Adam Phillips

Actually, it doesn't have much of a connotation at all, because we just don't use it much, if any. I had a kind of "working sense" for what it meant, viz., "ridiculous," or something like that, but I actually had to look it up to make sure! And I responded the way I did is because I'm thinking over here it possibly doesn't feel quite so light-hearted. I think maybe it feels to me roughly equivalent to looking at someone and telling them "you're being ridiculous." It might be fun to start a thread on "things we hear from across the pond" that make us smile. From both sides.

Wow. "Daft." I haven't heard that word in any context in ages, except for references to the old musical act Daft Punk. It's a nice word, actually, except that here it was a bit of a flame-thower, right? Arbour is one of my longtime online buddies, going back to years before he ever even saw this place, much less came to dominate it. And one of the things I always liked about him was that he pretty much told you what he thought, and the consequences be damned. He got into some trouble early here because of that, but I always liked it. Still, it probably isn't a bad idea to recognize when something you say is gonna throw a little fuel on it. Not saying you did your you didn't, Persinette, or that you intended to or didn't. I'm just saying that if you call a person "daft," it's gonna cause a least some elevated temperature.

Right. Labels have their legitimate uses in various contexts. The problem comes--when it comes at all, which it doesn't always--with assuming that a label, or what we believe it connotes, constitutes the whole story of a person's sexuality. And the problem with the "bisexual" label, when it's problematic, is twofold. First, people see the word and assume things about it that aren't true. Second, the term "bisexual," as researchers Michael Storms and Fritz Klein have each in their own way demonstrated, doesn't designate one kind of sexual configuration. It's probably safer to say, in certain analytical contexts, that there are bisexualities. The diversity of configurations to bisexuality is one of the things that makes the notion of bisexuality controversial and confusing for gay, straight, and bi people alike. And I'll agree with Ghostboy at least as far as saying that there are times and contexts when we should just get away from sexual-orientation labels altogether. For example, we do at times seem fixated on making someone define themselves for us sexually. When a person resists that labeling, I've seen people get aggressive, accusing, and hostile. That shouldn't be.

Yeah, it's a study. But I did decide I was going to be bisexual again. And again and again and again. Same as before.

I remember when Kurt Cobain died. Ugh. I and my crew of jocks were really down about that one. We were all huge Nirvana fans. There was something about his privileged-white-boy-cynicism that struck a chord within us. Most people remember Nirvana from the album Nevermind, but it was their final studio album In Utero that seared itself into my synapses. I can remember, uhh, inducing an altered state of perception, if you get my drift, and then listening to "All Apologies" over and over. Not that I endorse either activity. Anyway, it was damn fine music. I continued to be a huge fan of Dave Grohl and his band Foo Fighters after that. My best friend and business partner, himself a good amateur guitarist, did too. I think In Your Honor is his favorite rock album ever.

I read The Hobbit and the three Rings books when I was younger and loved them. I'm more attracted to good storytelling within the genre than I am attracted to the genre itself, and in that regard those books were superb. I picked up a Terry Brooks book off the giveaway table at our library a few years back. I never abandon a book before I finish it...it's just a personal principle of mine...but I was tempted in this case. The story was okay, but I thought the writing itself was atrocious. Pedestrian and flat; and damn, was he ever addicted to adverbs! But hey, I felt the same way about Robert Ludlum (good stories, godawful writing) and somehow he didn't need my endorsement to be successful.

I don't know that that constitutes a disagreement, Cia. I didn't say that I thought the entire project was invalidated because it was tainted by "interested money." And I agree that, say, the American Dairy Council would have no reason at all to fund a study on bisexuality. All I'm saying is that whenever an entity funds a study whose conclusions could be advantageous it--and I'm talking about any study about anything, not just about sexuality--it creates room for some at least mild suspicion. I don't think I'm stating anything here that the average scientist might not also chime in on.

Everybody always told me practice makes perfect. I'm just trying to take that seriously.

Yeah, I've never been accused of being over-serious before. Sorry about that, and I'm definitely enjoying the season! Although in North Texas, we don't have much of a spring. We just have mostly annoyingly cold (though not by, say, Buffalo standards) and intolerably hot.

Yes. But more than one minor point has been disproved. And beyond that, the reasoning that informs this myth has been thoroughly discredited. If you'd like, I can review in digest form the specific "disproofs" and the "discredited reasoning." In the same mode--the need for specificity when a person makes assertions--I'd ask you, what's the "minor point" that you consider to have been disproved in Snopes (or somewhere else)? Is it the contention that only at the equinox can you balance an egg? Or for that matter, what's the "everything" that you believe not to have been disproved? Is it that egg-balancing is more successful at the vernal equinox than at other times? That, too, has been refuted. Would you like the references? This little issue reminds me, in microcosm, of the whole creationist-evolution brouhaha. But you started this thread, so I'll just quietly withdraw now. I don't wanna offend anybody's sensibilities. I just thought... Meh. Never mind. My bad.

