Smartie-pants...es

There seems to be a difference between uneducated and willfully stupid.  One is correctable and forgivable while the other is a conscious choice on the part of someone unwilling to think.  The former are often characterized in Disney films as the hapless sidekick while the latter runs for office waving a party banner depicting a pachyderm.

So too does there seem to be a difference between smart people.  There are those who can recite the best fishing lures to use in certain lakes and what it will take to repair your expensive foreign hybrid and THEN there are those who can clearly explain why Obamacare will not work no matter what amendments Congress attaches to it (p.s. I'm willfully hopeful it will work despite the evidence).  Yet the people who can bring together seemingly separate ideas into a practical and understandable whole often cannot so much as tie their shoes without being awkward about it.

Then there are others who hide their smarts.  I have no idea why anyone would possibly want to hide their intelligence as it is really the only attribute about a person I have any respect for.  Pretty is given by heredity and athleticism is over-rated (and damn near useless), but intelligence - real intelligence, the kind that is able to skillfully extrapolate and find new approaches to traditional problems or see connections between disparate concepts; that is praiseworthy.

There is a woman on Blogger who writes Down the Rabbit Hole and is capable of finding these connections.  Some of those connections are found with confirmation bias, but connections all the same.

So why is this skill (and I do mean skill as it takes effort to listen, think, and be as aware of everything as much as possible) so rare?  One explanation came from a summary of a pop-psychology book I skimmed through using an app for my tablet.  Thinking is tiring.  It's easier to let the "unconscious" mind make decisions rather than ponder out logical conclusions and consequences to actions.  (Note I take issue with the concept of the unconscious mind also.)

This line of questioning leads me back again to personal accountability and the basics of human development and leads me my next post - a question posed by a police dispatcher.

The Fifth Estate

Just finished watching this movie staring Benedict Cumberbatch.  His goal of absolute transparency initiated by those who feel a moral obligation to reveal something being kept secret allowing the greater public and history to decide the absolute morality of such secrets is lofty in the extreme, perhaps even a noble one.

However, all we need to do is look at the latest sensational infotainment headlines of the day to realize absolute transparency is irrelevant as a person's attention span can be counted in days on two hands.  Even if WikiLeaks has achieved its goal in revolutionizing journalism for the public good (as it has taken such a first step) people in general will only care for a short period of time about any individual secret that has been revealed.

A post on social media broke down the terrifying headlines over the last twenty years, the most laughable of which was Y2K.  The amount of insanity given to the event that promised to crash planes and send us all back into an economic stone age materialized in exorbitant salaries to programmers with the archaic knowledge of FORTRAN.  The post ended with a question as to what we'll all die of in 2015.

The point I took from the post was two-fold: the public loves to feel urgency about some imminent threat and we forget almost as intensely.

How long before we forget there are people still dying of Ebola infections?  How long before we return to judging minimum wage earners harshly for their laziness?  How long before the Ukraine has always been a part of Russia and university campus rapes are again just boys sowing their wild oats?

It's not that people don't care, it's that there's too much to care about and hearth and home come first. So before the next person launches a protest about some grave injustice of the powers-that-be upon the righteous downtrodden, think about how long you plan to care about them.  If it's just filling a weekend then just sit down and worry about your own behavior.  Are you another Julian Assange pointing out the flaws in others just to deflect from revealing your own secrets?

Dating in My America

A gay man of my generation didn't date much in high school. For four years, my only real option was to date a girl or hang out with my boy friends. However, an official date was almost an impossible proposition. Mildly surprising to me were the children who defied that convention almost immediately after my graduation. I was, one again, born just a few years out of date.

Then came the university and the freedom that overwhelmed me. Being too young to truly appreciate the opportunity offered by the experience, I squandered the single year I was allowed to attend. My typical American male confusion between sexual ecstasy and love lead me awry more than once and caused potential romances to flounder in the shallows of a one-night-stand and the backwash of codependency.

This recklessness, among other failings, contributed to my prison term. Surely I don't need to describe here the lack of dating and romantic opportunity within the correctional system. I am not railing against the rules forbidding sexual expression on the inside, it's a safer environment because of them, but the reality created tends to be frustrating. I did, in fact, fall desperately in love with one man during my years incarcerated. My inability to express anything other than a fraternal affection proved nearly enough to cause psychosis. Many men find ways to get laid, and I almost resorted to such measures, but that would have been hollow and disingenuous to how I felt. So all I could do was tell him as much as words would prove useful and hope we would still see each other after our terms ended... a futile hope.

Then came probation, because I was mean more than once, and my inability to navigate the awkward theesome that was approved romances under those rules. Luck delivered my next love to my door, literally, and his apathy toward the state's participation in our romance developed into a happy several years. Well, happy-ish. It is a romance I will never forget and one I would not trade for anything, but it did end in tears.

