Can you explain this more?

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I'm not exactly glad to explain this passage more fully, but "in for a penny in for a pound" I guess.

The sentence you quoted from my post was tangential -- and more of an aside than anything else -- but I realize as I look back on it that it seems cryptic. Also, it inappropriately suggests a lack of responsibility on my part for the consequences.

So here's a long (but not the longest) answer:

Unfortunately, there was a pattern to the advances from these women. In all of the cases, I had been close friends with the guys who had formerly (and until recently at the time) been their boyfriends. In all of the cases, I had gotten to know these women (and each of them, me) in the context of the kind of casual "group socializing" (a shifting bunch of people always hanging out together) peculiar to college, but where the women in question were already "spoken for", so to speak, because they were seeing my friends. In two of the cases, I had had crushes on the women before their advances, whereas in the two other cases I had liked and was attracted to them beforehand, but not in a really compelling way. In all of these cases, I was the "rebound guy".

With two of the women, the underlying (unconscious) motivation for their fooling around with me turned out to be not much more than getting back at their former boyfriends. In the other two cases, the women had projected certain qualities onto me and me onto them that were not really there -- but these notions about the other had built up over time from the kind of "safe", non-intimate vantage point that promoted fantasies rather than accurate perceptions.

These relationships ("flings" is probably the more accurate word) were all total failures, but in three of the four situations this had no real impact on my friendships with the women's ex-boyfriends, because their boyfriends were the ones that had broken off the relationships.

But the last and final one -- the one that was the real killer -- was with a woman who had broken things off with a friend from my early boyhood, my best friend actually, who was deeply depressed after the break-up. I had secretly mooned over and lusted intensely after this woman for years, but I also knew that starting things up with her would wreak further devastation on my friend. I wanted her badly, but I felt strongly that having sex with her would be a total breach of my duty of loyalty to my friend and, for him, an unforgivable offense. And you know what -- shy, passive, and needy fuckhead that I was, as soon as she made an unmistakable pass at me, I started messing around with her anyway. I lost a friend forever. It took me years to forgive myself for that one. And to serve me right, my dick wouldn't work with "the subject/object of my affections" after the first couple of nights (couldn't get it up, came too fast, came too slow, etc.).

After that relationship ended (in a truly humiliating way for me), I felt completely shattered. It seemed like an eternity before I was able to put myself back together --and then, not without a lot of help. A great deal sorrier but only a little bit wiser, I then started to work on growing some balls, chucking the passiveness, and getting a life. That was just the beginning of a long road that I'm still traveling on, sometimes moving slowly and sometimes faster, kicking up plenty of dust, tripping over stones, and hoping I'm headed in the right direction.

End of story. (It's one of my children's favorites before I tuck them in at night.)

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Julia Ann: "I can't say proudest moment, but every time, every now and again, you realize that your industry does more than just make yourself available to people jacking off to your material... Every now and again something happens that makes you realize that our industry has a bigger place in the world than just adult entertainment for middle America. I did a signing, and in that signing a gentleman came up in a wheelchair. He was so badly disfigured I really didn't know what to do. Information. You know what I mean? You're looking at somebody and you're thinking 'Wow. How fucking injust is this?' You know? You can't rationalize it, you can't reason it, it's just the way it is. So the most you can do is not let them feel you're feeling bad or feeling sorry for them or pitying or, uh, looking down on them or anything else. You try to treat them exactly the way you treat everybody else in the line and not show it any more than it already is, because you'd make everybody uncomfortable including that person. But you still recognize the handicap and you go out of your way to make it easy on them to get what they need. So I did so. But when he turned away, and I remember Luke Ford was there, and he wrote about it in his website, and this is why I make reference to it because it is public knowledge, otherwise it was rather embarrassing. Because the guy went to wheel away and the second he did, I dropped. And they watched me. People in line, people watched me turn around, sink, and then crawl behind a table because I had already sunk in front of them, so all I could do was crawl out of the way. And I sat behind the table and cried because I didn't know what to do with that information, but what it made me realize was obviously there is a group of people out there, and I wouldn't say they're small, but there's a group of people out there that probably don't have people in their lives. They can't possibly get blown by just anybody. You know what I'm saying? They can't just go out to a bar and get laid. They can't just find a girlfriend off the drop of a hat. They can't just have a relationship because their needs are so special and they're handicaps are so great that the only thing that they have is living their sexual lives vicariously through us, and I would think that that need would have to be great."

