Our Betters In Love
Let’s turn to the pages of Slate, where left-leaning sophisticates mull the issues of the day. Among which, an obvious question for the woke and well-adjusted:
I (35, male) started dating someone (33, female) recently that I’ve really enjoyed connecting with and have found a higher level of chemistry with than anyone else I’ve dated. It’s exciting and has given me a chance to imagine a stable future with someone, something I’ve struggled to imagine in the past.
Ah, bless. And just in time for the holidays. Brings a tear to the eye.
But there’s something else that’s new for me this year that complicates things: I’ve started seeing sex workers.
At risk of seeming drearily conventional, the words stable future have suddenly taken on an ironic tinge. Still, the headline is memorable:
Do I Have to Tell My New Girlfriend I’m Going to Keep Seeing Sex Workers?
And hey, give the guy credit. He does a pretty good rhetorical dance:
To be clear, I’ve attempted to pursue it in the most ethical manner possible, being careful to consider everyone’s safety and consent. The moral issue of sex buying is a serious one for me, but one that I’ve ultimately come to believe can be ethical in the right context.
How immensely surprising.
I believe seeing a sex worker can make me a better partner. Not unlike seeing a therapist.
Because,
seeing a sex worker allows me to focus on myself.
Which, to date, has apparently been a struggle.
Witness ye the burdens of this selflessness:
Getting certain sexual needs taken care of elsewhere would allow me to better focus my attention and invest in our relationship.
Yes, ladies. He’s a giver.
Well, again, we can’t fault our chappie for lacking boldness. There is, inevitably, some mumbled guff about how bourgeois expectations of faithfulness and monogamy are terribly oppressive, because whoring on the side can lead to “stigma” and “judgment,” both of which really harsh our Slate reader’s buzz.
And entirely unrelated, I also found this:
The Case for Spending the Holidays Solo.
You might even find that you’d like to make a habit of it, if only because there is a charm in the novelty of holiday solitude, like how having breakfast for dinner can sometimes feel like the most deeply disorienting and passionately independent joy available to humanity.
Previously in the pages of Slate. 
“Goodbye Labour, a musical tribute.”
“Next up, Sturgeon”. I can’t swear to it, but seem to recall punching the air at this point. Good stuff.
Hi PST314,
I can go to ONE Twitter linked from here. If I try a 2nd one it reroutes me to this site. It happens on a Linux computer and an Apple cell phone (I-phone 10, I think).
Hi Blogdog,
😄😄😄😄
Tho I also think the desire and willingness to quest for absolute power in the first place is indicative of a certain type of already corrupt/corruptible person, adding selection bias to the mix as well.
As Frank Herbert put it: Power does not corrupt. Power attracts the corruptible.
Laurie Penny, our favourite nose-picking feminist and (not so) secret obsession of Tim Newman, has produced some words. Those of you anxious to devour her output, but feeling insufficiently masochistic today, might enjoy Sargon of Akkad’s critique here.
I believe seeing a sex worker can make me a better partner. Not unlike seeing a therapist. … seeing a sex worker allows me to focus on myself.
He’s absorbed the Oprah language where anything you feel like doing can be characterized as self-therapy (compare with the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes), and thereby neglecting your loved ones can be characterized as giving them the gift of your better/truer self.
“Allows me to focus on myself” again is feminine Oprah language, and it doesn’t really work for men, even men like the writer who are so in touch with their feminine side. For women, the implicit premise is provided by the culture – self-care having to be snatched a minute here and there among long days of toil and self-sacrifice (slaving over a hot stove for their nine children, or its equivalent by the Law of Conservation of Emotional Labour).
He’s absorbed the Oprah language where anything you feel like doing can be characterized as self-therapy
Oh, this nonsense predates Oprah by a good bit. One of the biggest hits of the mid 1980’s sang it loud, sang it proud, and from what I recall, not one single person ever thought it odd, strange, or worthy of comment. Well, maybe one. But he was weird. C’mon! Let’s all sing it together!
