Category Archives: thoughts

beliefs, personal, sexuality, thoughts

Erotic Operandus

1 Comment

For various reasons, I’ve recently been thinking a lot about my belief in how we should approach our erotic lives and our erotic selves. The following is how I think our erotic credo/philosophy should work.

  1. Ownership. No-one – yes, no-one: parent, friend, guru, god – has the right to tell you what your sexuality should be. It is yours and yours alone to share with others or not as you choose (although, of course, the law decrees there are things which must remain at best forever in the realms of fantasy).
  2. Fear. Don’t be afraid of your sexuality, what other people might think of it, or anything to do with sex. Your sexuality is yours and for you; no-one else. This is all part of liking yourself. If you can’t accept your own sexuality how can you meaningfully engage with someone else’s?
  3. Answers. There are no universal right or wrong answers. Your erotic is someone else’s pornographic and yet another person’s tedium. There is only what is better or worse for you.
  4. Communication. Be prepared to talk about your sexuality, anywhere and to anyone – make it a normal part of your life. That doesn’t mean you should flaunt or proselytise your sexuality; just be open and honest about it when appropriate.
  5. Appreciation. Learn to accept a compliment and appreciate the simplest erotic gesture.
  6. Nudity. Nudity is a normal part of life; there’s nothing dirty or unnatural about any part of our bodies and bodily functions. Indeed nudity is good for you; even Benjamin Franklin took regular “air baths”. Or to quote my wife’s god-father, “If you see anything God didn’t make, heave a brick at it”.
  7. Fantasies. We all have fantasies, we all have wet dreams, we all masturbate. Brilliant!
  8. Masturbation. Masturbation is normal, enjoyable and good for you! Almost everyone does it throughout their life. Where’s the problem?
  9. Orgasm. Each of us is responsible for our own orgasms.
  10. Sticky Bits. Don’t be afraid of genitals and bodily fluids. They are the stuff of life. Without them we’d none of us be here. Embrace them; make them yours.
  11. Sexual Excitement. By all means take another person’s sexual excitement as a compliment. There’s nothing wrong or threatening about an erection in and of itself, just as there’s nothing wrong or threatening about an aroused yoni (it just ain’t so obvious). The erection/arousal makes no demands and requires no attention, although the person attached to it may want some attention. Your erection/arousal is your own responsibility and no one else’s.
  12. Responsibility. Only you know what’s right for you and you must take responsibility for getting it. Ask for what you want of yourself or of your partner. Not to do so is denying part of your sexuality. Don’t be afraid; most partners love to be asked!
  13. Cherish. Your sexuality is what you make of it. Cherish it. Make it good and make it yours. Enjoy!
amusements, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s selection of the amusing and inspiring:

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.
[Robert Frost]

Take it as a compliment, absolutely! And there’s certainly nothing threatening about an erection in and of itself. It makes no demands, requires no attention – it’s the man attached to the erection who might do that, and any man worth his sodium chloride knows that his erection is his own responsibility and no one else’s.
[Emily Nagoski at ]

Generic anger, envy and despair, coated in a thick, luxurious layer of can’t be arsed.
[Emma Beddington at http://www.belgianwaffling.com/]

Good advice is something that old men give young men when they can no longer set them a bad example.
[Unknown]

history, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

The usual selection of quote that have inspired or amused me this week.

Thirty spokes unite at the hub
but the ultimate use of the wheel depends on the part where nothing exists.
Clay is molded into a vessel
but the ultimate use of the vessel depends upon the part where nothing exists.
Doors and windows are cut out of the walls of a house
but the ultimate use of the house depends upon the parts where nothing exists.
So, there is advantage in using what can be seen, what exists.
And there is also advantage in using what cannot be seen, what is non-existent.
[Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11]

There are intelligent people and thick people. There are energetic people and lazy people. By far the most dangerous is the energetic but thick person.
[Reported as overheard by Noreen]

The Roman Catholic Church is sometimes referred to as “the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire”.
[Razib Khan in “Gene Expression Weblog” at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com]

beliefs, science, thoughts

In which I become Immortal

Time, according to common belief, is unending and infinite.  The Universe, but not time, began with the Big Bang.  For if time had started only with the Big Bang there was no time before the Big Bang in which to create the components thereof.  So time apparently stretches back into the infinite past.  And time will go on for ever; it stretches off into the infinite future.  Or does it? 

Some current scientific theories are suggesting that at some point in the future time ceases to exist, or perhaps becomes frozen (which seems to amount to much the same thing).  Other theories suggest that time has no independent existence anyway; it is but an artificial construct of our existence; it exists only because we are measuring it.  (There’s a mind-bending article on the science of all this in the September 2010 issue of Scientific American, but you’ll need to subscribe or buy the magazine.)

