Catching Up

I know I haven't written in a month pretty much exactly. Here is the news. I have so enjoyed having my son around that I worry that when he leaves that I will miss him more than I have a right to. Being quasi Buddhist the attachment thing can be a struggle sometimes. I know worrying about it isn't going to change the outcome but having a preference sets me up for disappointment. So I am determined to be in the moment.

Mr. Atheist and the Griffin have been having issues but I try not to be senseless and really pick sides if I can. They will work it out or they won't it is up to them.

Mad Science has dipped back into the kink world and had a good beating. Seeing the marks, left me feeling a tiny bit jealous. Here is one more thing I have given up that he now must find elsewhere. It suits my theory that no one person can be everything to another. Aaaand choosing what works for me, does mean I am taking care of myself but I still wonder how many of these things can a relationship take. But it is why we are poly, I suppose, not just for the intimacy but for all facets of relating.

I can be happy for him in his enjoyment and new friends but did need a little reassurance that he does love me. Having said that, I have to note that I am going to Profs for the week of wifery. We haven't seen each other much in the last two months because my car has no air conditioning and he hasn't had the money. Which has been stressful everything seems a bit unstable. The engineer kept him late making a lasagna for his folks and so I didn't get to see him the first day he arrived. Yesterday we all went to see Monsters University as a family. I felt like a queen surrounded by my guys Prof on one side, Mad Science on the other and the Jedi only a seat away.

It's also the first time since he's been here that I will be away from the Jedi for any length of time so that will feel odd.

All things considered things are great and I know rationally that nothing lasts forever but it is a good irritation to remind me to hold life lightly. I must remember that impermanence is real and grasping hold of things I want to keep, holds me back spiritually.

And now for something completely different

As I have nothing to rail against today and am in a particularly good mood I think I will keep it short and leave you with this to look at. And yes I made this, Link from Zelda is my next project. Have a great weekend everyone and do something fun like roll down a grassy hill or have a picnic.

The battle to be right

http://www.upworthy.com/wow-fox-newswoman-lays-epic-smackdown-on-fox-newsmen-for-obvious-and-blatant-misogyny

In our country there is and has long been a culture war. The loudest christians protest that because everyone is not of their same mind that they are somehow being persecuted. We are so far from lions and burnings at this point that it seems laughable. To pretend that this discomfort they feel, namely that they might lose their dominant place in societal governance, is persecution is a touch paranoid. The news just plays this on both sides of the issue.

I am not crazy about news coverage of any kind since most of it is biased toward the money that buys it. I also wonder how much of that crap is just made up for entertainment reasons. I happened on the above link and watched it. Ignore the headline because the footage says otherwise, this clip, rather than put the smackdown on anyone makes her look hysterical rather than rational. It is clear that the neither of these men take her seriously based on their smug expressions. The real problem here is that this is considered useful news. It isn't.

Secondly, the whole argument is ridiculous. There seems to be a trend in religious circles to want to use science as validation for their arguments while all the time maintaining that there is one right way that is unchanging for humans to live their lives. That isn't how nature works. Nature constantly changes and its denizens must adapt to survive.

Erick does talk about gender roles as a genetic thing and as for primitive hardwiring I do somewhat agree. There are very strong urges built into the human construct that guide our decisions. The problem is thinking that all humans are the same. A slight variation in  one person's gestation can make a huge difference in their likely success or failure. Consequently, saying all men should be breadwinners and all women should be stay at home moms isn't really applicable. So it isn't useful to try to force or legislate a state that clearly is not natural for everyone. Yes, two parent heterosexual families with dad making money and mom staying home do work. But to negate the possibility that other forms of family work well, is an injustice to free will and the individual's right to chose for themselves. It seems to me that often the argument is if you don't fit our idea of nature or science then you are an anomaly that must be forced to comform. This is on both sides of the argument.

Family, no matter how it is formatted, should ultimately produce happy useful people who contribute to the stability of society as a whole. That can only be really successful if each family gets to decide for themselves what works best for them. I am against the idea that any form is wrong just because it's formula doesn't meet the approval of prevailing religious opinion or federal mandate. If it harms no one and produces usefulness it should be left to the individual.

