"That's so Mormon"...? Dan, no!

If homophobic teachings by church leaders are to blame for anti-gay bullying, should people respond by giving Mormons a taste of their own medicine? Dan Savage OK's it, but I say no in my latest piece on Main Street Plaza!

See also my posts on bullying.

Bad public sex stories...

Now, the last thing I want to do is discourage people from taking the train. But since I told you about my earlier train trip, now I'd like to tell you what happened this last time I took the train to come here. You can decide which is worse...

I was on the train from Bordeaux to Lille, getting off in the suburbs of Paris to visit friends before continuing on to Zurich. At one of the stations, a guy who looked to be in his mid-twenties -- neither exceptionally attractive nor unattractive -- got on and took the seat just across the aisle from where I was sitting. (Note that the seat numbers are assigned on the tickets, so he didn't specifically choose to sit by me.) He got out a portable computer and began watching a movie on it. I had an aisle seat, and since there was a guy in the window seat next to me (coincidentally also watching a film on a P.C.), I couldn't just stare out the window as I normally do when I'm riding the train thinking of silly things to write on my blog. So I kind of had to stare up the aisle instead.

While I was sitting there chuckling to myself about all of hilarious things I might write, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Is that guy resting his hand on his crotch? My conscious mind was saying Don't turn and look, don't turn and look, whatever you do, don't turn and look! But my unconscious reflex won out, so I turned for a split-second micro-glance. I confirmed my initial impression, and immediately after the glance, the guy nonchalantly moved his hand away.

A few minutes later, the same guy (sitting across the aisle from me) shifted to a more comfortable, reclined position in his chair. Then he put his hand in his pocket, and it was quite clear that his hand was moving. And I don't mean a simple adjustment or rearrangement.

The film the guy was apparently watching wasn't something erotic as far as I could tell, and he didn't give the impression of creepily leering. He seemed more uncomfortable than anything else. (And, yes, I really did take in all of this information with my peripheral vision alone and didn't look again after that one micro-glance -- well-trained peripheral vision is an important skill for any serious primatologist.)

I could almost sympathize. After all, due to some unfortunate scheduling problems, my husband had to go to Switzerland with the kids (for their school and his job) a week earlier than I did, so I'd spent the week alone (packing and supervising the movers). On that trip, I was on my way to see my sweetie after not having seen him for more than a week, and those of you who have been in a similar situation know what that's like. Of course -- for the few hours on the train, at least -- I was able to keep all of these thoughts confined to the interior of my head and not allow my hands to wander to the nether regions, out of courtesy to the other passengers who don't want to see that.

(Some of you are probably thinking "Actually, Chanson, there's a decent chance that guy did want to see that..." Right. I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about the other other passengers.)

To me, masturbating while riding the train is a little like drinking and driving: neither activity is a problem by itself, but they don't go together. This particular incident didn't bother me -- just more free data for my inner anthropologist, as usual -- but many other people might find it upsetting and even threating. It essentially amounts to a non-consensual sex act. The other people on the train just want to get where they're going, and they certainly didn't ask to share this intimate moment with you.

I think even Dan Savage would agree with me. I don't have the exact reference, but once some guy wrote about how he and his wife like to have sex in public, and was complaining about all the prudes that didn't appreciate the show. And Dan told him that having a kink that involves random bystanders is not fair to the random bystanders, which makes sense. Now you're probably thinking this is incredibly hypocritical of me, considering my claim to fame **cough** BYU library **cough** (and to a lesser degree my tales from topless and nude beaches). As far as the nude beaches are concerned, the people who go there know what they're in for, and as for the BYU library? Well, like I said, it was a case where there was one door to lock the entire room, not just a stall (where there might potentially be random people in the room just outside the stall). I guess it's tricky to decide precisely where to draw the line for what constitutes common decency. Feel free to debate me in the comments. ;^)

Having sex in a public place naturally has its risks. I remember back when I was attending Rutgers, the Mathematics building (the Hill Center) was never completely locked. So there were students in there all the time (24/7, on holidays, weekends, whenever). It was quite convenient for grad students working on their thesis research at odd hours. One time a friend and fellow grad student recounted to me the following story:

She was in her office working on her research during the weekend, and she sent something to the printer to be printed. The way the building was arranged, the shortest path from her office to the printer room was through one of the classrooms. (These classrooms were normally locked, but many of the grad students had keys to them.) So she opened the door and turned on the light, and she found a pair of undergrads having sex right there in the classroom. Then the really surprising part of the story was what happened next. The guy said "Close the door," but my friend refused to close the door, she insisted that they disengage immediately, get dressed, and get the hell out of there. And that's what they did.

My friend told me this story as though that were a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Maybe it was. After all, random undergrads weren't supposed to be in that classroom on weekends at all, much less having sex. But if it were me, after one glance I would have turned the light back off, closed the door, and taken another path to the printer room.

Then I would have immediately gone and written all about it on my blog. ;^)

Is that weird of me? Does any of this make sense?

Savage ethics II: What if one partner gets fat?

