldiers (the people of Iran speak Farsi) stormed a university in the capital city of Tehran. While sleeping in their dormitories, five students were killed. Others were wounded. These soldiers are thought to have been brought in by Ahmadinejad from Lebanon. Today, 192 of the university's faculty have resigned in protest.

Mousavi requested that the government allow a peaceful rally to occur this morning - the request was denied. Many thought that it would not happen. Nevertheless, first a few thousand people showed up in the streets of Tehran. At this point, it is estimated that 1 to 2 million people were there. Mousavi spoke on the top of a car. The police stood by. For a few hours, everything was peaceful. Right now, the same cannot be said. Reports of injuries, shootings, and killings are flooding the internet. Twitter has been an invaluable source - those in Iran who still know how to access it are updating regularly with picture evidence. People are being brutally beaten. Tonight will be another night without rest for so many in Iran no older than I am. Tonight there is a Green Revolution.

For more information:
PICTURES:
here and here
NEW INFORMATION:
Here - near constant updates
Here - ONTD_political live post
ON TWITTER:
@StopAhmadi, @IranElection09, @persiankiwi, @NextRevolution, @Change_for_Iran

دنیارابگوییدچطورآنهاانتخاباتمان دزدیده اند
Tell the world how they have stolen our election

To add a brief thought - I was absolutely outraged and disgusted by the lack of coverage by American media of this. After spending the entire day wondering what the heck was going on, I came home after work and immediately channel-surfed through all of the news channels available to me, including CNN, and aside from a ticker tape at the bottom, only ONE was talking about what was happening, and that was Hardball with Chris Matthews, and in that case, there was no actual reporting going on, but rather histrionics and hyperbole from Chris while his two "guests" sat there trying to get a word in edgewise. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the BBC with my cable subscription.

For shame, American media.

Balance Cards: One-Card Draw

2009-06-04T17:26:49Z

By the by, if you're looking for some inspiration, or want a little guidance from the 'Verse, haikujaguar is taking requests for another 30 minutes! Her insight is quite amazing; if you're into divination and/or meditation, I encourage you to give it a try!

Grargh.....more InDesign Irritation

2009-05-26T16:27:54Z

I just inserted a footnote, and instead of showing up at the bottom of the page (where I want it), it shows up at the bottom of the text box...which would be fine, except this text box is linked to a second text box which is the one that goes to the bottom of the page. I've tried changing the Footnote settings, to no avail. I've tried adding text, to see if it "bumps" the footnote, but it doesn't. The non-footnote text bumps down to the next text box just fine, while the footnote stays at the bottom of the first text box...which is NOT WHERE I WANT IT

beats head against desk

Edit the First: Obey me, you stupid program!

Edit the Second: To heck with that, let's try a single box, text-wrapped around the object.

Edit the Third: Victory is Mine!

Still Laughing

2009-05-20T18:11:04Z

ivan23 just called and fixed my problem, and cracked a joke about tech support. Thank you so much!

(Ivan is awesome in all sorts of ways...and he's also a sexy red-headed Viking, which makes it even better!)

InDesign Help

2009-05-20T17:52:38Z

ivan23 help, help, help! (Or anyone else who knows InDesign really well)

You know how, when you're in InDesign and you're sizing something, and when you meet the edge of something else, InDesign does the nifty little greeny highlight thingee to let you know you've met???? I somehow managed to turn that off (no idea how) and I want to turn it back on!! How do I do that?

The Admonishements are Here!

2009-05-18T14:56:37Z

I've mentioned haikujaguar's writing before. Her latest work, The Admonishments of Kherishdar a companion volume to The Aphorisms of Kherishdar, is out and available for purchase at Amazon.

Not sure you want to buy? You can read it online, and see all of the illustrations as well. The prior volume can also be read online. If you do find you like them, I urge you to support the author/artist by buying a hardcopy!

IPod

2009-05-14T19:58:32Z

If I buy an IPod, can I still use music services like EMusic, or am I only able to use ITunes?

The Pale Blue Dot

2009-04-22T19:59:46Z

Do try and take a moment today to think fondly of our small little planet, and remember that it's the only one we've got, so no matter what side of the politcal-environmental spectrum you fall on, common sense would seem to dictate that we do the best we can to take care of the Earth and her creatures (all of them, including us homo sapiens sapiens) since we have to live here. Try to imagine the Earth as your house if you start to ask why we should bother working towards cleaner air and water, less chemicals in our food, less trash and waste, and better use of resources, and why we should do our best to live as peacefully as we can while maintaining everyone's basic human rights.

