Life In The Aerie

She wanted to be totally blunt and honest with me and I agreed to this. What I didn’t say was those were the kind of conversations that thrill me. That I sometimes shock my own peeps, who are almost unshockable (yeah, yeah not a real word) with my bluntness and my lack of ability to control an opinion from spouting out of my mouth.

Mind you, you are all free to yours.

She said, “He adores you, you know?”

And I didn’t quite know how to respond. It’s a love that is incapable of translating to what I want. It’s not what I need anymore. Proclaiming love and acting loving are two different things. Last year was a year of sparring of being knocked in the teeth again and again and again. Made worse by the fact that it was coming from those I love most.

She said, “How does it feel to be on such a pedestal?”

It FEELS like shit.

That’s the thing, to be worshipped, to be the metaphorical dominatrix… It’s maybe what I thought I wanted, but in reality it isn’t now. I’m not sure if it changed, if I changed, but the slave isn’t exactly living up to his duties anymore (sex has been absent for over a decade) and there isn’t much support. I feel like if I fell back into a stronger man’s arms I’d be happier.

Slouchy and I are through.

But what to do now? It’s not the 50’s picket fence, I’ll cook you a frozen dinner thing… I want independence too… just want someone that will catch me and know that I’ll catch him. I feel like I’m being dropped… again and again and again.

I don’t want worship. I want reality!

A friend of mine recently asked, “Are you down with OPP?” which if you aren’t in the know means “Other People’s Pussy” or “Other People’s Penis” and I guess I’d have to say I don’t have rules. I don’t know what will work or what won’t, but I know I have to try.

It sure as shit isn’t a marriage…

To try at a different life, a different happiness… oh shit, I don’t know what it means yet. I have no map or plan or script before me to go by. And you know what that doesn’t scare me anymore. It EXCITES me. I felt like life was over, I was afraid and I felt alone, but then I listened to a bunch of women discussing how far to go when shaving pubic hair and SUDDENLY I don’t feel alone.

Discovering my inner self amidst a pubic hair conversation may seem odd, but it’s not. Whether it is “70’s pie” or a “crew cut” there really aren’t any rules. We are all together trying to figure it out. A bunch of us thrown together at a party and we have no clue what to do with our pubes!

I was the host, but before I knew it she (the guest extraordinaire) was in the kitchen cooking. Well sort of, my antique stove needs servicing again, much like myself (laugh), and we only needed a batch of simple syrup. It’s the stuff you feed to humming birds and the stuff you use in OLD cocktail recipes.

In this case a French 75.

To make simple syrup you boil sugar in water and then let it cool. And I did this in my deep well, which is a 50’s version of a crockpot. To make a French 75 you combine an ounce of simple syrup with an ounce of lemon juice and add 2 ounces of gin. This gets shaken in a cocktail shaker with ice and poured into highball glasses then topped off with champagne.

We skipped the champagne bit and used rock or low ball glasses instead.

Yum.

This drink was a famous repertoire of bartender Harry MacElhone at Harry’s New York Bar and was said to have the same kick as the French 75mm howitzer and was popular at the Stork Club, which ironically was a hang for Grouchy (Slouchy’s father) along with his Uncle Reg. I loved Grouchy to pieces, but he and Uncle Reg are all long gone.

There is a picture of Grouchy at the Stork Club, back when photographers circulated to provide such things, and he looks just like Christian Slater. I didn’t know him then, oddly Ms. 91 did, but there was joie de vivre in his face then and it is the same zest for life that I would know later.

He used to kick Slouch’s ass when I got sick of kicking it.

Maybe it was pubic hair or maybe it was the kick of the French 75 that put a light bulb above my head.

I often call myself a reformed Cancer (the zodiac sign) it is not like me to crawl into a shell, to put up my hands and let the fists swing away at my face. BUT I’m not one to swing back either. I’ll always try to discover a way to avoid the fight altogether.

I’ll give you all of me. I love on friends BIG. I kiss and squeeze and hop on laps. I’ll curl into your arms and sigh with happiness. I’m not an air kiss on the cheek kind of girl. I’ll snuggle and smooch with friends that I’d never fuck, yet we are often told to “Get a room!”

I’m overt.

I’m raring to go, itching for it whatever IT is.

She said, “You are in a waiting game.”

Astute. Then, “What will you do?”

I don’t know. I want out of here. Out of this house, filled with stuff. I want change and I have folks that love me in the four corners of this country and beyond, but I’m not sure any one of them wants me so near.

We discuss the men in our lives, the lack of sex and how perhaps it’s more trouble than it is worth these days. Sure as shit seems to be.

“Will you go to New York?” she asks and I say no, not now, maybe not ever.

April will be my last trip.

We talk about Guru, she thinks it’s cute that he sends me shots of his ass, but I can’t really explain what that dynamic means (not enough time). She wants to know how we met and what is to become of VG.com and what it all means. Truth is that is as vague as what my future life might be… don’t know.

What will be will be.

She wanted to know about baseball and I described an evening of magic with my friend Matthew, where we lost our virginity entering a new stadium together. We knew each other intimately, but had never touched or really seen each other, it was an evening of firsts and the joy in our eyes on the train ride seemed to light up the crowd heading home from a game that we all loved.

AND a win too that I KNEW would happen.

That is how I ended up advising Susie Bright on the etiquette of being a Yankee fan and why opening day at Yankee Stadium will be the bomb for her and something she CAN’T miss.

And it is how I knew that ALL those past experiences and ALL that I will do moving forward will be important and vital.

I will no longer waste my time.

I have to add that in a last act of kindness Slouch found me some gefilte fish and the sunlight from the leaded glass window is hitting my face and I feel alright.

Posted by M. Hannington at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Click me baby, oh click me real good!

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By Mary Hannington
Vagabond Guru

Because religious groups see abortions as murder they see ANYTHING that has to do with abortion as not being for the public good and therefore not qualified for federal funding, tax credits or subsidies DESPITE the fact that their churches DO receive federal funding, tax credits and subsidies, but I'm not here to argue separation of church and state. Just pointin' it out. With HR3 they seek to block women from buying insurance that covers these procedures EVEN if it save lives.

As a secular person I could argue that these churches do no public good as well. Catholic priests molest and abuse boys, televangelist’s enrich themselves and fool the public with fake healings, Muslim women are made to adhere to strict laws, Hindu widows, in a practice known as sutee, are burned alive on their husband’s funeral pyres and despite being outlawed outright in 1987 the practice continues today, a Catholic hospital in Arizona recently lost its affiliation with the church and a nun that worked there was excommunicated because they aborted a baby to save the mother’s life… I’m not making this shit up!

The Catholic Bishop there called it scandalous.

Then there are the little things Christians did like burning women at the stake as witches and the CRUSADES!

23 states in this country sell “Choose Life” license plates and donate the money to pro-life groups. Can you imagine the ruckus if this were reversed?

Abortions were merely a misdemeanor in this country (following English law) unless performed after the mother could feel the child (the quickening) when they were considered a felony. As methods of detecting early pregnancy improved the felony charges were later moved to earlier pregnancies. Those performing abortions were charged and not the women, but it was a difficult case to prove (the pregnancy having been terminated) and it was rarely prosecuted.

According to author Leslie Reagan, "When Abortion Was A Crime", in the early 1900’s as many as 1.2 million illegal abortions a year were being performed (including self-induced). Prior to Roe v. Wade poor women without access to expensive and safe abortion doctors often died at the hands of quacks and many more by using coat hangers or other dangerous methods on themselves in order to terminate pregnancies.

The original opponents of abortion were nativists concerned over the rise in the Catholic birth rate, anti-feminists, who also denied the rights of wives in the bedroom and doctors. Yes, doctors, who were seeking to drive the midwives and homeopaths out of business, yet whom continued to perform the procedures themselves. What they set in motion, however, cost them. Laws were formed that required they not treat a woman for abortion related trauma unless she confess, and in the case of non-married women, not only did she have to cough up the name of the doctor, who performed the procedure, but the father as well. By the 1920’s 15,000 women were dying from botched abortions every year.

Do no public good?

The nativists would be pleased to note that 28% of women receiving abortions today are Catholic and 37% Protestants and more recent estimates have them now running neck and neck.

I live in the 13th District, which encompasses downtown Detroit, Wyandotte, Lincoln Park, Harper Woods and Grosse Pointe Woods. It is presided over by Kwyame’s mommy Caroline Cheeks Kilpatrick (a real nutter), but it is John Conyers, who represents Northwest Detroit, Dearborn and the southwestern suburbs, who stood for me as a member of the House Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitution along with Jerold Nadler, who was at Stuyvesant at the same time Guru was and represents the Upper West side (where I stay when in NYC), down to Battery Park and parts of Brooklyn, where he grew up.