Sometimes I see Dan Savage as an advance scout, mapping out the ethical terrain of modern romantic/sexual relationships. But beating his way through all of this uncharted territory, he sometimes comes up with ideas that I think require a little further discussion by the rest of us. We had a very productive discussion here at LFaB about Dan Savage and the ethics of cheating, but now Dan has wandered into far more dangerous territory: the ethics of relationships and fat.

I almost hesitate to offer up my blog for such a touchy subject, but I'd kind of like to talk about Dan's conclusions. I'd also like to discuss his little stunt where he showed that his readers were okay with one partner (in a long term relationship) saying to the other "Honey, I'm not attracted to you anymore because of your weight gain -- shape up, or I'm shipping out," if -- and only if -- the partner who gained weight is male.

Dan seems to be of the opinion that it should be okay for one partner to say this to the other and expect results. Perhaps, but there are a couple of very important points that I think he missed:

1. While some people do achieve significant, permanent weight loss, they are the exception rather than the rule. It's not as simple as "anyone can do it if they care enough to do it." This is not from personal experience -- I'm not fat and have never dieted -- but everything I've read indicates that an attitude of "So-and-so did it, so anyone can do it" isn't justified by the evidence.

2. A focus on weight and appearance can be counterproductive when making healthy lifestyle changes. Greta Christina wrote an excellent article about this here. Nearly all of us have lifestyle improvements we could make to be more active and eat healthier. So if two partners decide together on a change they'd like to make (replacing evening T.V. with an evening bike-ride, replacing fast food with actual food), and if the focus sincerely is on health and feeling better about your body, then you have a good chance of succeeding in making a long term, healthy change (even if you can't count on changing your size or shape). And, really, there's a good chance it will improve your sex life. ;^) But too much focus on the scale and the "your not hot enough for me" factor will likely scuttle your efforts as well as your relationship, not to mention possibly produce an unhealthy (yo-yo dieting) result.

All of this doesn't explain the double standard, though, where a weight-loss ultimatum was seen as more acceptable when placed on a man than on a woman. Some will probably contend the Mr. Savage is full of sh-t, and that in fact a man is more likely to leave a female partner for "letting herself go" -- and feel justified in doing it -- than a woman is to leave a man for the same reason. However, considering the volume of anonymous opinions Dan receives every day, I think it's reasonable to suppose that he's right about what his readers believe is ethical behavior. How people in society at large actually behave is an entirely different question from the ethical ideals of Dan's (mostly young and liberal?) audience.

So the questions I'd like to pose are the following:

1. What do you think is an appropriate response when one partner gains a dramatic amount of weight and the other doesn't?

2. Body and relationship expectations for men and women are different. Is there perhaps a justification for having a double-standard on this question? Or not?

What do you think?

Dan Savage and new sexual ethics...

I am so sick of Cheating Is Always Wrong types insisting with one breath that sex and sexual exclusivity are hugely important. Even the contemplation of an affair, to say nothing of its consummation, represents an unforgivable betrayal. And then in the very next breath, CIAWers insist that sex is so unimportant, so colossally trivial, that a person should be able to go without -- forever! -- if their mate is unwilling or incapable.

You can't have it both ways, CIAWers. If sex is hugely important, then people can't be faulted for wanting some; if it's unimportant, then it shouldn't be seen as a huge betrayal when some poor f-ckers, under duress, are forced to get their needs met elsewhere.

--Dan Savage, March 27, 2007

So what do you think, folks? Radical or reactionary???

In my virginity: once an asset, now a liability post I've already discussed a bit about the natural conflict in modern marriage that arises from the fact that each spouse has the right to insist on 100% fidelity and also the right to refuse sex with one's partner 100% of the time. On the other hand, I'm sure that many will read Mr. Savage's statement and see that olde-tyme wisdom: "If your husband cheated on you, it's your fault for not satisfying him."

My personal take is that his position is pretty reasonable. If you follow his column, his GGG (good, giving, and game) strategy basically boils down to a consistent philosophy of making a sincere good faith effort to accommodate your partner's needs and constraints. His radical idea seems to be that when one partner refuses sex (or wants it to be more vanilla) then that person isn't always the angel and the one that wants more sex or wants to indulge a harmless-yet-eccentric fantasy isn't always the demon.

I think if a difference in libido or fantasies is the only major problem in a relationship, then good communication and good faith effort to be as considerate and accommodating as possible will generally solve it. But sometimes the problems are more serious in a relationship where there are still good reasons not to give up completely.

Dan Savage says:

But here's a pro that's rarely acknowledged: Sometimes cheating can save a long-term relationship. Sometimes only cheating makes it possible for a sexually rejected partner to stay in a relationship that's worth preserving for other good, valid reasons -- like kids, for instance. And sometimes only cheating makes it possible for a person whose partner has a chronic, debilitating illness to stay put and stay sane. In these cases, cheating isn't just the right thing to do; it's the decent and honorable thing to do.

So is Dan right? Is cheating ever "the decent and honorable thing to do"?

With his example of a couple with small kids where one partner has cut off sexual contact completely: Is it more selfish to divorce over it? Or to cheat? Or are both choices selfish beyond the pale? What about in his "chronic, debilitating illness" example?