After all - I don't know about you, but while I may be a little cluttered, I don't live in a house that has piles of trash rotting everywhere, and where everything is filthy and stinking, and where there are people fighting and screaming at each other all the time. Not to mention, right now, this little planet is all we've got, so it's not as though we can just decide to pack up our belongings and move elsewhere. As Carl Sagan so wisely said about our little pale blue dot:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

ZOMBIES!!!

2009-04-15T16:21:25Z

5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen.

Monday Morning Facepalms

2009-04-13T12:49:59Z

Facepalm the First, Amazon's weekend fubar. I'm sure I don't need to post links, as I doubt there's anyone left on my f-list who hasn't already read/posted about it. As of some point after I went to bed last night, they started calling it a glitch - and it may very well be. I do think jedidiah makes some good points here about it being very odd that Amazon would suddenly up and do something like this on purpose. I also find tehdely 's post about one possible theory interesting.

The problem comes in shoddy customer service by representatives who made statements that indicated what happened was on purpose. Did they know what they were talking about? We don't know. What we do know is that now, the company is saying something different than what its CS reps said. Even if Amazon is innocent, and it is a glitch, because of the statements of their reps, there will be people who will - rightfully so - believe that Amazon is lying about it being a glitch.

Companies! You need to teach your employees - all of them - how to keep their mouths closed on sensitive subjects. It's Media/PR 101, folks. If someone asks a sensitive or possibly controversial question about your employer and you aren't in the middle of whistleblowing, you refer them to your Media/PR and Communications folks. You don't attempt to answer the question yourself, even if you are 100% sure you know the answer.

People! It's OK to say "I don't know." In fact, it's a good thing to say "I don't know, let me find out and get back to you" or "You will need to speak to our PR/Media Department about that as I don't know the answer to your question" instead of putting your foot in your mouth and making yourself and the company for which you work look stupid.

Facepalm the Second...the agrochemical companies attempts to pressure Michelle Obama into using pesticides and other chemicals in her garden. It makes the brain hurt.

In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder.” MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals — or what they call “crop protection products” — in her garden.

If this makes your head hurt as much as mine, find ways to make your displeasure known. Find ways to support Michelle Obama's desire for an organic garden. Here are a couple:

Tell the Pesticide Peddlers: We support Michelle Obama's organic garden.
Thank Michelle Obama for starting a White House Garden.

Join "The Big Howl" to Save Wolves

2009-04-10T03:18:18Z

Grabbing this from ysabetwordsmith:

In just a few weeks, the mass killing of wolves could begin in Idaho and Montana -- and not even newborn wolf pups and their nursing mothers will be spared.

We cannot stand by while this slaughter unfolds. On May 4, the wolf's federal protection will be lifted, and government agents will be free to open fire. After that, the states will launch public hunts, targeting wolves.

We must act now to call off the guns!

That's why NRDC is launching The Big Howl campaign to mobilize Americans everywhere to protect wolves in the Northern Rockies from the crossfire.

Add your voice now to our campaign: http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/qdf1k_p1ccKS/

Tell Interior Secretary Salazar to reverse his decision to kick wolves off the endangered species list.

This is absolutely the wrong time to rip away federal protections from these struggling wolves. Over the past year, the wolf population in Yellowstone National Park has declined by 27 percent, with more than 70 percent of wolf pups succumbing to disease.

One pack alone lost all 24 of its pups!

If the federal protections are lifted on May 4 as planned, newborn wolf pups and their nursing mothers traveling outside national parks will be in the line of fire.

That's why NRDC and our partners are filing suit in federal court to block this disastrous policy. But we must do more: we must raise a nationwide outcry that the Obama Administration cannot ignore.

And so we're calling on everyone who cares about wolves to take part in The Big Howl campaign:
http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/qdf1k_p1ccKS/

Please call on the Interior Department to go back to the drawing board and submit this cruel plan to the kind of rigorous scientific review the Obama Administration has promised.

