homosexuality – Denying Thumper

April 15, 2015

Fuck you and your fucking binary scale of human sexuality

Yesterday, HuffPo’s “Gay Voices” published an article titled “Larry Kramer On His New Book, The American People, Which Identifies George Washington, Ben Franklin And More As Gay.” WOW, I thought. Ben Fucking Franklin!? The septuagenarian notorious in France for his dalliances with the ladies while serving as American ambassador? A homo!? Let alone old George. Poor Martha. After all this time, we find out she was just his beard.

In The American People, Kramer describes George Washington as a man who had sex with men — a “big queen,” he said in an interview — and writes the same of Alexander Hamilton, who “was in love with George,” Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and “the most powerful gay man” in American history, J. Edgar Hoover.

Oooooh. I see. Not gay. Just “men who had sex with men.” Excuse me while I go bang my fucking head against this fucking brick wall.

I’m not going to argue the historical elements of the text because I’m not qualified. For the sake of the argument, I’ll concede that all these guys had sex with others of their gender. But for fuck’s sake, it’s two-thousand fucking fifteen. Can we stop reducing all same-sex sexual activity to “gay!?” Ben Franklin was not fucking gay. He loved the ladies. That wasn’t for show. Maybe he loved the boys, too, but he wasn’t “gay” as defined as “homosexual” as defined as “an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions primarily or exclusively to people of the same sex.”

Jesus Christ.

I get that the whole “bisexual invisibility” thing is heavily driven by the fact that bisexuals melt into both the gay and heteronormative social structures absent a concerted effort to make their distinction known. But this kind of shit doesn’t help. Bisexuality is a known thing in the world, but nowhere in the piece does the writer even pretend like there is anything other than gay or straight. And HuffPo’s not the only one. The Guardian also published a piece on the book with only one reference to the word “bisexual” and only in passing.

This kind of shit perpetuates the myth than human sexuality is binary. That we are defined as people by the acts we sometimes do. Occasionally, I pick something up with my left hand but that doesn’t make me left-handed. Maybe George Washington once sucked a dick, but that doesn’t make him gay. It doesn’t even make him fucking bisexual unless he really, really liked it. Maybe Lincoln “enjoyed the company” of the other men back in his circuit courts days, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t also passionate about Mary (before she turned into a psycho, anyway).

Why? Why does this still happen? We don’t live in the Seventies anymore. The world is full of great big beautiful gradations of experience and identity. Why can’t these articles even hint at it, let alone embrace it?

I’d argue that by perpetuating the binary myth the author damages his own premise. We need to publicize that it’s perfectly normal and incredibly common for humans (even old historical ones) to have sexual contact with others of their gender at some point in their lives. Once that becomes common knowledge, a lot of the stigma around same-sex sex would evaporate.

February 4, 2015

Bipanflexible

Lorelei, aka Suggestive, answered a question that’s been on my mind over on her blog. To summarize, how are bisexual and pansexual different things? The questioner defined them thusly:

bisexual: sexually attracted to both men and women.

pansexual: not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity.

Lorelei’s reply was pretty spot-on, I think (“bisexual” is an older word from before the concept of a non-binary gender existence was common plus it might be better shorthand than “pansexual” before you get to know someone if all you really want to do is say you aren’t straight). You can go read the whole thing. It’s good.

The part that made me curious was this:

Pansexual opens up bisexuality to include transgender people, intersex people, and like you said – people that don’t necessarily gender themselves. In other words, someone who is pansexual is more or less bisexual, but someone who is bisexual is not necessarily pansexual.

I’ve thought a lot about this in the past (more or less the first time I found out Buck Angel was a kind of person in the world, whenever that was). When I say I’m bisexual, I might really mean I’m pansexual as it’s defined above because I’d very happily have sex with both trans men and trans woman. Either someone presenting very masculinely but with a pussy or someone presenting very femininely (and maybe with breasts) yet with a cock¹. Sure. I’m game. I like all those things and I don’t really think changing up the how they’re combined would be a bad thing at all. In fact, I’m sure I could even hook up with a non-gendered person. Probably. Well…probably.

This snuggles up to something else I’ve been pondering since I found it the other day. A few months ago, someone posted to imgur a set of charts that supposedly breaks down active FetLife users. Three charts in particular caught my eye.

First, the sexual orientation reported by all the active users:

Wow, I thought, look at all those bisexuals! Plus all the others I’d probably lump in with bisexuals (and then get scolded for doing so if they knew I was doing it). How awesome, I thought. My people!

Then I saw this. Sexual identity reported by just the men:

Fucking hell. Really, guys? Sixty-seven percent straight!? Can we believe this? Is it really true that out of all those thousands of kinky people (57% identified as male), so many of the guys are dead-on Kinsey zeros?

Of course, this is how people are choosing to identify. That’s not necessarily how they are. I suppose if you’re a guy and you’re married or in an LTR with a woman and you don’t have a lot of interest in men sexually and no ability to pursue any anyway, then you’re straight. I also think there are a lot of straight men who have fucked around with guys, especially in their youth. I know because I was one of the guys they fucked around with. More than a handful of current men who, when they were boys, seems to enjoy my naked company and seem to all the world as straight (and at least one I can think of off the top of my head who’s made borderline homophobic jokes on Facebook).

My personal opinion based on my own experiences with men who identify all over the place is that they actually are all over the spectrum. How we identify has less to do with how we are and more to do with how we want to be perceived. Men are not given bonus points in our culture for calling themselves anything outside “straight” and, it seems, will only do so for specific reasons. Same goes for men who call themselves gay. They might have a tiny or more consequential yet still minority part of them drawn to women, but they get no bonus points for ever letting that show.

Of course, I’m talking about men here because that’s what I know best. Women actually are somewhat rewarded for not identifying as totally straight in our culture. The men like it, for one, but it’s also more accepted. This is shown by how they break out on FetLife:

Just look at them. Not even a third say they’re straight. More call themselves bisexual, not even counting all the related flavors.