They both made some very cogent points, amongst the arguments by conservatives for HR3, which calls into question primarily federal funding of Planned Parenthood, and who frequently brought up descriptions of OUT OF DATE and no longer used methods of partial birth abortions in an effort to horrify the public. BUT according to the CDC’s 2006 data, the percentage of abortions that would consist of partial birth abortion are small, only 3.7% are performed after 16-20 weeks and only 1.3% are performed after 20 weeks and these are LIFE SAVING procedures. Abortion rates are down to 1.21 million, the same as they were in 1900, from almost 1.6 million in 1988.

According to a 2010 report from the Guttmacher Institute, from 1986 until 1991 teen pregnancies were on the rise, but after this time they steadily declined until 2005. In 2005, for the first time in fourteen years rates began to rise again. Surely this is due to an ever-increasing belief in abstinence education by schools (brought on by the Bush administration) and perhaps parents as well, who in large numbers leave sex education up to the educators.

I read recently that one high school in Memphis, Tennessee has eighty-six pregnant teens attending classes. Eighty-six? It turns out that more than a quarter of the school’s population of girls is pregnant.

So what do school officials do? They hire Girls, Inc., a group that promotes abstinence. Although to be fair the group does mention condoms, their main message is that girls need to learn how to say no. They claim that older male classmates prey on these girls, which in essence takes away the responsibility from these young women and forces it onto the men, when it should be BOTH.

No one “preyed” on me, it was MY decision to have sex, but no one was preaching abstinence either, they weren’t preaching anything, they were ignoring it.

My parents were children of the 40’s and 50’s and were old enough to be my grandparents. Ms. 91 nervously tried to have the “sex talk” with me and had bought me a book on sexuality. Relief spread across her face when I revealed that my best friend’s mother, a social worker, had explained this already.

My sex education at school consisted of a Disney movie in grade school and I distinctly remember Jiminy Cricket and dancing sperm, but can no longer find any reference to this film. Following the sex education movie, Nurse Ball (I swear that was her name) demonstrated the use of the sanitary pad and us girls each were provided with a belt and our very own pad.

When it came time, I was just turning twelve, I dutifully wore the thing for a day before saying, “Fuck this, get me a tampon!” I suppose in the back of my mind I knew that having a period also meant I could get pregnant, there was the book from mom after all, but not ONCE did anyone bring up birth control. I was sexually active early, to the embarrassment of my friends, and was condemned for going too far too fast, but praised for landing a hot guy as a boyfriend and screwing him.

No one suggested I protect myself and apparently the boys were as unaware as I was. When I told my college roommate I was pregnant she was shocked to find that I wasn’t using ANY form of birth control. Like so many teenagers I felt unbreakable – full of curiosity and joie de vivre.

My roommate’s mother was sixteen when she gave birth to her daughter and was a feminist, who worked at Planned Parenthood the group that the passage of HR3 would destroy, she certainly had made sure her daughter was well educated on the topic of sex.

I had read the Hite Report, knew my body and enjoyed the sexual freedom of the times. It never occurred to me, or certainly my parents (they just assumed I wasn’t doing it) that I could become pregnant. I was the product of a white suburban conservative environment and my girlfriends, while they gossiped, rarely discussed their own sexuality. I was rebelling against all of it, but I had no "sisters" to guide me.

It’s horrifying to think of it now!

That first meeting with a Planned Parenthood counselor was incredibly empowering… all the choices I never really knew or thought about, but I entered the meeting already knowing that my decision would be to end the pregnancy.

It wasn’t done cavalierly; I had some VERY good reasons.

And I have since seen what pregnancy can do to a woman.

I have read of a Catholic woman who had 27 children; she was committed to a mental institution.

A friend had three children in rapid succession and fled into homelessness and insanity.

Another has an immune disease and can no longer take part in activities that she once loved without risking death.

According to Catholic doctrine even baby's with Anencephaly (missing parts of the brain, blind, deaf, unconscious and unable to survive outside the womb) should be carried full term forcing mothers to face the risks or carrying a child only to watch them die.

This not only seems cruel... it's MEDIEVAL!

I had long ago decided to keep my last name even if I married and after delving into genealogy for some years I discovered my brother and I were the last of 7 generations of Scottish Hanningtons that I eventually traced back to Elizabethan England and the name itself goes back to Norman times.

I found a cousin in California, who hails from my Great, Great, Great Aunt Anne, who was a Hannington-Menzies. To my delight that cousin was also the last of that line, who continued to use the hyphenated name and she kept it upon marriage.

It is silly to worry about carrying on a name, I know, but I often wonder if the baby was a boy or a girl… what my life would have been like had I been a mother and there is still a wince, a pang and an empty feeling.

No man can possibly understand this.

And yet the same white men that I saw in that committee meeting are the same white men that spent decades shaming desperate women, who for whatever reason chose to have an abortion. Thousands upon thousands of us lost our lives because of it.

The year after New York legalized abortion the maternal mortality rate dropped by 45% and in the end it was the doctors that led the cry for change. They had seen enough carnage - 5,000 women (poor and mostly black and Hispanic) were dying every year because legal abortions weren't available in their state.

Do we really want to go back to THAT?

Note: Leslie J. Reagan's "When Abortion Was A Crime" won a President's Book Award from the Social Science History Association and is a work of serious scholarship.
The remainder of the statistics came from the CDC's studies and those of the Guttmacher Institute, whose reports are cited by both Democrats and Republicans.

For more on federal funding of stem cell research.

Posted by M. Hannington at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew B. Storey

'Power of love..make you do right, make you do wrong, make you come home early, make you stay out all night long'
Al Green

'Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.'
Robert Heinlein

'We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.'
Frederick Keonig

'Ok, so your hearts broken, you sit around moping, cryin' and cryin', you say you even thinkin bout dyin'? well, before you do anything rash....dig this.'

The Main Ingredient 'Everybody Plays the Fool'

I know.

More moaning about nonsense, instead of discourse that matters.

I'm hip, working on it... Stuff gets in the way. And this be the stuff Ima here to talk bout.

Today.

It is time to move past the topic and the focus, and I get that. Let this be the last in this series.

For awhile, anyway....

Been all over my inner world, taking inventory, checking my heart, reading my history...examining my relationships for what works and what doesn't.

Getting nowhere fast.

The truth is my inner world works, the result of tumult longandlong. I know who I am, how I happen, what to avoid, what to embrace....but the truth doesn't really set you free, because the answers are hard ones. Reconciling the lonely is important work, like confirming the asteroid IS going to hit the planet.

I was right!

'wow...that's...um... great?.'

Right, but still fucked. Or not fucked, as the case might be. Is.

Joyless revelations are tough to herald. Celebrate. Or heed.

Thing is. The Asteroid don't give a shit if you believe in it.

Dig that.

People I love have their own dynamics, not to be discussed here. We all do. The reconciliation between the real and the fantasy is the core challenge of our lives. The more we know, the more deeply we perceive the world around us, the people we encounter, the bigger picture...

But its like stripping a true believer of his faith...his god...his beliefs might be the thing getting him out the door in the morning. God got my back!

Amend the previous, the truth DOES set you free, an accurate saw. But free from the fantasy doesn't equate to 'happy'.

We all look back at the moments of love in understanding...'I was young', 'she wasn't right for me', 'he turned out to be a jerk!'...but that doesn't change the fact, these are the best moments of our lives.

Paradox of human experience. The center of our fractured culture. The truth about love, and happiness?

Maybe this chat aint so nonsensical after all?

And I am starting to look at it that way. Love gets a bad rap from me. I saw clearly backwards and found the shining moments hollow in retrospect, and lost the FEELING of surrender to another that creates such joy. I lived with the wrong girl, who I loved with all my heart. How do I quantify this gap between my understanding and simple pleasure. A kiss. A laugh. A cry from the depths, knowing she'd catch me.

Nothing is worthless. There is no such thing as 'empty calories. Love is a bitch.

But that Bitch got to be tapped, she needs to be kept in line. And, if you don't do that thang with your heart, you just gonna have to listen to her. And talking? That aint love's best talent. Bitch'll talk you round and round, let you believe in nonsense and act like a fool. A damn fool.

For sure.

So we do this half-ass thing. We know, but we don't apply what we know in cases where, maybe, just maybe...what I think I know, ok, know I know...aint gonna apply. Cause, you know....of course, the thing you know continues to be what there is to know, and you know you gotta stop checking that empty fridge. Its just that...

I'm hungry.

You dig?

I'm lucky in some respects. Love that ails me, or lack of it in my case, leaves me with an empty space, but other spaces matter more in my makeup. Love might be the lipstick, but ideas are the foundation and the future is my mascara. Love on the lips, the unknown closer to the eye, knowledge seeping into my skin. An addict I am, correctly and simultaneously called by many of my savviest and dearest chick friends. But I been in the rooms, of church basements and addled memories, broken heart and damaged psyche.

I got tools, and interests, that get me through. A woman loved, as she is with what she has to give, is a treasure no less than if she was more, had more, wanted to give more. Each one is precious, and her heart is precious, she gets the love I got, however I can bring it to her.