To call judgment fact as was done in this piece reminds me that we as humans can and will justify our own opinion right or wrong, useful or not. This really comes down to the idea of rightness. The duality that implies that there are only right and wrong ways no shades of gray that might also be as valid.

Parenting Revisited: Family Meeting

Ok a few posts back I mentioned that my son was coming to stay with us. He seems to feel at home and has most handily fitted himself to the rhythm of our lives. For him, Mad Science and Prof are dads #2 and #3 and our friends and family here have been loving and kind to him. He feels like he can be himself here and that is what I had hoped for.

We sat down and had family meeting last weekend and it was casual and straight forward. We talked about our hopes and our expectations. We discussed his goals in the long and short term, and with his input worked out a plan to help him get there.

This weekend he and Mad Science are going camping together and looking forward to the time alone. Watching them interact cemented my suspicions that Mad Science will be a great father/role model. It has been interesting for me to stand idly by and watch them form friendship together.

In other news my daughter and her husband are soon expecting a baby girl. She seems very happy with the arrangement and I am happy for her. We don't talk as much as I would like but I owe that to nerves on my part and busy-ness on hers.

The Atheist is off to work in Orlando for a month leaving The Griffin behind to care for the dog, the house, and to nurse the broken foot. His separation anxiety has caused some issues but I think once the change begins he will be fine again and appreciate his situation much more upon his return.

Prof will be down this weekend to keep me company while the guys are off bonding so I am also looking forward to a soft cushy weekend of snuggling and enjoying my new kindle. I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend.

Love and Romance

I know these last few blog entries make it seem that I think of marriage as a clinical legal decision, void of real feelings. I do think the object of marriage is a practical consideration, true. One can have marriage without love, and it work, just as readily as one can have love without marriage, and it work. I think both benefit from romance which, though often mistaken for it, is not love. I think the notion of whirlwind romance, sweet sentiment, and constant longing are part of a more romantic time and the pleasure of those who have the leisure to enjoy it. But that isn't love, that is a chemical response to someone else. 

Love, in my opinion, is bigger, deeper, and less conditional on the presence of the beloved. Real love remains untouched by circumstance or behavior. I posit that to be really in love has little to do with romantic feeling, although, one can have a kind of romance as well as love and marriage. I also think romance is a mere gateway to lasting love and successful marriage. A biological function that serves the purpose of putting people together. Just as fight or flight are protective measures meant to separate. Is it always right, that rush of emotion? Does it always act in our best interest? Hardly, but it's pushed on us as the penultimate. That where there is romance there should be love. Just as where there is love there must be marriage. I don't agree with either.

Some people move from gush to gush, romantically speaking, without ever giving real love a chance. New Relationship Energy which is the modern community's term for that rush of emotional energy on first connecting with someone is pretty much chemical, nature's way of saying; "Hey this is biologically attractive for mating, check it out." And it is temporary. NRE usually only lasts a year or two at most then as they say, the honeymoon is over. Some people expect love and marriage to be this high level of romantic tension but no one can maintain such dizzy heights indefinitely. So what is the point of romance then?

It serves a useful purpose for if we entered a relationship with eyes open we would too soon talk ourselves out of love altogether. Confronted immediately with someone's flaws, or expectations as they really are we might run and hide from love. It could be possible to say that romantic feeling is a way to get us to have sex more than to create relationships on. It would explain why women tend toward the alpha male jerk instead of the man she has so much in common with but feels no spark. I have long pondered that as a species we might be better off if we mated with useful genes and lived with those who were especially caring and tender with whom we connect more readily. There is a security in love that does not exist in romance. But having been so poisoned by the notion that romance is love we needlessly create crisis where there should be none. But the notion of breeding with studs and marrying our best friends seems more appalling than divorce. Not that studs aren't good providers or are somehow incapable of love is not an issue but they are more inclined to spread their seed readily, create sweeping feelings in the objects of their infatuation, and leave with the self assured knowledge that their work here is done. If we, as a culture, saw this as normal it would be a game changer. Slutty alpha males could be so with few social repercussions, women who wanted children but preferred security could mate and marry another with no social issues and children might be reared in a more stable environment. 

