To Share The Cup That Runneth Over

Someone on FetLife was asking for peoples' perspectives on the influence of our past parental abuse on those of us who have been abused and how it relates to our own desire to have, or to avoid having, children. Her voice was impassioned and full of a great deal of understandable internal conflict. It's clear she wants the good things that come with having children, and desperately wants to love and care for someone, but realizes that her scars may get in the way, and doesn't want to be a bad parent.

I would like to share my response with you all.

The best way I feel I can answer this is to tell my own stories related to it. 

I was inspired by the subtle, psychological abuses of my childhood to be vehemently vocal about bad parenting when I see it, especially when parents become frustrated with their childrens' natural curiosity and desire to learn, seeing virtually anything other than quiet obedience as disobedience, even when they only the actions of a young, inexperienced human engaged with the world and trying to gain the experience required to be a wise, functional adult.
And then later, I found VHEMT. 

I am not convinced that the human race has no chance of improving and willfully evolving socially and morally to progressively better states, and therefore don't think I actually want us to go extinct, but I definitely would prefer to see a smaller human race, with more quality, and less quantity, of life. The fewer people there are to share resources with, the bigger everyone's fair share can be. 

And this is why I've decided never to give birth, even though the thought is a fetish of mine.
However, it doesn't mean I don't want to be a mother.
I am still scarred and rendered dysfunctional by my own past abuses. In many ways the wisdom and sensitivity gained from my suffering has made me a generally very patient and level-headed person, but I am also prone to fits of anxiety and rage. Furthermore, I am young, and at the very beginning of my career. 

But someday, if I have greater financial stability, and if I have healed further and feel less controlled by my overpowering emotions, I will almost certainly want to participate in the growing and nurturing of children who were not born to me. I may foster-parent, or adopt. Or I may find my way into a nurturing role in my profession, or find my way into a household that accepts me in a role as a supportive carer and guardian to the children of someone else. 

Personally, I find it hard to believe that any child, even in the best and most well-adapted of families, could not benefit from one more loving, supportive adult in their life to encourage them to be the best that they could be; And equally hard to believe that any parent, even with the best luxuries and availability of resources and time, would not benefit from one more loving, supportive adult who could share the stresses of caring for a child when they become taxing, and thus prevent the build-up of frustration that can lead to that frustration being inappropriately taken out on the child. 

But to answer the question that stood out most to me in your post...
"If you feel, like you have love and tender loving care to give, who do you direct that energy to, if it is not kids?" 

Why... To everyone, of course. Neighbors going through hard times. Co-workers. Friends. And definitely lovers, whether they be short or long term. Absolutely everyone, not only children, and to be sure not only our own blood children, can use some Tender-Loving-Care. It is one of the greatest weaknesses of our Western society that we tend to forbid one another from taking responsibility for one another, and in turn, we forbid one another from asking for badly needed help. 

If you have love and Tender-Loving-Care to give, and you find no-one receiving it, if your cup runneth over with no-one to drink... Go to your best friends and congenial workmates, go to your lovers and partners and crushes, and if it is permissible within their circles, then go to theirs... go to those people with whom you can easily empathize, and encourage them to draw from your well of kindness whenever they are thirsty. 

All too frequently the only socially acceptable answer, to create a new life in to nurture and build up, because for some incredibly stupid reason we have been forbidden to nurture and build one another, is the only one that comes to mind. But especially for those of us who are damaged and who runneth over, but sometimes also run dry... We know in our doubts that creating a life for our love and care, and then becoming overwhelmed and filling it up also with our frustrations and tempers, becoming bad parents... Is all too real a possibility. 

Before you forge a new cup that you may not be able to fill all by yourself, then... I encourage you to seek out all of those cups near to your heart that are beginning to run low, and ask gently and patiently for permission to refill them. Break the stupid rules that forbid us from caring, mothering and looking out for one another. It is, of course, a delicate dance, and important not to be overbearing, but simply to be loving and available. But it's a well-known fact that parenting isn't easy. And this holds true whether the people you're parenting are children, or blood family, or not. 

I hope this helped.

Life Is Good

Good day, bloggers.

I really, really mean that.

Sorry I've not been in touch, life is pretty awesomely hectic. Let's see if I can fill you in with some brevity. Robby the rabbit boy is still around and still a source of great comfort and warm, easy, peaceful love that makes a lot of traditional notions much more attractive... Not that they weren't already, but it's more profound.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Pup's around again too. I didn't talk to him for a whole month... Then I broke the silence, and returned to find a puppy boy grateful and overwhelmed with good feelings to hear my voice and see my face again. For the two weeks previous, he'd been getting help changing some of his more difficult behaviors from a shockingly delightful lady who showed up on FetLife out of absolutely nowhere to flirt with me and ask about playing with me. I wasn't really interested, partly because of the recent chaos with Pup, so she found his page and asked me if she could play with him. I was only too glad to encourage her to do so with my highest blessings and deep gratitude. While I'd given up the Pup as a lost cause for me, I really wanted him to get through the grief I knew it would cause him breaking up with me and was incredibly grateful to have someone show up who seemed very much his type and who would probably do great things to soothe the pain, if only by being a very pleasant distraction who understood.