Who knows. Maybe all those guys really are super-duper straight and I’m full of shit. Maybe women just are more fluid sexually. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. I think a lot of guys aren’t perfectly K-0 but say they are anyway. Perhaps they confuse what they are doing with what they are? “I’m with a woman so I’m straight.” That would help explain why bisexuals are often called “formerly” bisexual with they settle down with someone of either gender. Who we fuck isn’t what we are, right? But maybe it’s a more prevalent perspective with men.

It’s also possible this is a generational thing. People my age were pushed to go straight or gay and neither side seemed to think something in between was valid. That seems to be changing with younger people. They’re inventing all kinds of interesting variations on the theme. And good for them. Bi, pan, flex. To me, they’re all essentially the same. But what they aren’t is fitting into anyone else’s conception of what’s “normal.” I’ll count that as a good thing.

¹ And let’s not get started on the fact that other cultures have archetypes of feminine men in them like the Japanese.

February 2, 2015

Love and hate

Over on his blog, Drew wrote a post that was also a question. Basically, since he now has personal insight into outwardly-appearing “straight” couples and how they interact, along with his intimate understanding of how homosexual couples live and interact, he wondered how the two were different from one another. Gay couples are more often open than non-gay (apparently) and gay couples are often open with one another about their sex lives. Are “straight” couples the same? How are they different? And, of course, I use “straight” in quotes since that’s how Belle and I appear from outside.

I think M/M couples are more open in both senses of the word. They’re more often open sexually and they’re more open with one another about it. My simplification of their experience would be that it’s easier for them because they’re all guys. In a mixed gender scenario, you have something like alternating currents involved. The differences in how the genders process sexuality and the associated emotions need to be negotiated and that, more than anything, is what keeps F/M couples from chatting too freely with one another about sex and relationships. Of course, some do. But many (most?) don’t. When the couples are divided and grouped into their component genders, talk of sex increases because the currents are all the same. But even then, there’s a lot of uptight straight people out there.

And, of course, guys are allowed to be slutty in a way society frowns on for women. When the sexual dynamics are all about M/M sex, there’s a lot more of it. I’m not saying men are simpler sexually than woman or that woman are too complicated or whatever, only that it’s very easy for men to have sex without consequences (and that’s multiplied by about 10 when it’s sex with another man). I think men are also socialized to more freely have no-strings-attached sex than women. If it sounds like I’m saying men are pigs, I won’t lie and say that’s not true, but I think women could just as easily be pigs if we were all raised outside our dominant “good girls don’t”/”monogamy at all costs” paradigm.

So no, Drew, “straight” couples tend not to talk about one another’s sex lives unless their participants are broken out into their gender groups in which case they might. At least, that’s my experience.

Two caveats. First, openly kinky people are probably more likely to have these conversations than the non-kinky or the closeted kinky. Second, I clearly have no idea how those in F/F relationships relate to one another. Zero.

Now, when it comes to actually being in an open relationship, I think there’s more of that going on in the “straight” community than is let on. It’s such a taboo (or has been) that even if a relationship was like mine and Belle’s, chances are quite slim that information would be volunteered, even to close friends. Therefore, I think it’s impossible to know how many couples are open in some way (whether that be swinging or “fine but don’t tell me” or a cuckolding thing or like ours or whatever — there are many available flavors).

I would encourage my readers to check out the comments to his post because there’s a lot of good stuff there. But there was also this from someone called Pat…

I really don’t understand why everyone is so casual about this. For the straight couples it’s cheating. Plain and simple. For the gay couples, I guess you could call it a form of cheating but since those marriages are soon to be voided, I suppose it won’t be.

I made a vow when I married my husband to stay with him and only him. This bow [sic] was to him but also to God. I like to keep him in chastity to make our sex life stronger, but it’s just for us.

Open and cheating are not the same thing. I can tell you that for a fact since I’m someone who has cheated and is now in an open relationship. Open is so much better. And, if you read my last post, you’ll see how open can also be perfectly casual. In fact, I have to imagine it’s at its best when it’s casual. If I was sneaking around with Drew behind Belle’s back, that would be cheating. Since I’m not, it’s not. Plain and simple.

Regarding the dismissive hatefulness of the rest of that first paragraph, all I can say is you’re on the wrong side of history. You’ll soon be relegated to the same bin we keep racists who hated interracial couples and religious fanatics who persecuted the left-handed. That makes me very happy. We’re leaving people like you behind. I don’t say that with hatred in return. It’s a simple observation of fact. You’re either on the equity bus or you’re under it.

Also, point of fact, regarding the “marriages will be voided” comment, the question being taken up by SCOTUS would not, even in its most damaging result to marriage equity, void any marriages already performed. Nor would it stop marriages in states, like mine, were the elected legislatures made it lawful.

Regarding the question of vows, I can’t imagine why we couldn’t renegotiate whatever we laid out to one another soon-to-be twenty years ago. I can’t imagine why one would let their younger, less experienced selves place them in such a rigid box like that. Funny thing is, opening our marriage has been nothing but good for our relationship. So if by doing so we’ve strengthened the marriage, how is that going against the spirit of our wedding vows?

Of course, you can choose to make promises to your imaginary sky friend, but I’d rather stay focused on Belle and me, thanks. In my estimation, promises to gods have resulted in immeasurably more suffering and pain on this planet than the opposite. They’re all too often used to shield and justify hateful, damaging, and abusive words and actions. I’ll have nothing to do with them.

Pat also went on to say…

I’ve recently started reading [Thumper’s] again now that it’s back to more he and belle and chastity versus the gay fantasies and his feelings for sex with you.