I'm good over here, alone. I really am. I'd struggle to snuggle with one who thought me less for what I am, and struggle to compete for any woman. Nothing of the heart that can be 'won' is worth having, at least for me. I save the competition for safe and trivial matters, sports or politics - trivial not because they do not matter, but because our impact is negligible. The heart is all bout giving...what is given matters deeply, what is competed for, strategized over, plotted, planned, executed?

That aint love, G. It just aint.

What makes me happy is simple.

I like a small universe of people I adore. I do not like social interactions with strangers.

I Like a limited schedule with lots of time to write, to read, to party and to reflect. I do not like a full calendar or events and responsibilities.

I like to occupy different poles within myself. I don't like having to explain this or make allowances for others to struggle with it.

I like knowing the ones who I love are well tended, be they being or beast. I don't like being herded, by a sheltie shape, into 'right thinking'.

I am happy and I am alone. I sometimes tend to concentrate too much on the latter, and ignore the former.

But thats reality for you.

Our Bitch's cousin.

'Is she hot?'

Posted by Matthew at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Mary Hannington

With Christine O’Donnell in the news (anti-masturbation) and articles of recent memory that the British are promoting masturbation, as healthy, to schoolchildren (pro-masturbation) I have some thoughts.

Apparently people think about masturbation a lot.

Not that all would admit to this, but let’s be honest people find all sorts of ways to get off by themselves. I have a friend who is doctor and she can reel off a large list of items found stuck in human orifices, but I won’t go there.

Number four on the best selling hits list in Vagabond Guru’s Culture section (we ain’t no Obama Girl sensation, so take it with a grain of salt) is a piece I wrote entitled “Onanism” and for a long time it was the most read article on our site.

Onanism

I’m not going to explain who Onan was or go into any of the biblical history here (read the damn article!), but it is clear people are searching this topic on the web. Onanism is an archaic term for male masturbation. Of the top cultural articles it is the one that people spent the most time with (at least according to Google’s Analytics) AND no it wasn’t because they were whacking off.

It was an intellectual article and with the exception of a small photo of Shere Hite nude - which based on the one comment I received, may have caused SOME whacking off - was never meant to titillate.

Presumably these bouts of solo pleasure are taking place in private. So why is it news?

You would think the abstinence crowd would promote masturbation as a logical way of abstaining, but they appear to be against lust in general. If you read the abovementioned article you’ll see that it is hard to make a biblical argument against masturbation or homosexuality for that matter.

And doesn’t the bible say go forth and multiply?

Just keep lust out of it?

Seems to me that taking the bible literally is likely to confuse some folks!

See here then come back… I’ll wait.

Children experience sexual sensations at often very young ages, long before they are given any sex education. Girls don’t tell me you didn’t twiddle your twats at one point, only to be told by the nuns in Catholic school you shouldn’t EVEN be touching your thighs!

It’s a true story I knew a woman that was afraid to touch her own thighs.

Which gets you to thinkin’ if you can’t touch your thighs and you can’t touch your twat how the hell are you going to wash, put on lotion (not to mention those thigh highs you were wearing under the usual uniform, the short plaid skirt), what a sponge on a stick?

And guys? Please! I don't I know of ONE man that has never had a wee wank, especially the crowd around here!

And in my family, including me granddad, dad and brother.

Wee Wank

And I’m willing to bet that plenty of Tea Partiers go home and have private parties of their own.

Try to follow me here. If God made us and God gave even children (blessed are the children) these sensations then what the hell was he thinking?

Please explain.

I’ve gone through stages where I have been a rabbit (God made them too. How come they get away with it?) and stages where I have locked on the chastity belt and said, “Girl you got some shit to do, no time for pleasure.”

I’ve lived platonically with a man for countless years. The sexual relationship ended over some sheets and to be honest there was nobody else I really wanted in those years… I got picky.

And it wasn't sex that drove me to want to separate it was sanity.

Yes, Buddhism teaches me that sex sometimes interferes with your path and Buddha knows sometimes it does. That your dukkha or dissatisfaction with life is rooted in desire. Take away the desire and you open up your path to enlightenment. It does not however condemn you for having sex, but merely points out that these constant desires are a roadblock.

If I meditate and do Hatha yoga daily I can be at peace with a lack of nookie, but that is just me and really it is nobody's business.

What the fuck (we ARE talking about sex) does any of this have to do with the state of the nation?

If everyone in America stopped fucking would we be better off?

Yeah, porno sales might go up, but if no one is screwing they'd eventually run out of new ones and since masturbation is off the list? Porno would just get old. A trip down memory lane, ah remember the days.

Lingerie sales may go down (Victoria's Secrets closing everywhere!) and certainly diaper sales might suffer in the future, but really what effect would it have and why the fuck is it a part of political speak at at all?

Because Christine and Sarah, who have done their fair share of fucking, know that this will get them the Tea Party vote and namely the evangelicals. Go back and watch the Bill Hicks video again.

Do you REALLY want these folks running the show.

If you think it is a sin for a woman to have an abortion then for Christ sake (excuse the expression) won’t she burn in hell for it and then everyone is happy?

She thinks she won’t, you think she will… there we go, even, done.

As far as religious laws go. Why not let God, Allah and whomever decide… we fuck up? Lightening strikes us. Do we need to let it interfere in how we govern our country or school our children?

If Clinton spent 5 hours a day putting cigars up interns twats I'd be concerned, but he didn’t.

It was just a fling. Get over it.

Please Note:

Evangelist Scandals

Dedicated to the only man, who could really make me laugh, which is often better than whacking off! Always in my heart enova.

Posted by M. Hannington at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Mary Hannington

He really does love me.

Perhaps he loved me more than any man I’ve ever known.

I’ve said these things only rarely of friends or lovers and that love came from honesty and understanding and not a sudden dreamy attraction caused by Cupid’s arrow or wooing with hearts and flowers.

At first, as a young girl, I just wanted boys to like me. If that meant playing spin the bottle or that wacky kissing game I came up with that used my Barnabus Collins game, then that was cool…it was fun.

The game had a spinning dial and the goal was to build a skeleton in a coffin. Land on an arm bone, that’s right, you get to kiss a girl’s arm, a skull her mouth. BUT land on a torso?

Whoo hoo the possibilities!

At least for anyone that was twelve.

Those early relationships in my teen years they were 50%, no probably more like 70% about sex. Some were even, if I’m to be honest, 100% about sex.

There were dates and boys too shy to do much more than carry out an attempt at making out. Boys that liked to talk and tried their hand at sharing feelings and those with smooth moves, but none of us really knew what we were doing back then.

Call it practice.

The girls I knew had rules. Dating older men… scandalous! Let someone go to thirds on a first date? Not cool. Doing it on the first date… major slut. First dates were supposed to be clean affairs with maybe a kiss goodnight at the door. You had to wait a least three dates before giving it up and ONLY after he has paid for dinner.

They were looking to avoid the guys that went after you with lightening speed. Trying to round the bases so that they could brag about it in the locker room.

Sex as a contest.

I was never very good at rules and some of my dates may NEVER have gotten a kiss and some may have gotten more than they planned on.

Sorry if I confused.

My prom date was a good friend and I always suspected that I was his first, but that was in the past. We rented a hotel room, but not with the intent to lose our virginity, or for me to spend the night with a man I was in love with, would perhaps someday marry… no, it was so we had a place to party on into the night.

We didn’t want that evening to have meaning; we wanted our senior year to go out in a blaze of glory, of champagne and Mary Jane.

I have had some men do some very "honorable" things for fear they would mess up my life or break a rule that would harm my standing in society, but in the end, who does THAT serve, but society.

Society = A tacit moral code.

More rules.

My best friends have always been men and this is not to degrade the ladies. I know some incredible babes. Professional women and mothers, who have kicked some ass and will always rule their world.

Rock on.

No one digs that shit more than I, but the simple fact is I have always gravitated towards male company and the reasons for that go deep.

I am more honest and trusting with my women friends than I used to be, but the “girls with rules” still pull at me. Those girls thought I should fit a specific mold… I was a non-conformist of whom Ms. 91 (she understands this) always says, “I don’t know how I got you.”

I have and had a variety of men friends. Some that were protectors, men that were FUN, or like devious older brothers always getting me in trouble, but somehow they always knew they could talk to me. About the mystery of women’s bodies, which they were just learning to understand. About sadness and hurt feelings and things that brought them joy… I’d watch them with other men and see a wall go up that they never had with me.

We love/loved each other because despite the fact that there ARE rules, when we are together there aren’t any.

There isn’t a game with a goal.

When I see the smile or emotion in those eyes, when I’m held tight… cherish me like I cherish you and we will never ever need rules my friend because we have our own.

And sometimes we will hurt each other and not be able to go past it and move on.

Come to me when you need me as I will come to you and leave me if you must, but don’t forget me 'cause I'm not looking for romance. Just a squeeze, a shoulder to lean on and to hear your heart when you say, "I love you."

And if you are REALLY lucky we may share a listen of a little Hendrix' guitar and let it go too far.

