I was just thinking about the freedom or the constraints that Atheism can give you, in terms of morality.
But first a story (It's related, I swear)
When I first moved out of my parent's house, I lived on a diet of muffins and candy bars. My mom was what some may call a 'health nut' and we never had any soda in the house (except for once a year at parties), no sugar cereals, no chocolate bars, no candy in general, etc.
So when I moved out, it was like "Hell yes! I can eat whatever I want! I can have a dinner of ice cream and snickers bars! I can have mac and cheese every night if I want! AND NO ONE WILL NO!!!" And I did!
And I gained like 40 pounds, but that's a whole other story
Meanwhile, over time, i've realized that eating mac and cheese and muffins and candy bars every day didn't make me feel so great. I switched to frozen dinners, cause they were easy to make and cheap. And I could lose weight that way!
And then came yet a third stage in my food-eating developement, when I realized that eating frozen dinners (which are chock full of preservatives, including high fructose corn syrup and tons of sodium) was probably not in my best long-term interests. Including the interest of, you know, not dying at age 50. And that I may have lost some weight, but that weight wasn't the most important thing- overall health counts too. And that at age 25 I shouldn't have high cholestorol and high blood pressure (which I did). So even if it takes a lot more effort (which it does), cooking my own food, eating fruits and veggies on a regular basis (which means I have to go to the grocery store semi-frequently), and staying away from chinese and pizza take-out is really the best thing to do.
And I do it. Even though I'd rather cross the street and get some of the kick-ass sesame chicken they sell out of a truck, right now I'm having a homemade salad with homemade balsamic vinagrette dressing.
I guess that's called "Maturity." Doing things that are in your long term interest instead of your short term interest. Even though no one is watching. See also: working on my research every day, even though no one will know if I don't (except me).
Anyways, what does this have to do with being an atheist?
Everything! I think atheists go through the same stages of development, except instead of with food, it's with morality. At least I did.
Stage 1: You realize there's no god. Or at least you strongly suspect there isn't one. And you realize that the religion you were brought up in is wrong.
Suddenly you are free! You can do whatever you want, and NO ONE WILL KNOW!! I (at least) started out by breaking every rule of the religion I was brought up in, and then moved on to breaking some more rules that are present in the larger society. Like shoplifting. And throwing stuff on the floor instead of in the trash. I did that for a while as a teenager. And as long as I didn't get caught (and I never did), who cares? There's no god!
This also applied to being a total dick to people. What reason is there to not be, if there's no god? Making promises and then going back on your word, outright lying, talking shit about people behind their backs, talking shit to people's faces, not helping people (even friends) who clearly needed help.
I did all those things.
But a bit earlier than I went through my food transformation, I went through a morality transformation.
I guess now I try to live by the karmic principle, golden rule, whatever you want to call it. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. First, do no harm. What you send out in to the world will come back to you. Don't be a dick.
And it's not because there's someone watching, or becuase I will get rewarded at the end of my life in the magical fairy tale land where someone will add up all the things I've ever done in my life and then tell me whether I get to suffer eternally or live in some boring heaven playing a harp and flying around in clouds.
It's because I don't believe there is a heaven that it's so important to not be a dick! Because I only get to do this once! And lets say one day I'll be on my death bed looking back at my life (assuming i don't get hit by a bus or die in a nuclear attack); do I really want to have lived my entire life getting my own way at the expense of other people? I'm pretty sure there are some people who would say yes (many of them are probably CEOs), but for me the answer is no. I look at the world, and I would like it to be a certain way. I think it would be awesome if everyone got along, helped each other, shared what they had, and wasn't a dick to each other.
I can't change the way other people act, so I can't make that world a complete reality...but I can change the way I act. No one will forgive me or punish me if I do the wrong thing, and no will will reward me or like me more if I do the right thing. For some people, their 'long term interest' is precisely that- the reward of heaven or punishment of hell. And maybe some people need an idea of a reward or a punishment in order to act in a responsible way. These people are not even at stage 1. They are still acting a certain way because they think someone is watching them. Kind of how I ate healthily when I lived in my parent's house. If one day god fell out of the sky and died, would they act a different way? (For a great book on that topic, check out James Marrow's "Towing Jehovah"). If the answer is no, than this is not true morality. True morality is acting the correct way, even if no one is ever going to know. Including god.