I have a Yahoo group where readers of my stories and just long-time cyberfriends gather and talk about all kinds of things (You're welcome to join.). And one of them sent me a link to an article from the New York Times on bisexuality: The Scientific Quest To Prove Bisexuality Exists I have to say that this is the most significant "popular" essay I've seen on bisexuality, and it succeeds on a number of levels. As a practicing bisexual, I can validate--at least anecdotally--much of what the article claims I have a reservation or two. For one, when an establishment created to advocate for bisexuals funds research into bisexuality, there's cause for at least a raised eyebrow. And secondly, I wish that the article had spent some time focusing on the specifics of Fritz Klein's work, since it mentions him so much. If it had done that, it might have provided even greater illumination for the author regarding his own reported sexual responses. But in spite of those two caveats, the article is the best thing I've seen on bisexuality in years. If there are some of you interested enough in the topic to give this LONG article a look and the careful reading I believe it deserves, I'd be very interested in your thoughts.

Gotta say, I tend not to read in this genre, but I'm so impressed with the Rick Riordan Percy Jackson books. They're good reads even for adults. And a big high-five to him for eventually establishing one of the ongoing characters as gay and for handling that aspect of the story with class and subtlety as well as making it intriguing for the reader.

<smiles at the irony of girls falling for George Michael>

Uhhh...I hate to throw a wet blanket on this... Well, actually, I don't. I do hope everybody here realizes the thing about the equinox and eggs is a myth, right? There's a multitude of sites on the Internet debunking said myth, but here's the one at Snopes, which also includes a nice video of an egg being balanced at some ordinary not-equinox date.

Sorry, dude. I got up on the wrong side of the bed. That involves rolling on top of my wife on the way to standing up, so she slugged me in the eye. Disoriented, I fell down the stairs. Which frightened the dog, so he peed in my shoe. Aching, still bleary, and in a rush to get breakfast done, I poured milk on my seven-year old, who in response yelled that he wanted my business partner to be his dad, not me. And then my first-period class made jokes about me running into a doorknob. And then you said I said porn was all make-believe. All those other things were bad enough; but that last was fightin' words. Or something like that.

No student needs to choose between social life and learning. You can do both. And you should. Lol You just treat sleep as optional. I and my crew in college socialized and partied to excess--and I'm talking EXCESS--and I still took care of my academic stuff.

I have a PhD in math, and I use it part-time, I guess, as an adjunct math prof at a college. I was in that game full-time for a while, but I got annoyed with departmental politics, and my best friend invited me in as a partner in a business he was starting. When that took off, I left full-time teaching. PhD stands mainly for "piled higher and deeper." It's no guarantee of anything, but I'm a believer in education. And I believe in it as a means to an end--as in, go to school to get training to qualify you for a particular job--but mainly I believe in education as a vehicle by which you enhance your ability to think. And I'm a huge supporter of liberal-arts education. The more we require of our brains in multiple areas, the more flexible and capable our brains are. More and more we see people who have education in one area who don't know how to think. They've learned their data, but their ability to reason is virtually non-existent, and they know nothing beyond what they got from their major course of study. It's what happens when you niche yourself in education, and I think liberal-arts schools provide the opportunity to make something more expansive and significant of your education, without abandoning commitment to expertise and specialization in your major area. I have no desire to go back to school to get another degree, but I'm all about everybody continuing in education, regardless of your level and area of "formal" education. And there are so many ways you can do that.

Yep. I make my living by writing. Well, and by teaching. And by playing music. And re: writing I'm well aware of what sells and how to get it done, and I'll concede that the original post was pretty bloated. I'm with Tet, really: Porn's something you jerk off to when you're horny and a partner isn't available. That's pretty much my ordinary thought on it. But questions come up, and I was working my way mentally through the range of thoughts about those questions that showed up in my head. And my fingers were off to the races. Ironically, when I'm fast, I'm long-winded. I have to slow down to take out the excess. I'd never have submitted anything like that first post, style-wise, to a client. But I didn't think the topic was such that I could shortcut the reflections and I didn't have a large block of time. Your summary has some merit. I fall back on "what's legal" and added "what's dangerous" mainly as working defaults since it's hard to come up with solid guidelines. I do tend to like the ones Cia gave, though. I think they're pretty solid and worth considering. I should add this re: "having fun with debates": I grew up in an environment that encourged academic debate. My parents are Ph.Ds. I'm one as well. My dad teaches at the college level. I do too. I very much enjoy someone coming at me when they have something solid. I ain't afraid of no debate. My dissertation is in math, and defending it was definitely a debate. I'm used to opposing voices, and have lots of patience and respect for opposing voices that bring up stuff that gets me to think

LMFAO!!! This is an illustration of one of the many reasons I'm desperately in love with you, you scoundrel! And yes. You got that right. That's exactly what I meant. Man, I wish I had your ability to say things clearly in one sentence. Words, man: They suck. Especially when there are too many of them. P.S. Why isn't there a button for "Love the HELL out of this"??

