sexuality

Poly and the Census – Success! (almost)

You may remember the long-running story of my letters to the Office of National Statistics, and the more-concentrated effort by another blogger, in regard to the automatic “correction” of supposedly-“erroneous” data in the 2011 census, like somebody having multiple partners or identifying as neither gender. You don’t? Well here’s a reminder: part one, part two, part three, part four.

Well: we’ve finally had some success. A response has been received from the ONS, including – at last – segments of business logic from their “correction” code.

It’s hard to tell for certain what the result of the correction will be, but one thing’s for sure – Ruth, JTA and I’s census data won’t have passed their validation! Their relationship validations BP2, BP2a, and BP2b state that it is logically-impossible for a person to have a spouse and a partner living with them in the same household.

I should invite them around for dinner sometime, and they can see for themselves that this isn’t true.

I also note that they consider it invalid for anybody to tick both or neither of the (two) gender option boxes, although again, it’s not clear from the data they’ve provided how the automatic correction occurs. Increasingly, I’m coming to suspect that this might actually be a manual process, in which case I’m wondering what guidelines there are for their operators?

One good piece of news from this FoI request, though: the ONS has confirmed that the original census data – the filled-in paper forms, which unlike the online version doesn’t enforce its validation upon you – is not adjusted. So in a hundred years time, people will be able to look back at the actual forms filled in by poly, trans, and other non-standard households around the UK, and generate actual statistics on the frequency with which these occur. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Hug An Asexual

It’s asexual awareness week. Go hug an asexual.

Or, if you’ve not got any asexual people around you, that you’re aware of (remember, though, that some asexuals are closeted), here’s a special mission for you:

1. If you need to, brush up asexuality ~~with this short but informative FAQ~~ (link got broken, here’s the nearest equivalent page).

Raise awareness of asexuality this week by making somebody aware of it, by dropping it into a relevant conversation. If an opportunity presents itself – perhaps somebody says “…if they’re straight, or gay…”, take the opportunity to add a few more to their list, and don’t forget to add asexual.

While asexual people don’t face the same kind of discrimination as other minority sexualities (for example, I’ve never heard of “a-bashing”), they’re still widely-misunderstood and often asked stupid questions like “How do you know you don’t like sex if you’ve never tried it?” (if you don’t know why that’s a stupid question, I refer you to the aforementioned FAQ)

So yeah: go hug an asexual today. In a non-sexual way, I’d suggest.

Poly and the Census – Part Four

Following up on my earlier blog posts about how data on polyamorous households is recorded in the census (see parts one, two, and three), as well as subsequent queries by Zoe O’Connell on this and related topics (how the census records data on other relationships, such as marriage between same-gender partners and civil partnerships between opposite-gender partners), there’s finally been some progress!

No; that’s a lie, I’m afraid. We’re still left wading around in the same muddy puddle. Zoe’s Freedom of Information Act request, which basically said “Okay, so you treat this kind of data as erroneous. How often does this happen?” got a response. And that response basically said, “We can’t tell you that, because we don’t have the information and it’d cost too much to work it out.” Back to square one.

Still: it looks like she’s not keen to be beaten, as she’s sent a fresh FoI request to instead ask “So what’s the algorithm you’re using to detect this erroneous data?” I was pleased to see that she went on to add, effectively, “I don’t need an explanation: send me the code if you need to,” which makes it harder for them to fall behind the “It’s too expensive!” excuse yet again.

Anyway: it’s one to watch. And needless to say, I’ll keep you all posted when anything changes…

Showing Some Pride

Paul and I seem to be featured in today’s Oxford Mail.

From the article –

Friends Dan Q and Paul Mann, of Kennington, decided to mark the [superheroes] theme by dressing as characters from the silver age of comic book heroes, the Flash and Kickass, far left.

Mr Q, 30, said: “We wanted to take part in the march because first of all it’s an excuse to dress up, and also to show that Oxford is home to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people and they should be represented.”

Apart from the obvious fault with the age of our characters – Kick-Ass (here correctly hyphenated) is a very new comic book character, designed in from only 2008 – which could have been corrected with a quick Wikipedia search, the article’s not bad. I’m reasonably pleased with my soundbite quotation, there: the journalist we spoke to caught me off-guard so I just reeled off the first thing I thought of, but it’s not bad, at least.

Ruth managed to carefully avoid appearing in any press photographs, but I think she’ll have been hard-pressed to avoid all of the shots my the Pride photographer, who ran around enthusiastically in a pink day-glow jacket, snapping away.

The Oxford Pride parade was fun, with the exception of the Catholic protest on Cornmarket, with their calls to “repent” from our “sinful lives”, and it was nice to lounge on the grass at Oxpens and listen to the music at the fair. Paul came second, by my estimation, in the fancy dress competition, and then I leapt around on a bouncy-castle/slide-thingy and sent all of the alcohol in my bloodstream rushing to my head.

Later, it rained, and I was too drunk to care.

Poly and the Census – Part Three

Unimpressed with the slow response time that I and others were getting to my query to the Office of National Statistics (to which I still never received a response) the month before last, Zoe O’Connell decided to send a Freedom of Information Act request demanding a response to a couple of similar questions. After some hassling (I suppose they’ve been busy, with the census and all), they finally responded. The original request and the full response is online now, as is Zoe’s blog post about the response. But here’s the short version of the response:

Polygamous marriages are not legally recognised in the UK and therefore any data received from a questionnaire that appeared to show polygamous relationship in the manner that you suggest would be read as an error. It is recognised that the majority of respondents recording themselves as being in a polygamous relationship in a UK census do so erroneously, for example, ticking the wrong box for one household member on the relationships question.

Therefore, the data to be used for statistical purposes would be adjusted by changing one or more of these relationships, so that each respondent is in a relationship with no more than one person. This is consistent with all previous UK censuses, and others around the world.

A copy of the original questionnaire would be retained as part of the historical record which would show such relationships as they were recorded. We do not attempt to amend the original record.