At the end of my life, or at the end of the day I hope that I can look back at my life or at the day and have no regrets for the way I acted, and the way I treated other people. That I made my best effort to reconcile relationships with people who were inadvertently hurt by the decisions I made (ie my parents), that I maed the best decisions for myself with minimal damage to other people, that I never did anything out of hatred, and never intentionally hurt other people for the sake of hurting them. For at least the last 4 or 5 years, I've been doing pretty good on that front.
Monday, June 30, 2008
oh crap it's monday
guess I should like...go to work and stuff (ahh, the life of a grad student)
So in a weird coincidence, sometime over the weekend one of those first date dudes I was talking about in that last post emailed me!
It turns out that the physics phd dude is now running for state legislature in Maryland. And I went to his facebook page to check it out (we are facebook friends) and it turns out he has been a policy advisor in washington for energy policy for the last 2 years.
That's freakin awesome! A dude I went on a date with is running for a political office! Also for the last 2 years has been writing policy briefs for senators! That's probably the coolest thing anyone I've gone on a date with has done (at least that I know about). Although my ex fiance and his wife DID start a fancy cake baking business, which is also pretty cool (they make super awesome cakes like ace of cakes!). Coming in a distant third is probably a dude who moved to California. His job isn't cool or anything, but moving to the west coast= awesome in my eyes.
What are some weird/cool things your ex's have done? And not in a bitter way, in a "wow, I went out with that dude and now he is awesome, therefore I will bask in reflected awesomeness!" kind of way.
So in a weird coincidence, sometime over the weekend one of those first date dudes I was talking about in that last post emailed me!
It turns out that the physics phd dude is now running for state legislature in Maryland. And I went to his facebook page to check it out (we are facebook friends) and it turns out he has been a policy advisor in washington for energy policy for the last 2 years.
That's freakin awesome! A dude I went on a date with is running for a political office! Also for the last 2 years has been writing policy briefs for senators! That's probably the coolest thing anyone I've gone on a date with has done (at least that I know about). Although my ex fiance and his wife DID start a fancy cake baking business, which is also pretty cool (they make super awesome cakes like ace of cakes!). Coming in a distant third is probably a dude who moved to California. His job isn't cool or anything, but moving to the west coast= awesome in my eyes.
What are some weird/cool things your ex's have done? And not in a bitter way, in a "wow, I went out with that dude and now he is awesome, therefore I will bask in reflected awesomeness!" kind of way.
Friday, June 27, 2008
So many unexceptional first dates...
Part 3 of my summer series on crazy dudes I have dated!
I tried to come up with a list of all the first dates I have been on, so that I can blog about them. But it's so hard to remember! It's strange...these dates (for the most part) happened in the past 4 years, and pretty much every one was a big deal to me at the time. Would I like him? Would he like me? Will he want to go on a second date...oh man I hope he doesn't want a second date! Should I call him, or should I wait for him to contact me...I don't want to have to sit around like some wallflower, but I don't want to show how overeager I am.
Dating kinda sucks, aye?
So here's a post dedicated to those first dates I can barely remember. I'm probably even leaving some people out. Maybe the details I CAN remember say something about me? That's probably reading too far into things...
*The physics phd student dude who I went to dinner with at a place that had bubble tea. I specifically tried not to date other phd students, cause I don't want to have to deal with 'two body problems' when I want to get a job (getting an academic job is hard enough, let alone two academic jobs in the same area). Don't remember why I went out with this one, or really anything about the date, except that there was a giant blizzard while I was walking there, and when I got to the date my hair was all messed up and crazy from the snow.
*The guy I went out for drinks with, who kept talking about cars and working out at the gym. Just a hint dudes: don't talk about cars and/or the gym on a date.
*The Russian dude who I met up with on valentines day one year. We walked around to a bunch of art galleries and had italian food. I was unclear whether it was a date or not until he tried to kiss me, and paid for dinner. That was still when I lived in NYC
*The dude who was a rower (which I thought was pretty cool) and who ended our date abruptly (like mid-sentance) when I mentioned that I smoked...err...'stuff'.. sometimes.