I can go to ONE Twitter linked from here. If I try a 2nd one it reroutes me to this site.
!! So you can always successfully follow one Twitter link, but if you try to have more than one open at a time you experience that problem. That is very strange. I know nothing about Linux (what browser are you using?) I have seen iPhones behave as if they didn’t want to have more than one Twitter link open at a time (the second one never finishes opening.) I’m not sure whether to blame Apple or Twitter. (I’ll bet you do not have a Twitter account: I wonder if the problem would cease if you used one.)
Here’s a solution.
Uncomfortable toilets are never an issue in San Francisco.
Uncomfortable toilets are never an issue in San Francisco.
Though given what I can discern from the URL, I’m not feeling too disappointed.
…what I can discern from the URL…
Only thing the article adds is the pictures, so no, do not be disappointed.
I know nothing about Linux (what browser are you using?)
Most distros come with Firefox, but you can get many browsers. Links work fine with Firefox and Opera even with adblock stuff turned on, might be an issue with some of the “no-name” open source browsers one can download.
The greatest love of all
The very first time I heard this bilge it supplanted ‘My Way’ as my most hated song. It’s still there.
The greatest love of all
“Greater love hath no man, than that lay down your life for himself.”
Trevor, I’m a yuge Beatles fan, and including the members’ solo bodies of work. That being prefaced, and with all due respect to you and what you hate, that wretched dreck “Imagine” is still my most despised song. I’d just as soon listen to ‘Johnny Paycheck Sings the Best of Rick Astley’ on a perpetual loop.
(I had to use the google machine to remember just what Luciferian awfulness WTP was quoting. I wish I hadn’t done that.)
(As an aside, for a man born and reared in Ohio — rural Ohio to be sure, but not exactly what anyone would call the South — Johnny Paycheck could really affect that almost stereotypical ‘country accent.’ Listen hee’yuh.)
Right, that’s tomorrow’s ephemera compiled.
[ Slumps across desk, physically and emotionally spent. ]
… that wretched dreck “Imagine” is still my most despised song.
Lumme. I’d somehow managed to expunge that from my memory. My list needs revising.
… that wretched dreck “Imagine” is still my most despised song.
I think I’ve mentioned this before but still…WTF was that recorded on? It’s gotta be the most awful recording, given the technology available to one of the most famous, richest musicians in the world at the time. What the hell was Lennon thinking when he released that? I mean, I’ve made my own big mistakes. Sure, regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention. But I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. But I never, ever produced anything as awful as that.
It’s gotta be the most awful recording, given the technology available
Perhaps he dared to “imagine” a world in which only Soviet technology was used, then quietly imagined that Western capitalists had better equipment after all.
” that wretched dreck “Imagine” is still my most despised song…”
I admit to a sadistic streak – the only flaw in my otherwise sterling character, I assure you. I wanted to get myself a t-shirt with a dreamy, laurel-wreath-bordered picture of John Lennon, and the caption “Imagine – there’s no handguns”; but I couldn’t decide where it would cause the most offence. Besides, custom t-shirts are expensive.
I think I’ve mentioned this before but still…WTF was that recorded on? It’s gotta be the most awful recording, given the technology available to one of the most famous, richest musicians in the world at the time. What the hell was Lennon thinking when he released that?
If you’re asking about the type of piano, I don’t know. I know it wasn’t the white baby grand that was shown in the promotional materials. Maybe it was played on Lennon’s Steinway upright that he composed the tune on. I know it was recorded at Lennon’s home studio when he lived in Tittenhurst Park, just he, bass guitarist Klaus Voorman, and ex-Yes drummer Alan White. Phil Spector, co-producer of the song and album, had strings overdubbed in New York later.
As to what tape machines, soundboard, microphones, all the rest of it, I don’t have a clue. I do know that Lennon, at the time, wasn’t too terribly worried about so-called “high” production values, preferring instead a more basic sound. (Maybe that’s why he asked Spector to co-produce, to be the yin to Lennon’s yang?)