It seems to me eminently reasonable that something as intangible as time is purely a human construct.  Do animals (cats or dogs, say) measure time?  Does one not need a level of self-awareness, an understanding of self, to be able to measure time?

Logically therefore, if time has no independent existence, I am immortal.  Consider …

Before I was born (or conceived, or attained pre-natal consciousness, depending how one wishes to measure these things) there was no time.  It was not part of my existence, because I didn’t exist and therefore couldn’t measure it.

Similarly when I die, time ceases.  Again I am no longer able to measure or observe it.

Ergo I have existed for all time, and am thus, by definition, immortal.

Strange mind-bending things these scientific theories of everything!  Bishop Berkeley eat your heart out!

medical, science, thoughts

'eye 'eewls

1 Comment

High Heels Cause Long-Term Damage says the headline.

We needed scientific research to tell us this?

Twenty years ago I had a colleague who was having serious physiotherapy because she was unable to put her foot flat to the ground, caused by spending too many years wearing 4 inch heels.

beliefs, freedom of speech, science, thoughts

Accountability of Religious Leaders

1 Comment

Prof. Lawrence Krauss writes a typically hard-hitting column in the August 2010 issue of Scientific American. I’m not sure if the piece is available online without subscription (I have access as I subscribe to the paper version of the magazine) so here are the key paragraphs.

I don’t know which is more dangerous, that religious beliefs force some people to choose between knowledge and myth or that pointing out how religion can purvey ignorance is taboo.
[…]
Last May I attended a conference on science and public policy at which a representative of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences gave a keynote address. When I questioned how he reconciled his own reasonable views about science with the sometimes absurd and unjust activities of the Church – from false claims about condoms and AIDS in Africa to pedophilia among the clergy – I was denounced by one speaker after another for my intolerance.
[…]
[In] Arizona, Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, recently authorized a legal abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from severe complications of pulmonary hypertension; she made that decision after consultation with the mother’s family, her doctors and the local ethics committee. Yet the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olm­sted, immediately excommunicated Sister Margaret, saying, “The mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s.” Ordinarily, a man who would callously let a woman die and orphan her children would be called a monster; this should not change just because he is a cleric.
[…]
Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. Unless we are willing to expose religious irrationality whenever it arises, we will encourage irrational public policy and promote ignorance over education for our children.

For my part I’m not sure which is more worrying: Krauss being shouted down at a scientific conference or the Bishop of Phoenix.  Both are very worrying.

amusements, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

1 Comment

It’s generally been a quiet week and I’ve been doing lots of Anthony Powell Society work, hence the lack of activity and only a couple of recent quotes …

If you allow annoying people to annoy you, then you’ve allowed them to win.
[Hypersexualgirl]

Nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.
[GK Chesterton]

amusements, beliefs, environment, medical, music, pleasures, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

Another in the series of things which have struck me, or amused me, this week.

So look, I’m going to say this thing, and you’re going to listen and believe me because … I don’t know, why would you believe me if you haven’t believed it from anyone else? […] Because in the patient corners of your heart, you’ve ALWAYS known it’s true. It’s this:
You’re not broken. You are whole. And there is hope.
[Emily Nagoski at ]

There is evidence that male babbling (what you kindly call Punditry) is a Zahavian handicap.
During both foetal development and puberty, male brains are subject to damage from hormonal processes that convert the female body and neural system into a male one (more or less). This causes males to be, on average, poor at communication. They don’t understand what they hear as well as females, can’t form their thoughts into words as well, and most interestingly, can’t think about one thing while carrying on a conversation with another human at the same time, as females routinely do.
Therefore, ability to communicate at all, let alone well, is very difficult given the handicap of this developmental brain damage. Public communication (babbling/punditry) would indicate relatively high quality for any male that could do it. Thus, all that male babbling.
[Greg Laden in a comment at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/]

The Chap Olympiad has a number of things to recommend it, apart from the variety of potential experiences. One is that its resolute promoting of amateurism, eccentric sporting and events cocks an elegant snook at the revolting orgy of corporate arrogant dullardism that infuses all major sporting events. We don’t need their cocacolaMacanike extravaganzas in citizen murdering nations. Stuff ‘em.
[“Minerva” at http://redlegsinsoho.blogspot.com]

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
[Albert Schweitzer]

Just as we should cultivate more gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.
[Dalai Lama]

Minds are like parachutes: they only function when open.
[Thomas Dewar]