Comments on: Safe, sane and consensual

By: Breena

Breena — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:57:26 +0000

I kinda experienced the same thing with my mum, although she was more open to discussion when it involved forcing the square peg in me through the round hole of, “So, when you get married,” and no acknowledgement of any alternative. I think that’s one of the things that shaped me to do stuff like teach sex-ed, work in sexual health and abortion care. I might re-read They Fuck You Up.

I tend to respond better to questions too, however I’ve been aware that I’ve sometimes been verbally slutty in order to alienate myself and distance myself from others on purpose. I think I’ve reached a happier medium.

By: elle

elle — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:39:59 +0000

Yeah, she is more upset then me, and channeling that into incandescent rage!

Coming back to the moral of not pulling punches – my mother trained me up to do just the opposite.

When I told her at 17 that I thought I fancied girls she said “I don’t want to hear about who you’re sleeping with unless it affects my grandchildren.”

Same when I was mired in depression and sleeping around. Her response was “I don’t want to know about it, just make sure you’re safe.”

Her flat refusal to talk about anything important became a repeated theme of Therapy Month last year.

Yet for some reason I now shamelessly talk about anything, although I guess I respond best to questions cos that way I know the other party is interested.

By: Breena

Breena — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:57:53 +0000

Yikes, without knowing the ins and outs of your friend’s relationship; knowing that my new partner had deliberately deceived friends of mine can’t be a good look.

As Grill said, we’ve all had our share of internet fuck ups (my ex found out about a new lover of mine and left him a rather stalkerish message via email – just the kind of thing you want to deal with when all you should be doing is having lots of naked time together).

Been meaning to email you but I’ve been reading with increasingly wide eyes about the job sitauation. All sounds pants and stressful, will be sending good thoughts your way.

By: elle

elle — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:38:15 +0000

That’s a good question. I think there was a combination of factors:
* I didn’t know my friend even had a boyf so that option didn’t occur to me
* I don’t IM much with her, so perhaps overlooked odd syntax and such
* He kept me chatting about mindless work and stuff for a long time first, and referenced specifics such as details of a convo between her and J
* S/he claimed to be really drunk, so again I excused oddities
* I wanted it to be real

With hindsight there were some really obvious signs, inc a point where he switched from first to third person, but it just didn’t trigger any warning bells because of the reasons above.

By: Grill

Grill — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:41:48 +0000

Yes, I agree with your moral of not pulling punches – I find it’s harder with my family, but they’re the people I want to know me the best so what’s the point in lying to them? This stuff is your morality, your stance on how the world works for you, so wherefore the shame? Immunise yourself to every shock, one tiny prick at a time.

Of course, I’ve also had many internet related fuck-ups myself (my tally so far is 1 job, 1 relationship and almost another the other week lost to internet stupidity) so I understand the feeling of “duh” from it. What really intrigues me is that you couldn’t tell it wasn’t your friend – was he deceiving you, are you really bad at parsing “tells” from chat messaging, or do people revert to a common mental state when sex is in the air?