You will understand that hearing you say you’re happy to read my blog again now that you perceive it to be more about one part of me than another you find distasteful does little to endear you to me. If there was a way for me to blot out my words so you and people like you couldn’t read them or find any value from them, I would. You must take me as I am, all of me. Both my wife and my boyfriend (and his lawful husband). If you choose not to, then please stop reading me.

I chatted with Drew about Pat’s comment after she made them and how much more emotional things like that make me than him. His said something that made me profoundly sad. Of course, he’s used to comments like that. Words that degrade and dehumanize and minimize him and his feelings and his life. He’s accustomed to dealing with injustice, prejudice, and intolerance. I’m not. I have lived in my privileged “straight” lifestyle and have only recently been exposed to terrible people in such a personal way. Unlike Drew, I haven’t had the opportunity to build up a thick emotional scab.

I don’t want that scab. I never want to let words like her’s roll off my back. Whether or not she was intentionally hateful, she was and I always want to feel an urge to say, “FUCK YOU,” than not. Impolite? Oh, sure. But justice is often impolite…at first.

January 6, 2015

Sin

I’ve been told that in polite conversation you should avoid discussion of religion and politics. Well, we’ve already breached the religion thing (and besides, how polite can this conversation be since I’ve shown you maybe a hundred pictures of my privates and told you about the things that’ve ended up my butthole).

A reader calling themselves Purple left a lengthy riposte to my entry from the other day where I went off on Amy the bigoted homophobe. Purple, it seems, is using me and this blog to research a bisexual alien character in some fiction they’re writing. Yes.

Their comment starts out well…

I’m a Christian, though I’m starting to prefer follower of Christ because I don’t want to be lumped in with idiots like Amy. People like her piss me off to no end. She may claim Christianity, but she does NOT behave as we’re instructed to behave. She is an embarrassment to my faith. People like her have done so much harm to the LGBT community, and to many other people groups, and heaped more pain and hurt on a group of people who are already going through more pain and hurt than any person should have to deal with.

Yes, fantastic. Go on…

It’s easier to hate someone because they’re different than show Christ’s love to them.

Um, OK. I get that. Good on you for sticking to your teachings. The best Christians are those who take the “Christ’s love” angel rather than those who get so much attention nowadays. You were saying…?

Do I believe homosexuality is a sin? Yes, I do. But it’s between you and God. Not you and me.

Oh. It was going so well, too.

To be fair, they said a lot more and you are free to read it all yourself. In fact, please do. I’m in no hurry.

Indeed, Purple was saying many things that seemed more in keeping with the Christian ideals I admire than Amy was by a long shot (as far as I can tell not being one), but I have to stop and say something about sin. Because it makes my brain boil.

Homosexuality is supposedly a sin. Supposedly. The Ten Commandments don’t mention it, but the Bible is full of stuff we’re not supposed to do. So let’s pretend it calls homosexuality a sin, too (even though there’s ample room for debate on that). It seems to me that most of the things the Bible calls out as sins are choices. Adultery, stealing, getting tattoos, eating pork and shellfish, wearing clothes with tears in them or made of cotton-poly blends, trimming your beard, being uncircumcised, working on the sabbath, and — my personal favorite — being raped if you’re a virgin. There are lots of these things. All choices (like that being raped thing). All bad. Apparently.

Two points I’d make.

First of all, as I said in the post to which Purple was commenting and pretty much every person on Earth knows about the the Bible if they know anything at all, good Christians do things all the fucking time that are disallowed by the Bible (like eating cheeseburgers). They have made choices to ignore those rules. Ever had a part-time job on a Sunday? Making cheeseburgers? At a place that disallowed facial hair? Triple whammy. And why not? Because they’re stupid, right? I mean, what creator of the known and unknown universe worth his/her/its salt would give a flying fuck if I decided not to look like a guy from Duck Dynasty? He/Her/It has nothing better to do? So, if it’s the case that we already pick and choose the things we want to follow from the Bible (and the biggest one we’ve chucked overboard is the whole remarrying after adultery and divorce thing), why not homosexuality? Why not? I want an answer to that.

Second thing is, of course, homosexuality is not a fucking choice. If it is, and you’re a straight dude, go suck a dick. Show me what a choice it is by spreading your legs and getting to know the joys of anal sex. We do not have choices in what we find sexually appealing. Zero. We can choose to bury those feelings and let them build and fester and gnaw away at ourselves and our wellbeing, but that’s not the same thing at all. No matter how hard he tries, Marcus Bachmann will always be a giant queen. Nothing he can do about it.

Personally, I think the “homosexulality is a choice” thing is rooted in the experience of bisexuality. If you’re a bisexual, you actually do sometimes have a choice. Not the kind I am, of course. I could only be happy married to Belle (or, to be technical, some other woman, but Belle’s my favorite). But they’re not all like me. And even if they were, they might easily confuse their sexual attraction to men (if they’re men) to be akin to what a true homosexual feels toward other men. As if sex acts and who we have them with are the only axis to the sexuality spectrum. A good boy growing up in a good Christian house goes out for the football team and enthusiastically dates a cheerleader (oral and anal only so they can stay virginal) but, when he’s alone in his bed and jacking off, suddenly finds himself thinking about his coach or the team captain or how the wide receiver’s ass looks in his uniform or all those guys in the shower and all of a sudden BAM! homosexuallity is a choice. Bullshit.

What kind of god creates people to be a way that is sinful? By default? So they they can never know happiness in their lives unless they “choose” to be sinful? What kind of bullshit is that? This isn’t the same as cutting your beard or eating bacon. This is deep, soul-filling stuff. Not just fucking. Emotional fulfillment of the highest order. I want an answer to that, too. How can living as you were created be, in itself, sinful in the eyes of a just and worthy god? You may as well call left-handed redheads sinful. It’d make as much sense.