*The dude who had huge arm muscles...We went out 3 times for lunch, and I was never sure whether it was a date thing or a friendly thing. He's still at my school in an urban design program I think. His giant arm muscles were kind of scary to me. (like seriously, giant)
*The dude who wouldn't tell me where he worked, but who did let on that his job was programming missiles for the government. It wasn't too hard to figure out that he worked at Boeing, as even though he was trying to be all mysterious about it, he showed up the date wearing a Boeing hoodie. I decided I couldn't go on a second date with him cause his job actively contributed towards killing people.
*The dude who wanted to come back to my place to watch a movie, when I would have preferred the date be over after we had a drink. I couldn't think of a way to tell him to NOT come to my house, so we watched a zombie movie, during which my roommate came home, and later made fun of me for how far I was sitting from this dude on the couch.
*The much older dude with a kid who took me on a 'real' date which involved some crazy dinner at "my most favorite dessert" (a place way out of my college student budget) and bowling at chelsea piers. I was 21 and he was 29, and during the date I realized just how much older he was than me, when he talked about tv shows from the 80s I had never heard of. Also during the date I found out he was divorced, had a daughter, and was working as a 'freelance advertiser' which I think is code for 'unemployed advertiser.' He insisted on paying for everything, and I think he spent like $200 on the date, which made me feel super bad when I turned him down for a second date. But seriously, at 21, I was not ready to deal with older dudes with kids. This was my second real date (after obese opera singer guy).
I randomly ran into that guy like 3 years later when we were at a party together. But neither of us acknowledged to each other that we knew each other from before. Weird.
*The dude who was really into radiohead (like me!)...we had a great date, went to a few bars, he ended up coming to my place cause he "needed to sober up a bit before driving home" and we made out until 4am. A few days later I got an awkward email about how he liked me but he realized he wasn't over his ex or something (ha! the awkward email!)
*Cowboy guy! the dude who was in NYC for a film festival who had the same name as a famous actor who plays cowboys. We walked along the east river and it was all romantic, and we hooked up...of course I knew he was going off into the night since he lived in pittsburgh and was only in NYC for like 2 more days, but this was my last month of college, and I somehow got the idea into my head that I couldn't graduate college without ever having a one night stand. Ahh, the follies of youth. The only part I regret is that 3 years later he IMed me and asked if I wanted to meet up with him in (current city) in what was clearly a booty call. I met up with him for a drink, but left alone.
*The no-tv dude who kept going on about how he was so cool cause he didn't have a tv and just read books all night. Like in a seriously pretentious way. Later it turned out he DID have a tv, but didn't have a cable hook up. So he was a lying pretentious no tv dude! We went out for gelato, and walked around a park for a bit. We actually became friends afterwards, and hung out several times, until he met some new girl and suddenly disappeared from the internets. I'm pretty sure he blocked my AIM screenname. Either that or he hasn't been online in over 2 years. Ok, and I did hook up with him that night of the first date, so the way I think this screenname blocking thing went down is that he told his gf about that, she got all jealous, and he blocked it cause of her. I especially suspect this, because he disappeared from the internet soon after I ran into the two of them in the street randomly, and she was all shadey when she found out who I was.
*the dude I went on like 3 dates with, but on the third date he told me he couldn't go out with me anymore cause he was dirt poor and had no money for dates, and also that he needed to focus on not failing out of college, cause he was close to doing that apparently. Last I heard he moved to California to become a salesman.
I do have some more first date stories, but i'm saving those for later as they are slightly more memorable than these.
I tried to come up with a list of all the first dates I have been on, so that I can blog about them. But it's so hard to remember! It's strange...these dates (for the most part) happened in the past 4 years, and pretty much every one was a big deal to me at the time. Would I like him? Would he like me? Will he want to go on a second date...oh man I hope he doesn't want a second date! Should I call him, or should I wait for him to contact me...I don't want to have to sit around like some wallflower, but I don't want to show how overeager I am.
Dating kinda sucks, aye?
So here's a post dedicated to those first dates I can barely remember. I'm probably even leaving some people out. Maybe the details I CAN remember say something about me? That's probably reading too far into things...
