<p>Status? I don't know anything about that, but generally something being hard isn't a good enough reason to not do it. Sometimes it's a good reason TO do it. We don't become our best selves by avoiding the kind of work that improves us. I think navigating interpersonal relationships is the kind of hard thing that is worth doing. If wanting sex will pull you out of your shell, then you should take advantage of it and not take a short cut. It's the same kind of reason we should also avoid cocaine. Yeah, you can get high and feel like you accomplished something, but that's not the route that gets you closer to your best self.</p>
<p>You don't have to be working towards your best self, but I wanna be, so if anyone asks, (Haha and when they don't) that's my position. </p>
<p>I'm sorry bad things happened to people you know.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 6, 2013 10:46 AM, "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <<a href="mailto:g2g-public01@att.net">g2g-public01@att.net</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<br>
<br>
"HARD, MESSY, and RISKY?" Your phrasing around those words comes
across as somewhere between condescending and overtly mocking. <br>
<br>
So, the status hierarchy is based on the neo-Calvinist willingness
to suffer and die? Or possibly the right to brag about one's
perfect relationships and athletic talents? <br>
<br>
Abusive partners: Two weeks ago a close friend of mine was in the
hospital for a week, after having nearly died due to being stabbed
in the back by his psycho girlfriend who is now in jail facing
attempted murder charges. Yeah that relationship sure was HARD,
MESSY and RISKY: was that better than whacking off?<br>
<br>
HIV & other deadly STDs: People I knew died of AIDS: slow
painful miserable deaths like radiation poisoning stretched out to
make the agony worse. My "young & cute" years were spent in the
middle of a f---ing public health apocalypse where any given night
could be a death sentence. You really need to take a close look at
your heterosexist assumptions. Those heterosexist assumptions are
HARD (for this gay guy to deal with, without breaking out into
expletives), MESSY (expletive deleted), and RISKY (if the risk of
being seen as aggressively prejudiced means anything to you), but
hardly as much so as AIDS. <br>
<br>
And I take it you think revenge porn and other vicious tricks of the
sexual marketplace are funny?<br>
<br>
There are no extra "good karma points," or social status points
anywhere this side of an infantry platoon, to be gained from doing
what's HARD, MESSY, or RISKY, compared to doing something else
that's less likely to get you killed.<br>
<br>
And in my experience, people who insist on setting up invidious
superiority/inferiority hierarchies, and insist on invalidating the
quality of others' intimately personal experience, whether about
f---ery, wankery, geekery, food, music, religion, or whatever, are
usually overcompensating for being terribly insecure about
themselves. <br>
<br>
And here I've been having conscience-bugs for weeks, about having
told someone at SR who had worked on Asterisk PBXs, that I thought
Asterisk "wasn't ready yet for prime-time" in office environments.
In retrospect I thought my comment, "not ready for prime-time," had
been insufferably rude & arrogant. Wow. By comparison with the
present instance, that item was as mild as refried pinto beans with
no salsa.<br>
<br>
I'm going to be AFK until later today or this evening. Ta ta...<br>
<br>
-G.<br>
<br>
<br>
=====<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>On 13-05-06-Mon 9:51 AM, Sonja Trauss
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p>You got it! Dealing with people is HARD. It's MESSY. It's
RISKY. </p>
<p>Here I was thinking, 'sonja, you paranoid jerk, is porn really
a "scab"'? But, yeah... there you go. </p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 6, 2013 3:19 AM, "GtwoG
PublicOhOne" <<a href="mailto:g2g-public01@att.net" target="_blank">g2g-public01@att.net</a>>
wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
<br>
<br>
Yo's-<br>
<br>
So let's talk about the reasons we might prefer partners and
the reasons<br>
we might prefer hands:<br>
<br>
Anyone who's grown up with popular music knows the ideal of
Romantic<br>
Love: The perfect relationship, each person fully attuned to
the<br>
other. Great sex all the time, and great conversation all the
time,<br>
though not necessarily both at the same time. Hearts &
flowers until<br>
death do us part, whether or not the state or one's employers
recognizes<br>
the relationship.<br>
<br>
But for the most part, reality doesn't work that way, as the
divorce<br>
rate demonstrates.<br>
<br>
A hand is always preferable to an abusive partner.<br>
<br>
A hand is often preferable to playing HIV roulette, and
nowadays,<br>
massively-drug-resistant gonorrhea roulette, not to mention
hepatitis C<br>
and other life-threatening diseases, some of which can even be
caught<br>
from a (slurpy) kiss.<br>
<br>
A hand may be preferable to the competitive game-playing of
the sexual<br>
"marketplace," where commodification is often the rule,
particularly in<br>
a culture where "revenge porn" has become commonplace (posting
nudes of<br>
one's former partners and "conquests" online for all the world
to see,<br>
against their will) and cruel gossip spreads at the speed of
recycled<br>
electrons.<br>
<br>
For that matter a hand or two might be preferable to a partner
who's<br>
sexually inept, or of the opposite political or philosophical
persuasion<br>
than oneself, or who isn't strong, smart, creative, empathic,
or<br>
otherwise capable in at least one way that matters to oneself.<br>
<br>
After a particularly painful relationship breakup, a hand may
be<br>
retrospectively preferable to the wild ride that ended with
the<br>
going-insane feeling of being dumped or betrayed.<br>
<br>
And it's probably arguable, as a generalization, that a hand
that meets<br>
a basic physical need, is far better all round, than letting
the need go<br>
unmet to the point where it builds relentlessly, thereby
infecting one's<br>
every glance at another person, and one's every conversation.
In other<br>
words, masturbation is not only a personal good thing but a
social good<br>
thing when it enables one to keep his/her objectivity rather
than<br>
viewing others first and foremost as possible sexual outlets.<br>
<br>
Let's hear it for using our hands and keeping our objectivity!<br>
<br>
-G.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote></div>