Politics, Toleration and Sexual Nonconformists

[RisiaSkye]

Re: Re: Re: Structural anthropology lite

The 'original' structuralist? Hmmm. The linguist de Saussure is who I'd nominate, but I couldn't really say.

Well, you'd probably have to bring in Jacobson, Trubeskoi's phoneme structures, and Bourbaski's Structures in Mathematics also. At least as far as I understand it, while they're all (if you add Saussure and Levi-Strauss into the mix) roughly contemporary, the mathematicians had something of a go-between in Jacobson, which helped the fields (anthro-phenomenology, linguistics, and math) exchange ideas.

Edited to add:
Thank you cym, for once again having the level headedness to say what I could not. ~ ~

 

[kiwiwolf]

Here at Lit, we dust motes have carved a respectable place for ourselves among all the rest of you. Here, we are just like anyone else, and you talk to us and play with us and listen to us, just as we do with and to you. Here we don't get sucked into the vacuum cleaner or pushed off to the side and ignored.


Just let us be. Don’t make fun of us. Don’t let your friends make fun of us. We’re just like you only we do things differently, a little or a lot, in our primary sexual/love relationships.

Is that really such a big deal?

Cym, first of all you and the rest of the BDSM folk here are not dust motes. You are all voices in the babbling Chinese parliament that is Lit. When I read a post or open a thread, I dont care what sexual persuasion the author is, I open the thread looking for one of two things... education or entertainment. The orientation of the author matters not one whit. I can only speak for myself here but I am pretty damned sure that this view is shared by the majority.

I could no more ridicule you for your lifestyle than ridicule tattoo virgins. It takes all sorts, it's just a pity that the morons who populate school boards and the like can't see this. They would see a wonderful lady with a wonderful lifestyle.... different from thier own but wonderful none the less.

Shells and wine coming your way...

S

 

[Calamity Jane]

This is NOT a 'pick on Cym' post, but I'm using her post to perhaps broaden the discussion from its original premise.

Here at Lit, we dust motes have carved a respectable place for ourselves among all the rest of you. Here, we are just like anyone else, and you talk to us and play with us and listen to us, just as we do with and to you.

But isn't this part of the problem? In this paragraph is still an 'us vs them' mentality. I honestly can't say that I read your posts any differently because of what you engage in sexually. You're a whole person, and that's but a facet of who you are. But if you consider yourself a 'dust mote' doesn't that help propentiate the idea that you are?

Elsewhere in our lives we have to learn to blend, we pieces of dust, with the furniture on which we're lying... or we have to become adept at surviving on the fringes of social norms. We cannot be out with our sexuality, except in rare situations. We cannot let most people know what we need and want and crave, what fulfills us as sexual people because of the fear and massive misunderstanding of what BDSM actually entails for the people who claim it for their own.

How allowed is ANYONE to be open about their sexuality? Really? I can't discuss anal sex with just anyone, because I get 'the look'. It's still considered nasty, or just plain wrong. So, I don't discuss it, even though it's a part of sex that I really truly enjoy. I can't walk up to my husband in public and cup his balls in my hand, or sit on a park bench and make out with him without offending someone.

I can't even be completely open with my husband about my sexuality. In that sense, you're more free than I am. He considers spanking 'freaky' ditto with using restraints. So I indulge in those fantasies mentally rather than physically.

Our society expects most sexual touching/conversation to go on behind closed doors. Not just 'the freaky shit'.

To most people, we're scary. We'll subvert their kids and steal their babies. We'll whip the skin off the unwilling and sell their useless hulks into white slavery. We'll pierce our private parts (well, okay, that's true for many of us! ~g~) and walk around stark naked except for those piercings.

We all end up hiding a part of us that would be considered 'dust' by many people. I can't be open about my spirituality with very many people. Part of that is due to where I live. Small town Missouri just isn't all that open to ideas of witchcraft. Again, I acknowledge this, and I'm careful about who I talk to, which books I check out from the local library, etc.

This past year, i told my mother and my personal doctor about my being a BDSM masochistic submissive. Here and in my everyday life, some of the BDSM'ers i know are amazed that i did that, that i told. Some can't imagine telling parents or siblings or even their physicians. We're afraid. Afraid it'll get back to our insurance companies and we'll be denied coverage, for instance, or that our mother will stop loving us (or have a heart attack worrying about us).

Unrelated thought here... I don't know about the laws in CA, but here, if your employer is covering you on insurance, they can get access to your medical records. I paid cash for counseling appointments that would have been covered by insurance, because of this. My employer, through the insurance company, could have gained full access to my records. What medications I was on, what was talked about, anything that was in my file. Are you sure that this 'coming out' to your doctor was a safe idea?

Just let us be. Don’t make fun of us. Don’t let your friends make fun of us. We’re just like you only we do things differently, a little or a lot, in our primary sexual/love relationships.

I suppose that my whole issue is with labeling. I'm a sexual person. I'm not defined by my kinks (or lack thereof), just as I'm not defined by the fact that I follow a specific spiritual path (or not, as the case may be). I'm afraid that in using labels (in your example BDSM/Nilla, though those aren't by any stretch of the imagination the only labels that could be used) we limit ourselves and others, and expect them to fit into a narrowly defined box. I don't fit into a box, and I doubt any of the rest of us do either.

Thinking about 'The Dusty House'... isn't it true that the dust was in fact stronger than the creature? It was quiet, it didn't speak up for itself or get in the creature's face, but it was there. It refused to be eradicated, it was constantly making itself known in small ways. Eventually, the creature learned to live with the dust, even though it didn't truly understand or appreciate it. But had the parable continued, might the creature have eventually noticed the beauty in dustmotes caught in a sunbeam?

My sister is involved in a lesbian relationship. It took a really long time for my family, my mother especially, to come to terms with that. Reactions ranged from ignoring the obvious, to pretending that 'if she only met the right man, everything would be ok', to 'I'll accept it, but I don't have to like it', and finally to her partner being considered as much a part of the family as my husband is, and in their relationship being considered just as valid as a marriage. For my family anyway, the key to acceptance was just in simply being. Not talking about it constantly, not being overly open, but in simply existing within the relationship and showing that they're at least as normal as anyone else.

 

[CelestialBody]