The real problem with the line “homosexuality is a sin but between you and god” is that it’s a slippery slope to other kinds of evil. Gay parent? Teacher? Doctor? Child? What’s off limits in how those people are treated by good Christians? Thankfully, we’re moving past the point where simply being gay was enough to deny someone custody or visitation rights to their children or the right to work, but it’s not like that everywhere in this country. Not yet. Not by a long shot. And if you’re the good Christian parent of a gay or trans child, there’s nearly nothing you can’t do to “fix” them. All because homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of a god. That’s where it starts. It is the root of all that evil. All that pain and misery.

We are not ignorant people. We have science that tells us things that were previously heresy. The earth is not the center of the universe. It is not 6,000 years old. Humans are not the only “people” who have lived upon it. Homosexuality is not a choice. The genitles we are both with do not define the gender we are.

We have outgrown the need for sin.

The only thing we should take from the Bible is the best part of what Purple talked about in their comment. Love. Mutual respect. You know, the Golden Rule. If we just followed that and let consenting adults doing no harm to others live as they need and want to, then the world would be a much better place.

January 1, 2015

Starting the new year off wrong

I really didn’t want this to be my first post of 2015. I wanted it to be my review of the KHD X3 espresso 3D printed chastity device. I wrote the bulk of that yesterday but need to give it the final Thumperesque spit and polish before posting it. That was what I meant to be doing right now. Instead, I’m doing this.

Before I really get going, I’d like to warn you that if you’re the type who doesn’t like it when I rant at ignorant fucktards, move along. If you’d rather your new year start off with positivity and good will toward men, find something else to read. If you want to pretend like the world isn’t filled with hate and intolerance wrapped in the blessings of the “love of god” and that I should just let it roll off my back and move along, then you should. Because I’m fucking sick of it. And I’m pissed that the hatred of others has caused me to feel so much anger and hate on a day I’d rather not.

Reader Amy is back after saying she never would be with the following comment left on my last post (don’t bother looking, I’ve spammed it):

Happy New Year, thumper. I read you nonstop and want to say thank you. You’ve helped me keep my husband at a level he should be for 3 years now. I have to say I was one of the worried ones earlier this year when the blog went more gay, but very glad you are no longer talking about that stuff and that guy hear. I know this may be not be pc, but the straight people need you. Have s great 2015.

I was immediately offended by this comment but Belle told me to let it go. So I did. I ignored it. Then Drew sent me the comment she left on his site:

Just a note to say happy new year and that I hope 2015 is the year you find God and quit tempting men to change and cheat on their wives.

I also hope you’ll realize marriage is between a man and woman and not Adam and Steve. Please quit saying you are married as that’s just not right.

Peace to you and I hope you find your way.

Even on a good day, this would piss me the fuck off. But today wasn’t one of those days because I’ve been thinking a lot about this:

That’s from the suicide note of a transgendered teenager named Leelah Alcorn. She wrote that and then threw herself in front of a semi. When I read things like what Amy wrote that some would tell me come from a good place because they mean well and others suggest I should just delete and let go I think of kids like Leelah. The hundreds of thousands of kids like Leelah, some whom will kill themselves but most of whom will live in pain and misery because of their parents who speak from the same place as good old Amy. Her and others like her doing real and serious harm to innocent lives every fucking day by cloaking their ignorance and intolerance in their selective reading of a mythical fairy tale we’ve all agreed has some significance and isn’t the wholesale manufacture of a group of old men trying to control the actions and lives of pretty much everyone else rather than the word of god as they told us it was. The ignorant and hypocritical people like Amy who decide one part of the bible means something really important about homosexuals and people of non-standard gender identification but choose to ignore the parts about rape being a perfectly valid pretext to marriage and all the pro-slavery stuff and how we shouldn’t eat shellfish or mix the fibers we wear and on and fucking on because it doesn’t really matter what the book says as long as you’re using it as your cudgel as you hew through young lives and sit in abject judgment of others whose only crime is trying to live in love and find happiness. Because fucking GOD.

Once upon a time, I was one of those kids. I was living with my dad and his wife after high school and my on-again, off-again boyfriend (the one I’ve mentioned who has the wonderful cock) slept over and he fucked me (and guess what, Amy — I liked it A LOT). My dad heard and maybe even saw that without my knowledge and confronted me with being a homosexual shortly afterward. I denied it on a technicality. I didn’t think I was gay. Not like the boy who fucked me. Not like my father thought when he said the word. So I said no, I wasn’t.

My father, being a god-fearing, bible study teaching fellow who — if you pressed him — thought the gays deserved their AIDS, suggested we do family counselling at his church. I didn’t want to but I had nowhere else to live (my mother was out of the question at the time) so I figured I’d go along with it in hopes we could address other issues in our relationship. However, after a half dozen sessions or so in which he and his wife didn’t show up, it became clear to me this wasn’t family counselling, it was Thumper counselling. I’m fortunate that I was already an adult and the counsellor at the church was an OK guy and I wasn’t an underage kid like Leelah and the church wasn’t full of radical Christians with a piss-poor comprehension of the sciences of genetics and psychology. So I stopped going. Soon thereafter, I moved out of my dad’s house and our relationship was seriously strained until I became engaged with Belle. Perhaps he thought, like most Christians, that I “chose” to be with a woman rather than men.

The other day, I quoted something Dan Savage said in his recent Playboy interview.

In countries like Uganda, leaders have this easy way to assert their moral superiority: hating gay people in the same way shitty, fucked-up Christians in America do. Putin is very blunt about this. It’s how they prove their moral superiority to the West. They don’t have to take better care of their citizens, they don’t have to have a functioning democracy, they don’t have to have a decent environment, they don’t have to have a justice system that works. They just have to hate gay people really hard and they’re better than the United States, better than Canada, better than France. It’s exactly like the Christians. They don’t have to stop masturbating, stop having premarital sex, stop drinking, stop getting divorced and remarried. All they have to do to be good Christians is hate gay people. “I don’t have to keep my dick out of anybody; I just have to hate you and where you’re putting your dick.”