Any mismatches between the indicated sex and marital status of respondents will be resolved using a probabilistic statistical system which will not necessarily deal with each case in the same way. The system will look at other responses for each person, including those for the Household relationships, and will alter one or more variables to make the response consistent. In the example that you propose, it would either change the sex of one individual, or change the marital status to “Same-sex civil partnership”, depending on which is considered statistically more likely to be correct.

Honestly, I’m not particularly impressed. They’ve committed to maintaining a historical record of the original, “uncorrected” data, so that future statisticians can get a true picture of the answers given, but this is about the only positive point in this response. Treating unusual data as erroneous is akin to pretending that a societal change doesn’t exist, and that this approach is “consistent with previous censuses” neglects to entertain the possibility that this data has value that it might not have had previously.

Yes, there will be erroneous data: people who accidentally said that they had two husbands when they only have one, for example. And yes, this can probably (although they don’t state how they know to recognise this) be assumed to be more common that genuine cases where somebody meant to put that on their census (although there will also be an error rate amongst these people, too). But taking the broad brush approach of assuming that every case can be treated as an error reeks of the same narrow-mindedness as the (alleged; almost-certainly an urban legend) statement by Queen Victoria that lesbianism “didn’t exist.”

“Fixing” the data using probabilities just results in a regression towards the mean: “Hmm; this couple of men say they’re married: they could be civil partners, or it could be a mistake… but they’re in a county with statistically-few few gay people, so we’ll assume the latter.” Really: what?

I’m not impressed, ONS.

Update: a second FoI request now aims to determine how many “corrections” have been made on censuses, historically. One to watch.

Beware: Necrophiliac Paramedics!

A conversation I had this morning with JTA, via text message:

I sent:

Boiler update: this is getting silly. The probability-weighted Markov-chain based predictive text system I’m using this morning saw me type “boi” and suggested “Boiler update:”? /sighs/
On the upside, I’ve successfully arranged for the new distributor valve to be installed on Friday, when I’ll be around.

To give a little background, we’re having trouble with the boiler on Earth. You may have observed that it broke last year, and then again this year: well – it’s still broken, really. Nowadays it’ll only produce a little hot water at a time, and makes a noise like that scene in Titanic where the ship begins to tear in two. You know – a bad noise for a boiler to make. Over the last two or three weeks we’ve repeatedly fought to get it repaired, but it’s been challenging: more on that in a different blog post, if JTA doesn’t get there first.

JTA replied:

On the plus side, at least this saga is overriding your phone’s memory of your previous life as a male prostitute. :-)

I was once mistaken for a gay prostitute, actually – by a gay prostitute – but that’s another story, I guess. In any case, I responded:

Until now! you’ve just mentioned that again, which means it’ll be the “last message received” when the paramedics go through my phone if I’m killed on the way to work this morning. And they’ll say, “yeah; I’d pay to have sex with him.”

Quickly followed by:

And his mate will say:
“Now he’s dead, you don’t HAVE to pay.”
If my corpse is raped by a paramedic, I’m blaming you.

To which JTA said:

You’re talking about people who drive blacked out vans full of drugs. I’m pretty sure they never pay.

From prostitution to necrophilia to date rape over the course of only a handful of text messages. What a great start to a Wednesday morning. I do like the image of an ambulance as “a blacked out van full of drugs,” though…

Polyamory as an Identity

Hang around on any polyamory-themed newsgroups, forums, or mailing lists, and – before long – you’ll see a reasonable number of topics like this:

My girlfriend just “came out” to me as polyamorous.
I don’t feel comfortable being tied down to one person. Am I poly?
My husband is seeing somebody who identifies as mono.

What do all of these topics have in common? In each case, they involve at least one person who defines themselves, or others, as being “polyamorous” or “monoamorous/monogamous”.

That’s a perfectly popular mindset – there are plenty of folks who claim that we’re all hard-wired for mono- or poly-, just like we are for our sexual orientation – but it’s not one that I can get my head around. For me, polyamory is not an identity. It’s not something I am, but something I do. The difference is important: I am not polyamorous (although I’m in a relationship that is), just as I was not monoamorous (when I was last in a relationship that was).

I’m not alone in this belief, although I’m perhaps in a minority. It’s evidently the case for many practitioners of polyamorous relationships that they are “poly”, just like they might be gay, straight, or bisexual (among other sexualities).

It's Complicated. For you, perhaps. — It’s Complicated. For you, perhaps.

We attach a great deal of significance to our personal identity: I suppose that’s one explanation for why people get so attached to the idea that they are something. It’s very easy to claim an identity based on your race, your sexual orientation, your religion, or your political affiliation. It’s clear from these examples that an identity does not have to be something genetic or biological, but can be the result of a choice. However, this still doesn’t “fix” things for me: it still doesn’t feel as though my relationship choices are part of me so much as they are part of my circumstances.

The difference, for me, is one of activity. One can have a sexual orientation without having sexual activity, can have a religious belief without engaging in a religious ceremony; can have a political stance without voting (although I know people who’d throw back at me a No true Scotsman argument about those last two). But I can’t fathom a way that one can “be” polyamorous without having a relationship!

I wonder if, perhaps, those people who identify as “being” polyamorous would claim that they could not possibly be happy if they were somehow confined to exactly one or fewer romantic relationships? That’s the only way that I can conceive that one could justify a polyamorous self-definition. Anything less would seem to be putting the cart before the horse: if it’s not essential to you, then how is it part of you?

And maybe there are some people would answer that question affirmatively; people for whom having a second (or third, or more) romantic relationship is critical to their happiness. In fact, I’m sure there are. Maybe these are the truly “polyamorous” people – the nonmonogamy equivalent of what in sexuality would be a Kinsey 6 (or 0: I haven’t yet decided which way this scale should go).