Sometimes a stud drops out of circulation in favor of love and marriage, sometimes the beta has all the genetic qualities a girl might want in her offspring, that too could be normal. But then, what of love. When I say it, I mean a strong bond of mutual contentment and benefit. To want to be with the person in spite of their flaws, mistakes, or odd behavior as well as the joys, admiration, and commonality. Love rises above gushing emotion. But there is a consolation, for long history with another in contented love, does sometimes give way to another kind of romantic feeling. The kind that you see in the long married elderly couple holding hands, or the wife who tenderly attends a husband, not out of servitude but as a gift to his happiness, or a man who sends flowers for no reason. Love is born of mutual respect and trust, romance, of mutual attraction. Though I have separated them here, I do believe it possible for love to evolve from the murk of romance. For it to emerge to form the arms and legs of service and tender contentment love requires. I, personally, prefer love over romance. Romance is exhausting and expensive. Love, however, is easy with the best match and marriage easier still with love. 

Our society anchors so much on spontaneous romantic feeling, it never gets around to telling us what happily-ever-after looks like. Maybe the mystery is intentional, maybe the thing we don't know about the fairy tale is that happily-ever-after is a daily individual choice rather than an automatic process. Love must grow because it is based on things that develop over time, trust, respect, compromise, honesty. None of which can or should be expected to just appear automatically. It takes consciousness and an unselfish maturity to grow love. Love is a child that must be nurtured and cared for attentively, romance is there or it isn't. Attraction is often instantaneous but cultivating love is an ongoing process of two steps forward and one step back, a thing infinitely more gratifying, unless of course you thrive on tension which is the medium of romance. 

Would I then abolish romance from the menu? By no means! I only wish it were not so readily mistaken as the end of the matter. I have no need to abolish what serves a purpose but neither do I feel it imperative to hold on to something beyond its usefulness.

Contract of Marriage

A couple of my friends recently had the "M" word discussion. Let's just say there was resistance. They love each other and are committed, but when it came to "federally sanctioned marriage" as a permanent sort of contract there was an issue. Who wouldn't be frightened?

Here are a couple of things I have to say on the subject of contracts. Let's look historically at what marriage is. It is a financial arrangement. Once a man and woman married in exchange for offspring, status, care, regular sex, and possibly money, property and security. That really hasn't changed. The idea that we must somehow justify this by purporting to be "in love" seems a little like fishing for morally responsible reasons to have chocolate ice cream. It's a contract whose sole purpose is to place protections for each party. And the truth is, in the absence of arranged marriage, we are at a loss. We aren't taught how to negotiate a marriage contract so we can live it and stay married, we are led to believe that it's supposed to be spontaneous and organic.

I'm not against marriage. There are reasons for the state and federal governments to ask me to register my contract of marriage. They need to know who to point to when there is a problem. They also need to know who to give the spouses money too when he/she dies. Of course there are roughly, 1400 state and federal rights given to federally registered marriages, that protect women, children, and sometimes men from abuse and ruin. Admittedly, not all of them are financial but a huge chunk of them are. The others are to protect people in social ways.

The addition of romance to marriage is fairly recent and in a pragmatic relationship for the protection of family and meeting of needs it is a boon, sometimes, but not essential to its success. In fact, heaping the notion of romance onto the marriage contract was, in part, an exercise of social control over sex and childrearing. The selling of exclusive rights. That's what two people do when they love each other very much, they get married and have kids. Not really, two people with a blustering sexual attraction have sex, the rest is just to protect women and their subsequent children, from being used by unethical men.

There was also a time when religion wasn't actively involved in marriage. Those were contracts made by agreement between the families. Certainly, every religion, has a god ordained sanction. If it were entirely natural why would there be need for such mention. Religion also claims to define marriage for its adherents. One woman per man, more than one woman per man. etc. This is also about control and protection. If you make this contract a moral issue then somehow magically people will behave in more sensible and humane ways. Not true, but it is a theory.

What about the validity of other contracts? Civil unions don't give as many rights, a sort of marriage lite. Common Law Marriage is a default validation for living together long enough you probably own property or have children to protect. Hand-fasting, the temporary arrangement of two or more people who of want to "try out" married life with the understanding that it may not work out. And of course shacking up, which is kind of the buyer beware, 'as is' arrangement. But all of these including, the federal sanction, are contracts with varying degrees of protections.

