Tastes change. I've noticed a change this year in the way I feel about many things...films, for instance. I'm just not as easily satisfied by your standard hokey plotline anymore. I've become a rather unforgiving critic, and "the sound must seem an echo to the sense" in film as much as any other medium; I hate seeing loose ends flailing around in the plot, and nothing makes me gag harder than trying to swallow some hamfisted moral message with a sappy soundtrack backing it up. But that doesn't mean I haven't been able to find many films with which I've been quite content. See: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Storytelling, Palindromes, Pan's Labyrinth, Mirrormask, The Fountain, Ghost World, and Road to Perdition...among several others I loved that I just got around to watching this year (note: "The Fountain" and "Road to Perdition" are guilty of swelling, sappy music in some scenes).
As far as my taste in drinks and food goes, that has changed substantially as well. I used to abhor pepper in all forms, and couldn't really handle anything spicier than a mild curry sauce. But I was out with my lover one night a few months back and tried a fresh jalapeno...and nothing has been the same since. I'm dousing my morning eggs with red savina puree and grinding peppercorn medley into any and everything I cook. Where liquor is concerned, I've come to prefer light whites (Riesling and Gewurtztraminer....where the hell are all the little accent marks in this format, anyway?) over your usual heavy cabs and so forth (though I'm still a sucker for Pinot Noir and some Petit Syrah). I don't like dark beer as much as I used to, and I can't fucking stand anything sweeter or more complicated than tequila or Jaeger. Besides, something about mixing sugar and alcohol does not bode well with me, and I often wind up fainting (not passing out, mind you...just a weird swoon brought on by blood sugar stuff) or feeling like the bottom half of a pile of shit after more than one sweet drink.
But that was all just foreplay. The thing is, my sexual interests seem to have evolved as well. I still lust after ladies without remorse, and I still love fucking and oral pleasure of any sort. I still masturbate myself awake a couple of times a week, and I still don't really get into sex toys. And as far as talking dirty goes, the more turned on I get the nastier my mouth gets until it's almost distracting...sometimes my partner and I will wind up giggling in a sweaty heap just from something I've shouted or whispered in the heat of my climax. So that's still there, and I'll leave many other details as far as my sexual tastes up to the imagination. Everything is contextual, so what I want changes with my mood and the setting and the sort of day I've had, sure. But I used to really dig the rough stuff. Spanking and restraining and hair-tugging, name-calling, power roles and marks to explain at work that week, etcetera. Either role, dominant or submissive. But for some reason, that just doesn't do it for me anymore. Maybe it's this relationship. The power balance is stable. We're peers. Neither of us could pretend otherwise. But it's also just...me. I don't need the pain as much anymore, and the sudden, lashing violence (particularly the burden of all those props) itself just isn't as appealing. Who knows why.
So I was startled this evening when L was playing his new Wii game (me spectating, procrastinating, gestating a paper I don't want to write), The Godfather: Black Hand Edition...and I found a new ::ahem:: interest I never knew I had, and one that I never had before. See, in this game (Wii fans, raise your nunchuks!), you kick ass, make threats, talk shit, and strangle people. The action command for strangulation is one of the most fucked-up things I've seen in a video game yet. I mean, the game itself is violent, sure--blood and shooting, blahblahblah. So, when you go to strangle someone, the wii remote vibrates gently as you spread the remotes, then squeeze, then shake them quickly, continuously downward while your victim's pulse grows louder and faster as you force him (or her) to the ground and eventually snap the neck with a crunch-pop sound. The first time I saw this, my face reddened and my jaw dropped. And then, wonder of wonders, I became aroused. I found myself....liking it. Wanting it. Just a bit, nothing threatening. Just enough for a pleasant pressure....
And here I sit, clicking away on his laptop, while he's still playing, running around choking motherfuckers when I just can't seem to get my mind off whether or not I should get him into bed and convince him to give my throat a squeeze when I'm just about to come. Or maybe I want to see someone else strangled. That could be it, as well.
Tastes change. But amen to that, because now I have something new to explore, and we'd all waste away without a bit of adventure on a regular basis. It just never was my bag before...once, I liked serious bruises and battle scars after sex, whereas now....well, we'll just have to see.