Edited by - YogaGrrl on 4/1/2003 10:44:11 AM

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Kenneth Ray Stubbs has a work on the healing potential of prostitution, Women of the Light, and the reviews on amazon.com include such statements as:

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"Bob recounts, for the benefit of all, the history of his psycho-socio-sexual development to date (or inadvertently reveals his lack thereof)."

or perhaps,

"Bob fully undresses himself in the ADT Sex Talk Forum and even flashes a quick peek into his body cavity."

Seriously, because it's therapeutic for me to write about this stuff and post it publicly (and the reason why I'm doing so now), I'm ultimately willing to go with either of the alternatives -- that is, e-mail you privately with the fuller explanation or start a new topic and post it there -- but I think it would probably make the most sense for me to e-mail it to you first and then let you post it on my behalf if you think it would be of general interest. The anonymity of this public forum is enabling in the best way and makes so many things possible. (Thanks again, Steph and Drew!!!)

Another idea occurs, which is that a new Forum (or two) might be welcome and useful -- Meta-Sex Talk, Psychology Talk, Recovery Talk, Autobiography Talk (Self-Disclosure Forum? Public-Journaling Forum?) . . . ? Something to consider, maybe. Your thoughts on this, Steph?

<typos>

Edited by - Bob on 9/27/2003 3:23:53 PM

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It has taken me a couple of days to get round to adding my comments here: I just kept putting it off.

I understand where you come from on this and I personally have a similar mental aberration that no amount of common sense or evidence to the contrary can wipe out. I don't have a problem appreciating that women enjoy sex but I can't seem to totally accept that they can enjoy casual sex. I'll give you an example that perfectly highlights my mind set.

A few years ago I left a job. A week later I went on a ferry trip with all the other employees as we'd won an inter company competition and they invited me along despite the fact I'd left. The ferry sailed over to France through the night and after many drinks one of the girls (who I was always attracted to and used to flirt with) said she needed to see me outside. I went outside and she told me she loved her boyfriend but she was desperate to fuck me and as I was leaving town this was her last chance (I regret it now but I turned her down on account I'd met her bf once and he was a good lad; I regret it not least because telling her that probably made her feel even more guilt ridden). The point is, my overriding thought was 'why does she want to fuck me, what's in it for her?'. Despite my head telling me that women can enjoy sex for its own sake my heart doesn't always make the same connection.
A part of me is still very sceptical to the idea that a woman might just want a good no-strings time.

Unlike you though Bob, porn doesn't help me on this. Perhaps if the gorgeous women of the world get their heads together and one by one (or in groups, I'm flexible) approach me for casual sex I might just be able to get my head round it

Sir Noel
Who thinks he's more likely to see s

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Sir Noel - trust me, women can and do enjoy casual sex. i've been there, done that and every time the guy seemed confused when i said that's all i wanted. just throwing some more data your way even though it won't change your mind :)

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Thanks for the advice and direction. There is so much to be read on this website that I have never gotten beyond "Sex Talk" in "Beyond Porn". Shows what a one-track mind I've got.

Sir Noel,

Having been with the same woman for 17 years now (and having never cheated on her during all that time), I've forgotten what little I ever knew about casual sex. However, that mysterious part of the human mind that stubbornly defies our direct control, our conscious knowledge, and our best and worst intentions haunts all of us to some degree (although apparently less so for a small handful of very tenacious and brave soul-explorers who I envy greenly).

A mentor of mine, who has great insight into this issue, has made the following very helpful observation:

"It's far easier to ACT yourself into a new set of feelings than it is to FEEL yourself into a new set of actions."

By which he means, I think, that the more consistently one actually chooses to take the positive, goal-directed actions that one aspires to take in a given situation, despite the feelings of discomfort that one associates with those actions, the more successful one is likely to be in shedding those feelings of discomfort over time. It's much harder (if not impossible) to intellectualize oneself into a mind-frame that would enable one to shift directly from a state of passiveness to a state of activeness (in the desired fashion) without having to experience any discomfort in connection with the action-taking.

So his advice to you would be, "Bed the lasses if they say they want it; the more you do it, the sooner you'll believe them."

Advice is cheap, but I find this bit of advice very useful whenever I can force myself to follow it.