Emphasis mine.

Reader Deadrody replied:

This: “…like the Christians. They don’t have to stop masturbating, stop having premarital sex, stop drinking, stop getting divorced and remarried. All they have to do to be good Christians is hate gay people” is nonsense. I’m actually about 100% sure that there is no such person on earth. Anyone claiming anything similar to that, is not remotely a “Christian”.

Making a caricature of 80% of the American public is not useful, helpful, or true.

I’m sorry, Deadrody (and not only because you’re dead), but look up. It’s not a caricature. Those would would carry the banner of “Christian” in this country are exactly as Savage said they are. They’re like Amy. They’re like my dad. And, might I add, as someone who very much does not count themselves as a Christian, if you don’t like the caricature, do something about it. Fight it. Call it out as the intolerant ravings that it is. It’s all done in your name and if you choose to be silent on the subject then it’s perfectly understandable that people like me would assume you’re all the same absent evidence to the contrary. Unfair? Maybe. Prejudiced? Perhaps. But you don’t need to be an African slave in Mississippi or Native American on the North Dakota plains to understand their instinctual fear and suspicion of the white man. It’s just human nature.

So, to conclude Amy, Drew is not tempting me. I advertised for someone like him. I did. I started it. All he did was raise his hand. And I’m not cheating on my wife. She knows all about my relationship with him. She approves of it. And “marriage” is a legal construct, not something you get to define in your narrow head, and right now in the majority of the country, Drew and Axel’s marriage is as valid as mine and Belle’s. Get used to it.

A great man once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I think it bends a bit faster when the simple and narrow minded either don’t procreate or do so in an environment where their children turn out better than their parents anyway. The arc is bending fast on this one, Amy. Faster every day. And all I can hope is that words like mine will help it bend just a tiny bit faster.

Even if, it won’t be fast enough for Leelah. And not fast enough for the thousands of other kids who are burdened with parents like you right now, today. Until the day comes when every person in this country, child or adult, is free to live and love the way they were born to without worry of people like you, Amy, I will NOT let your kind of bullshit roll off my back. I will NOT let it go. It’s evil. It hurts people. And it’s everything that is wrong with our world.

December 11, 2013

Words aren’t helping

The New York Times this weekend ran a story about an interesting way to divine, as the article’s headline puts it, “How many American men are gay?” The state-by-state social acceptance of homosexuals was cross-referenced against the number of men on Facebook who say they’re interested in men and that was compared to the percentage of Google searches for male gay porn.

First of all, this is fascinating stuff. And it probably does demonstrate the very sad issue of those living in areas where they’re unwelcome due to shallow and outdated ideas of what’s right and wrong. But I do have a fundamental issue with how author of this work perpetuated the myth that human sexuality is a choice between zero and six on the Kinsey scale.

Checking, I see that I haven’t told Facebook what gender I’m interested in. Of course, I’m married and was before Facebook came along and have never had to use it as a facet of my dating life, so why would I? But, were I not married, I wonder what I’d say to it. I’m an ostensibly straight-identified person who has found long-term contentment in a relationship with a woman but am very much interested in men from a sexual perspective. That means my Google history contains some evidence of searches for “gay” porn which would classify me, in the terms of this article, as a closeted gay man. But I’m not. Not even close.

If I’m closeted, it’s as…whatever it is I am. I don’t tell people about my sexual stimulants. It’s just not something that comes up and I’m not the kind of guy to wear such a thing on my sleeve (multi-year explicit sex blog to the contrary). Plus, as I’ve said before, I hate the term “bisexual” and abhor using it as a descriptor for who I am. I am totally open to both genders from a sexual perspective but could never really see myself being able to “settle down” with a man. It always had to be a woman for me. Is that what bisexual means? I don’t think so (and even if I did, I bet I could find a hundred people who disagreed with me). There are a lot of other words out there that try to capture the flexibility of what I am (what I strongly believe all people are to some extent), but I don’t care for any of them. Human sexuality just doesn’t lend itself to tidy classification. The best thing I can think of is still the Kinsey scale. I’m a three with vacillations towards two and four. But even that is only a piece of my sexuality.

As annoying as the Times article is, one from Slate makes me optimistic for the future. In “Does Coming Out Count If You Reject Labels” (yes), we learn that ridiculously scrumptious British Olympic diver Tom Daley recently said he had a boyfriend. Lived with the guy. Felt “so safe” with him but also still found women attractive. Not that he was gay or bi or anything. Just fucking yummy little Tom. Likewise, actress Maria Bello told the world she was in a relationship with a woman after having previously only been with men. Bello dared to say she “would like to consider [herself] a ‘whatever,'” rather than a lesbian or bisexual.

And I’m like…YES. Of course. I totally get that. Before I found Belle, I had been serious with guys from time to time (mostly with one) and that didn’t change who I really was. The biggest issue with me then (and, by extension, my boyfriend) was I had bought into the bullshit paradigm regarding Kinsey zeros and sixes. And it tore me up. It’s remarkably refreshing to see us moving in this post-label direction. When people fuck who they want and reject the adjectives invented by others to categorize and reduce. But, the author in Slate says:

[D]espite the rapid progress on limited issues like marriage, it bears asking whether we are at a point in history where we are advanced enough to dispense with gay solidarity entirely. For better or for worse, the very much unfinished LGBTQ civil rights project involves a certain amount of PR, and every PR campaign needs some buzzwords. Naively imagining that you can remove yourself from that paradigm because gay or bi doesn’t quite fit is a highly privileged act—especially when, as far as I can tell, the only worthwhile thing that can come from a celebrity’s coming out is some small contribution to queer visibility in communities where queer people may not be easily seen beyond the page or screen.