Does Cupid’s arrow ever strike and a love that lasts a lifetime ensue?

Nope. It’s much more complicated than that.

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By Mary Hannington

He said, “I think we should have sex.”

I was there to get my hair done and sex wasn’t really on my mind.

His hands would explore and I’d flick them away.

He was working hard on the elaborate Flock of Seagulls slash my own wacky vision of a hairdo using razors and scissors. This was after running me through a perming process that had my hair all curling to the west (at least if I was facing north that is).

Hair was important to me then and to him too.

Maybe that is why he was aroused, I don’t know...

I had sworn off relationships at the time. I had fallen in love hard and he had set me free. I thought that maybe that was a decision we both should have made, but he made it clear I had little say.

Yes, it was a complicated relationship, but I wasn’t a quitter or someone that believed that age, race or economics should make a difference.

So, I was angry with men.

For years I refused committed relationships with them. In a convoluted way I became a woman, who bucked the trend or what Dr. Phil and so many others would later label us as... beings that needed to be emotionally attached to their lovers.

I wasn’t really.

Attracted, interested, but not needy…

I was sexually open to everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Been on the bottom been on the top with Carol and Ted and Alice. Had a hunky hockey player, who wanted an exclusive relationship and thwack he's iced. He needed me, but I didn’t need him.

It wasn’t all about sex.

I dated lots of men that I never slept with… friends really.

One a male model, who loved to make out with me and looked great on my arm. Only he had no interest in women whatsoever - other than apparently kissing me - and was an out gay man.

Another, like me, a fan of gore and bad porn movies… just someone to see “Brain Damaged” or “Debbie Does Dallas” with.

The men I REALLY loved all ended up wanting different things and it was years before I trusted them or ever thought I needed them at all.

The hair guy was different; we had been out together, but never in connection with the other. Never an attraction there or the blooming of a better friendship… just common friends and hair.

We were alone and he kept trying to seduce me, but with one glass of wine and the aforementioned lack of interest – nothing. Sitting there with conditioner soaking into my hair he nibbles my neck and I say, “Stop!”

Over and over and over… he’d come in for the kill and I’d shove him away. He was persistent and when my hair was dried and done he pressed into me again.

I got pissed “I don’t want to fuck you!” I screamed.

Now all woman, don’t lie you do, have some kind of rape fantasies. Being thrown up against an alley wall by a handsome stranger and being ravished in his strong arms, helpless to do anything about it but give in?

This was NOT that.

I layed down on a bench, flipped up my skirt, I was angry. “You want to screw a woman who doesn’t want to screw you?” I asked, “Go ahead!”

And he did.

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By M. Hannington

Ah yes, the panty wars...

There was a time not long ago when a boy and his dog could set out in search of tail and things were simple. All it took was a look, a mere glance and BLAMMO a hot romp in the sheets ensued. But now (when wealthy athletes with mistresses bring shouts of "horror!") it takes concise planning and strategy and of course...

The correct choice of man panties.

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By Mary Hannington

I love the story about Shere Hite’s conversion to the feminist movement.

Her modeling agency sent her to do a TV commercial for Olivetti typewriters. "They were teasing my hair into some ridiculous beehive thing," she recalls. Hite had assumed she had gotten the part because of her typing skills, but as it turned out that was not the case. Olivetti’s new slogan was “The typewriter that's so smart she doesn't have to be".

She read about some women that were picketing Olivetti and joined them, then joined the National Organization for Women and went on to publish the Hite Report.

When I first read this book I already knew the main point to be true. That it was much easier to find satisfaction through masturbation than having "traditional sex" and that most men (back then merely boys) had no idea how to turn women on. Though once I learned I would continue to teach them!

I won't go into that first non-traditional experience, but it was incredibly empowering.

I also remember a conversation with a catholic girlfriend (the only virgin I knew!) in college, who questioned her older sister and I on the topic of masturbation. The nuns at school had taught her that even touching her inner thigh was a sin. Her sister and I smiled at each other and I knew that the two of them would be having a long talk.

This was only some 25 years ago kids! And still today according to Catholic law if you whack off and then die you’re going straight to hell. Since surveys show 95% of American males masturbate and 70% of females do, it’s going to be a crowded place.

The talk happened, but not until after I launched into my “Fish on Friday” lecture and how absurdist religious practices can be. There is nothing in the bible that says you HAVE to fast and meat is as plentiful as fish in modern times, yet millions of Americans sat down to a plate of fish and chips on Friday believing that it brought them closer to God.

It was sheer stupidity!

Christian preachers the world over have condemned masturbation mainly because of an unknown Greek word in the bible. “Malakoi arsenokoitai” is mentioned by Paul in I Corinthians 6:9 as being one of the sins that will send you to hell. Malakoi means soft or fine and early interpretations translated “Malakoi arsenokoitai” to mean soft morals. It was only later that Christians took this (conveniently) to refer to masturbation or homosexuality.

The other rationale was that some guy named Onan, who was forced under some archaic Jewish tribal tradition to marry his brother’s wife and engage in sex with her. Not wishing to impregnate his new wife Onan pulled out early and spilled his seed on the ground making God mad. So poof he killed him. At one time the practice of masturbation was referred to as Onanism.

There is a reason this term fell out of use with the church. If anyone today suggested that brothers ought to be forced to marry their brother’s widows in order to have sex with them and continue the family line AND that if they didn't they’d piss off God we’d have a LATIN word for that.

Insanus!

Shere Hite’s book immediately came under attack by the Christian right as somehow being anti-family. While I don’t think that anyone these days believes that learning to achieve sexual pleasure would destroy the relationship between men and women, some men still see it as a threat to their masculinity and some women still fake orgasms.

Women's rights are still under threat from the Christian right, who preach abstinence and ban the use of birth control for their flock as much as they are by the Islamic extremists, who wrap us in Burqas that cover our whole bodies. When groups see women’s bodies as threats or impure and Hillary’s cleavage is headline news surely it is a sign that the world needs a system of values, based on secular human rights and not silly superstitions.

Hite was one of the women that pointed out to early feminists that wearing lipstick was not necessarily incompatible with feminism. There is pleasure to be derived in being found attractive to a man that doesn’t conflict with feminism’s goals of equality.

Because of her we know that women are much more sexually complex than men. There has been much confirmation that clitoral stimulation and so called G-spot stimulation provide altogether different types of sensations. Many women can experience such intense pleasure from arousal and vaginal stimulation that an orgasm is not necessary for them to feel satisfied, but for most of us Hite's theories have proved true.

And all in all we are much more familiar with our bodies and the spots that make us hot.

She alone raised the idea that what happens during sex is part of the equality and fairness that feminism was seeking, that it is a human right.

*****

This 2006 article by Bryan Appleyard brought a firestorm of support behind Hite.

Bryan Appleyard on Hite

Why Appleyard is writing Science columns I have no idea. He seems to like listening to his own voice more than he does presenting any scientific ideas whatsoever. His take on Darwinism is below:

Bryan Appleyard on Darwin

After the sexual revolution of the 70's, women and men may feel freer to experiment sexually, but women still appear to need some sort of emotional attachment to their partners.

44 per cent of men said they actually prefer no-strings sex, compared to 17 per cent of women -Cosmopolitan 2005

UK Public Health Encourages Masturbation

And of course the folks in Europe are a little less Puritan about it all.

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By M. Hannington

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

- Frank Herbert, Dune. Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.

When Farah Fawcett died this week I was reminded of seeing "Burning Bed" and being glad that the bastard burned, but it never dawned on me back then that I would ever face such an ordeal or anything remotely like it.

It wasn’t completely true.

There are plenty of men willing to use force to control women. I’ve been held down or pushed into the dark corner of a bar, forced to go along until grips loosened and I could escape. My hand has been made to feel hard-ons and I've felt strangers hands in subways, crowded dance floors and concert mosh pits where escape was near to impossible.

On a primal level, women are most afraid of men using their brute force, but at the same time that strength is often a turn on.

It is something to be worked out in the bedroom and not by strangers in a night club, unless of course you dig that sort of thing.

In our reptilian brains, fear and sex are closely related. Psychologists believe that this is because in our primitive past having sex left one open to predators and so went hand in hand with fear.

Making a double backed beast out in the open where giant crocodiles like Sarcosuchus imperator , whose 5 foot long jaws could swallow you whole was indeed a risky romp.

I have come to realize that I’m a risk taker and I have been for a long, long time. Fear is something I have always romanced.

When dad first pretended to toss me over the observation wall at the Wilson Dam in Muscle Shoals, he not only gave me my first delight of fear, but also managed to totally freak out mom.

It started with climbing ever higher in trees and exploring abandoned places that other children wouldn’t dare. I scaled steep cliffs, tried my hand at the trapeze and tight rope and did back flips off high dives.

I loved that buzz so close to sexual arousal. The horror movie tension…

Red herring, red herring… and then, when you’re not expecting it, WHAM drooling alien with metal teeth.