*The physics phd student dude who I went to dinner with at a place that had bubble tea. I specifically tried not to date other phd students, cause I don't want to have to deal with 'two body problems' when I want to get a job (getting an academic job is hard enough, let alone two academic jobs in the same area). Don't remember why I went out with this one, or really anything about the date, except that there was a giant blizzard while I was walking there, and when I got to the date my hair was all messed up and crazy from the snow.
*The guy I went out for drinks with, who kept talking about cars and working out at the gym. Just a hint dudes: don't talk about cars and/or the gym on a date.
*The Russian dude who I met up with on valentines day one year. We walked around to a bunch of art galleries and had italian food. I was unclear whether it was a date or not until he tried to kiss me, and paid for dinner. That was still when I lived in NYC
*The dude who was a rower (which I thought was pretty cool) and who ended our date abruptly (like mid-sentance) when I mentioned that I smoked...err...'stuff'.. sometimes.
*The dude who had huge arm muscles...We went out 3 times for lunch, and I was never sure whether it was a date thing or a friendly thing. He's still at my school in an urban design program I think. His giant arm muscles were kind of scary to me. (like seriously, giant)
*The dude who wouldn't tell me where he worked, but who did let on that his job was programming missiles for the government. It wasn't too hard to figure out that he worked at Boeing, as even though he was trying to be all mysterious about it, he showed up the date wearing a Boeing hoodie. I decided I couldn't go on a second date with him cause his job actively contributed towards killing people.
*The dude who wanted to come back to my place to watch a movie, when I would have preferred the date be over after we had a drink. I couldn't think of a way to tell him to NOT come to my house, so we watched a zombie movie, during which my roommate came home, and later made fun of me for how far I was sitting from this dude on the couch.
*The much older dude with a kid who took me on a 'real' date which involved some crazy dinner at "my most favorite dessert" (a place way out of my college student budget) and bowling at chelsea piers. I was 21 and he was 29, and during the date I realized just how much older he was than me, when he talked about tv shows from the 80s I had never heard of. Also during the date I found out he was divorced, had a daughter, and was working as a 'freelance advertiser' which I think is code for 'unemployed advertiser.' He insisted on paying for everything, and I think he spent like $200 on the date, which made me feel super bad when I turned him down for a second date. But seriously, at 21, I was not ready to deal with older dudes with kids. This was my second real date (after obese opera singer guy).
I randomly ran into that guy like 3 years later when we were at a party together. But neither of us acknowledged to each other that we knew each other from before. Weird.
*The dude who was really into radiohead (like me!)...we had a great date, went to a few bars, he ended up coming to my place cause he "needed to sober up a bit before driving home" and we made out until 4am. A few days later I got an awkward email about how he liked me but he realized he wasn't over his ex or something (ha! the awkward email!)
*Cowboy guy! the dude who was in NYC for a film festival who had the same name as a famous actor who plays cowboys. We walked along the east river and it was all romantic, and we hooked up...of course I knew he was going off into the night since he lived in pittsburgh and was only in NYC for like 2 more days, but this was my last month of college, and I somehow got the idea into my head that I couldn't graduate college without ever having a one night stand. Ahh, the follies of youth. The only part I regret is that 3 years later he IMed me and asked if I wanted to meet up with him in (current city) in what was clearly a booty call. I met up with him for a drink, but left alone.
*The no-tv dude who kept going on about how he was so cool cause he didn't have a tv and just read books all night. Like in a seriously pretentious way. Later it turned out he DID have a tv, but didn't have a cable hook up. So he was a lying pretentious no tv dude! We went out for gelato, and walked around a park for a bit. We actually became friends afterwards, and hung out several times, until he met some new girl and suddenly disappeared from the internets. I'm pretty sure he blocked my AIM screenname. Either that or he hasn't been online in over 2 years. Ok, and I did hook up with him that night of the first date, so the way I think this screenname blocking thing went down is that he told his gf about that, she got all jealous, and he blocked it cause of her. I especially suspect this, because he disappeared from the internet soon after I ran into the two of them in the street randomly, and she was all shadey when she found out who I was.
