Mortality Blog

Okay, so the whole point of the Mortality Blog is that I have less then 80 years to live, and I think there’s a few things that I’ve run up against in my life that might be good for other people to see my thoughts on.

That said - how do I put this? I experienced an intriguing conflict of interests today. It’s a pretty stellar example of something that I’ve really only had the privilege of being exposed to a few times - a girl more or less explicitly asking me to sleep with her. In this case, it was someone attractive, someone smart and funny and cute and all that, but a girl nonetheless - and despite being comfortable in my relative lack of interest in that sort of thing, I realized that I felt bad, in a ‘I’m letting someone down’ sort of ‘not meeting expectations’ sort of way. Which is total bullshit - how many times have I protested that responsibility can only be accepted, not assigned, and that I feel that I’m under no circumstances obligated to follow cultural conventions regarding romance?

And yet - not saying, “Yes!” felt bad. In my head, I know that it wouldn’t have gone well - it would’ve just been disappointing to both of us. And yet there’s this sort of distinctly masculine cultural responsibility that I found myself aware of, where a guy is supposed to sleep with a girl especially if she really wants it. And I was failing at that duty.

It’s times like this that make some of my gay friend’s humorous accusations that I’m a straight man with a penis fetish seem just a little bit accurate - there are plenty of girls with whom I would gladly flirt if only there wasn’t this more or less inescapable reality of a vagina laying in wait. It seemed like a lot to explain to this particular girl, considering my general reluctance to bring this sort of thing up due to my cultural obligation aversion, but it was striking - how many times do I actually have reason to momentarily regret my sexual tastes? Not very often.

Anyway, it seemed interesting, and like I said, if anyone feels like taking a peek into my head, this is the sort of stuff that tumbles around like a wet load of clothes in a dryer.

This is an interesting point, one which I think I agree with… at least for the first two sentences.

” What’s with the label? Gay rights. Do they need seperate rights? Do they need a gay Bill of Rights, and a gay right to vote too? Please. Irony is not the fact that tolerant peoples do not want the legislation passed. Irony is the fact that Gays don’t want to be singled out and labeled, yet they have their own community (gay community), and they want Gay rights. Wow - I am going to start telling people I want White rights…i want a fair share and have people not worry more about minorities than me. I am an individual, just like everyone else. I want equal, white rights, too. Ironic…Don’t you think? ”

Gay-rights advocates press for change in N.D. law [bismarcktribune.com], comment by ‘Dante’s Inferno’

Kind of weird how he (apparently inadvertently) points out that the struggle for ‘gay rights’ is really a struggle for ‘equality’ and ‘civil rights,’ period - but then he immediately makes these sweeping generalizations about the ‘Gays’ (with a capital ‘G’) who ‘want Gay rights’, which he says is as ridiculous as ‘Whites’ wanting ‘White Rights’. Which is right - but he’s not saying it in a very considerate way. I wonder if one of my few concessions to political correctness is attempting to keep generalizations concerning characteristics of ‘groups’ of people to a minimum?

Everyone has heard “kids these days” and “when I was your age” - and chances are you’ve heard the concern over the differences between growing up in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, et cetera. Sex is an easy subject to bring up - now, instead of sneaking peaks at someone else’s playboy centerfold, you can just pull up a brower and type ‘porn.com’ - boom, blowjobs and anal. That worries some people, obviously, and maybe another phrase “when you’ve got a kid you’ll understand” would serve to satisfy my question, but here it is nonetheless: are kids really worse off for all this media exposure?

Here’s the thing - biologically speaking, things don’t change much between a generation. The kids are the same humans that their parents were several decades prior, as far as mental capability and physical capacity go. So indignant adults might point out that they used to whisper when talking about kissing and girlfriends while in school, while their kids talk explicitly about oral sex over AIM and on MySpace. The implication there is that the latter is somehow worse, or more challenging then the former. But I don’t think that it’s the right way to think about things - previous generations didn’t grow up with readily accessible pornography, so they can’t accept the possibility that current generations can handle it. In fact, it implies that they don’t think that their younger selves could’ve handled it - when I would argue that they totally could’ve, and they shouldn’t sell themselves short.

What do you think? Are children that are used to graphic sexuality and violence somehow worse, or just different from their parents? Is it something to be concerned about, or is it just the generation gap?

I might sound like a broken record here (playing the same thing over and over again, for those of you in the audience who have only heard of what a record is) but stupid shit like this wouldn’t happen if we didn’t have such stupid arbitrary laws concerning how old you have to be before you can consent to sexual activity:

Normally, getting back at your girlfriend by posting naked pictures of her on the internet is one of those mastercard ‘priceless’ moments - but if your girlfriend is 16, just two years younger then the age-of-consent, you are in deep shit, because you’ve ceased to be a jerk ex-boyfriend, and instead you’re a child pornographer who has sexually exploited a kid. What the fuck.