Shiver!

Guys if you haven’t figured out why the haunted house is the best date event at the amusement park you’re a little slow on the uptake.

I also tried every drug known to man. Qualudes, Reds, Speed, Pot – Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, Hashish & THC, Opium, Heroine, ‘Shrooms, Blotter Acid, Mescaline, Window Pane, Peyote, and Cocaine. And later Crack before it was called Crack (and I won’t ever go there again).

It was mostly the thrill of the unknown and not the drug’s effect that I was seeking.

By the time I made it to college my grades had suffered, but for the most part I had satiated my curiosity and there was nothing much left to try.

And it was upwards academically from there.

My next fearful exploit became “trestling”, where you sat on the stone wall of a trestle bridge and waited for a train to fly past merely inches away from your face.

We’d scream our bloody heads off knowing that a loose part traveling at 60 mph could turn you to sludge in an instant, but we'd do it again and again.

I once met a student from Kent State at the trestle, an ultimate Frisbee player like me, who had lain on the tracks and let the train pass over him.

The way he described the ordeal and was so open about his fear… Needless to say I was smitten, but long distance college relationships often fizzle and outside of some love letters it went no farther.

There was diving off rock cliffs and into the black waters of a gravel pit. An abandoned place, near to where I lived in Lansing, it was not only a way to cool off on a hot night, but swimming naked and alone on moonless nights was delightfully scary and a Zen thing at the same time.

Years later while attending the broadcast conventions in Las Vegas I discovered “Der Stuka” and “Bomb Bay” water slides on the Vegas strip. To ride "Bomb Bay" you entered a capsule, crossed your legs at the ankles, wrapped up your arms and the operator opened a trap door and sent you plummeting on an almost vertical 76 foot free fall.

On the way down I was sure I was going to die. No human being should ever EVER travel that fast!

I did it over and over.

For years I often had my lunch and a sunbath on a two-foot ledge, eight stories off the ground. Knowing that when I moved to recline or to get off that a slight slip could send me plunging.

I loved it!

BUT being a risk taker also meant I tended to trust people I barely knew.

This sometimes proved problematic and men often had expectations that I was unwilling to meet.

Unfortunately, some men will never understand that “No means no!” and women are always going to have to deal with that.

Luckily, smarts got me through those situations.

I was able to give one overly gropey fellow the slip after yelling “Hey you just loosened my wooden leg!”

And I’m still waiting to use the Alka Seltzer and water trick, where you let loose with some foamy drool.

Sure to stop even the most arduous.

Psychologists say that what men fear most in relationships is the witch who uses her feminine wiles to trap them. And in looking at serial killers; the female variety tend to trap and use poison on intimates, while the male tend to hunt and stalk strangers. Unfortunately, women are more likely to be killed by intimates than by strangers.

Women fear the brute and men the trickster.

In both cases what we fear is a loss of control, but sometimes that's also the very thing that turns you on. Making relationships tricky things. One can never assume that the shy librarian will be docile in the bedroom or that the football jock doesn't long to be tied up.

Relinquishing control is okay if there exists the one thing that any relationship requires and that is trust.

Without that, force will most likely only produce the kind of body tensing fear that nobody likes to feel. And afterall, shouldn't nookie be equated with getting loose?

That kind of fear almost always leads in my case to the fight instinct and when faced with a big strong man it is not always the right approach.

I once used a well aimed kick to end a stream of emotional abuse and was sorry for it afterwards. It made me no better than the abuser. There are 5.3 million women in America that face this dilemma all the time and while I may have fun with fear I would never want to join their ranks.

BUT if love and life were bereft of risk, fun and rides on water slides, what good would it be?

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By Matthew Storey

Lately (the past forty five years or so...), I've been ruminating on the fault lines in the crust of American life. The ones that continue to shake our foundations before we can build them back up.

The ones that drove some on the Left to remove LBJ in 1968, and thus allow the transition from the champion of 'The Great Society' towards Richard Nixon. These same lines are with us today and can be seen from Howard Dean to Michelle Obama, both of whom, on some level, do not share their Presidents easy facility with the heirs to LBJ.

The ones that drove some Religious fundamentalists to agitate FOR 'Separation of Church and State' when JFK was about to become President, for fear of his Catholicism...then towards prohibition of inter-racial relationships when Civil Rights made open racism less societally acceptable, then towards condemnation of the Gay and the Sexually Independent Single Woman and, finally...in the current climate, not only towards eradication of 'Separation of Church and State' but towards Taliban-style 'Biblical Law'!

The ones that drove working class Americans to vote for anti-working class Presidential candidates like Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and who rally to Sarah Palin.

Why is it that, 233 years after 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal', 144 years after Emancipation, 133 years after 'Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free', 89 years after Women's Suffrage, 64 years after The Holocaust, 44 years after The Civil Rights Act, 40 years after Stonewall and 35 years after Roe V. Wade...

We are STILL grappling with Race, with Gender, with Anti-Semitism, with Sexuality, with Homophobia...?

Why are Americans, amongst the most privileged and successful peoples on Earth, moving AWAY from Education and towards Faith, in large numbers and why has 'Anti-Intellectualism' that was the hallmark of Reagan, become so ingrained in much of our National fiber?

One of the strangest dualities in American life happened during the 2004 Presidential campaign.

A man left Yale and headed directly to Vietnam, where he assumed a small command and saw his equally privileged best friend and fellow Yalie, killed. While in the Navy, this man was superficially wounded on three occasions during combat and received three Purple Hearts, he successfully led his command ('A Swift Boat', PCF94 and two other vessels) in a victorious engagement, which resulted in a Silver Star and received a Bronze Star for his actions that resulted in the rescue of an injured Green Beret.

When he left the service, he advocated for the end of the war he'd seen firsthand, and used his educational skill and depth of knowledge to bring the matter before the United States Senate. As he spoke to the Senators, one of the senior members of that body, Howard Baker of Tennesee, commented that he's someday expect to see the young man as a MEMBER of that institution.

At that point, he began his career in the law and politics, eventually leading to his election to the Senate. Upon his election, as a Liberal Democrat in the largest Conservative landslide in American History (1984), he stated that his service would"emphatically reject the politics of selfishness and the notion that women must be treated as second-class citizens."

In 2004, appalled by the Bush administration and seasoned for the effort, this man ran for President.

He was broadly condemned, by the right as having a trumped up military career, for being an 'Intellectual' and for supporting Union workers, minorities, women's rights, reproductive rights, progressive taxation and other causes that marked him as one of the Senate's most liberal members. He was broadly condemned, by the left, for being wealthy, for having served in the Military and for having been 'hawkish' in supporting military intervention in the Middle East after Americans were attacked and killed on domestic soil. His opponent in the Democratic primary, when vanquished, identified this man, the aforementioned champion of liberal policy and former Anti-War leader as being 'almost a Republican'.

His opponent was another man who'd gone to Yale, was born to privilege and spent time in the Military. This man had not been engaged in the Vietnam combat, but served his time in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard units. He was a vigorous proponent of the Vietnam war and openly contemptuous of the Anti-War movement that existed at Yale. He tried his hand at business and ran, unsuccessfully for Congress. His father then was elected Vice President for two terms and President for one, when the Father was defeated in his re-election campaign, the son ran for Governor of Texas and his lead campaign adviser, a man named Karl Rove, alleged his opponent, the sitting Governor, Ann Richards, who had, famously said of the man's father 'he was born with a silver foot in his mouth' was a closeted Lesbian who had 'appointed activist homosexuals to State Jobs' (horrors!).

The man won that election and another in 1998, before running for and winning the Presidency in 2000, despite losing the overall vote by 500,000 votes. During his first term in office, the United States was attacked and 3,000 Americans died on home soil, while the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon burned from the attack. The man responded by invading Iraq, a non-combatant in the attack, who were led by a man who'd insulted and threatened the man's father during the earlier Gulf War during HIS Presidency. He also dramatically lowered taxes for the wealthiest Americans, extended government surveillance of its citizens, blacklisted political opponents and created a 'no-fly' list that was entirely secret and in-actionable that denied American citizens the right to fly, advocated for fundamentalist religious causes and moved the United States away from the digitally-based economy of the 1990's towards a commodity based model that concentrated on Oil and Gas, extraction industries, homebuilding and a broad de-regulation of industry and finance. Upon his election, he embraced the Wealthiest 'Have-Mores' as being 'my base'.

He was broadly loved by the Right for being a man of 'faith', 'strong' on Defense, proud of America and its ideals and a champion of lower taxes for the Wealthiest. He was held in contempt by the Left, who recognized him as an enemy born, but could not embrace the opponent whose every activity defined him as a champion of the opposition.

The latter man won the election, not the least of which, because many felt that he was 'somebody you could have a beer with'. He did this despite a series of televised 'Debates', in which, his opponent demonstrated such an easy facility with the subject matter in comparison to his own that it beggared belief and left the electoral winner in a petulant, childish mode that got worse with each successive drubbing.