Overall, the album’s worth having and listening to as a picture in time. Except for the title track, which deserved to have been forgotten in 1971 shortly after it was released.
Phil Spector, co-producer of the song and album, had strings overdubbed in New York later.
Phil Spector originated the Wall of Sound. John Lennon contributed the Wall of Stupid.
I’ve read a couple books about Lennon’s post-Beatle days, and the impression I got was that he wasn’t what you’d call a deep thinker. He was willing to listen, and I’ll bet — depending on his mood — he’d own up to the contradictions in his song. The impact of his mother’s death when he was young, his drug and alcohol use, his early massive fame (which I believe freezes an artist’s maturity), his poor education but wide exposure to interesting thoughts, and poor impulse control makes for a complex personality.
Of all the celebrity deaths, that one haunts me the most. Not that I expected great works or a Beatles reunion (sod that). It would have been fun to see him doing whatever the hell he was going to do.
As to what tape machines, soundboard, microphones, all the rest of it, I don’t have a clue.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. The other stuff would have been “played on” but whatever. I do know that Lennon, at the time, wasn’t too terribly worried about so-called “high” production values. Bingo. I’m guessing he was trying to be Mr. Regular Guy there.
It’s easy to pick on Lennon and I do it myself quite a lot. Dick Cavett or Mike Douglas or whatever talk show appearances are rather cringe-worthy, but to a significant extent, when I think about his situation, I really feel sorry for the guy. Honestly. For some reason, a reason that I don’t think anyone really, truly understands, like Elvis he was swept up in a wave of fame that was to a degree unprecedented. I mean yes, I just said Elvis, and yes Hank Williams, and yes those other three guys, and yes Whomever, but he hit fame at a certain point in time where media was accelerating not just at a huge pace, but with a concentration, a density that was so overwhelming as to be nearly impossible to process. He was essentially just a middle class kid from a middling city with a certain talent that happened to come into vogue who had no idea what he was getting himself in for. Which I think explains Yoko. Hell, something’s gotta explain Yoko. Sigh…well at least I tried.
That certainly needs more flushing out but somebody finally sent me something to work on. Cue Etta James, At last…
Uncomfortable toilets are never an issue in San Francisco.
This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area . . .
. . . which seems odd, why not? In the meantime, try instead . . .
In the meantime, try instead . . .
. . . and in the meantime, that hipster is indeed in the Marina Safeway(??) . . . There’s already been the most recent overall assessment of SF issues of hipsters and their dogs, where those two darkest areas are indeed where one finds the larger concentrations of hipsters and their dogs, and from what I’ve been seeing the number of dogs unfortunately looks like it’s increasing—and the Marina Safeway is in that top center blob instead . . . .
WTP, Lennon was a complex person, on one hand, but on the other he was a textbook neurotic. Unquestionably, the affect of his mother (who was a bit of a, shall we say, “free spirit,” spoken in that typical English penchant for understatement) abandoning him to the care of her sister when he was a wee one, then to reemerge in his life in his formative years only to be taken away again for good by a drunk driver, f***ed him up for life. That’s why he went so overboard for Yoko, a strong-willed, bloody-minded woman. She became the mother he’d always wanted and needed, there to guide him and love and nurture him in a way his auntie really couldn’t (in part because her wouldn’t let her).
I don’t remember which Lennon biographer said it, but it was said that Lennon’s “political period” was all Yoko; that she was the influence leading him about by the nose. His growing dislike of being in The Beatles and the acrimony he nursed was her whispering in his ear that he didn’t need them. And her having him out in 73-74 (in part because he was a batterer and a belligerent drunk) is why he behaved so badly during his “lost weekend” in California (and hanging out with the flat-out wrong buddies for the circumstances, such as Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon, both raging drunks).
Basically, Lennon’s whole young adult life was him deeply missing and searching for his lost mummy, who he found, good enough, in Yoko.
People who believed children are the future 30 years ago are responsible for society today.
The Linux computer has Firefox and Opera, the phone has Safari.