And I say, fuck “gay solidarity.” Why should anyone feel compelled to force themselves into ill-fitting stereotypes? If you’re not fucking gay, don’t call yourself that. If you don’t feel like a bisexual, don’t tell them you are. If that’s not good enough for those at the forefront of the “LGBTQ civil rights project” (holy shit, the “LGBTQ” nonsense shows how stupid all these words are), then screw ’em. Some of us don’t see our sexualities as political statements. Some of us don’t want anything more than the same basic rights and privileges enjoyed by everyone else. Some of us think there is no better way to advocate for that than to show through the living of our lives that we’re no different. And maybe if we’d stop trying to put the multiverse of the human sexual continuum into five or six buckets, we’d be able to see that better.

I’m not a word. I’m a person. Just like Bello and Daley. And just like you.

June 13, 2013

Sorry for the confusion

My recent missive “How I know I’m not gay” seems to have caused some head scratching. Reader Ms Mahler said…

Hm…not to send you back to your 20s angst, but you do realize liking pussy doesn’t stop you from being bi? And there is nothing wrong with being into pussy AND curious about what it would be like to be dominated by a man?

And EsotericNonesense replied…

I’m a bit confused. I didn’t know there was ever any question as to whether or not Thumper was gay. You would think all the pussy licking and fucking (when Bella allows it) would be evidence to the contrary.

And patrick opined…

when to know if you are 100% gay, I’m sure absolutement not; but 100% straight, I doubt it. Just look at your porfolio. But is it really a problem?

I guess I have this idea that everyone who reads me has either always read me or has gone back to read me from the start or can somehow just absorb this whole blog via some kind of alien tentacle osmosis process or something. No, I am not gay, but I’m hardly straight, either. I’ve gone on about it here, here, over here, and most recently there (among other places). I like to think of myself as queer (as in, not amongst how the masses identify). Not gay. Not straight. Just me. Willing to fuck (or, more likely nowadays, be fucked) by anyone of any gender.

I came up with the title and concept for the post “How I know I’m not gay” while listening to Dan Savage during recent long hours driving. He’s said several times that gay guys don’t like pussy. It’s kinda what makes them gay. And I thought, huh, if only someone had spelled it out so plainly for me back in my “o god, what the hell am I?!” phase. I do love the cock. Truly. But I also love pussy. As I said. So, ipso facto, not gay. But also not straight. Commonly referred to as bi (though I hate that term).

I like how Harry said it…

The very best thing about [pussy]… It’s an integral part of this woman, this very loving woman, who shares your/my life…

At first I was like, whoa! We share the same woman!? Then I got it. And I think he’s right.

Patrick went on to say in response to my suggestion Belle may not have been serious about the pro domme thing…

when the sugestion your “Belle”, I do not think it was just a joke. the image that I made about your “Belle” through your blog is that she is a very sensitive, intelligent woman, open-minded and listen to your needs. I think she read you from the beginning of your meeting, and it is you she has chosed. I think she planted a seed in you to enable you to flourish…

That’s possible. She hasn’t brought it up again. Maybe it was serious, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was one of those not serious serious things. I dunno because I haven’t mentioned it to her because I still don’t even know what to make of it. She will be reading this, though…

I told Belle a while back that one of my best friends from childhood (and the best man at our wedding) had opened up his relationship with his husband. Their sex life had petered out (pardon the pun) so they did what a lot of gay couples end up doing (probably more than straight couples do in general, though that might be changing). She didn’t react well to that idea as a concept and thought it was more a symptom of their problems than a possible solution to them as I did. In any event, I don’t know if the whole “sharing” thing is something my Belle could ever wrap her head around completely. I know from experience that my love for her and sex outside our relationship don’t cancel each other out. That is, when I cheated on her (yes, I did that, too, newbies) I ended up feeling more passionate about my relationship with her than before. What I did and how I went about it was all wrong, but that experience and what I’ve learned about relationships and sexuality since both inform how I feel about it today.

In any event, to those who were confused by my odd admission of non-gayness, I apologize.

May 1, 2013

Bifurcated

So I had this dream. Vivid. In it, I was being fucked by a man. In fact, a man I’ve been fucked by before. There was no actual plot to the dream that I can recall. Just him fucking me. Oh, and the device. I was locked up, of course.

It’s been coming back to me lately. Usually when I’m partially asleep or just waking up. Not that I have had the dream again (as far as I can tell) but the memory of it is there. Lingering. Of just being fucked. Being a hole for some big dick to use. Not romantic. Just fucking.

The funny thing is, I still have contact with this guy. Not in person. We play iPhone word games against each other. He was not only my on-again, off-again high school kinda-boyfriend, he was the best man in my wedding to Belle. He’s one of my oldest and dearest friends and has what is in my opinion one of the world’s perfect cocks. Not super long (above average), but thick. Nice and fat.

Anyway, yeah, it’s been in my mind. I can’t get it out. He’s a long ways away so I don’t have the risk of bumping into him. That would be oddly embarrassing. I remember one time, a long time ago, I had a dream where I had sex with a woman I work with and the next day I could barely look at her. It took me a week before I could talk to her normally.

I haven’t told anyone about the being fucked dream. Well, not until now. Certainly not that I can’t let go of it (or that it won’t let go of me). I don’t know how it is for other bisexuals in monogamous hetero relationships, but my desire for being fucked waxes and wanes. I’m waxing gibbous at the moment, if I had to guess. It’s not directly related to being horny since I’m almost always horny and I am not always thinking about the buttsex.

The obsession has led me to realize I’m almost exclusively a bottom (not just in the BDSM context). When looking at images of men having sex, I’m drawn to the receiving guy. When fantasizing about sex with a man, I’m always receiving. I never fantasize about fucking a man. Back when I had actual sex with men, I didn’t really enjoy fucking them. If I’m going to be inside someone, I much prefer women (and one in particular). I don’t know why I never really thought about it before, but I’m a total bottom in every sense of the word.