She surprised me. Not only did she enjoy him in ways I have no doubt he enjoyed quite a lot himself, she took on the task of training him according to his own desires to become a person who would be less trouble for me if I ever did come back. She's helped him, for his sake and mine, to be less argumentative, to stop and ask before going off on long tangents or trying to share all the neat things he wants to share with me... And, with an incredible cunning that blew me away when I heard of it, also came up with a way to give him some training in pitch recognition and at the same time, much more importantly, subject him to exposure therapy to force him to face and learn to deal with jealousy. In a way that he will accept, despite all its unpleasantness. She is a fucking genius, and I don't know what kind spirit sent her our way, but may it receive resounding thanks for her presence.

I'm not spending a lot of time with Pup. But we've spoken a few times. It has been congenial and pleasant. My lost cause, somehow... in only a month... has been found again, and retrieved safely and whole from the jaws of panic and hopelessness and fits of not knowing how to deal with his jealousy...

I don't know what to say, but thank you, thank you, thank you, and if I somehow deserve all this, I abso-fucking-lutely love who I am as a person on that count alone.

It doesn't stop there. For the past two weeks, I've been employed. I'm working part time, a minimum of 15-20 hours a week, with Goodwill retail here in London. And it's great. I'm primarily a stocker and unstocker, but I also clean the kitchens and staff bathrooms, since the new manager offered extra hours to someone willing to keep those areas clean, and housekeeping is my background. I had even been doing some independent work cleaning someone's bathrooms from time to time in the preceding few months. Serendipity to be sure.

My job has me on my feet walking a lot, up to 7 or 8 hours in a day, so my feet are often tired and sore at the end of a shift. My arms get sore too when I have to stock or pull from high racks, as apparently there are muscles that my arms has never had much need to use before that I use a lot when I'm holding them above my head. That pain only lasts as long as I'm doing it, though, and I'm sure it will fade with time and exposure. I need new shoes I can put cushioned insoles in. I've been told those will certainly help with my feet.

I want to give deep thanks to Goodwill (the job help branch) for helping me get here, and to Goodwill (retail) for hiring me, and to Robby for helping me get through the higher powered job search with my head high and confidence showing, despite being in grief over Pup, and for many, many other wonderful things that make me very happy, very often. And of course I would like to thank our mysterious friend from FetLife for helping Puppy grow and change and become not a pain in the ass.

And to all my friends and readers who have helped, or who have only witnessed the drama of my life, and elected to care about it... Thank you as well. I love you all.

Dominance and Submission - bDSm

(excerpt from a conversation on Fetlife)

The Dominance and Submission aspect of BDSM, like pretty much any other kink, means different things to different people, but is, yes, essentially about power and control.

For some people, it is stimulating and very sexy to feel that they are in control of another person. For some, it feels sexy and stimulating to be under the control of someone else. The ways in which this control is exercised will vary from relationship to relationship. They can be healthy... or very dangerous if taken too far or pushed beyond reasonable boundaries.

Some people are only subby or dommy about sex - In control in the bedroom, or under someone else's. Some D/s couples don't even have sex, but have fun with the dynamic and form a romantic bond over it, or become in a way like family.

You will find that D/s relationships are as varied as vanilla relationships with nearly infinite kinds and orientations. They are, at their core, the same - a close connection between two people, that work according to who those two people are, how they interact and what they like, tolerate, and don't. The only distinguishing factor that makes it D/s is that at least some of the time, one person has some significant degree of control over the other. Ideally, freely given, and equally freely taken back if the true need arises.

FetLife: About Me

FetLife is a website for kinksters, fetishists, slaves and masters, virtually anyone who practices or would like to experience kink, BDSM, or any form of non-standard sexuality. It's a very, very social website, and if any of you are inclined to check it out, go right ahead. You only have your purported innocence to lose.

I am quite happy with the new write-up I put there today to reflect the changes in my attitude and intentions since  the last time I wrote my "About Me" bio. So, if you are brave enough, read on for a little more insight into my mind and the way I think.

It's time for change. 

I have just started a workout habit that hopefully will last. I am not yet in London, but that's where I'm headed next. 

I want to change my hair, add a new name to my standard collection, learn, develop, and keep going. 

I could probably be described as "vanilla with a hint of kink" - I'm not all that active, haven't really spent much time with anything traditionally BDSM. Some of the 'interests' I do have are taboo and strange. If you get to know me, you might learn of them. 

Generally speaking, I am not in a position in which I feel safe giving up control and I am not comfortable doing to other people this same thing which would feel terrifying and abusive to me. 

Sometimes pain (like hard fingernails raked hard down the back) can be relaxing in its discomfort, like a reminder of mortality, of the limits of the self, what I am and what I am not... and like a slap in the face that returns one to a larger perspective. Sometimes just embracing the physicality of the body and its experiences is reassuring in a way. 