See? The assumption that all photos or videos of nude underage people is a problem, isn’t it? How can they be exploited when they took the photo themselves? I mean, have you seen Chris Crocker naked? He’s got a picture of himself when he was 17 - if you poke around a little in google image search you’ll find it. He took it himself, and chose to distribute it over the internet - but legally, he didn’t have the ability to take the photo, or distribute it. How fucked up is that?

It’s insulting the level of irresponsibility our government assigns to people younger then 18. It’s total bullshit. My imaginary punk rock band ‘bullshit policy’ probably has a song called ‘your body is not your own’ or something. Seriously.

It’s weird, having sexual dreams about people that I wouldn’t normally be especially attracted to - in particular, right after waking, because I almost feel like if the door busted open and there they were, I would be in to it. So is the dream a reflection of an attraction that exists, but that I don’t allow myself to explore? Because I wasn’t just, you know, going along in the dream, I was having a really good time.

So now the question is - do I feel a little more flexible sexually towards those two because of the dream, or have I always and now I’m allowing myself to acknowledge it?

Here’s an interesting idea that struck me just now (while sitting here at work playing around with Flash and listening to incredibly fun and catchy The Hidden Cameras’ album ‘Mississauga Goddamn’).

Religious groups ought to believe in freedom of religion, right? As much as I find that kind of irony amusing, I wouldn’t be at all amused at the hypocrisy of one religious group that wanted to deny rights to another.

And what is religion? It’s all about belief in something. Belief about the way that the universe works - explaining the otherwise inexplicable, solving questions of morality that would otherwise be impossible to answer, and providing a sense of purpose for our lives.

I’m not a participant in any organized religions, but it’s fair to say that I still have certain beliefs that meet that criteria above - do I have the right to keep those beliefs and not be persecuted for them?

For instance - I have no scientific proof that homosexuality is morally acceptable. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible to ‘prove’ moral issues empirically. However, I believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable, without any proof. I take it on faith.

The ‘Employment Nondiscrimination Act‘ just passed a House vote (after several decades of work), and will prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. Trans-gendered people aren’t included, which sucks, but at least it’s a start. Naturally, conservative religious organizations aren’t happy about this bill, and they’re complaining about it.

They are hypocrites. They believe that sexual preferences other then heterosexuality are wrong, while I believe that all sexual preference is right.- we both have our beliefs, and we have faith that we are right, but they think there’s something wrong with what I believe. It’s may be tough for you to believe this: I actually don’t have a problem with their belief in the immorality of homosexuality,
I only have a problem with that idea put in to practice. It’s fine if they’re repulsed by gay guys - as long as they act polite and don’t let that effect their judgment, which would result in prejudice.

While I’m at it, random question, true or false: “Being permissive by default regarding rights and rules is a superior system to being restrictive by default.”

I say true - I would rather start at the ‘everything goes’ stage and pare things down until it works.

okay, I take it back - I really was preoccupied with sex in highschool. See that’s why I need to go back in time and hang out with my younger self.

But there were lots of entries to the tune of:

“this one person makes me mad but I never tell them so”
“this guy is so obviously straight and not interested in me which is unfortunate because I feel exactly the opposite”
“I want more money and I am jealous of people who have more money then me”
“I don’t like my brother or my parents or my friends they are jerks. I don’t like school either.”
“I wish I could do [insert cool thing here] and I am jealous of people who already can”

I mean, sure, there’s some straight up chronicles of events and whatnot, but a lot of it seems to be me complaining. So here’s the interesting part - I wouldn’t really characterize myself as depressed in highschool, especially towards the end. I guess I just liked to complain.

Of course the interesting thing about highschool (and beyond) was that I never really ‘dated’. There was sex, but no dating. Which is a little unusual, but more or less in-line with the way I think about all that stuff today. I suppose one could argue that the way I feel now is due to the things I did then rather then vice-versa. Hmmm. Anyway. I like reading old journal entries.

… side note: starting some time this year, nearly every entry includes a passage where I rehash how much money I’m making and what I plan to spend it on. Aren’t I a good little capitalist?

Interesting situation - let’s say you meet this amazingly attractive person. Guy or girl, whatever you prefer. You are in love. You go to get married.

Surprise! It’s your twin brother or sister, seperated at birth! What do you do now?

Obviously, having kids of your own is out of the question. But could you actually still ‘be’ with them? You wouldn’t have any of that weird family / sibling taboo, at least not a history of it - but I’ll bet there would be plenty of cultural pressure. Would you just have secret sex, while joking about how close you came to marrying your own twin brother or sister? Would you be totally sickened about the whole thing and refuse to even see them again? Would you freak out? Would you be cool with it?

I’m curious. I think I would be a little weirded out by it - but if I’d already got to the point where I was going to marry them… I mean, how could you find a more perfect foil for your own self then your own twin?

Ha ha ha, twincest. Okay. Seriously. What would you do?

Given the choice between skantily clad busty girl / firefox and bedroom-eyes bill gates / internet explorer, the ‘right’ choice (for a straight computer nerd) would be girl/firefox, right? I hate to admit it, but… if using IE is the price I have to pay for sleeping with circa-1980s Bill Gates… sorry, hot firefox chick.