Business meeting pick-ups

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Click to expand...

Oh, back to the wife wanting to come back in the male role. The point is, how much of our sexual appetites are created by society?

Despite my normal inclination, I'm leaving the cheap joke alone and actually thinking. I'll get back to you.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Click to expand...

Oh, back to the wife wanting to come back in the male role. The point is, how much of our sexual appetites are created by society?

So are you gonna let her give you the strapon?

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Click to expand...

Oh, back to the wife wanting to come back in the male role. The point is, how much of our sexual appetites are created by society?

A lot. I would say that it plays a gigantic role.

Originally Posted by EL72

Click to expand...

So are you gonna let her give you the strapon?

I'm thinking the marriage vows finish at death. I am a product of my society. DO NOT WANT.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Click to expand...

Oh, back to the wife wanting to come back in the male role. The point is, how much of our sexual appetites are created by society?

I think sexual appetite exists regardless of media and society, outside of simply having people around. Reproduction in general is a strong genetic drive to propagate the species, and it's a short leap from reproductive duty-sex to "gosh, that was fun...again!"

Part of me thinks that perhaps your wife's comment at least partly stems simply from the unknowns about the other side of the fence, possibly just from an gender-operational perspective (standing while peeing, no PMS, higher wages), and just a little curiosity about the pitcher's view.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Click to expand...

The point is, how much of our sexual appetites are created by society?

Originally Posted by randallr

Click to expand...

A lot. I would say that it plays a gigantic role.

Nah. I'm going to give society a pass here. I think we can thank (or blame, depending upon one's view) the penis for this.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Click to expand...

I'm thinking the marriage vows finish at death. I am a product of my society. DO NOT WANT.

If she was reincarnated as a man and you as a woman, why would that matter?

Originally Posted by Thomas

Click to expand...

Despite my normal inclination, I'm leaving the cheap joke alone and actually thinking. I'll get back to you.

I guess I should add too, the funny thing is, she's exceedingly feminine. I believe engineers, as a group, might just think too much about alternative ways systems can be set up.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Click to expand...

Absolutely, and I think deconstruction has now become so ingrained in the academic psyche that it's almost become second-nature. We can all spot the categories and see how they generate behaviour when we sit down and think about them. Nevertheless, I find it difficult to separate discourse-based attitudes from phenomenological responses in real life, especially in matters of attraction. I can easily agree that identities are gendered and that markers of attraction are in large part culturally determined (one needs only to glance over history for this), but it's less clear to me that other aspects of sexuality and attraction don't precede social categories, especially if one agrees that ****/heterosexual inclinations (as opposed to activities) are not a choice. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I don't see what kind of wiggle room you're looking for, because I don't understand how the physical fact of male/male relationships should (logically) make them different culturally from male/female ones, particularly since I don't believe in a template for the latter in any case. Perhaps I'm not expressing myself clearly, but this sort of conversation hardly lends itself to lucidity.

:
You are right; one thing I say on almost EVERY thread like this is that without knowing our audience clearly, their background or areas of research, it's almost impossible to be clear or thorough. As well, as you mentioned, it's hard to be lucid in GENERAL about this stuff, especially online. Wanna meet for a beer? I'm with you on the second and third paragraphs and don't have an answer, at least not one that I could get into here without getting the WALL OF TEXT slam from others and not one that has anything definitive about it. The "wiggle room" I mentioned is only a sneaking suspicion I have, or a "sense" or feeling of something that I don't know that we're really yet in a position to explore. The lines of sexuality are blurring faster than anybody would have believed, for better or for worse, and what all of those lines mean isn't so clear cut. I don't feel like gay guys yet have a set of possibilities for them as a way of life that is so much "desirable" as much as it is simply a form of desire (this, again, is a Foucaultian notion, something he just started to explore when he died). Further, I think that what IS there... namely a form or reflection of a straight relationship... isn't satisfactory. Nevertheless, I think these things are changing and that "wiggle room" is perhaps the freeplay or breathing space that can give us something on which to build. As I've said before, I don't think there really "is" a gay culture yet, or at least not something that is legitimate or authentic in and of itself. We're getting there, but until we do, a lot of guys are going to continue feeling "out of place" in relation to their desires and the conceptual mindsets that are open to them that would allow them to THINK about those desires.

Woah, I ain't readin' all dat.

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

Click to expand...

(...)

Nevertheless, I think these things are changing and that "wiggle room" is perhaps the freeplay or breathing space that can give us something on which to build. As I've said before, I don't think there really "is" a gay culture yet, or at least not something that is legitimate or authentic in and of itself. We're getting there, but until we do, a lot of guys are going to continue feeling "out of place" in relation to their desires and the conceptual mindsets that are open to them that would allow them to THINK about those desires.

I've read your comments here and on other threads about gay culture, and the showy stereotypes that tend to prevail, but I'm a bit lost here - is there a need for a gay culture? An authentic and legitimate culture?

Originally Posted by Thomas

Click to expand...

I've read your comments here and on other threads about gay culture, and the showy stereotypes that tend to prevail, but I'm a bit lost here - is there a need for a gay culture? An authentic and legitimate culture?
I can't articulate it clearly here and so I'm afraid it will come out muddled... but here goes: I'm just saying that "being gay" right now has nothing about being a legitimate or desirable "way of life." It's about sex with men or wanting sex with men. "Being gay" marks you as a certain way or being a certain "type" of person. "Being straight," though, IS a way of life that doesn't have to identify itself, it doesn't have to just "be" about sex or whatever else. It just "is" what it is and, with the freedom it offers, becomes a desirABLE way of living. What's desirable about being gay, AS A LIFESTYLE? The whole makeup isn't such that a young guy can BE honest with himself and say, "who am I? Do I like boys or girls?" and then proceed openly and freely to "know thyself."

Originally Posted by edmorel

Click to expand...

Dude you sound like a self hating ****.

Grow a pair of balls and forget what society's concept of gay is. Be who you are. Saying the gay community shoots itself in the foot with parades and stuff is rather marsupialed. Do you always check with society before you do anything? You are like that dad in American Beauty.

You honestly have me all wrong and you don't understand that the gay subculture is much different from the mainstream beyond the obvious difference in sexuality. Those other elements (hedonism, rampant drug usage, calling each other 'girlfriend', *** hags, etc.) are what keep me away from it. I'm not a 'self-hating ****' and I'm completely confident in my sexuality and myself. I just don't like certain aspects the almost-forced gay subculture and I have no reason or intention for shoehorning myself into it or any other subculture that garners the same feelings. I don't even know why I'm a subject here. I have no problem with who I am or what I do and I really don't know where people are getting the idea that this is some type of coming-out thread or my way of repressing my sexuality.

I can't make it any more clear that I'm not the subject. My intention for this thread was to discuss the dichotomy sometimes felt between emotional and physical attraction and individual standards for affection.

rach, are you saying most gay men have a "moment" where they stop hiding from themselves? I sort of assumed most people (not all) had a pretty hardwired imprint by the age of sexual awakening, what did and did not attract them. It's not quite 1:1, but in my case, I cannot ever really remember not preferring what I call "golden skinned' women, be they Asian, Indian, Native American, etc. There was just a certain skin tone, set of facial features, and hair that have always been my preference. Sort of like being bi, other women attract me, but my lodestone always pointed towards a particular sub-set of women.

This so-called gay culture is what makes it interesting for me to loiter at these places. There are even things known as "alterna-gays" which mostly consists of homosexualists wearing hipster clothes and having ghetto drag queens as their coterie.