After you send your own message, I will let you know about an easy way to spread the word to your friends and family. We need at least one million messages to save the wolves -- so get ready to rally your friends and family to add their own voices to The Big Howl.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

P.S. Hearing the wolf howl after you take action is a poignant reminder of why we must act swiftly to save these treasured icons of the American West -- before their federal protections are lifted on May 4:

http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/qdf1k_p1ccKS/

So please speak out today, and then tell everyone you know to take part in The Big Howl.

I've been following this and doing what I can - I'm furious at Salazar for taking this course of action. Please, take a few moments to go to the website and fill out your information. The site already has a form letter that you can tweak if you want (or leave as-is) and then send.

And, for more shinies...

2009-04-02T13:32:27Z

You can always take a look at what the lovely Lioness is doing. I also suggest taking a look at this amazing "meme" project that got started as a result of one of elisem 's pendants:

Not sure why I'm spamming your f-lists today, folks. This is most assuredly not normal for me!

Early Birthday Present

2009-04-02T13:20:06Z

My Shiny!! If you want a shiny for yourself, you can go to Wyrding Studios. Or, you can watch their LiveJournal.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

2009-04-01T13:56:05Z

(Warning: what follows may be uncomfortable for some, or trigger-y, or include frank discussion of sex. Obviously, feel free to skip.)

I hadn't actually intended to write about this, but jimhines has a post up today, and in it, he asks some questions, about why this is still so hard for all of us to get a grasp on, and why some can't seem to get the idea of consent through their thick skulls.

I don't know if I have any answers, but I do have lots of thoughts bumping into each other, so here goes.

First, my "credentials" as it were (it seems lately that many people don't feel you're allowed to speak on a subject unless you're an "expert" which I find patently ludicrous, but to forestall any potential comments of "you don't know what you're talking about," here goes):

I have been raped.

And I'll tell you how it happened. Maybe it can help someone else either avoid raping someone, or take more steps to avoid being raped.

I wasn't popular in high school, nor was I all that pretty, in my opinion. So I never went out on dates, or had sex, etc. during those years. Hell, I didn't have my first real kiss until I was 18 years old, and it was from a man who was close to 40 (and I still to this day have no idea why he kissed me, as we never saw each other again). Whoops - brief digression there.

Flip through a couple more years, and I'm 21, and recently met a guy, S and we'd started dating. To be quite frank about it, I wanted a boyfriend and sex. I don't know of a gentler way of putting it. To be sure, I wanted more than just the sex; I wanted romance (which I didn't get...still have never really gotten in my few relationships which may be one reason why I've essentially given up on the whole idea), intimacy, all of those things. But I definitely wanted the sex.

Another digression - another reason I don't date is because I never quite got the hang of it. I didn't get to experiment with the whole concept in junior/high school, and I'm pretty sure I'm terrible at flirting, so in general, I'm starting off from a bad position to begin with.

Where was I?

When S raped me, it wasn't our first time having sex. Sorry, I didn't keep count, but we'd certainly done so a number of times before it happened. There was no violence; he didn't hit me, or hurt me physically (emotionally is another matter). I can't remember exactly what I said, but he made it obvious he wanted sex, and I made it obvious I didn't. And instead of stopping, he just got on top of me and forced me anyway.

That sounds really stupid, doesn't it? Anti-climatic, too. There was no screaming, no real struggling on my part, though I remember trying to push him away. Asking myself why I didn't do more to stop it, my head comes up with all sorts of things. For one, I was embarrassed. We were having sex in his house, and his father was upstairs, asleep. The thought of his father coming downstairs was humiliating, to say the least. Second, I really liked having a boyfriend, and I didn't want to lose him (which I won't even go into because to be honest, in a lot of ways he wasn't a very good boyfriend). Third, he wasn't a stranger, we'd been having sex, and it felt....like it would have been going overboard to go completely off on him.

When it was over and done, I even told him that what he'd just done was rape, and as you might expect, he didn't get it, and I had no better way to explain it than to just reassert that "You raped me." He seemed remorseful, but in a "Well, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the sex this time as much as I did" way, if that makes any sense.

So, credentials out of the way.

I guess my answer to Jim is that....it's complicated. It's not so cut-and-dried as we'd like it to be. Or at least, as I'd like it to be. I can't speak for anyone else, only offer my experience up as well as my thoughts.

We hear all the time that rape isn't about sex, that it's about violence and control and power. I would have to say that while it may not be all about sex, it most assuredly is. about. sex.. Someone wants sex, and doesn't care if the person they've chosen feels differently.