Sometimes... we are animals born to fuck, born to fight, to gorge, to hurt, to be ashamed and vulnerable and get back up and keep living, at war and at peace with our animalism, and proud of the beauty of our individual identities. Anyone who misses this point, is, deluded. Period. 

We are complete with our scars... But it is better to slowly heal the scars than rip them open to scar again for pride's sake. 

I am gentle and ferocious, I change with the winds. I am tired and bitter, and always trying hard to find evidence of people and things that will somehow consistently fail to disappoint me. These things are few. 

I am angry and upset, often for no obvious reason beyond the background of the world and how fucking wrong it is about so many things... 

And yet... This world that we are living in now, may be the safest, the sanest, the most co-operative and peaceful, the best regulated and easiest to build on, that the world our Earth has ever been. 

Now... is that disappointing? Or is that inspiring? 

There is always music, even when it hurts to hear.
There is always beauty, even when there is also pain, misery, and death.
This is your life. You can ruin it or throw it away, or get it messy, if you want to.
And I can spend a few hours of mine from time to time encouraging you not to.
This is equally my right as your freedom is yours.
We are social creatures. We need each other.
We are not the machines that the Industrial Age tries to force us to be.
I sincerely look forward to a truly Post-Industrial Age.
It IS coming. Those who stand in the way of the future may stall it but cannot prevent it. They will move, or they will fall. 

This is who I am. Do you want some?

Alejandro

(originally posted on FetLife on July 10, 2010)

Lady Gaga is not a subject I would normally admit to starting a conversation about...

But I had to sit myself down and do some real thinking about bias and bitterness when, after finding a link to one of these music videos, described by the linker (don't remember who, but it was on youtube) as a really interesting demonstration of gender assumptions and such things, and going there, and watching and listening...

Well. I like the song, I have to admit. But I found myself having a very hard time accepting that I liked a song performed by Lady Gaga. And I found myself thinking that if it had been done by Ace of Base instead, I could have loved it and had no issue of feeling like I'd just smiled and shaken hands with Adolf Hitler. Which makes no sense, because I'll admit, Ace of Base has made some songs I consider almost pukeworthy for being idiotic, cliched and shallow... and also some songs I consider brilliant, but that doesn't diminish the badness of the bad.

And this is why myself had to take me aside for a little talk about bias. In front of someone, because I find it almost impossible to talk through these things properly unless I'm talking "to" someone.

Is Lady Gaga evil?

Well... erhhm?

Come on, Emily, erhhm is not a functional answer. What exactly is your problem with her?

And, well. Sigh. It turns out my problem with Lady Gaga is that a great, great many careless idiots love her music. It's popular. Fullstop. That's it.

And -some- of it, I don't like based on content as -well-, quite definitely. But, as has been discovered, not all.

But this brings me back to a very old problem of mine (as a not very old girl, anyway) of hating the popular simply because it is popular and I believe for both reasons bitter and senseless and reasons rooted in intelligence and perception, AND reasons that other people just told me and I find believable (let's not be denying that I'm perfectly capable of adopting other peoples' opinions just because they sound good, too, that would be dishonest)... that the methods by which things become popular are stupid, stupid methods that should die.

The problem is that even assuming that it's true things become popular for incredibly stupid reasons (such as, for instance, that a great many idiots like them, as one of the less conspiratorial explanations), does NOT mean that anything selected by this process will necessarily be horrible. Only that it WON'T necessarily be good. There's a difference. And...

Alright. Does her music condone violence?

Um... No, not any songs that I know of, anyway.

Does it condone hatred then?

Er... I don't think so? Does coldness count? Apathy? Psychological power tripping? Some of them seem to condone that.

No. It doesn't count.

Well damnit.

Yep.

(Sigh) ... Alright! Alright. Lady Gaga is not... Hang on wait! Um - Some of her songs may condone stupidity?

(Impatient sigh) Yes?

Well... ... Umm... ... Okay, okay! Fuck it. Fine! Lady Gaga is not evil.

Thank you. And?

(reluctant mumble) and it's not fair to hate her because she's popular...

And?

S'ry.

Well, there now. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Mumble mumble should have been harder mumble.

Oh, come on now, none of that.

... And in fact... Well. There -are- some really interesting and bizarre things in what she's doing there. Getting a small group of butch-looking men in militay uniform to dance in her own feminine style (and presenting a bunch of men almost naked wearing spiky heeled shoes) - and the resulting image, and how it looks to someone living in this culture (if you're watching one of the men in those scenes, and not her, for a minute - incredibly silly) DOES say a lot about gender roles, and about the repression and pressure and limitations on -men-...

Is it really any wonder we see so many crossdressers and "sissies" on FetLife? Us genetic females aren't the only ones who like to experiment with acting and dressing, and dancing, etc, in different ways.

I think there's something here I haven't been paying enough attention to the value of, because I've been a bit blinded by stupid hate.

And that... Well. It hurts. It's extremely embarassing and sad.

Let it never, ever be said that intelligent people are above stupidity.

And let it never be assumed that we should have to be.

Now that would be unreasonable bias.

SS