Why does any of this matter? I dunno. Just that it and this NYTimes essay on bisexuality have been bouncing around in my head. When you’re bi and in a monogamous relationship, I suppose there’s always a bit of you that’s going to be frustrated. Maybe my frustrated halves are merging. Before one of you says it, yeah, I know there are lots of ways to receive the kind of fucking I’m craving from Belle, but she’s never expressed any interest in that whatsoever. So I guess it stays where it is. Bunking with the other frustrations.

March 14, 2012

Mailbag

Catching up on some mailbag items…

Thanks for a great website. I am about to start a long time in a CB-6000 with PA cable on Thursday.

I do have an odd question for you….

I need to wear an athletic cup for sparing in martial arts. I know I can get the cup over the device but I suspect if I actually get kicked, the device and cup will work together to rack my balls badly. Any advice on this? (I wear the cup to prevent damage to my balls… I can handle some pain… I THINK!)

I know for a fact that one can wear these devices during physical activities, but I wouldn’t wear one while participating in a contact sport. A device ties all the squishy bits together in a way they weren’t designed so that as one part moves in one direction during a hit and another part might move in an opposite direction, they’re forced to move together and that might be bad. Especially if you’ve got a cable running through the whole set up that fixes the end of your penis in place with a ring that’s been punched through your urethra. Man. I get creeped out just thinking about it.

The cup might offer some measure of protection, I suppose, but if it’s like ones I’ve worn there won’t be much room in it for all the extra plastic. If it were me, I’d figure out a way to take it off while kicking and being kicked.

I have recently found your blog about male chastity, actually, I have recently found out about male chastity. I have been looking for a way to spice up my marriage a little. I have been married to a great wife for 14 years now, 3 kids and the spice is not what it used to be. We are both just starting to get back into wanting sex more. Although, she likes missionary only.

I am researching this as much as I can and like to talk with normal people that are doing this and what I can learn from them. Bringing this up to her and getting her to go along with this will be difficult, so wondering if you have any suggestions.

If you’re asking about how to approach her, I’m not a very good resource. I don’t really have a strategy because when I first found out about enforced chastity I immediately shared it with Belle and we were on our way. We were in a particular place in our relationship where I felt comfortable sharing this interest with her. The best advice I have would be to explain that normal people really do do this. Really. Yes, it’s kinky, but not like taped up hamsters. It’s pretty tame, actually.

If you’re looking for things to share with her, I more or less think Sarah Jameson’s stuff is pretty good. That’s not a bad place to start. She puts things in a way that might appeal to the average woman and, as long as you can see through her submissive male bigotry, is reasonably practical. Obviously, I think the stuff Tom’s written is another great resource. Belle in particular has appreciated his point of view. Don’t forget Dev, either! I also think the gang over at the Chastity Forums are pretty levelheaded. That’s another good place for you to go as you figure out a strategy on how to move forward with your wife. Finally, I’m asking others to add their two bits and/or links in the comments. I know there are smart people reading this who could help.

Good luck!

I read your blog because you are an honest writer. You don’t pull punches or shy away from topics that um, well might embarrass others. However, having said that, you may not want to tackle the subject I am about so ask you to write about, because it’s so full of emotional, political, and even religious focus. The subject is homosexuality versus bisexuality. I have commented before that I find the idea of gay male sex a real turn on, but I have never felt a “man crush” for any man. Conversely, I have had many a crush on woman that don’t physically turn me on.

I also am one of the many guys that finds lesbian sex a huge turn on, but other then the fact that its usually two very attractive woman doing things that I like to do with a woman, I don’t know why it turns me on. Just watching two beautiful women kiss drives me crazy. And although two guys can talk about lesbian sex with zero social stigma, you rarely hear two guys talk about gay male sex. Kind of a double standard there, I think.

So, that double standard got me to thinking that bi-sexuality might not have the “falling in love crush” attached to it, but rather is simply physical pleasure derived from both the physical act and the “taboo” nature of the act. (not unlike anal sex for some). The hardcore homosexual organizations talk about bisexuals as a cop out or as an out right denial of sexual identity. And mostly they take this position for political reasons. They seem to be saying “We’ve worked so hard to get our rights established in the law, we don’t want any of you fence sitters screwing it up, come out or shut up.” That’s why I think that bisexuals get this horrible rap of being confused or closet homosexuals. I call bullshit on that. I’m not confused, I like the same kind of sex that homosexuals do. I just don’t feel like I could fall in love with someone and have a “pair bonded” relationship with them. Thank god there is strap-on sex…the closes thing I’ll ever get to gay male sex!

Help me explain this better can you?

I spent many years of my life essentially paralyzed by my seemingly contradictory impulses with regard to sex. I kept trying to find a paradigm I could fit myself into and it just wasn’t there. By the time I decided to stop obsessing and get on with things, I was approaching thirty. I lost most of my twenties, sexually speaking. It is a waste of fucking time.

Fact is, people are going to feel how they’re going to feel. Kinsey nailed it back in the Forties with his scale. Human sexuality is a fluid continuum that simply cannot be diced into orderly blocks to suit anyone’s moral preferences. We are all born this way, to one degree or another, as are many other animals. There is no right answer and its society’s problem that this isn’t recognized and accepted, not ours.

I’ve recently started reading a book called Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Here’s a snippet from the Amazon description:

Like the typewriter and the light bulb, the heterosexual was invented in the 1860s and swiftly and permanently transformed Western culture. The idea of “the heterosexual” was unprecedented. After all, men and women had been having sex, marrying, building families, and sometimes even falling in love for millennia without having any special name for their emotions or acts. Yet, within half a century, “heterosexual” had become a byword for “normal,” enshrined in law, medicine, psychiatry, and the media as a new gold standard for human experience.

I recommend you check it out! It’s an eye-opener.