But, in America, that guy - WON.

His administration would go on to allow the City of New Orleans to be destroyed and abandoned, escalate the failing conflict in the Middle East while diverting Billions of Dollars to firms previously controlled by the Vice President, alienate most of the World, so much so that his travels abroad, to allies and enemies alike, featured rabid protests of thousands of people...at the conclusion of his two terms as President, the National Surplus had been spent and a deficit existed that was close to 1 Trillion Dollars, the US Dollar, worth more than the Euro when he was elected, was now worth 66 cents to the Euro and the Markets had plunged to their lowest levels in 15 years, the housing market has surged, then crashed, forcing the Government to inject billions of dollars of taxpayer funds into the banks and Millions of people lost their jobs.

The exceptional man, who lost the election, remained in the Senate.

The guy who folks wanted to have a beer with, went into retirement and began to focus his energies on raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his Presidential Library.

Why would a free people choose thusly? What does it say about us?

On April 6, 2009, the New York Yankees opened their season at Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles stadium, in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore is a small, Urban City (20th Largest in the US, about 650,000 people) that is surrounded by much larger suburban populations in an 8 Million Person Metroplex that also includes, Washington, DC. Baltimore is a city that has lost nearly half its population since World War II and it's population is 64% Black, 32% white and has a small Hispanic population (about 2.5%). The average citizen of Baltimore is Working Class ($30,000). More than 23% of Baltimore lives below the Poverty Line.

One of the new Yankee players was born nearby, in a place called Severna Park, Maryland, the small suburb has a population of about 30,000 people and is 92% White, with smatterings of Blacks (3.3%) and less than 2% Hispanics. The average citizen of Severna Park is Middle Class ($70,000). Less than 2% of Severna Park lives below the Poverty line.

During the previous Winter, as the player, an acknowledged 'Star', shopped his services, he chose not to go to play in Baltimore, near his hometown, but rather to accept a big-money, long-term contract to play for the New York Yankees, in The Bronx, a Borough of New York City. The Bronx is home to approximately 1.4 Million people, 51% of whom are Hispanic, 32% Black and 21% White. The average citizen of The Bronx is Working Class ($27,000). More than 31% of The Bronx lives below the Poverty Line.

When the player was introduced in Baltimore, fans from Severna Park held up signs that said;

'Severna Park HATES you!' and others held up signs with sentiments ranging from '$ellout' to 'Traitor'.

These examples illustrate fault lines in American society that defy easy understanding.

The President who proceeded Bush, Jr. and followed Bush, Sr., was a poor kid with a single mother who grew up on the fringes of society, but managed, through intellect and effort, to elevate himself in his own lifetime to the pinnacles of academic achievement, professional accomplishment, power and wealth. The President who SUCCEEDED Bush, Jr., was a poor biracial kid with a single mother who grew up on the fringes of society, but managed, through intellect and effort, to elevate himself in his own lifetime to the pinnacles of academic achievement, professional achievement, power and wealth.

Many who champion the first of these men, distrust the second.

And vice versa.

The differences in policy and the structure of basic beliefs between the vanquished candidate and the two who became President, are not substantial.

The reactions to them are dramatically different.

The ballplayer, from Lily White Severna Park, inspires rage...NOT from the inner-city folks who are struggling, but from comfortable suburbanites who feel a sense of entitlement. Something has shifted from 'Local boy makes good, to play with historic Yankees' as proud Baltimore felt towards that favorite son whose statue graces their beautiful city as well as the Yankees Monument Park and the Hall of Fame, a fellow named Babe Ruth...to the diatribes on those Severna Park signs.

There is something IN THERE, something like 'you OWE us', that makes what the player himself described as an easy decision 'anyone in my position would make' (playing for a franchise dedicated to the best of everything and relentlessly focused on winning, while paying millions of dollars more, rather than one who've experienced 11 straight losing seasons and seen their once proud brand tarnish in the process) seem like betrayal and be portrayed as somehow malicious.

And there's something more. Those Hispanic Bronx residents, who are making less than half of the income they are taking home in Severna Park, are NOT up in arms about the ballplayers salary and they do NOT feel like something is being taken from them. They feel like things are getting better and the future holds MORE opportunity, not less.

Disparate circumstances and diametrically opposed reactions, despite the reality of those circumstances.

Tough to Grok.

Guru grew up about as non-traditionally as either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, which is to say, there ain't a lot of 'tradition' being talked about in relation to our common lifestyles, but there sure are a lot of us who've lived it that way. I was never taught that I was due anything because of my lily-white visage and it took me into my twenties before I realized that didn't matter, because people around me sometimes held me in esteem simply BECAUSE of my fair hair, pale skin and manner of expression.

Then, later in my career arc, I was in line for a position with a progressive advocacy group and the multi-racial, lesbian from the University of Chicago, who was 'The Decider' let me know, directly, that she felt it would send the wrong 'signal' to put me in the position, but she was anxious to have me donate my contributions to the organization in a pro-bono capacity. I wouldn't need pay, because that would be inappropriate somehow, to her.

Later I heard they hired someone for the position. A multi-racial, lesbian, who'd attended the University of Chicago with 'The Decider'. She was paid what the job warranted.

Us versus Them is the same game, regardless whose calling who by the titles. After a fashion, it is possible to see the latter circumstance as a healthy balance to the earlier ones, but in reality, BOTH are equally insidious and detrimental to this American experiment we've been trying to get going since the Enlightenment.

Ideas like MERIT, FREEDOM, EQUALITY...the sorts that drive this project and this Guru, are getting crossed up in the mix of racial, cultural, sexual identities that Americans hold closest to their hearts.

I've got a friend, a good friend, who despite his intellect and life experience (he's from an Orthodox Jewish family who lost many family and friends in Poland during the holocaust and he lives with a black woman from the Ghetto who has four kids and receives public assistance) is openly Homophobic and reacts with ANGER at the suggestion that Homosexuality can no longer be condemned in polite conversation and has been removed from the list of Psychiatric disorders (36 years ago!). He screeches to me that 'Homosexuality is a Pathology' (which was the Psychiatric excuse for homophobia until 1973) and claims its removal from the DSM (Diagnostic Manual) is a result of 'all the faggots who became shrinks!'. His girlfriend, who has dealt with racism her whole life, forcefully agreed with the blacks who voted FOR Obama and AGAINST Proposition 8 in California. Both of them feel, on some level, that full acceptance of the Gay is somehow a reduction in their OWN status.

To me, that's all just bullshit, an excuse for hatred.

The rationalizations are always artful and always phony.

There is something about RACE and CULTURE that drives sane people crazy, and I must say, I have no idea what they are thinking about. It is alien to me and, for all my efforts to understand the rage and sense of displacement that is so GLARINGLY obvious (take a look at the crowd at a Palin rally or go onto her Facebook page and read what you find...), I still can't really connect with what these folks are feeling.

I don't have any answers for any of this. I live as I always have, totally INSPIRED by these American 'ideals' and totally bewildered by the widespread disconnect between the ideals and the perceptions of so many Americans, on both sides of the Electoral Aisle.

What do YOU think? I'd love to know...

Posted by Matthew at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Storey

'Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.'

Boethius, 'The Consolation of Philosophy', 524 AD

'You little slut'

John William Hines, Husband, affectionately, to Wife in Fort Worth, Texas Trailer Park

'If a guy's wife ISN'T a slut...he's gonna be needing a new wife'

LaHoma Hines - Wife, in response

'I hate to quote Andrew Dice Clay, but I completely agree with him on this one; "There is no bisexual, either you suck Cock or you do NOT suck Cock." By the way, I'm gay too.'

Gay Man 'Bronco69' in Bisexuality Forum, Online

'I'm not a TV anchor babe. I'm a big lesbian who looks like a man'

Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

'Drag is when a man wears everything a lesbian won't.'

Author Unknown

'... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.'

Paul Newman

'One should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness.'

Towards a Quaker View of Sex

'Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS from giving money to television preachers?'

Elayne Boosler

'Trust a nitwit society like this one to think that there are only two categories - fag and straight.'

Gore Vidal

'The world is not divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.'

Alfred Kinsey, 'Sexual Behavior in the Human Male', 1948

'Bisexuality is a blessing and a curse, but viewing it as a schizophrenia will make you insane.... I am not a whole person with split desires: I am a whole person with desire. As everyone is, regardless.'

Agavé Powers

'Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.'

Harvey Fierstein

'There is just one life for each of us: our own.'

Euripides

'Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.'

Dr. Seuss

'The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.'

Friedrich Nietzsche

I've written parts of this column in other forums, and been mulling this particular one over the past few weeks...on the one hand, there is SO much to say about this topic, and on the other - I don't believe there is really much to say at all. That is why the quotes I've included are, for the most part, truisms that apply to every aspect of a person's identity, INCLUDING one's sexuality.