As a responsible person, I have contracts for lots of things. My responsibility to itunes is a contract, my phone service has a contract, my home insurance, all contracts. My sex life has contracts too, so why is the marriage contract so jealously guarded? Why is it a thing to be feared?

Social convention. If you have a marriage that fails to evolve to accommodate the needs of the people involved, then somehow you are viewed and judged as a bad person. The truth is, some people might not benefit from marriage, some are not suitable for the majority of the market. Some people just don't want to be married. But socially, marriage is more than a mere contract. Marriage is a place of honor, a status symbol, an achievement. It places people in some elevated wonderland of social acceptability, until it fails. It is as if marriage validates the veracity of love, faith, and tradition rather than the other way around. They will tell you that it is to maintain the sanctity of family and protect children but does it really do that? If it doesn't it's time for a renegotiation.

Secondly, would you get a business loan based on a spontaneous chemical connection to some object or idea without a business plan? No, of course not, because the bank needs to know their risk is in the hands of people who have thought it through. Yet our only requirement for marriage seems to be love and religious sanction. If marriage were a known product that performed the same way for everyone, why would we need pre-nups? No wonder it's frightening.

Thirdly, marriage can be terrifying because of the baggage of role related expectation that often goes undiscussed. We get along and so often assume we are compatible in those subconscious beliefs about marriage. This, of course, isn't a problem if it's discussed but a lot of people just assume certain things and often they don't match.

Officially, the marriage license isn't even between the two partners, it's between the lovers and their government and interestingly it is silent on the essential expectations by law. These expectations aren't spelled out until divorce time. We agree to behave in a way that does not void the guarantee of protection from our lawmakers. Perhaps, in addition to the spiritual counseling often required by ministers, there should be a lawyer that informs you of your legal obligations, and how to make the most out of the contract.

As for my friends they have come to an arrangement and may eventually become federally registered as married but until then, they are doing what is right for them, which is really what marriage ought to be about anyway.

What being a dom taught me about being human.

Ok, I wasn't a dom for long, but there are some very useful things I learned while doing it that helped me build better relationships.

1. Dom's ideally serve their subs, so, it is in my best interest to find out what they want. I have tried it my way, as therapeutic retribution, and while I felt better it wasn't as good for "him" and that did not make for a successful play session. Even Lao Tzu says that to be a good master one must serve. If I am to master myself, service to others is useful, ask any 12 stepper. In regular relationships this works too, knowing what your partner wants and needs helps, for that matter knowing what you want and need is critical. How do you know? Ask. That is how it works in BDSM. Don't just ask what they need but if they need you to do that for them for some reason.

2. Knowing one's limits. I have limits to how much cruelty I can or want to inflict on another person. This was interesting to me because, initially, I felt so angry I was afraid of what I might do. I quickly found there is a limit to the suffering I can watch. Also, I noticed that conscious application of suffering meant normal suffering was not the random and inevitable event I had come to understand it was. If I had control over my actions enough to cause it intentionally with the consent of my partner I could control the behavior, I committed, that caused suffering. Rather than just saying, "It's just the way I am."

3. I'm actually a pacifist. I found that being in a consensually violent relationship, the more I got to know my subs, the less I wanted to be violent against them. I came to respect their feelings more because my focus was to serve some need of theirs. I saw them as human and in doing so could not willingly cause them pain, even though they wanted me too. This bleeds into my normal life because now I actively try to see others as human beings, especially those I don't agree with or like very much.

4. It helps with my forgiveness process. It taught me that I was capable of the same cruelty and abuse I had suffered at the hands of others non-consentually. That somehow that made us equal. It was then my job to find ways of managing my nature in more responsible ways. If I could forgive myself for "allowing" the abuse to happen or creating abuse, I could, theoretically, forgive them for the same. I do sometimes get angry about having to do so much damn work to be responsible when others could not or would not but that's a personal resentment I am having to work out.

5. Pain happens, my attitude makes it suffering. The truth of the matter is that life is pain. Events happen that hurt, disillusion, and demoralize us. I can be immobilized by it or not. My attitude about failure changed. For example, I realized that failure is just a dead end in the maze, not a commentary on the usefulness of my nature or my right to be here.  Sometimes, the very act of wanting things not to change, causes my suffering. Do I want pain? Not so much, but pain, like anger is an indication that something must move. Almost always that can be done by me for me.