porn ethics, playfulness, and pouting.

Despite Roger's encouragement I have decided not to make the assumed-identity phonecall which would put me in control of the crazyperson's message board. Talking to a crazyperson on the phone is bad enough. Committing to spend my precious, precious internet time adminning for a bunch of psychotic (well, not so much in the technical sense), bigoted lowlifes is a poor use of my bandwidth.

However I made the most amusing little cut-and-pastey image in paint which depicts Tony's "great porn dragon". It's an artist's rendering of the dragon from Revelations, with a suitably caricatured Jewish face replacing one of its heads and a crude MS-Paint-ified phallus, pouncing upon a naked chick who is very stereotypically white. And then it has some inflammatory words, Tony's pic, and says he "approved this message." I'd post it here but I like to keep my frontpage Safe For Work. Half the reason I'm not back on my board right now is I wouldn't resist going to my thread and I do not want that pic in my browser window when I'm at work. Viewing anything that constitutes porn on a work computer is a fireable offense most places.

The whole rhetoric of the crazyperson site, though, provoked a most agreeable discussion about porn back at the ranch. There is general accord regarding how sad it is that most porn is made with the assumption that you've got to remove love and tenderness along with your clothes if you're screwing on camera. True, it hasn't been all that long since the segment of the population who doesn't go in for religious sex-guilt-flailing gained prominency. Equally true, there are lots of people who are so messed up in the head about sex that they can't get turned on without a massive shame element.

But porn shouldn't encourage people's guilt feelings about sex! Sex should be celebratory! I am most indebted to Dave for his finding of what non-fail-infused porn there is to be found, or things that possess a modicum of fail which is ameliorated by other good qualities. I think if I were in funds it would be worthwhile to own the entire Nicole Sheridan & friends softcore DVD collection. Playfulness is a part of sexuality that can build a bridge out of shame and into good and happy places. There is great playfulness in, to pick an example completely at random, Bikini Pirates. Highly recommended.



The absence of playfulness can do strange things to a person. Look at Dad, for example. I have been exhorting him--scolding, even--on the subject of playfulness a lot lately. It makes me have diffuse, generalized anger towards all parents who make their chidren Greyfaces, persons incapable of play or who feel constrained from it by massive guilt. Most, I imagine, do it unintentionally, by not paying attention to the effects of their parenting because they are distracted in various ways. It also does make me frustrated with Dad. He has gladly spent years of his life on the solving of every problem he could name, global and personal, mundane and magical, except the big glaring hole in his psyche where there ought to be laughter and silliness. Wut?!?

Of course I also have a big glaring hole in my psyche, in the area of Let's Fighting! I do not like battle, confrontation, argument, what have you. Not that I'm totally incapable of it--once you've frozen up the first couple times you get to learn you can react. But if "seeing how things are about to move" in the basketball or flying flock of birds sense is the root of fire magic, then battle is its heart. And as it is my goal to become well-rounded and proficient in the use of all four elements, this is a thing I need to address. I have been saying this for years.

It has come to my attention in recent months that my problems with fire have to do with my problems with water. This makes sense if we're thinking about water and fire as "horizontal" and earth and air as "vertical". If the heart of fire magic is battle, the heart of water is drama, that emotional current in an interaction that captures and holds one's attention. Again, and it always bears repeating, no thing can exist in the world-we-know without partaking of all four elements. So it's easy with a little thought to understand the "water" element of an argument or the "fire" element of an advertisement. They exist in a dialectical relationship, each edge of reality constantly tumbling back against the other.

But to acknowledge that I have serious, hobbling issues with the fight side of that dialectic, means I have to acknowledge I have problems with the drama side as well. You can see it in the way I present myself, the way I interact with people. Very much with the dry wit and keeping everything at arms' length emotionally, the semi-androgynous professor-type who doesn't get upset about anything. The anti-drama and non-fighting persona. Which is all very well and good for most aims in ordinary life, but for one who aspires to magery it is a serious fucking handicap. It is a safe and comfortable interaction paradigm to hide behind. Because I have deep-seated fears about all horizontal magics, these things that take place between living creatures in the same mode of being. Most principally, air magic is for dealing with "cats" and poems and times; earth magic is for dealing with trees and elevators and taigs. But fire and water magic are for SCARY HUMANS WHO WANT TO EAT YOUR BRAIN AND SOUL.

Meh. I have been getting better at using water magic although it is still not comfortable for me. Nor am I so totally incapable of the little works of fire as I used to be. But it is still a thing that makes me pouty and growly, and really honest-to-dog nervous in the pit of my stomach. (Just thinking about it theoretically makes me the nervous!) Which, knowing how spiritual growth tends to go for me, is a sign that this is definitely something I'm about to be able to make progress on. I never get pouty and sulky until the solution to a problem is practically in the bag.