I can conceive of the existence of these people: I’ve probably even met some. They’re not so dissimilar to those “monogamous” people who are incapable of being happy when they’re single. I’ll admit that the society we live in is horribly biased towards couples, and that we’re culturally stunted in that we’re trained to think of those who are single as somehow “failing”, but I just can’t quite get my head around it. I’ve been perfectly happy at various points of being in intimate relationships with zero, one, or more partners, and I almost never go “out of my way” to seek out a potential mate.

Perhaps I’m the outlier: it certainly sounds like it, in the face of overwhelming evidence. But for me, that’s certainly the most comfortable choice to find happiness regardless of how my relationships happen to be laid out. And for that reason, polyamorous relationships are, when the occur, simply a rational choice for me – not some drive to “hoard” more lovers nor (as is commonly stated by some poly practitioners) a way to have your needs by more than a single person. To me, engaging in an open, polyamorous relationship – where possible – just makes logical sense, and for those capable of it, there seems no reason not to use that kind of relationship as a starting point. Everything else can be bolted on top.

But what would I know?

The L-Word

I just thought I’d put some feelers out not for the first time, but for the first time online, to see if my theory is true that I am only only man in the known universe who enjoys the (now-finished) Showtime drama series The L-Word. If I’m not, will somebody let me know!

I have an ongoing experience when I tell people about the series. I explain what it is and why I like it. Evidently my enthusiasm is sufficient to grab the interest of whoever I’m speaking to, because many of them will then go and watch it. What happens then divides strictly down gender lines. Virtually every woman I’ve introduced to the show goes on to watch and enjoy it, and virtually every man – except me – goes on to watch it and hates it. What gives?

I’ve jokingly said before that among my male friends, the gay ones don’t like it because there’s too much lesbian sex, and the straight ones don’t like it because there’s too little. That’s pretty cynical, I know, and I’m not convinced it’s true: after all, if this was genuinely among the major criteria for favouring or disfavouring a drama series, well, then most of my male friends wouldn’t watch any at all, and that certainly isn’t the case.

Maybe I’m just mis-selling it. I’m pretty much following the TV guide description when I tell folk about it: it’s a show about a group of (mostly lesbian) friends in LA – major themes are relationships, sex, sexuality, discrimination, social class, career, and art. That pretty much covers it. It’s compelling and intricate, and I’m honestly at a loss to explain the clear gender boundary between those who do and those who don’t enjoy it.

Ruth proposed to me that it could be to do with the way that women communicate: much of the impact of the show comes from the way that the characters share their feelings – more in subtle ways like choice of language and body language than in the actual face-value dialogue. Her thinking here is that (whether because of our biology or our upbringing), us gents aren’t as capable of picking up on these cues, which form a baseline of the action in the series. It’s possible, I suppose: most of the show’s producers and many of the scriptwriters, as well as most of the cast, are female and so would be expected to have this mysterious superpower. But it fails to explain how the show appeals to me… and to whichever other men enjoy it: I’m hoping that if I hear a positive response back from any, that we might be able to work it out together.

In any case, it’s a conundrum: if you’ve got any ideas, let me know. And if you haven’t, go watch the show and see if you can work it out. Careful with the spoilers, if you’re ahead of me (I’m half-way through season 3, with its fabulous guest star Alan Cumming).

This blog post has nothing to do with my earlier post, Women In Movies, although if you enjoyed this one you might like that one, too.

Amateur Lesbians

I’ve recently reformatted and reinstalled, and that means that – briefly – I ended up seeing advertisements on the Internet again, until I had my ad-blocker reinstalled. And so I came to see an advertisement that promised to let me see “amateur lesbians”.

Now you and I both know perfectly well what they mean, but I’ve always been amused by the term. It somehow carries the implication that there are “professional lesbians”, who aren’t just hobbyists or weekend-homosexuals. I get the image of a conversation along these lines:

A: “So, what do you do for a living?”

B: “Oh, I’m a lesbian.”

If there is such a thing as a professional lesbian, I wonder if it’s one of those careers that is protected from gender discrimination laws, so that it’s allowed to disallow men from applying. And I wonder if you can get a vocational qualification in the field: you know, a BTEC in Lesbianism or something. I also wonder if there are any perks to the job – I mean apart from the obvious: do you get a company car? Do you have to pay for your own uniform?

I wonder, sometimes, if I wonder about things a little too much.

Kiwi Evolution

A discussion at SmartData this morning:

Dan: (eating a kiwi fruit) So why are kiwis hairy?
Gareth: To give insects something to cling onto?
Dan: Like “kiwi headlice”? But to what purpose? How does that benefit the plant?
Gareth: Well, then maybe it’s to make them look even more like gonads.
Dan: Heh. But again, to what purpose?
Gareth: To attract homosexual male humans to it, perhaps.
Dan: Which gives it an evolutionary advantage how?
Gareth: Well, homosexual men are better at disseminating seed.

BiCon 2009

This weekend, I was at BiCon 2009 (my third BiCon – I guess that makes it a tradition), and it was awesome. Here’s a short summary of the highs and lows:

Travel

Worcester’s closer than I remembered, and – once Claire‘d gotten used to the Vauxhall Astra we’d rented – we made good time there and back. It’s a really simple journey, really – you just drive along the A44 until you get there, and then you stop (well, okay, there’s a brief stretch on the A470 near Rhayader, but that doesn’t really count, does it?). The biggest difficulty we had was on the University of Worcester campus itself, which is a maze of twisty little passageways, all alike.

Accommodation

The usual student halls affair, although with rooms far larger and kitchens far better-equipped than those in, say, Penbryn. Also, the organisers must have run out of regular rooms, because the flat Claire and I were in had en-suite rooms, which was an unexpected luxury.