Human Beings are assembled 'a la carte' ('according to the menu'), which is to say that one's eye color, skin color, dominant hand, gender and sexual preferences cannot be ascertained through the knowledge of the other elements. Seeing an order of French Fries does not logically lead to an assumption it is part of 'Combo Meal #5', the odds may say it came with a Hamburger, but that will only make you wrong every time it didn't. You shouldn't 'play the odds' with other people's identity, anything they need you to know - they will tell you.

Unfortunately, in America of 2009, the Digital Age has had a counter-intuitive impact. Surrounded, instantaneously, with more Data than at any other time in Human history, the trend has moved NOT towards in-depth analysis and 'long form' thinking, as one might have surmised. Rather it has resulted in an America that admires quick determinations, choosing to process the deluge efficiently, if not accurately or well understood. As with every trend, we see it reflected in our culture...on TV, 'The Mentalist' processes body-language and circumstantial clues to make sweeping determinations in an eye-blink...the show is such a hit, it has inspired a copy-cat - 'Lie to Me', wherein a guy with a Robert Conrad like Battery on his shoulder (does anyone still get that archaic reference?) DARES people to disguise their true selves from his all-knowing knowledge of humanity.





At the same time, in a political climate that has evolved into three camps;
The screeching right, embodied by the feudalists, FOX, Rush, the Gun nuts, the Holy Rollers and the bigots...

The nanny left, represented by MSNBC, the Anti-War crusaders, the Anti-Capitalist crusaders, the ELF, ALF, PETA, Act-Up...

The undefined middle, whose 135 Million voices require subtlety and nuance to be understood, which, as indicated, takes too much time.

The result of which, even the network that could be loosely defined as being in the 'middle' (CNN) actually does not discuss most topics from that perspective, but simply brings on screechers and nannies to DEBATE.

John Kerry discovered how little interest Americans have in a discussion that does not break down into ONE or ANOTHER point of view. Barack Obama, has thus far managed, brilliantly, to allow others to interpret him according to their own fantasies and then, having gained their trust without deceit, precedes to do what he believes is right - often conflicting DIRECTLY with those fantasies. It is why you will hear people say all the time 'I feel betrayed' when he leans one way or the other, not because of what he SAID, but because of what they INTUITED to be what he 'meant'.





For Americans, Sex, like Race, Faith and Money is one of the 'Four Assumptions of the Apocalypse'. Which is to say that these issues, none of which is the least bit complicated, have so been hijacked by polarized positions of flawed conventional wisdom that truth becomes impossible, lest society be forced to abandon the roles we've played since OJ.

The 'Red' Team and the 'Blue' Team. 'They' believe this, 'We' believe that.

Only there is NO SUCH THING as 'Teams', we are not a nation of groupings, no matter how hard some would wish it to be so. There is no 'Straight' team or 'Gay' team, Democrats and Republicans do not break down neatly into categorical separation, some women like Hillary, others Sarah, still others Barack...there is no 'female' view, 'black' view or 'Catholic' view.

'There aint no good guy, there aint no bad guy, there's only you and me and we just disagree'

Dave Mason

Or agree! The point is we are all individuals and ALL assembled from a different batter.

As always, my basic approach is always to identify my own biases and to provide auto-biographical detail that fleshes them out. Given the topic area - this is NOT designed to tittilate OR offend, if sexual frankness and BLUNT honesty are difficult for you - hit that 'X' up top and go in peace. Furthermore, I speak about my OWN sexuality to be understood, not from a sense of obligation - because as far as I believe, none exists.

My most fervent belief is the only sex life one should venture an opinion upon is one's own.

Going Both Ways

Guru is an 'Out' Bisexual.

If he was in the 'Watchmen', he'd be all over Silk Spectre AND Dr. Manhattan and he'd look hot in the Spandex to both of them. He engages in 3 dimensional Emotional and Sexual relationships with women, as a man and enjoys role playing in a feminine, submissive role with men, typically brief and anonymously. Ideally with my female lover involved in our play. When I was younger, the women I loved were able to identify with my sexuality, enjoying both my masculine and feminine selves, as I got older, it became harder and harder to find a straight or bisexual woman who wasn't turned-off by it.





The world got more conservative, just as it did in regard to the body conscious clothing this former Stripper prefers...being a Bi Male and being a Male who shows off his ass became about as 'Out' as they could be. Kinda of a drag, when that's YOUR thing! Guru is a serious ballplayer and knew who he was sexually when he was 14, by the time I was 16, I was a dominant talent in the Men's League where I used to play. Dealing with a mouthy kid wearing skin-tight outfits that showed off his body and bludgeoned your team on the field, all the while shaking it and talking smack was a challenge for many of the boy-boys in the league. One guy always derisively called me 'Pretty Boy' and damn if I didn't hit more L-O-N-G Home Runs against his team than any other...nothing in the WORLD beats shaking your hot ass as you S-L-O-W-L-Y trot around his Third Base position on into the knowing/laughing/loving arms of your hot Girlfriend waiting on the bench.

How you like me now, Richie?

Being Bisexual has echoes of being Mulatto in the America we've just described. If everybody can be broken down into 'teams', how to think about those who, by definition, cannot be?

When confronted with the REALITY of a mixed-race son of a Kenyan Father and White Kansas Mother, a collective decision was made to reframe the candidate's identity in terms of what could be easily identified in his look. He became America's first 'Black' President.

Faced with the REALITY of a Mulatto teammate, when seeking to claim racism in Yankees management, baseball player, Gary Sheffield, claimed that Derek Jeter remained favored because he 'was not really Black'. Derek, of course, has the same White Mother/Black Father mix as Barack.

For whatever reason, it is necessary that his blackness, or insufficient blackness, be his identity. Even though that is NOT his identity.

As a Bisexual, you learn pretty quickly that the Right is repulsed by those elements that are homosexual and the Left demonizes you for being insufficiently so!

On the Right, Flamboyant Homosexuality is Society's indication of dysfunction and Flamboyant Heterosexuality is a sign of vigorous good health. On the Left, Flamboyant Homosexuality is a vigorously championed right of expression and Flamboyant Heterosexuality?

Society's indication of dysfunction!





Only stop me if I say something that isn't true.

Bisexuality is the ONLY topic known to unite the positions of Neanderthal Mysogynyst Andrew Dice Clay with those of Politically Active Feminists. Where 'Dice' says 'you either suck cock or you don't' in his disavowal of Bisexual EXISTENCE, the Feminist lobby decries the closeted armies of Bi-Men who go off to play their 'Down-Low' games before making it home to wife or girlfriend. In this conception, on the Right, a person who DOES Suck Cock cannot claim to also Lick Pussy (and, it should be noted, millions of bi men do NOT like cock and millions of straight men do NOT lick pussy!). On the Left, a man who claims to be Bisexual is an insufficiently brave Gay man, whose unwillingness to declare boldly for the 'Team' deprives the cause of needed advocates.

What both fail to grasp is that Bisexual men use the closet NOT because they like cock (or having their cock handled by other men, dressed as women or not) - that does not come as a source of conflict for the overwhelming majority of bisexual men, but rather because they like PUSSY. A man who is openly Bisexual becomes a dual pariah, to Gay and Straight alike - and, upon declaration, seriously undermines his ability to 'get any'. Guru is still a hottie, although an older one, and women are as scarce in my life as is hair. NOT because I don't love them as much as I ever did.

The result? Instead of being a Bisexual, getting off on both sides of the gender line, I've been living the one lifestyle that nobody on the sexual continuum wishes to play...

The Involuntary Celibate!





Is that Bisexual man more dishonest than the woman he is dating, who has had sex with multiple men herself, not revealing those details to HER partner? Debatable. Is that the way the issue is framed - as having roughly equal merits on either side?

Please.

Disease. Violence. Economics.

Those are not issues that have to do with Sexuality.

In cases when any of them IS what is going on, then Sex is not the reason. Disease prevention is a HEALTH issue and an EDUCATION issue, period. Violence towards or coercion of the unwilling is a criminal issue requiring law enforcement.

Economics were originally the driving force behind much of the Women's Liberation Movement, as women sought to decouple their lives in the bedroom from their assigned roles in society. Go back and read the letters section from an early '70s Womens magazine or 'My Secret Garden' , the groundbreaking compilation of Women's Sexual fantasies from that same period. What you will hear is long-form, whereas those same publications today will publish a half dozen letters of a paragraph or less on a single page, these women write in detail and nuance, feeling their way around their newfound freedom, embracing whatever they are aroused by, not shying from the destination because they refuse to be defined externally.

What you will NOT find, in the hundreds of stories, is a sense of economic entitlement or extension of the sexual realm into the cultural. These were women who were FLEEING from those sorts of entanglements and they were the women that I learned from, understood and prepared to love on.

By the time I was a man, they were also a dwindling resource as Reaganite '50s Fantasies created new hybrids of female expectation and a new generation of feminists, never having known economic subjugation adopted formerly male senses of personal identification with their economic circumstance and looked at everything, including their sexual partnerships, with that lens in mind.