Edited by - Bob on 4/2/2003 3:46:54 AM

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If your girlfriend is anything like my wife, I'm sure that she wouldn't want a little thing like monogamy to impede your emotional and spiritual development.

Seriously, I didn't realize that you had a truly significant other. If you've found your life's love, then my wish for you is that you will never to give casual sex another thought.

Good for you!

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“You can’t win if you haven’t learned how to lose.”

-- Kareem Adbul-Jabbar

“You cannot win if you do not play.”

-- Steve Forbert (from a song on this largely forgotten singer/songwriter’s largely forgotten debut record album)

“It's far easier to ACT yourself into a new set of feelings than it is to FEEL yourself into a new set of actions.”

-- Anonymous Mentor

In the incident with my boyhood friend's ex-girlfriend and before, I was passive rather than active in my approach toward romantic and sexual involvement. Instead of "putting myself out there" in order to meet the women I wanted to meet, and to get to know them in the honest, accurate, and intimate way that open and assertive interaction makes possible, I played it "safe", stayed in a protected place, and let the women choose me. Because I wasn't really willing to "play" or to "lose", I couldn't really win. I reaped the meager rewards of passivity.

After the incident with my boyhood friend, I came to see clearly (with the help of others) how passive I had been with women, why I had been so passive, and how destructive to myself and others (the women and my boyhood friend) that passive approach had been.

I decided to try to follow the advice of "my mentor", that is, to ACT -- in the face of feelings of shyness, insecurity, and fear of rejection -- so as to pursue the women that I was attracted to. I also tried to follow this advice in a more consistent way in other areas in my life. I emphasize the word "tried" here -- then and now, my efforts were/are far from perfectly executed. Often it's a struggle, and sometimes I fail. But I (again) try to remain as conscious as I can of the way that I'm going about things. This more active approach has served me much better than my passive approach did. It's a continuous process, though -- trying to "take action" on deeper and deeper levels. Sometimes this takes the form of my doing things that I want to do, but that make me uncomfortable. Sometimes this takes the form of my attempting to challenge certain of my conscious assumptions or reflexive emotional reactions.

A direction, a path, an aspiration -- not a steady state to be achieved or a fixed destination that I will ever reach, because I have come to think of life (in a very literal sense) as an on-going journey.

Edited by - Bob on 4/6/2003 1:47:36 AM

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A favorite book of mine is Jack Morin's The Erotic Mind, which explains some of the ways that our unfinished emotional business influences our sexual fantasies. Various needs not fully met in our lives are met in fantasy, for instance control, attention, power, passion, and the lure of the forbidden.

It seems evident to me that the types of porn that people choose also indicates the needs they are filling in their emotional lives. As with most things, porn is a dual-edged sword that can be used in a positive way or in a negative way. For instance it might be used as a crutch that keeps someone from going out into the real world and dealing with the unpredictabilities of relating to other people, or it might be used to fuel misogyny.

A very simple form of healing one might get from porn might be that in certain ways it might let you feel normal about your desires, or about your appearance.

As an example, girls growing up don't really see their genitals - they really aren't in view without a mirror. And they don't generally see the genitalia of other girls either. I think it's rather common for women to feel that their labia look odd or foreign, and it probably explains some of the body shame that some women have, and why some women are reluctant to have a man go down on them. Seeing men in porn literally drooling for the opportunity to tongue and suck on pussies might be a very happy thing.

My two cents for now.

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Maybe it's just how hardcore things have gotten now in the industry, but I can't possibly see the positive value of pornography nowadays. If I could go back and change time so that I would never have seen an adult movie, I would. It just led to so many problems for me, in my social life, in my personal life, my professional life.

It all depends on what type of person you are. Some people just can't handle it. I still enjoy watching porn, but no doubt I usually feel guilty about it afterwards. And I don't come from any religous background, or even a strict upbringing where I was warned against these things. My family was always pretty liberal, yet sometimes I get sick to my stomach for enjoying this stuff.

It's happened lots the last couple of months. I will ejaculate, then look at the screen... once it was Angel Long, covered in cum, with 7 guys applauding her... and I felt like I was the scum of the Earth.

I can see how Julia Ann would be touched by that particular event, but even for those very unique individuals, I'm sure there are better ways to satisfy their sexuality than through pornography.