An interesting quirk in the halls of residence at Worcester is that they’re very, very keen on motion-sensor-activated lighting with very short timers. The lights in the hallway outside my room would come on for barely seconds, and when I first checked in, I’d only just worked out which was my door and dug my key out of my pocket before I was plunged into darkness and had to leap around to get the attention of the sensor and get the lights back on. The one in the kitchen was even worse – while playing board games on the first night, we eventually grabbed an anglepoise lamp from one of the study bedrooms to use, as it was simply too frustrating to begin your turn right as the lights turn off, and have to wait for a few seconds until your movement is enough to turn them back on again.

On the other extreme, the light (and the – noisy – linked extractor fan) in my bathroom was so sensitive that it would turn on if I so little as walked outside the door to my bathroom, while it was closed, and often wouldn’t turn off for several hours.

Registration

Registration was the usual fun and games, with less time than usual setting up our badges in accordance with the “sticker code” (sort of a handkerchief code, but with a key and an atmosphere of being a little more playful). As usual the sticker code started small (and, unusually, with a distinct and separate “official” code) and expanded over the course of the weekend, such that by the end of the conference it looked like this:

I didn’t spend very long on my badge and stickers this year: just enough to get a core message across… plus a not-on-the-key “Q scrabble tile”, as a reference both to being a board gamer and to Claire and I’s unusual surname. There’s probably at least half a dozen others I could have legitimately added to my pass.

To save you squinting at the pictures (or clicking on them to see bigger ones: that’s allowed, too), I’ll decode my badge for you: polyamorous, likes hugs, possibly available (as in: I’m theoretically open to new relationships, but seriously – where would I find the time?), and the aforementioned “Q scrabble tile” and another “Q” that I found in the sticker stash.

Claire volunteered for a shift of reception desk duties, which is cool, because they’re always in need of more folks there.

Other People’s Workshops

I didn’t go to as many workshops as I have in previous years: many of the things I was interested in clashed with one another, and other slots were simply full of topics that didn’t catch my attention. Also, I’ve found that going to a workshop in “every other” timeslot is a perfectly good way to get by, and spending the alternating periods hanging out, meeting people, and playing board games is a great way to keep energy levels up in the otherwise quite draining busy-ness of BiCon.

Right at the start of the conference, I narrowly missed going to Genital Show & Tell, which I later heard was awesome – I’d gotten carried away talking to people and got there after they’d locked the door, putting a sign up on it that read “This workshop is closed. Sorry.” and underneath which somebody had added “Yes, it is possible to have too many genitals in one place!”
I enjoyed Fun & Games, at which Ele joined me and we shouted lots of rude words, although never in as articulate a fashion as Nomad.
Went to the Smutty Bisexual Storytelling workshop for the first time this year, and it was amazing: huge thanks to the amazing Jacqui (is that spelled right?) for that fabulous (hot!) session.
Loved the talk and the discussion at the Quaker Marriage workshop (much thanks to the facilitator, whose low-key online presence suggests might prefer to remain unidentified), and the fabulous religion/marriage/sexuality conversation I had afterward with another participant in that workshop.
Hung out at two of the three scheduled Naked Lunches, at which I enjoyed bonding with several other (naked) geeks over a shared love of Interactive Fiction. Who’d have thought?

My Workshops

This year was the first year that I ran a workshop (last year’s impromptu purity test party doesn’t count), and, because I like a challenge, I ran two:

Alongside “fire_kitten“, I got bullied into (well, okay, I sorta promised) running a workshop entitled Different Approaches To Polyamory. As the only official poly-workshop on the programme (that’s why I offered!), it was somewhat over-subscribed, and we actually ended up with almost a quarter of the conference attendees present, and for part of the workshop we had to split them between two rooms. A lot of people grabbed me later during the conference and thanked me for the workshop, which was pleasing, especially as I did very, very little: mostly I gave the participants some conversation topics and split them up into groups, and chaired a bit of a chat about it all at the beginning and at the end. But if it worked, it worked, and it sounds like it worked.
When I’d first heard that there was a minor shortage of workshops, I felt compelled to provide one, but I couldn’t think of anything that I knew enough about to stand up and talk about, that people might actually be interested in hearing about. And then I thought of something. I did my other workshop on Listening Skills for Supporting Others, and it also went really well. It was a little under-subscribed, probably because it was timetabled against the time that many people will have been preparing their BiCon Ball costumes (hell, if I’d have been doing so at that time, it’d have made things a lot faster and easier for me!). However, it got some fantastic feedback, even from folks who seemed skeptical at the beginning that any good could be done by listening and supporting feelings, rather than by providing practical help.

BiCon Ball

The theme of the BiCon Ball was Crime and Punishment, and so there were – predictably – plenty of burglars with swag-bags, police officers, superheroes and villains, and the like. The standard of body-painting was even better than normal (a number of people opted to wear virtually nothing, instead being painted as, for example, Wonderwoman, who didn’t wear much to begin with).

Just to be that little bit different – and to take a metaphor to it’s illogical extreme in our characteristic manner – Claire and I decided to actually dress as a crime itself. She dressed as a salt shaker and I dressed as a Duracell D-Cell, and together we were… a salt and battery. Get it? Everybody else we spoke to that evening did, too, eventually, although many of them needed some prompting.

And There’s More…

Other highlights and notable moments include:

The “settling in” period seemed a little worse than usual this year than last year. Somehow it took me a little while longer than normal to “get into the BiCon groove” and to start appreciating BiCon for the heap of awesome that it really is. It’s always challenging jumping into that environment, and that’s to be expected, but something made it a little slower this year. Perhaps the lack of a beer in my hand!
Thoroughly enjoyed the last-minute late-night picnic party we helped kick-off after the BiCon Ball. Some of the coolest people at BiCon found their way to the quad not far from the students union, carrying their leftover food supplies, and we broke bread and exchanged hugs and chatted and it was fabulous. After all that and one thing and another, I finally got to bed at almost 4am, knackered but happy.
Discovered some cool new board games that might be finding their way to a Geek Night near you (assuming you live in Aberystwyth) soon, including Frank’s Zoo, Snatch, and Type Trumps (Top Trumps, but with typefaces; yes really).
Feeling like I’d helped make BiCon a success by volunteering to do a variety of bits and pieces (like the workshops, above) and generally being useful. It feels great to contribute back to the event and the community.
Katie managing to accidentally break a pool cue between her breasts. I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible (apparently, it’s left quite a bruise, and I’m not surprised).
Catching up (albeit only in passing) with Henri and Pascale, with whom we shared accommodation at our very first BiCon.
Spending an hour and a bit chatting to somebody who seemed to coincidentally know their way intimately around pretty much every interest I’ve thrown myself at over the last twelve months. But better. The killer was when it turned out that she spoke Esperanto better than me (if it’s any consolation, she made up for knowing everything by being gorgeous).
Watching another somebody dancing. Honestly, I could have watched him all night.
Everyone seemed to like the campus, which is cool (presumably they didn’t have rooms with extractor fans that whirred until three in the morning, which is quite irritating if you happen to have gone to bed before then, which happens sometimes).
Didn’t see as much of my flatmates as usual, which is a pity, because it included some fabulous people.
Having common sense. Knowing what to say yes to, and what to say no to, and why both are okay.
Not too bad a “coming down” post-BiCon period, this time.

Right; that’ll have to do for a BiCon 2009 Roundup, because Ruth‘s cooking me dinner so I need to go eat.

Ten Weirdest Sex Toys I’ve Ever Seen [NSFW]

This was one of my most-popular articles in 2009. If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy:

A dirty-looking calendar I found at work (2011).
My beliefs about why it’s wrong to lie to children about Santa (2009), complete with pictures of naughty elves.
An argument I had (2011) with the Office of National Statistics about nonmonogamy and the census.
Open Source Shaving (2009).

Warning: Not safe for work. Not even a little.

[wow; this has been a long while in the writing: I started writing this early in 2009 and finally finished in August – thanks for your patience, folks I promised this to!]

Sex toys are fun. Whether you’re playing alone or with friends, there are a million excuses to let a bit of silicon, plastic, leather or metal get involved, too. But all things said, I’m pretty vanilla: or, at least, I feel that way when I look at the sheer variety of fetishes that are represented on the Internet.

And I’m pretty open-minded. By the time I’m in a sex shop and I’ve turned my head sideways to work out what you’re supposed to do with whatever thing I’m looking at, I’m cool with it. It doesn’t have to be something that I’d want to put up my butt (or whatever) to make it so that I can understand how somebody else might like to.

But once in awhile, I come across something that simply makes no sense to me. Perhaps one of you guys can explain some of these to me:

The Baby Jesus Buttplug

“…make Baby Jesus the centerpiece of your magnificent Dildo Creche.” – Divine Interventions

I’m an atheist, but this seems to be a little disrespectful even to me. But more than that: supposed divinity aside, who wants to put a baby up their bum anyway? What’s the attraction in putting a small pink lump of plastic up your pooper? It’s not even like it’s a real baby and you’d have the excuse that you were just trying to stop it crying.

Who is this marketed to? Christians who want to show how much they really love Jesus? Anti-theists who want to show their disdain for the Son of Man in the sexiest way they could think of? People who want to experiment with anal play but want their toy to be one that they can leave out and not worry about people seeing?

I’m not even sure that it’d be a particularly good buttplug. Okay, there’s a slight ridge there so you’d be in a good position to grind the Lamb of God’s face into your prostate, if that’s your thing, but if I really wanted a religious-themed sex toy – and I don’t – I’d be looking at something with some substance, like a Jackhammer Jesus. Or go for everybody’s new messiah, Barack Obama, with the Head Of State Pleasure Toy (why do we never make sex toys out of British politicians?).

The Bouncing Ball Fucker

“You gotta check our resident ass-pig-in-training BOUNCING and FUCKING HIMSELF on this crazy new toy.” – Fort Troff

Do you remember Space Hoppers? Can you think of anything more childish, more innocent, more fun than bouncing around on a big rubber football with handles? It was a time of simple things, when my friends and I would have Space Hopper races up and down the garden. A time of paddling pools and climbing frames. And they’d be memories I’d cherish, until I saw this… umm… toy.

What happens if you take a space hopper and replace the handles with a six inch ribbed cock? You get this, the “Bouncing Ball Fucker”. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how you’d use it, but if you’re somehow in the dark – or you want to see for yourself – there’s a video.

I’m no prude, but I don’t think I’d be able to take my sex partner seriously if they came into the bedroom bouncing around on a bean bag that happened to be raping their arse at the same time. I can’t think of a way you could use this without laughing. And while I’ve got no problem with a good sense of humour, it’s rarely always the most conducive thing to sex.

The Concubine Masturbator

“Pound the seductive vibrating pussy while fondling the pert breasts.” – LoveHoney

Somewhere in the world, right now, there’s a mad scientist who’s busily working on genetic improvements by which he plans to build the next generation of humanity. And he’s got an idea about what the women of the future should look like. And it’s shown above.

Seriously, that would be a great premise for a horror film. Because I’m more scared of that… thing in the picture than I ever was watching John Carpenter’s The Thing.

There are so many things wrong with this sex toy that I’m not sure I know where to start:

What kind of person fantasises about fucking something that looks like this? I know that, as a man, I’m somehow supposed to be fixated on her boobs and vagina, but seriously: was it really worth removing everything else in order to fulfill this fantasy? Or where they just short on silicon when they built the prototype and said, “Sod it, let’s just make the bits that anybody cares about, all squished up together, and see how it looks.”
I’m guessing that the whole “cock head” thing is supposed to be reminiscent of getting a tit-wank: like, you’re supposed to be able to pretend that it’s your dick that you’re seeing, sandwiched between these shiny artificial knockers. But why bother simulating it: there’s an actual cock involved when you’re using this device. If it’s supposed to be a tit-wank simulator, why bother with adding another knob to the picture. It just makes it look creepy: “Hey, that’s not my willy! Where’d that come from?
It’s so confusing. I’d be too busy trying to puzzle through what I was looking at to be able to get off, I’m sure of it. Soo… I’m penetrating a vagina and then popping out from her neck? Do I have a four foot penis? Or is she some kind of uber-midget? I just don’t know.