Probation has now ended and the state's participation in my love life had abated to minimal levels - I will never again be free of scrutiny - and my social life has grown exponentially since. Within months I've grown my circle of friends and expanded my zone of recreation to become an interstate enterprise. Within my limited experience in this life, this is common. It seems most people have relationships over large areas. I know no one in California, but I can claim friendships spanning several states.

The true crux of this entry - the predicate, as my best friend would quote from some TV show - isn't so much one of bemoaning my romantic status or complaining about the difficulties I've endured in the arenas of love, it's one of celebrating the greys of relationships.

I learned, both formally and through experience, that no two relationships are alike. I have more than one friend and each relationship has taboo topics and areas of common interest that are not duplicated in any other relationship I've ever had. I've fallen in love a total of three times and each not only had unique aspects to the very nature of the romance, but each FELT different from the previous. No wonder poets cannot describe the feeling accurately.

I now have friendships with sexual aspects. I have friendships that appear sexual, but are not. I have friendships that can go several months without contact and survive as if no time has passed. Then I have friendships that are based on vacation fantasy and currently exist as nostalgic vehicles. I love all these men as much as I ever loved any romantic partner... which may explain why I'm single.

I counsel my best friend against labels as a step toward non-judgment. (Judgment is wasted energy since acting on most of our judgment is harmful.) I'm finding this good advice for myself as well. Each of the relationships I am a part of is unique. Each will develop on its own coarse and in its own time. Defining what a friendship is as opposed to a romance or an acquaintance seems to place artificial limits on where the relationship is allowed to go... and I've always argued with my counselor about his statement, "you don't fuck your friends." I did, I do, and I will. Then I will still call them friends.

I have come to agree with my counselor - and every one before him - that communication is key to the success of any relationship. By explaining my flexibility to the people in my social life - and listening to their version of the same - the expectations of the relationship are made known and all is laid bare. Surprises and miscommunication are kept to a minimum and the early practice encourages continued "transparency" allowing the relationship to move about freely. I'm even making an attempt to retain a man as a friend after we discovered ourselves sexually incompatible, supposedly moving "backward."

The shades of grey are the fascinating part of relationships, they seem to be what makes most of them fun to be a part of.

Random

So I was crawling around on the floor of my bedroom this morning looking for the third condom and discovered a VCR under my bed.  I have to ask myself, "When did I ever own a VCR?"

End of an Era

Labor Day tends to mark the end of summer in America.  Of the three summer holidays, it is the last of those long weekends away from the cities and daily life.  Many people use these summer weekends to "get away," go "camping," or head to whatever beach is available to them for a final topping of their tan or dip in some body of water.  After this, after all, it's all downhill.

I too celebrated the end of the summer; the end of my first true summer in many, many years, with a trip to Minneapolis - as I'm known to do.  Because I don't explain the true reasoning for my trips, co-workers and family find me daft for spending nearly ten hours in a car for a five hour pool party.  I wasn't about to skip the final party of the year due to a lack of acceptable explanation or something as trivial as financing.  Man invented credit and privacy for a reason and America thrives on debt and liberty, right?

This trip (two months ago, actually) ended my reign as the newest nudist.  My BFF doesn't really count since he just wants to go to the pool parties and could care less about whether he's nude or not.  The group in Minneapolis held their annual membership drive at the Twin Cities Pride event and got inundated with requests to join.  The last time I was there, a hundred people crammed into a two-bedroom house that just happened to have a heated in-ground pool... surely that wasn't the real draw for the crowd at all.  This weekend I was able to spend some time with the newest members of the group and got to know them a little bit.  As we all know, a man is far more than the clothes he wears and when he's not wearing any it takes a bit more time to decipher all his quirks of personality.  One man wore only a simple silver chain and the other chest hair.  Not much information in those fashion choices.

One man preferred to stay very quiet and smile at the antics of my cohorts.  He fussed with his thumbs in what appeared to be a nervous venting, and revealed nothing about himself.  He did claim to talk more while drinking but refused the giant bottle of Captain I stole from a nearby table.  Turns out, he's not all that new to social nudity at all, just the size of the event was new.

The other man admitted to feeling awed by the newness of it all.  It is fairly rare to find gay men being both absolutely gay and absolutely male so publicly.  Of course, he also admitted to having little practice at either as honest living is a recent addition to his personality.  It takes a bit of courage to attend an event with nearly one hundred strangers, much less one with members who already know each other and are used to behaving in a manner not normally seen in the community at large.  (This doesn't mean we behave so differently that a casual observer would believe we are aliens - but that's another entry.)

I felt a bit like an old hand at this party.  Not only were these men younger than myself, and more handsome by any standard, they were displaying the outward signs of the anxiety I have written about previously.  Looking them in the eye I was tempted to simply hug them and prattle on about how it would all be OK.  A silly impulse as they are grown men and more fully committed to joining the group than I was.  It may also have been the vodka talking... my cups tend to be deep.