The following came from a comment to another post.

This is from http://chastewench.blogspot.com/ and has nothing to do with your recent post, but it does describe my exact situation and I hate it! Any suggestions you might have that would smooth out the ups and downs?

Rollercoster

Various blogs suggest that the way to motivate a man is to keep him desperate. It’s so scarily true.

A few days of tease and denial and I’m ready to do anything the Empress of my cock says. Yet once I’m sated it’s difficult to relate to why I was so malleable and so desperate to be dominated. It’s like looking at another person, one you don’t quite get, and finding yourself a little shocked by their antics. Thinking ‘was that really me?’

The peculiar thing is the more I’m denied, and the nastier she is, the more I crave submission, discipline, humiliation, abuse, pain. The desire to be dominated builds and builds. The constant forfeit of control and state of excitement is so addictive. Crazy as it sounds it’s almost as if the more she denies me the more a part of me wants it to continue. The more I sink into submission.

Then she lets me cum and then buzz is gone. I’m left bemused, shaking my head at my own behaviour. Having to remind myself that I signed a contract, try to rationalise putting the chastity belt back on, when I no longer really want to be locked away, I’m no longer in the mood. Then with a snap of the lock the ride starts all over again.

So, so familiar with that particular ride, as would be anyone who’s found themselves locked up for more than a single play session. It gets to the question of what is a true submissive. If one only feels that way after being denied (or feels it much more strongly), then is that person a real sub? Honestly, I leave that question to others to decide. For Chaste Wench and for me and for many others (maybe even you), we like that eventual feeling of profound submission. The part where you can’t get enough of whatever she’s dishing out. As far as I’m concerned, you need at least a seed of submission in you somewhere for it to grow, but really, if it feels good, who cares?.

The cratering of desire for all this chastity play after orgasm can’t be helped (assuming it’s a pleasurable orgasm). It’s chemical. Once you come and the brain releases its happy juice into your bloodstream, it snuffs out the other chemicals that drive the need to be locked and disciplined and abused. There really is no way around it, other than either always ruining the guy’s orgasm or never ever letting him have another (which is rife with its own set of issues). After the spurt, you feel kind of embarrassed for ever wanting to wear the thing in the first place and wonder what all the hubbub was about. If you have a blog like this one, you go back and read things that, even though you wrote them, you have a hard time feeling.

Personally, my advice would be to enjoy the ride. When it’s up, it’s the best fucking thing in the word (or at least feels that way). When it’s down, you simply need to take solace in the fact that, given time and a secure device, all will feel right in the world eventually. For me, assuming it’s just one orgasm, that’s about 2-3 days. Hardly any time at all!

August 8, 2011

The choice

RougueBambi said, regarding comments left by other readers of my previous post:

I really don’t understand, how someone can “not understand the bisexual thing” after what Thumper just wrote. It’s not a thing you choose. It’s a fucking sexuality.

I think what they were saying when they wrote they couldn’t understand bisexuality was the same thing I said in my post, “It’s hard for me to relate today to someone who doesn’t find something appealing about both male and female forms.” The word “relate” is probably better than “understand” because I can understand how someone would not find those of their gender sexually attractive the same way I can understand how people find all kinds of bodies and acts attractive I don’t. We all have our types. We all have our kinks. But, as someone who is firmly attracted to both genders, it is difficult for me to relate to those who aren’t (especially those with an equal yet opposite determination).

I don’t want to dwell on that so much as I want to talk about her other point. “It’s not a thing you choose. It’s a fucking sexuality.” I agree entirely that I did not choose to be attracted to both genders. I’m not sure, all things being equal, I would have chosen it and that is, ironically, the giant hole in the argument for all those who claim homosexuality is a choice. Like anyone would choose to be ostracized by their friends and family, discriminated against by their employer and the government, and basically treated like a social waste product for fucking centuries upon centuries of Western culture. Or, more personally, that I would choose to lose some of the most productive sexual years of my life because I couldn’t find a way out of my own crossed signals to a place where I could enjoy myself with willing partners of either gender. No, what you want to fuck is not a damned choice. It’s hard-wired. Like handedness and Tea Party psychosis.

But.

I did make a choice. I chose the heterosexual path. I chose it because I felt more emotional satisfaction with women but also because it was, of course, the far easier choice to make. I chose it over having to come out to my family and friends and over uncertainly in how I’d live and what I knew was a very real prospect of never being able to form a lasting relationship with a man. I chose having my own kids with my own partner and I chose not to be treated like a moral deviant. I made this choice fifteen years ago and times have certainly changed, but I’m sure the core of the choice would remain the same if I had it to do all over again. One could argue that my inclination was already towards heterosexuality, but I am far more than just a little homosexual. I am very definitely a “rounded up” heterosexual. I eventually rounded myself up and essentially locked 45% of my sexuality in a box for the rest of my life in order to have a “normal” relationship with a woman.

I cannot be alone. I know I’m not. I remember all those guys I sucked off who are now in the same place I am with a wife and kids and everything. I don’t think many of them were as close to the middle of the Kinsey scale as I am and most were experiencing “situational” homosexuality driven by their teenage hormones, an inability to score with the chicks, and a more than willing slut of a boy readily at hand. I’m sure that many of them, when pondering the whole “is homosexuality a choice” thing, think it may be based on their life experience. They experimented with the gay thing and decided not to explore it further. Therefore, it’s a choice. They might even look at me, the willing and eager participant in their experimentation, and see someone else who made their “choice”.

So no, you can’t choose what turns you on. But you can choose how to live your life. If that choice goes against your nature, you will be miserable and probably pretty unsuccessful at it. I made my choice and that choice allowed me to get on with my life. Because of it, there are things I want and will never get that sometimes eat at me from the inside out. Simultaneously, there are other things that fill my life with joy and contentment and a sense of purpose. In the end, I made the only choice that made sense for me.