Sex is not love. Sex is how you make yourself cum. Sex with yourself is still Sex. Sex with a partner when you DON'T cum is still sex (because I am guessing you will make yourself cum later, you sly devil!).

It takes courage to come out. That is a DIFFERENT courage for Bisexuals than it is for Gays or Lesbians. Gays or Lesbians declare for one of the 'teams' and are then welcomed, 'Survivor - like' by one or the other tribe and equally reviled by the other. A Bisexual declaration is akin to an admission that you will not EVER be suitable for the team, in its particulars.

'Gee, Guru...um, that's great... I guess'.

One dear friend, reconnecting with Guru after 25 years, who is a brilliant academic and a feminist responded to my identification with 'at least you're not living a lie', made me feel all warm inside.

Nobody gives you a hug for being Bi, you are not perceived as 'brave', but rather duplicitous, maybe even in denial!

See the Dr. Seuss quote up top for guidance on dealing with those responses.





This, That, The Other Thing...

In summary, Guru is going to break down literally EVERYTHING you need to know about 'The Sex Iives of Other Americans' (and Race, Faith, Finances...but those are other columns!);

Some people are 'This', others are 'That'.

Many who are 'This' are attracted to 'That' and often, those who are 'That' also enjoy 'This'.

Some who are 'This', prefer others who are also 'This'. Some 'That' desire 'That'.

Others who are 'This' like 'This' AND 'That' and some 'That' like 'That' AND 'This'.

Some, like Guru, are 'This' and desire 'That' and also enjoy role playing as 'That' for others who are 'This', particularly when they can share the play (and underwear drawer!) with 'That' which they adore.

Others who are either 'This' or 'That', feel uncomfortable in those roles and experience themselves more as being 'That' or 'This'.

Then there is 'The Other Thing', which I have NO IDEA about...but the important thing to remember is...

Just worry about YOU and YOUR sex life, let others do their thing in peace, free of judgement or interrogation.

If we S-T-O-P exerting so much energy on social engineering that is doomed to failure, perhaps we could build some windmills, solar panels, new vehicles, space ships, robots or some other cool shit and then, when we're finished, instead of all this talking, opining and teeth gnashing...

We can all be happily fucking and sucking in the privacy of our own lives.

Sounds good to Guru.

Image Composites - Mary Hannington 2009

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I Genesis

‘I learned the truth at Seventeen…’
Janis Ian – ‘At Seventeen’

My 17th Birthday was August 10, 1980.

I celebrated it alone, in a tent somewhere in Southern New Hampshire.

I’d fallen in love with New England in the Winter, working in New Hampshire and Maine, the Teddy Kennedy campaign.

I’d fallen in love with Andrea that Spring, playing High School Baseball and being teammates with her Boyfriend, Dave.

Andrea was a camp counselor in Southern New Hampshire.

My first road trip, via Greyhound Bus, outstretched thumb and Chuck Taylor High-Tops. Being a literary type, I was over-the-top to make my pitch amidst great drama…not some coffee shop in Manhattan, but emerging from the woods, heart on my sleeve and mud-soaked Kerouac under the arm. Andrea was the first girl who had WANTED me, that was heady stuff back then (I assume it still is, though I cannot confirm as much). She was the sort of smart, savvy, lefty I imagined I might meet at Stuyvesant, and that fails to even account for the swivel. Or the fact she liked ballplayers.

Both were KEY.

She was hot and she thought I was too. That sent me on my adventure, planning, financing, executing, coping & returning by myself. That was huge as well. As an only child with a single parent, I’d flown and traveled by myself since I was ten, but I went where mom sent me, on her dime.

This was different.

II The Gospels

‘But then if you’re so smart, why are you still so afraid?’
Billy Joel – ‘Vienna’

Andrea went back to Dave, right before heading off to UCLA (lots of ballplayers). I went back to School.

Senior year. My life was about everything BUT school, and despite my dalliance with Andrea and the Baseball team, it didn’t occupy a lot of my energy. I was amiable and approachable, but distracted by life. It was hard to find common ground with many of my classmates over matters other than intellectual.

Working full-time in an Antique store, baby-sitting three nights a week for a pair of swingers who had two boys.

Heavy partier. A lifestyle I’d picked up from playing ball.

Gifted, I played with the men.

Men drink and smoke after the game.

So did I.

Booze and Books were everywhere in my house, always had been. It was a natural progression for me to take to them both.

I ran indoor track and made half-hearted attempts at my academics, but my self-study was destiny…I made history and English my home and audited the sciences as needed to answer questions that had arisen in my reading.

A student I wasn’t. More like an Alien visitor in such august academic surroundings. I was qualified, but didn’t belong.

I felt like the oldest teenager in the world.

One day in October, I was sneaking out onto 16th Street, ditching something critical, no doubt, when I saw the pretty girl I’d noticed the prior year.

She had a cast on her foot, and a swivel that displaced Andrea from my thoughts on sight.

Think Sanka - Instant.

That was Alice. She was 15, a Sophomore and a cutie to melt a wisened street urchin like me into puddles of self-conscious kid-hood.

Overnight, I loved being at school. I let my outside interests wane and checked in on my instructors more regularly, to contribute or to attempt invisibility (I didn’t have the Physics, but appreciated the irony).

Her friends became mine too. My friends met her friends. I had a peer group, of sorts, for probably the only time in my life.

We dated that November. She dumped my sorry ass a month later.

Which, of course, allowed me to play the poetic suitor and enable my true self in ways that scripted movie-nights never could.

She and I came back together at her Birthday Party, an adventure in teen angst and beery drama that lives on in the minds of many of us who were there.

She and I had more emotional honesty than I ever had again.

I could never figure out if that was because we were kids or in spite of it.

III Revelation

‘Happily ever after fails and we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales’
Don Henley – ‘The End of the Innocence’

When I started to write this remembrance, I was riffing on the re-establishment of some precious ties from those days gone by.

At first, I looked back in the haze of middle-aged pining…Baseball friends, urban adventures. road trips, boozy failures and beautiful, soulful girls with well worn library cards and subtle curves crafted in some higher place…

1980 was so many things for me. The end of childhood crossing over the only childhood I recall. I was never an ‘innocent’ in the conventional sense, an old soul, even then.

Had seen and done more than I enjoyed running back over…

The parts of being a kid that I might have missed entirely - I tasted that year, and in parts of two more before adult life crashed upon my damaged tangle of selves.

But the lingering memory of Seventeen isn’t a sweet one.

November 4, 1980.

That would have been my current roomies 10th Birthday.

Her mom’s birthday is December 7, 1941 and her sister? March 15th.

That Tuesday belongs in company with the “Day of Infamy’ and the ‘Ides of March’, just hasn’t got a catchy moniker.

It was ‘Bowling Night’ for a group of Upper East Side guys who had recruited me to be a ‘ringer’ on their Softball team, playing under the lights beneath the Queensboro Bridge. They were regular guys, a cross-section of city types, the youngest several years older than I.

They’d put together the idea of a Bowling team so we’d get used to hanging around together and be closer during the season to come (it worked, we won a Championship on the night I left 17 behind…). Bowling wasn’t really my speed, but there was cold beer and winsome waitresses. I survived.

The trouble that night wasn’t in the alleys.

It was on the TV.

I was the first person in my family to be born in the North. Mom and Dad were from Texas and mom’s family was fundamentalist, for the most part, spread across Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Dallas area. My sensitive parents were traumatized by their Texas lives, they came to NYC so I would grow up amongst diversity, intellectual curiosity, secularity. I did, I was bred to be the creature I became.

All my life, I’d gone to visit the family and noted their peculiar take on faith and culture, so alien to my life in Manhattan and enlightenment influences.

I thought it was benign, even the racial stuff.

I would hear the homophobia and the comments about single women, the demeaning of sexuality, the snide remarks about the sorts of body conscious clothes I wore and rationalize their mindset as an anachronism that wouldn’t be around to do any damage in the ‘future’.

That was the night all that changed forever.

The night Ronald Reagan became President.

The night my parents careful plans to leave the nightmare of the past safely behind in Texas while learning to be prepared for the ‘real world’ blew up and my Texas cousins were suddenly the ones on the ‘path’.

That night, at Seventeen, the real world became that feudalist, racist, homophobic place that I thought stayed behind in Texas when we flew home.

It wasn’t going to be a great time to be sexually charged, have a fiery intellect or be a blue collar radical. In fact, it was going to be the worst time to be exactly who I was. Space exploration was out and the Moral Majority was in. I retreated from class, into my chemicals and my girl…starred briefly on the field before flunking off my team and taking a GED to leave school on time.

A few years later, in 1984, the first year I could vote…68% of those in my age group voted for Reagan.

I’d been in tune with the world when I turned 17, but needed to learn more about myself. When I turned 18, I knew just who I was, but had lost the world.

I was 29 before it seemed real again. 37 when the Twilight Zone returned.

Now I’m 45 and we’ve got another chance to live in the real and say goodbye to the fantasy lives of cretins.

I hope it happens.

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