There’s one further possibility: perhaps this is a toy to cater to the fetishes of those people who were turned on by the floating bits of organs and shit in jars in Alien Resurrection. That’d go some way towards explaining this monstrosity.

The Xenogon

“A cross between an alien and a dragon, the Xenogon has all the desires and needs of both parents. Here at Bad Dragon, we know that dragons are nigh-insatiable, but aliens are a whole new breed of desire, and this Xeno takes after his alien father! Be a test subject, and submit yourself to his dominant nature, we’re sure he could think of over a dozen experiments to do on you…” – Bad Dragon

What happens when you cross extreme furrydom with modern silicon production mechanisms and put it all on the Internet? You get people making dildos based on the imagined genitals of anthropomorphic fictional creatures. Like this toy, which is apparently based on what the penis of a dragon/alien hybrid would look like.

To be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference between a dragon penis and an alien penis without being told. And you know why? Because we made up what they look like. Why bother making a dragon/alien penis dildo at all? Why not just call it a dragon penis: after all, nobody’s seen one anyway – you can call it a unicorn penis if you like, it won’t change the fact that you’re making it up as you go along!

Now I’m not denying the existence of dragon fetishists – one wrote in to Savage Love last year – but I’m just amazed that there’s such a market for these toys: just Google around if you don’t believe me: there a lots of sites selling this stuff (my favourite is Yiffy Toys, just because their site design is cool). Maybe I’m the odd one.

The manufacturers of the Xenogon are keen to point out that they can’t manufacture these dragon-penises in an ejaculating variety suitable for use with their “Bad Dragon Cum-Lube“. Apparently we know enough about dragons to make a lubricant in the consistency of their semen. Who knew?

The Pussy Snorkel

“Insert the breathing apparatus into your nostrils, rub the clitoral stimulator against your favorite coral reef and start with the tongue action. With the Pussy Snorkel, anyone can be a dive master.” – SexToys.com

Perhaps I should be expected not to “get” this. After all, I don’t have a pussy to speak of. But even in my furthest imaginings, I can’t see how this can be a winning idea. First, I’d like to pick holes in the quotation from SexToys.com, above: coral reef? Coral reef? Who calls a clitoris a coral reef?

But secondly, how wet do you have to have gotten your female partner before you’re in need of a fucking snorkel to go down on her? The website indicates that it’d be good for muff-diving somebody in a hot tub, but it doesn’t take a genius to observe that the design of the snorkel is such that it’d be pretty much useless for actual underwater use: the tips of the tubes point downwards: after a quarter-lungful of air (and the associated minute or so of hot slippery licking), you’d have to come up for a refill… and I can see this becoming quickly frustrating for your partner, who’s probably just about got long enough to get into it before you come up again, panting for air.

It doesn’t look comfortable. It doesn’t look sexy. It doesn’t serve any practical value. It’s not even a great novelty, because if you gave one to somebody you’d have to explain to them what it was for before they would “get it”.

Do you know what I think? I think that the manufacturers of the beer hat one day realised that they’d saturated the market (quite literally) and that they needed to come up with another product that can be built with food-grade adjustable tubing pre-cut into head-circumference lengths, and invented this silly product. At least the beer hat let you drink while you had sex.

“Jackson”

“Jackson is the model for our largest toy yet, measuring 21 inches of insertable length. His size has intimidated most, including the mares. Due to the size, his toy is one of our most detailed when it comes to veins and glans. But don’t just listen to us, try one for yourself!” – BB5T Industries

Whoah. That’s just… not possible. To give you a context of the scale of this dong, that’s a 2L drinks bottle next to it. It’s a shocking 21 inches tall – that’s about the distance between the vagina and the neck of an average woman.

This cock is so large that you could use it as a baseball bat. You could beat somebody to death with it. It’s in the region of four times as any penis you’re ever likely to have inside you. So why the fuck do you want one?

In case it wasn’t obvious from the quote, above, it’s a replica model of a horse’s penis. Yes, an actual horse – there’s pictures of him on the website, if you want to take a look, and he’s certainly hung like a… well, you get the idea. And he’s big for a horse.

I’d like to be able to pretend that the people who buy this toy do so to pleasure some horny mare in their stable, but I know that’s not going to be the case, and I’m sure you do too.

What’s the attraction? Can anybody enlighten me? We’ve heard breasts described in terms of “more than a handful” being a waste – surely the same is true of a cock – that any parts that are simply too large to fit into any of your orifices are a little bit pointless? Or maybe, somewhere, there’s a woman who can take this inside her? I’d like to say that I’d like to meet her, but it’s quite possible that we all actually live inside of her, like little insects in a microcosm of stars and planets, all inside her humongous vagina. And there’s another horror film plot, right there.

The Area 51 Love Doll

“It’s pussy-shaped mouth, 3 supples [sic] breasts, suction cup fingers and ass-shaped ears make it the kinkiest love slave in the galaxy.” – SexToy.com

And for the first time since the dragon thingy, we’re back to aliens again. For those of you who really want to be taken for a flying saucer ride and given a good probing (and who doesn’t), there’s this thing… the Area 51 Love Doll. She features purple skin (pretty alien), three breasts (very alien), and three – yes, three – fuckable holes (not so alien).

Is this actually somebody’s fetish? If so, I’m sorry to disappoint them: a little searching found this picture of what she actually looks like when she’s inflated (with thanks to this guy):

I’m not sure what the trading standards authority has to say about sex dolls, but that doesn’t look much like the thing depicted on the packet to me. Equally unarousing, but not the same, see?