*the dude I went on like 3 dates with, but on the third date he told me he couldn't go out with me anymore cause he was dirt poor and had no money for dates, and also that he needed to focus on not failing out of college, cause he was close to doing that apparently. Last I heard he moved to California to become a salesman.
I do have some more first date stories, but i'm saving those for later as they are slightly more memorable than these.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
starting is so hard
I have much more of a problem with beginning to write than actually writing.
Once I get into the swing of things, I can write like the wind. I started writing about half an hour ago and have written 2 and a half pages of a journal article I'm working on in that time. If taking this blog break doesn't kill my momentum, I will probably finish up a good chunk of the revisions I am doing in another hour at the most.
But it's the starting that sucks.
The way journal articles work, for those not in the know, is that you send in an article to a journal, and they get 3 anonymous reviewers to give you comments. Then you get back one of 3 decisions: 1. rejection 2. revise and resubmit and 3. conditional accept. You almost never get a conditional accept, which is when they accept your journal article outright with very small changes. The only people who get that are like Karl Marx or something.
So the vast majority of people who are not Karl Marx, get a "revise and resubmit" decision. That's when the reviewers suggest a bunch of semi-major revisions, you revise them in the next 2-3 months, and then return the article back to the editor. He/she then may or may not send it back to the same reviewers, to different reviewers, or just read it over himself. At that point many people get a conditional accept, some get a rejection, and some get another round of revise and resubmit.
The whole process is long. It can take years to get from an article submission to a publication. Even after they conditionally accept it, you have to make those last small changes, then they send it back to you for proofreading, then you have to read actual publisher proofs to make sure the publisher got it right, and then it could be anywhere from several months to over a year until your article get to print. Also each time you send it back to the editor, it can be several weeks or several months before you can do the next stage.
For instance, I have an article coming out in August that I started working on when I was a junior in college in 2003. We first finished the article and sent it out in 2005. Then it got a revise and resubmit. Then it took a few months to make the changes, and then a few months for them to review it again. By then it was the end of 2006. And we got a second revise and resubmit decision. By the time we actually got a conditional accept, it was early 2008. We did those minor conditional accept things in March, did the proofreading in April, read the publisher proofs in May, and the article is coming out in print in August.
Anyway, my long blathering here is because I'm working on revising and resubmitting my masters thesis. I got my MA in 2006, sent it out to a top journal, got rejected, sent it out to another (top) journal, got rejected, sent it out to a second tier journal, and got a revise and resubmit. I got this in April, when a whole lot of shit was going down (dissertation proposal draft 1, a grant proposal, end of the semester grading, proofreading that other article).
But over the past few weeks I have finally done the actual research necessary for this revision. Cause they of course wanted me to use a whole new data set to compliment the data I already had, plus collect a bunch of other data on maternity leave and child care policies for 20 schools. That stuff took forever, but I did it.
But now it comes to writing. And I'm having such a hard time actually sitting down and writing up my results. For the past 2 weeks I've been putting off starting. Today I finally sat down and started, and I'm already done with a major chunk (describing the findings in that extra dataset they wanted me to use). If I can actually sit here until I write up the stuff on maternity leave policies, I"ll have finished like 70% of the revision. After that it's all minor stuff, and making sure stuff makes sense with the new stuff in the paper, and maybe rewriting a bit of the conclusion. I can be finished with this by next week, which is my goal. But sitting down to write is just so damn hard!
Once I get into the swing of things, I can write like the wind. I started writing about half an hour ago and have written 2 and a half pages of a journal article I'm working on in that time. If taking this blog break doesn't kill my momentum, I will probably finish up a good chunk of the revisions I am doing in another hour at the most.
But it's the starting that sucks.
The way journal articles work, for those not in the know, is that you send in an article to a journal, and they get 3 anonymous reviewers to give you comments. Then you get back one of 3 decisions: 1. rejection 2. revise and resubmit and 3. conditional accept. You almost never get a conditional accept, which is when they accept your journal article outright with very small changes. The only people who get that are like Karl Marx or something.