As far as my taste in drinks and food goes, that has changed substantially as well. I used to abhor pepper in all forms, and couldn't really handle anything spicier than a mild curry sauce. But I was out with my lover one night a few months back and tried a fresh jalapeno...and nothing has been the same since. I'm dousing my morning eggs with red savina puree and grinding peppercorn medley into any and everything I cook. Where liquor is concerned, I've come to prefer light whites (Riesling and Gewurtztraminer....where the hell are all the little accent marks in this format, anyway?) over your usual heavy cabs and so forth (though I'm still a sucker for Pinot Noir and some Petit Syrah). I don't like dark beer as much as I used to, and I can't fucking stand anything sweeter or more complicated than tequila or Jaeger. Besides, something about mixing sugar and alcohol does not bode well with me, and I often wind up fainting (not passing out, mind you...just a weird swoon brought on by blood sugar stuff) or feeling like the bottom half of a pile of shit after more than one sweet drink.
But that was all just foreplay. The thing is, my sexual interests seem to have evolved as well. I still lust after ladies without remorse, and I still love fucking and oral pleasure of any sort. I still masturbate myself awake a couple of times a week, and I still don't really get into sex toys. And as far as talking dirty goes, the more turned on I get the nastier my mouth gets until it's almost distracting...sometimes my partner and I will wind up giggling in a sweaty heap just from something I've shouted or whispered in the heat of my climax. So that's still there, and I'll leave many other details as far as my sexual tastes up to the imagination. Everything is contextual, so what I want changes with my mood and the setting and the sort of day I've had, sure. But I used to really dig the rough stuff. Spanking and restraining and hair-tugging, name-calling, power roles and marks to explain at work that week, etcetera. Either role, dominant or submissive. But for some reason, that just doesn't do it for me anymore. Maybe it's this relationship. The power balance is stable. We're peers. Neither of us could pretend otherwise. But it's also just...me. I don't need the pain as much anymore, and the sudden, lashing violence (particularly the burden of all those props) itself just isn't as appealing. Who knows why.
So I was startled this evening when L was playing his new Wii game (me spectating, procrastinating, gestating a paper I don't want to write), The Godfather: Black Hand Edition...and I found a new ::ahem:: interest I never knew I had, and one that I never had before. See, in this game (Wii fans, raise your nunchuks!), you kick ass, make threats, talk shit, and strangle people. The action command for strangulation is one of the most fucked-up things I've seen in a video game yet. I mean, the game itself is violent, sure--blood and shooting, blahblahblah. So, when you go to strangle someone, the wii remote vibrates gently as you spread the remotes, then squeeze, then shake them quickly, continuously downward while your victim's pulse grows louder and faster as you force him (or her) to the ground and eventually snap the neck with a crunch-pop sound. The first time I saw this, my face reddened and my jaw dropped. And then, wonder of wonders, I became aroused. I found myself....liking it. Wanting it. Just a bit, nothing threatening. Just enough for a pleasant pressure....
And here I sit, clicking away on his laptop, while he's still playing, running around choking motherfuckers when I just can't seem to get my mind off whether or not I should get him into bed and convince him to give my throat a squeeze when I'm just about to come. Or maybe I want to see someone else strangled. That could be it, as well.
Tastes change. But amen to that, because now I have something new to explore, and we'd all waste away without a bit of adventure on a regular basis. It just never was my bag before...once, I liked serious bruises and battle scars after sex, whereas now....well, we'll just have to see.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
allisonation said:
Thanks for the link! I'm not sure, though, that I would feel comfortable drawing a line between racial insensitivity and racism when it comes to a political figure or forum, if only because I'm suspicious that if "racial insensitivity" is detectable in a public figure, said figure is likely to work from a racist agenda. Hm. That was badly worded, but I'll keep trying. In other words, racism can be such a political minefield (sadly, not to a strong enough extent, if you ask me) that--jeez, someone lend me a cliche here--where there's smoke, there's a burning cross.
Heh. You're talking to a man with a well-ensconced reputation for immoderate denunciations of unsavory sentiments. That being said, I do think that there's often a difference between passive insensitivity - which seems to me more about not recognizing the other's perspective as legitimate, and which cuts across political lines - and active devaluation, which is the special proclivity of reactionaries.
Anyway.
Point taken. I might still insist that racism does to some extent merit at least a heated response, even where it's merely suspect; then again, I might also counter that reactionism does more to harm than to help anything it touches, even defensively.
That said: You shut up. No, YOU shut up. He started it. Nuh-uh.
(I'm tired, half-delirious, and have only written two of fifteen pages on a paper that was due last Thursday. Thank you for serving as an eloquent distraction.)