You can tell me my post is too long and windy for you to have bothered to read carefully, and that therefore I shouldn't have subjected people to it (and I know I can beat a subject to death, so it's a critique I wouldn't be unfamiliar with)...but if you do take that position, probably you shouldn't post something that asks me what I said in that too-long-and-boring-to-read post and then summarize and not get it right. For the record, though, what I "seemed" to be saying to you is not, in fact, what I said. For starters, I take particular exception to the summary phrase "It's all make-believe." Not only did I never use that phrase, I don't think it represents any kind of correct inference from any word or combination of words I did say. If you believe it does, please cite, and make your argument. At this point, I maintain that I never said that and that I never even implied it. As for the suggestion that "no harm's done," I'd ask the same. Show me where I said that or why you believe it's a proper inference from what I said. What I said is that there are probably plenty of people who are not harmed. But "no harm's done"??? I started out the entire discussion by asserting that the very nature of the question entails that it's going to be difficult to study the evidence scientifically enough to get a determination one way or the other. That's a very different assertion than "no harm's done." What I'm saying is that to take a stance that "porn is inevitably harmful" is to take a stance on something that no one has reliably demonstrated, and to which there is ample refuting material available at least at the level of anecdotal evidence, which is not hard evidence but should nevertheless weigh in. What I'm also saying is that to base cultural practice and law on that "all-porn-is-always-bad" stance is misguided, impractical, and creates more problems than it solves. So if we can't know reliably at this point that all porn is bad, what are we supposed to do about porn? That was the question I saw framed, and the post was intended to make observations and voice opinions relevant to that question. I'm assuming that the observations you made about the adjectives I used to describe various kinds of porn ("toxic," "extreme," etc.) were made with rhetorical intent, and I'm gonna go ahead and infer that your point was that those are subjective terms and could be used as "weasel" words and, therefore, bring nothing helpful to the discussion. I'll concede that they are indeed subjective terms, but my contention is that that's an illustration of the problem. Who gets to determine what is "extreme" and what is "toxic" and what is "icky" and what is "peculiar" and what is "normal"? I'd start with what's legal, although what's legal is not often a very good indicator of what's actually harmful. Readers at this site are already well aware of that. What counts as "dangerous" is probably even more dicey. Snuff videos should be illegal. Anything that videos an actual law being broken should probably not be viewed...but what about a porn that shows people smoking pot? Is that as bad as child porn or snuff videos? Obviously not. Beyond law and a consideration of what's dangerous, though, what else do we have? How else are we supposed to slice this thing, unless you want to say either "anything goes," or "absolutely no porn allowed"? Hence my two criteria of "illegal" and "dangerous." As for your question as to what's legal and dangerous in my neck of the woods, I'm going to assume that question's there for rhetorical effect too. As an actual question, I'm not sure what the answers would demonstrate for you. Anyway, I'm reasonably confident you're not interested in a copy of Texas law. Nor do you probably much give a rip about what I or the local culture deem to be "dangerous." But even assuming that your question was intended as rhetoric, I'm not even sure of your rhetorical intent. Is it your intent to indict my--or anyone's--definition of "legal" and "dangerous" in order to point out that just because one person (or legislative body) doesn't deem something dangerous or illegal, that doesn't mean it's not bad? I'll grant you that; but what is it you propose that we do about that? Make porn illegal? There are 12 paragraphs in my original post. One of them is introductory in nature. Two of them are primarily transitional in nature. The whole post was written quickly, so I don't always do what my transitional paragraphs claim I'm about to do. Still, beyond the intro and the transitional paragraphs, each paragraph has a particular assertion to make or opinion to voice. After I read your post, I boiled them down for myself and considered placing that condensed version here, but then I decided that most people who were interested already got the gist of what I'd said; it wasn't in hiding. But I can make said condensed version available, is all I'm saying.

Oh, that's just gay propaganda, designed to make people think that The Gays are something resembling "normal." This video was obviously worked on by a gay conspirator who wanted to promote that perception. We all know that in real life, gay people are debased, immoral, and soul-less, and will have indiscriminate sex with every same-gendered person they can, whenever they can.

Wikipedia and Webster both contend that video sex stuff--or sex stuff in any artistic medium--can also be erotica. The distinction Wiki makes is that "erotica," as opposed to porn, has high-art aspirations. This is true; there are a lot of high artists at this site.

Yeah, he's probably a little jerk, though probably not as much of one as that smear-job suggests. And I can take or leave his music... But all that notwithstanding, I gotta say I like his face, and he has one of the best-looking asses around. (Did I say that out loud?) He's certainly bared it and semi-bared it often enough for everyone to know what it looks like.

Thanks, Lisa. I think you're talking first about Jake, Andy's baseball-player friend. Man, do the memories of that guy live strong in me (I guess you and everybody else knows that CC is based on my own life story). Anyway, I feel the same way that you do about the role and function of explicit sex scenes in gay-themed narrative. Once in a while I'll write such a scene just for the sheer erotic value. But even then, there's a place for it in the overall narrative. It's not just gratuitous. I'm glad you're enjoying Brushfire. It's pure fiction, unlike Crossurrents, although the Fitz character is based on a real-life character. The cameo by the Asian-looking guy in the restaurant is too, lol.

Thanks for your review. I'm glad you're liking the story.