It’s possible that I just don’t understand the attraction of inflatable sex dolls. I mean: I don’t see how putting your dick into a plastic-feeling novelty balloon with a surprised look on it’s face (and it’s always a look of surprise, isn’t it?) is an improvement on just having a wank the old-fashioned way: throwing your hand down onto the bed and raping it. Rotten.com did an article about inflatable love dolls, and I looked through it and thought: I wouldn’t fuck any one of those. Maybe it’s just me, again.

In other news, I frightened myself almost to death when I saw the Frankenstein’s monster-like mess that these guys came up with when they attempted to build their own sex doll out of parts. Take a look.

The Mysterious Japanese Blowjob Machine

“I noticed what looked like a bright pink projector in the store window. But instead of a lens, the machine had a faux-flesh orifice with ‘Heaven’ scrawled across the side. And instead of a lightbulb, it seemed to have a motor churning away, tirelessly.” – Gizmodo

I am not popping my peter into that. Aside from the fact that it looks like it’s been converted from what was once a Polly Pocket (or, failing that, looks like it might be built in the body of what was supposed to be “my first tazer”), I can’t read any of the writing on it: what happens if I accidentally hit the “castrate” button instead of the “oh God, please, don’t stop” button? And how would I tell the difference given that I don’t speak a word of Japanese.

Also, I’m having difficulty imagining how this even works. Bear with me: I’m guessing from the photo that the “cartridge” (the bit on the left, labeled “Heaven”, can be removed when, umm, “spent”, and replaced with another: and they come in a number of different varieties based on what sensation you’re looking for) moves in and about of the barrel of the plastic body. It might rotate, as well. So: where do I put the device?

If I put it on the bed, I’m pretty sure that it weighs less than me, and even Newton wouldn’t need to run an experiment (although he might like to, if you gave him one of these for his birthday) to prove that what will happen is that my cock will stay exactly where it is and the machine will jump around on the bed, giving virtually no friction at all. Or you could grab hold of it, but by that point you might as well just be holding the damn cartridge and save yourself the two-million yen or whatever one of these pretty-coloured toys will set you back.

Maybe I’d be surprised: the Japanese have come up with a number of great things, such as Pocky, and maybe this is another one of them. But I doubt it.

The Elastisizer

“This toy is designed to stretch you out as you use it, the straight parts act to let you “rest” a bit before going on to the next level.” – Zeta Paws

Sooo… it’s a training sex toy? That you can use to “widen yourself up” in anticipation of even bigger sex toys? Oh-kay.

This beast of a toy stands a clear 8½ inches long and starts at 3 inches across at the narrow end. By the base of the thing, it’s 5½ inches wide. So; a little like putting a regular penis into you… sideways.

Okay, for sheer size, it doesn’t really compete with the horse penis we saw earlier, but, shit – 8½ by 5½ inches? That’s not a sex toy, that’s a doorstep! And I’m not sure it was wise to make it out of whatever that shiny material it’s made from is, because every time I look at it I think it’s not real – that perhaps it’s some cheaply-rendered 3D effect, like something The Lawnmower Man might put into his bumhole.

Mr. Jack’s Mouth

“His softly noduled throat will send you into overdrive. The mustache will make you remember that he’s a guy, and that he craves your juicy cock down his throat.” – Heartsfire Leathers

A man with the throat of a sandworm, what could be sexier than that? Oh, I know: a piece of rubber made to look like the mouth and chin of a man with the throat of a sandworm: that’s right! The thing that makes it most obvious that this sex toy is bad news is the same test that you can use to prove that anything is bad news: just write “I WILL DEVOUR YOUR CHILDREN” under it, in a speech bubble. If it doesn’t look out of place, it’s time to be alarmed. If you’re supposed to be putting your tool into it, be doubly alarmed.

I’m not sure what it is about Mr. Jack that’d be most likely to give me nightmares. Is it the mouth riddled with “nodules”, which makes it look either like he’s the child of a shark of that he’s got some horrible oral disease: either of which does not incline me to let him suck me off. Or perhaps it’s the obviously-fake mustache, somewhat reminiscent of the eyebrows of my old high school history teacher, that I’d be able to glance down at and imagine leaping off, like ravenous caterpillars, and biting into my balls. Or maybe, and this could be the big one, maybe it’s because fucking half of a disembodied face is fucking creepy.

Seriously. I’ve seen triple-breasted aliens, breast-vagina-penis hybrids, and plastic feet with vaginas in them, but even though they looked like mutants, at least they weren’t half a face. Half a face is the kind of thing that nightmares are made up of. If you fell asleep after spunking into your Mr. Jack, and woke up the following morning to find half a fucking face in bed next to you, well, you’re likely to need some new sheets afterwards. Please, please, manufacturers of sex toys, please stick to dismembered genitals and don’t start making half-bits of human faces. It’s just scary.

Thanks.

8 words

Ruth wrote:

Coming out to my mother as bisexual was something I thought about for years before finally taking the plunge. Braced for tears and recriminations, I was amazed and pleased to be greeted only with love and support.

Which was why telling her I was poly remains one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, I ended up telling her at a very bad time (middle of the night, after a long day, when I was only there for that night, and as if that wasn’t enough, on her birthday). All the painful words I’d braced for before, and many more besides, came flooding out.

I told her because I felt like it was my fault that she didn’t really understand me; with retrospect, probably one of the most selfish decisions I’ve ever made. I’m certain that nothing else I’ve ever done or said has hurt her as much as hearing that I was in more than one loving relationship and that I see nothing wrong with that.

We’re slowly patching up our relationship, and trying to rediscover the things that we do have in common. Just now, on the phone, I was telling her about how well things are going on a voluntary project Dan and I are involved with. I may have sung his praises a little, just to see what reaction I got. I could feel that she wasn’t completely happy about it, but she didn’t shy away from the conversation in the way she used to whenever his name came up.

And then, at the end of the call, eight little words that made me well up. I’m probably reading far too much into this. She probably was just being civil and didn’t mean to confer acceptance. But I can’t help wondering.