So goes the passing as all things.  I am no longer the wide-eyed innocent; no longer the voice of the naive; no longer a mere witness to the new.  I now am an official member of the group, a shaper of things.  I may even wield influence from time to time.  So ends my time as a nudbie and begins my next season as mentor.  I may even be called upon to dispense wisdom too, though where I'll find any is anyone's guess.  So as seasons change and karma continues to unfold I, myself, continue to change and experience the next moment.

I was once surprised by many aspects of social nudism.  I was once intensely moved by the openness of these gay men.  I was once, but no longer.  An era has ended, a new begun, and surely karma will continue to unfold and I'll be surprised and moved by the next aspect of life I've yet to notice - since that is part of the reason many of us participate in these events.  The envelope needs to be stretched and a life examined else what is the reason of it all?

Public Service Announcement - Kissing Is A Skill

So, when did kissing become something men are terrible at?  Equally, when did I start typing with dangling participles?

While the label of "slut" comes to mind as I begin this, I must say I've kissed many many men in the last several months and am appalled at the lack of skill that appears to be commonplace among us masculine individuals.  I would think a man would be better at kissing than a blow-job considering the extra years of practice one would expect an individual would have doing one as to the other.  I mean think about it - when was your first kiss and when did you first blow a guy.  I'm guessing there's about a decade between the dates.  Wouldn't I be correct in assuming you should know how to do one better than the other, yet I'd be wrong many many times over.  This is not to say we are experts at fellatio either, but that may be a topic for another time.

My ex and I spent a lot of time being intimate.  I'm quite proud of that since we also were quite boringly domestic.  Together - well, I hope he learned something too - I had the opportunity to closely examine what worked and what didn't.  Without making any claims to being kings of kink-dom, we did try and experiment more than I was ever able to before being in my romance with him.  I'd like to think I came to have some knowledge on the mechanics and techniques of being intimate.  Perhaps I know as much of nothing as the next guy, but I implore you, gentle reader, to please consider your abilities when it comes to kissing the next recipient.

Firstly, kissing is about the lips - NOT the tongue.  The tongue licks, the lips caress.  Kissing is about muscle control and massage, not lying limp while you prove you can remove your partner's tonsils without anesthetic.  The tongue can enter the entertainment, briefly, but only to tantalize your partner with what you may be able to do with it when set to other purpose.  It should not be the main attraction in this show, but rather more like Iago encouraging greater mischief.

Secondly, kissing takes two people.  Each person must not only lead the other on to different style, intensity, and technique, but also be able to follow the other as well.  It's an interesting balancing act at which men are apparently horrible in nearly every other area of their lives, so I shouldn't be surprised when men are equally terrible at listening to body language as subtle as is used in kissing.  Sex in general is about the other partner (not getting off), but that may be a topic for another time.  Kissing is more so.  If a man is a good kisser, he will be able to adapt his technique to what his partner enjoys while slowly introducing him to several other variations that he may not have encountered before.  Please, gentlemen, do not kiss anyone for selfish reasons.  Do not kiss so only you can enjoy it. Pay attention!

Lastly, kissing doesn't mean only the lips touch and all else is called something else.  Everything a man can do with lips, tongue, teeth, breath, and nose (yes, I said nose) to any part of their partner's body is all an extension of what can be done when my lips touch yours.  Taking the same massaging rhythm, upping the intensity just a bit, and applying it to the ear lobe or the nipple can really take your partner to places he didn't intend to go.

I hope you have enjoyed today's PSA.  Just Say NO, Always use a condom, Don't forget your towel, and kissing is a skill - not a distraction while unbuttoning my shirt.

Love Letter

You don't believe you are special and you scoff at the very notion.  I've told you any man lucky enough to claim you as a partner in romance would never be good enough, and you found that idea unfathomable.  I remind you of why this is so:

You seem to give all of yourself.  Not just attention and kindness to those you love, but your very heart.  You give yourself without shame nor doubt.  That level of confidence alone is admirable and enviable, yet you seem to not even notice what you share.  Like everyone else, you only see the flaws - the bits of yourself that cause you shame.  Yet when asked, you are more open and innocent of the effect you have on people than anyone I've ever known.  You are present for those you love, you truly love them - individually, unequivocally, and shamelessly.

Some of us have only felt that level of trust and compassion a few rare times in our lives, yet you give it as if it were proper and reasonable.  For some of us, this becomes difficult to understand because you then give the same level of care to the next person you know and love... and there are several.

This is not admonishment, rather an explanation from those who greet the day slightly happier because we know you.  It is not a curse or failing of your personality, but a skill to be celebrated.  More should be as unconditional as you.  More should love those in our lives without shame and doubt.  More of us should be as willing to give of our hearts as freely because when you do, you gain more people in your life who love you with equal intensity and will move the very heavens to see to your happiness.

If we all strove as much as you to compassion, the world would know no fear or hatred because we would all be supported by the knowledge that we are cared for.  All pain would be temporary and none would be alone.

For this you are better than all of us; for this you are unique; and for this, we are not worthy of the love you share, yet you share it still.