Mmmm... no doubt pornography has a place in society, I think it can be very healthy, very entertaining, etc... But I think the pornography coming out today is soul-draining. And sadly, more and more young people will be exposed to it.

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*Why do I guess they may be sex workers. Because of the way they dress and their make-up. It isn't like the other women who enjoy being sexy. I remember a really sexy woman behind me at an expresso bar. Her blouse was partly unbuttoned and her breasts were well exposed. Earlier she had put down two 5 inch high heel shoes on a table near the counter. The shoes had chocolate truffles in them and she was ordering two double expressos to go. My mind read high paid hooker.

Percy

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I think we can all be thankful that properly socialized human beings feel a powerful revulsion at the prospect of engaging in non-consentual sex. Sure, perfectly normal men and women may fantasize about non-consentual sex, but few people actually want to cross the line from fantasy to reality. Those who do are no longer considered normal human beings; they're considered rapists, or child molesters, or sexual preditors.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with jerking off to a group of consenting adults being videotaped engaged in some high-spirited sexual high jinx? For me the answer is two fold:

1) When I watch pornography I can't help but wonder just how much the participants are enjoying what they're doing, especially the women. I am constantly searching for signs that the gal at the center of a 7 guy gang bang scene "just happens" to be getting filmed this time, and can't wait till she can fuck 7 guys at once without the cumbersome interfence of having to make a video.

If you read this board, I'm sure you'll see I'm not alone in this concern. Post after post shows viewers searching for reassurance that the porn they watch is not only created with fair and informed consent, but with enthusiastic consent. You'll also see pornstars working very hard to assure their fans that this is so.

As it happens, my wife and I have a pretty wide variety of friends when it comes to sexual tastes. I know several women who like nothing more than fucking 5 guys at a time (ass, snatch, mouth and each hand,) not to mention other things too disgusting to write in a forum as gentile as ADT. As a result, I generally have a pretty easy time accepting the premise that a woman, being of sound mind, could enjoy doing the things depicted in even the roughest porno. But just because I can accept the premise in general doesn't mean I believe it in a specific instance, or even most instances. Which brings me to point #2

2) Whatever I have learned about what women really like, nothing has yet to convince me that any women, in their heart of hearts, want to be in some poorly produced, carelessly edited, trashily marketed porn video.

Sure she might want to fuck 7 guys and have them spooge all over her. She might even want to have it filmed so all the world can see her in her sexual glory. But I balk when I'm asked to accept that she wants to be in a production that is degrading to everyone involved, not because of its content , but because of its lack of quality . When I see a woman in this sort of production, all sorts of troubling questions and concerns about the nature of her consent start to creep in (shoot me for being human.) When I enjoy myself inspite of these concerns, I start to feel less than human.

T.C.

Edited by - TonyC on 10/3/2003 7:14:00 PM

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I am sure you are right T.C., neither the women nor the men are having a great time, usually. There is too much stopping and starting to enjoy one's self. Unless the director senses that the juices are flowing and lets the actors go.

Now about being in a poorly produced movie, what actor does? Except one starting out and not knowing better. I am sure we could write a long list of professional Hollywood stars that have been in embarrassing pictures at the height of their careers. So where is the difference there?

I think you have something else on your mind and you don't want or maybe know how to say it. Maybe you think facial cum shots are insulting to any woman.

Or maybe, like me, you see the men in total control and the women as economy slaves to the mens' cruelties and insults. Here's to a fairer playing field. Here's to strong, creative women directors and editors.

Percy

Edited by - percy walker on 10/3/2003 11:08:35 PM

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The lessons I learned from my above-described mis-adventures with friends' ex-girlfriends led to my different way handling of the situation described in this recent thread on "cheating".

I'm thankful that I've learned from some of my mistakes.

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What your parents told you was totally twisted and obviously wrong. My parents have always preached the opposite. Yet, I have the same thing of only taking girls when they throw themselves at me, for fear of imposing myself.

Yet when girls do throw themselves at me, I always think 'oh i could do better' or try to gain the upper hand by being aloof or distant.

When it comes to porn, I like when the girl seems as though she doesnt like it, or is struggling to get through. Maybe because the the thought girl enjoying it is routine and boring, and her struggling with it is exciting, and raw.

Well thats just me.

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-- Please reread Sir Noel's response to Steph's post:

-- Sir Noel is not around on the message board these days for you to converse (or argue) with.

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