With that out of the way, we get into the "Why can't men (and yes, even women) get it into their heads that "No" means "No?" Some of it comes down to selfishness: I want you/sex, and I'm going to have you. Some of it comes down to power: I want you/sex, and you can't stop me from having you. Some of it comes down to control: I want you/sex, and I'm stronger and can make you do what I want.

But there's also the very simple fact that some of us like being overpowered and, for lack of a better word, manhandled. There it is. It's out there. I happen to be one of them. Sure, there are times when I enjoy gentle lovemaking. But there are other times when I want the man to be rough. Where if I struggle, I want him to hold me down. I want to be dominated. For another brief digression - in BDSM terms, I'd be called a switch because I there are times when I like to dominate, and times where I want to be dominated - and unlike many switches, I can often go back and forth during a sexual encounter as to which I want, depending on how long the encounter is lasting.

See how easily this goes from black and white to grey? Guess what, and this may upset some people, but I'm going to say it anyway. Sometimes, struggling doesn't really mean "what's happening is bad." Sometimes, "No" doesn't really mean "stop what you're doing."

The above is scary. Because it throws everything we think we know about how to tell whether there's a problem or not out of the water.

Which of course begs the question: How do we tell?

BDSMers generally operate with a safeword. If anyone is suddenly uncomfortable, or feeling unsafe, they have a word they can say which means "Stop NOW." For those on my f-list who have no experience in the BDSM lifestyle, the word is ~~almost~~ never "No" or "Stop." Why? Because all parties involved don't want there to ever be any question on whether the "No" really means "No" or whether it's something visceral that's coming out in the passion of the moment. This is especially important, given the BDSM dynamics, where someone is there because they want to dominate, and someone is there because they want to be dominated. A person generally chooses a safeword that isn't something that would ever come out in the throes of passion or during emotional highs/lows.

Most of us don't operate with a bona fide safeword. This means that, for the safety of everyone, we all have to take "No" as a catch-all safeword. And that can be hard, I fully admit. Someone might be pulling you closer while saying "No." They might be grinding up against you and saying "No." You may be in the midst of having sex and they may say "No." In other words, no might not seem to be meaning no.

But isn't it better to be safe - for everyone's sake? If you and the other person haven't had a conversation beforehand about safewords and boundaries and likes/dislikes (because I guarantee you, if you are with me and we're having sex and you suddenly decide you want anal sex, you're going to be told NO), then you must operate on the assumption that "No" means "No" even if every other signal you're getting tells you it doesn't. If the word "No" comes out of someone's mouth that you're about to be intimate with, or even that you're in the midst of being intimate with, just stop. It hurts nothing and no one to stop and ask. Find out what's going on. If they didn't want you to stop, it's a guarantee they'll tell to you start up again. The worst thing that happens is you don't get to orgasm while having sex with them; you can go and masturbate later, if you wish. But at least you didn't end up raping someone.

Two Lovely Words

2009-03-12T13:52:58Z

sprez·za·tu·ra
\sprāt-tsä-ˈtü-rä\ (Italian)
1: studied nonchalance; perfect conduct or performance of something (as an artistic endeavor) without apparent effort

One of Castiglione's characters in The Book of the Courtier, Count Ludovico, gives a good explanation of sprezzatura and the part it plays in the achievement of grace.

"It is an art which does not seem to be an art. One must avoid affectation and practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, disdain or carelessness, so as to conceal art, and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it....obvious effort is the antithesis of grace."

What's important to remember is sprezzatura involves a conscious effort which is disguised by a concealing act. Sprezzatura means that even though you are exerting yourself, you make it seem effortless and casual to the observer.

sau·da·de
\sawˈdadɨ\ (Portuguese)
1: longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost or absent, or has disappeared. It's a somewhat fatalistic word; the one feeling saudade knows that what they long for may never return.

Palimpsest is Out

2009-02-25T16:21:19Z

The book is officially out, and can be ordered online, or found on bookshelves everywhere. As if being able to finally get your hands on it wasn't wonderful enough, what's even more wonderful is that this little book has rapidly clawed its way up the Amazon Ranks: it's currently #243 in books, #17 in Sci-Fi/Fantasy, #9 in general Fantasy, and #6 in Contemporary Fantasy!

Mind Your Feet...

2009-01-27T15:12:55Z

...or you may find yourself falling into a hole today.