So the vast majority of people who are not Karl Marx, get a "revise and resubmit" decision. That's when the reviewers suggest a bunch of semi-major revisions, you revise them in the next 2-3 months, and then return the article back to the editor. He/she then may or may not send it back to the same reviewers, to different reviewers, or just read it over himself. At that point many people get a conditional accept, some get a rejection, and some get another round of revise and resubmit.
The whole process is long. It can take years to get from an article submission to a publication. Even after they conditionally accept it, you have to make those last small changes, then they send it back to you for proofreading, then you have to read actual publisher proofs to make sure the publisher got it right, and then it could be anywhere from several months to over a year until your article get to print. Also each time you send it back to the editor, it can be several weeks or several months before you can do the next stage.
For instance, I have an article coming out in August that I started working on when I was a junior in college in 2003. We first finished the article and sent it out in 2005. Then it got a revise and resubmit. Then it took a few months to make the changes, and then a few months for them to review it again. By then it was the end of 2006. And we got a second revise and resubmit decision. By the time we actually got a conditional accept, it was early 2008. We did those minor conditional accept things in March, did the proofreading in April, read the publisher proofs in May, and the article is coming out in print in August.
Anyway, my long blathering here is because I'm working on revising and resubmitting my masters thesis. I got my MA in 2006, sent it out to a top journal, got rejected, sent it out to another (top) journal, got rejected, sent it out to a second tier journal, and got a revise and resubmit. I got this in April, when a whole lot of shit was going down (dissertation proposal draft 1, a grant proposal, end of the semester grading, proofreading that other article).
But over the past few weeks I have finally done the actual research necessary for this revision. Cause they of course wanted me to use a whole new data set to compliment the data I already had, plus collect a bunch of other data on maternity leave and child care policies for 20 schools. That stuff took forever, but I did it.
But now it comes to writing. And I'm having such a hard time actually sitting down and writing up my results. For the past 2 weeks I've been putting off starting. Today I finally sat down and started, and I'm already done with a major chunk (describing the findings in that extra dataset they wanted me to use). If I can actually sit here until I write up the stuff on maternity leave policies, I"ll have finished like 70% of the revision. After that it's all minor stuff, and making sure stuff makes sense with the new stuff in the paper, and maybe rewriting a bit of the conclusion. I can be finished with this by next week, which is my goal. But sitting down to write is just so damn hard!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
the way too much information (TMI) dude
Part 2 of my summer series on crazy dudes I have gone out with.
Well this guy, I don't remember where I met him, some internet site, probably jdate. This was after I had moved out of NYC to go to grad school, and he was one of the first dates I went on in this new city. On the internets he seemed fairly normal, if not a bit boring. I met up with him at a local coffee shop. For the first half of the (short) date, he still seemed boring. In fact, I recall thinking to myself "wow this dude is so boring, no second date there." As it happens, there was no second date, but not because of how boring he was.
Now I have no problem with kinky dudes. Well, I may have some problems, based on personal experiences with an extremely kinky dude, but that's another story for another day. But I strongly believe there is just some information you should not share on a first date. Like anything having to do with sex. That's like 3rd or 4th date information. And extremely kinky sex stuff? That's for when you've been dating a month or two at least.
I mean, it's one thing if you are having one of those wonderfully long first dates where you totally connect and are just talking for hours and hours, and after several hours some mostly-vanilla sex related story slips out. But if you're on an hour long coffee first date? No siree. That's just TMI.
So this dude, about half an hour into the date, starts talking about his ex (Also not a subject for a first date). He starts telling me how he was really into tying up his ex, and taking pictures. And how once his ex broke her pelvis (he didn't explain the details there, or if he did I can't remember them). And he has pictures of her tied to a chair sucking him off, with a big pelvis cast thing. And he posted these pictures to the internet. And his ex wrote a letter to savage love about it! (Savage love is a sex columnist for those not in the know. It gets printed in the back of the village voice, and a bunch of other places). And Dan Savage (author of savage love) posted the question and the response in his column!!! TMI dude was so proud of the fact that his sex life had gotten onto the savage love column.
Anyways, this dude was not for me. I have no problem with many things. Really, I'm an open minded person! But posting naked tied up pictures of your broken pelvis ex girlfriend giving you a blow job, and then telling me this on the first date, is just waaaay too kinky for me.