The Linux computer has Firefox and Opera, the phone has Safari.
I’m out of ideas, except:
1. Create a Twitter account and see if the problem goes away when you are logged in.
2. Do a cold boot of your phone.
3. Reinstall Linux and Firefox and Opera, reconfigure them, and then throw everything in a lake. 😉
I suspect many of our problems stem from
engineersmanagers and marketing geniuses decreeing that software and services must be made more complex in ways that do not actually help the people who use them.Love the follow-on comments about Lennon. I do a lot of writing and thinking about people, some of them famous, some not (sometimes myself; I found one unexpected side effect of having kids is looking at something they’re doing and think “Why the @#$%^@ are you doing … oh, yes, I used to do that at your age.”)
This has led to a number of conclusions:
1. Nature versus nurture is heavily lopsided towards nature. Negative nurturing has far more impact than positive nurturing.
2. Art does not make you more empathetic, loving, or smarter. Just look at the tools producing it.
3. Early fame freezes your maturity and the person resists change and growth.
(Elvis story, dimly recalled from some bio: The fellow proposing his comeback special met Elvis in some city to convince him to do it. Elvis was resistant, particularly the thing about calling it a comeback. All right, the fellow said, let’s test that. They walked outside the building and stood on the street for awhile. All those people passing by, and not one of them stopped to say, “Hey, Elvis!” He agrees to the special.)
4. There’s no such thing as one true love, just the one out of many possibilities.
More to come as soon as I come back from the Chinese restaurant.
“Sam’s excellent discovery reminded me of this, which I hope now comes to pass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiUFPjulTW8“
– He’s updated it after the election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zJ8vaB5jo
Merry Christmas!
“The moral issue of sex buying is a serious one for me, but one that I’ve ultimately come to believe can be ethical in the right context.”
Context matters.
He could always pimp her out and get the best of both worlds?
I’m only exploring possibilities here…..
Elvis story, dimly recalled
Heh. Then once he was dead, people were seeing him everywhere. Kalamazoo, MI being somewhat of an epicenter.
2. Art does not make you more empathetic, loving, or smarter. Just look at the tools producing it.
Definitely. I think I said here recently that artists and such, poets especially, are about the last people you want running a society. There are the occasional exceptions (Vaclav Havel and…well, somebody), but people who create art, fiction especially, are generally, to some degree, grossly unhappy with the world the way it is and feel the need to control, to create a world more to the way they think it must be. Such people, when kept on a leash, are quite necessary for progress. Let them run things though and God help your society. Most (all?) works of fiction, even the best, have glaring logic holes in the plot that you could fly the Millennium Falcon through. It’s just exceptionally gauche to point such things out. Like dissecting a frog, no sane person really enjoys such a thing and it kills the frog. Inside a work of fiction, these inconsistencies do little harm. But such an ‘artist’ running a society where he can’t control everything like in his novel or painting or such, and he falls back on brute force. Because the people in the society are not people to them but obstacles on the path to their Greatest Creation.
I really, truly feel that we as a society have placed waaaaay too much emphasis on the arts. I doubt any society up to the present day has had the arts so deeply entwined in the average person’s every day experience. Yet if you merely suggest that perhaps we should look at this as a problem and it’s all “Philistine!!11!!”. Which of course is raycis. Sigh. Damage done, I’ll shut up now.
An entertaining quandary, but are you quite sure the alleged query is real? As others have noted above, if real, the guy should ask himself how he would feel if the girlfriend was doing the same. People who aren’t married and raising kids should simply stick to the facts – they like to get off, and multiple, casual partners is simply a routine way to satisfy the sex drive, and is of no interest to others. Like their eating habits. The guy should keep doing what he’s doing, but stop pretending it is significant in any way or worthy of any serious attention. Anyway, the guy is in his 30s, so within 10 years or so the casual sex market will disappear for him, and he can settle in to solitary self satisfaction, or increasing use of commercial sex. Hope he’s making enough money to indulge the latter option.