“Give my regards to everyone at your end.”

As you know, I’ve always considered myself very lucky to have a family that both understand and approve of my sexuality, relationship structure, and the other little curious quirks that I’m known for. I’m really impressed that you’ve been able to try to help your mother to understand where you’re coming from and why you feel the way you feel.

And yeah, those eight words sound positive to me.

How to be Mono-Friendly

Freaksexual just wrote a fantastic blog post (as usual) instructing monogamous people “How to be Poly-Friendly“. It’s an excellent little post about the kinds of faux pas it’s easy to make without even thinking about it, and while it’s very obviously targetted at monogamous folk who have polyamourous friends or lovers, I couldn’t help but feel that I’ve made a few mistakes on that list myself at one time or another.

However hard it tries not to be, though, it still comes across as a little militant (I know that’s not the intention!) in it’s defensiveness, and I thought it probably deserved an “opposite number”; a counter-post. So here’s my attempt – and I’m certainly not the most-qualified person to write it – to explain how poly-people can be mono-friendly.

How to be Mono-Friendly

Don’t preach polyamoury. It’s okay – sometimes even helpful – to let the monogamous know that the potential exists for negotiated nonmonogamy (and that for those for whom it works, it can be far better than being in a single relationship could have been). It may well be something that they’d never even considered or that they didn’t think could actually work, and letting them know that it does and how it can is an eye-opener for many. But it’s not appropriate to try to “sell” your lifestyle choice by dropping it in at every opportunity: for many – most – people it doesn’t work, and these people have a right not to be harassed. Especially do not make the sweeping claim that your lifestyle is universally better than theirs. That it is better for you is not in dispute, but shouting about how universal adoption of polyamoury will stop infidelity/prevent world hunger/cure cancer is wrong on every single count, and patronising to boot.

It’s easy to overstate the significance of “mono privilege”: that the world discriminates in favour of couples (and, specifically, one-man-one-woman couples). It’s true, of course, and it’d certainly be nice if monogamous people were aware of quite how complicated things even some simple things can be for some poly families, but there’s no excuse for spending the whole time moaning about how easy the mono people have it… and while it’s worth saying once, nobody wants to hear for the hundredth time how unfair it is that you have to organise your life or your finances in a particular way because that’s the way the system works.

Sometimes, monogamous friends can find it awkward or uncomfortable to know how best to refer to your partners, and the polite thing to do is to help them find a word. If you have a variety of different relationships of different types, folks new to poly ideas in general will sometimes trip over their own tongues while trying to decide whether to use the word “partner,” or “girlfriend,” or “friend,” or “fuck-buddy,” or whatever. When you introduce somebody, pick a word (“friend” is okay, but be ready for questions if you’re later seen to be doing what many mono-people would call “more than friends”). And if a friend is struggling to find words to refer to one of your relationships, help them out by dropping in a suitable word for them to use.

Similarly, be ready for questions about your relationships. There’s no point in denying that your lifestyle is unusual, and it will attract a lot of interest. Don’t be afraid to say, “This is how it is… …but if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask – I know it’s a little unusual!” From time to time, you’ll get the same initial questions – is it all about the sex? are you kinky? are there orgies? are you bisexual? – but if you can help your friend get past that, you’ll find that, in general, poly relationships aren’t really any different from mono relationships, and you’ll help them to see that, too. By showing that you’re happy to answer questions, you’re also helping poly activism in a tiny way, by demonstrating that it’s nothing to be ashamed or afraid of, just a different way that some people choose to live their lives.

If you consider yourself polyamourous and you’re dating somebody who considers themselves monogamous, it’s as important for you as it is for them to be honest about where things are going. Don’t let them believe that it’s possible for them to “convert” you to monogamy if it’s not true, and it’ll be easier for them to admit any discomfort with you having other partners. In some ways, the kinds of negotiation that poly-people have to do on a day-to-day basis gives you an advantage when it comes to laying your cards on the table, and it’s important that you respect that it might be a lot less easy for your partner to talk about their wants and fears. And if you’re in a long-term relationship with a mono without seeing any other partners, don’t let them trick themselves into thinking they’ve “cured” you of your nonmonogamous tendencies.

Remember that for many monogamous people, just like for many polyamourous people, their lifestyle is not something that they consider to be a “choice”. In a group of mostly polyamourous people, it’s perhaps even more difficult for a monogamous person to feel like they fit in than it can be for a lone poly-person in a group of monogamous people, because the lone poly, by omission at least, can at least come off as “one of them.” Some people will experiment with both monogamy and nonmonogany and will settle on one or the other because it just feels right; others are so sure of their identity that they will achieve the same without even needing to experiment. That’s okay, and it’s belittling to play the “how do you know if you don’t try it” card, just as it is with sexuality – so don’t!

Be polite in your objections to the terms people use, and assume good faith first. You’ll receive party invitations to you “and your partner”, you’ll be asked “how your boyfriend is doing”, and the sheer number of terms that refer to things that superficially appear similar means you’ll invariably hear your relationship structure described in ways with which you might not be comfortable (polyamoury, open relationship, open marriage, swinging, playing the field, friends-with-benefits, nonmonogomy, ethical sluttery, free love…). Try not to take offence – would you want a monogamous person to take offence if you accidentally referred to their wife as their girlfriend? – but politely explain what the term means to you and what you’d prefer they said. “If it’s not too much trouble, is it okay if I bring both my partners?” is an acceptable reply, but “How dare you only invite one of my partners!” is not.

I’ve no doubt that I’ve been guilty of any number of these over the last few years, and I apologise to anybody I’ve offended as a result: but if all the poly-people read this, and all the mono-people read that, I think that we’ll all be a lot better off.

Toilets With Urinals? Toilets Without Urinals?

Remember this picture I took at BiCon this year?

Looks like as a concept it’s going to become not-so-strange, according to a report in Metro: University students open trans-gender toilets.