Anyways, I just googled the savage love column he was referring to (I looked it up after the date as well), and here it is!
My boyfriend and I recently posted pictures of ourselves performing medium-to-very-kinky sexual acts on a porn Web site. This is the frst time we've left our faces unblurred. To access the site you must pay a yearly fee. Pictures stay up on the site for about a month before they're removed. Here's my question: What is the probability that, say, a boss, a little brother or a jealous ex-boyfriend with a purity complex will fnd these pictures? My boyfriend claims the chance is next to zero, but I want an unbiased expert opinion.
-- Settle Unsettling Bet
You probably should've sought out my unbiased expert opinion before you posted the pictures, SUB. I'll bet you anything you like that someone you know -- a family member, a coworker, your congressional delegation -- has already seen the pictures. Your boyfriend is full of shit. The pictures are on a pay site? They're only up for a month? Well, guess what: People download images from pay sites, post them on free Web sites and e-mail them to their friends. As a general rule, folks shouldn't put anything on the Internet that they don't want their bosses, parents, siblings, ex-boyfriends (with or without purity complexes), children, children's children or children's children's children to see.
Well this guy, I don't remember where I met him, some internet site, probably jdate. This was after I had moved out of NYC to go to grad school, and he was one of the first dates I went on in this new city. On the internets he seemed fairly normal, if not a bit boring. I met up with him at a local coffee shop. For the first half of the (short) date, he still seemed boring. In fact, I recall thinking to myself "wow this dude is so boring, no second date there." As it happens, there was no second date, but not because of how boring he was.
Now I have no problem with kinky dudes. Well, I may have some problems, based on personal experiences with an extremely kinky dude, but that's another story for another day. But I strongly believe there is just some information you should not share on a first date. Like anything having to do with sex. That's like 3rd or 4th date information. And extremely kinky sex stuff? That's for when you've been dating a month or two at least.
I mean, it's one thing if you are having one of those wonderfully long first dates where you totally connect and are just talking for hours and hours, and after several hours some mostly-vanilla sex related story slips out. But if you're on an hour long coffee first date? No siree. That's just TMI.
So this dude, about half an hour into the date, starts talking about his ex (Also not a subject for a first date). He starts telling me how he was really into tying up his ex, and taking pictures. And how once his ex broke her pelvis (he didn't explain the details there, or if he did I can't remember them). And he has pictures of her tied to a chair sucking him off, with a big pelvis cast thing. And he posted these pictures to the internet. And his ex wrote a letter to savage love about it! (Savage love is a sex columnist for those not in the know. It gets printed in the back of the village voice, and a bunch of other places). And Dan Savage (author of savage love) posted the question and the response in his column!!! TMI dude was so proud of the fact that his sex life had gotten onto the savage love column.
Anyways, this dude was not for me. I have no problem with many things. Really, I'm an open minded person! But posting naked tied up pictures of your broken pelvis ex girlfriend giving you a blow job, and then telling me this on the first date, is just waaaay too kinky for me.
Anyways, I just googled the savage love column he was referring to (I looked it up after the date as well), and here it is!
My boyfriend and I recently posted pictures of ourselves performing medium-to-very-kinky sexual acts on a porn Web site. This is the frst time we've left our faces unblurred. To access the site you must pay a yearly fee. Pictures stay up on the site for about a month before they're removed. Here's my question: What is the probability that, say, a boss, a little brother or a jealous ex-boyfriend with a purity complex will fnd these pictures? My boyfriend claims the chance is next to zero, but I want an unbiased expert opinion.
-- Settle Unsettling Bet
You probably should've sought out my unbiased expert opinion before you posted the pictures, SUB. I'll bet you anything you like that someone you know -- a family member, a coworker, your congressional delegation -- has already seen the pictures. Your boyfriend is full of shit. The pictures are on a pay site? They're only up for a month? Well, guess what: People download images from pay sites, post them on free Web sites and e-mail them to their friends. As a general rule, folks shouldn't put anything on the Internet that they don't want their bosses, parents, siblings, ex-boyfriends (with or without purity complexes), children, children's children or children's children's children to see.
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