Now Playing: The Postal Service - There's Never Enough Time

DISCIPLINE is something that is sorely sorely needed in my life again, and is the main focus of my new year. Why did you leave so quickly after the move back? Has this been harder than we anticipated? How do we bounce back?

Today was pretty much a down day. Left my curtains down, refused light to come into me. While I can read and anticipate the signs of a depressive shift, it's really hard not to fall into place when things feel so thick. My bed is just .. too tempting to leave, the outside is too taunting for me to walk out to - I NEED TO SHIFT GEARS HERE!

I told myself I would return to being my proactive self, and it's been surprisingly difficult to achieve by myself. I stare at the keyboard and just wonder why? I need to really get things happening, even if I kick and scream as I pull myself out of the rabbithole that comforts me with it's dark grasp. Fighting myself..heh. Somehow, everything we as human beings do to better ourselves always involves some kind of internal battle with that little, scared part of our soul that begs and cries out "IDONTWANNAAA!!!!!"

My fight continues on. Sorry man, we both knew this wouldn't be easy. We'll make it. Discipline always works, when the executioner cares. Man, I need to remember that I care.

Now Playing: The Appleseed Cast - A Fate Delivered

hey! Work sucks and so does the pay that lasts a mere minutes. What does not suck, however - is coming home and reading. Here is something I ran into while reading one of my favorite blogs.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/12/a_drug_that_turns_homosexuality_on_and_o

A Drug That Turns Homosexuality On and Off

Posted by Dan Savage on December 11 at 14:13 PM

No, not beer—although rivers of beer have been spilt in successful efforts to induce a little situational homosexuality. No, neurobiologists have successfully turned homosexuality on and off in fruit flies using a drug that alters the way the brains of said fruit flies react to fruit fly pheromones.

And they weren’t just making little gay fruit flies ex-gay. From the NYT:

Within hours of the treatment, previously heterosexual male fruit flies would be courting other males, and treatment could also cause flies who had been engaging in homosexual behavior to become exclusively heterosexual, the neurobiologists report in Nature Neuroscience. You can read a summary of it here from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the home of one of the researchers, David Firestone.

The NYT asks the obvious follow-up: could you use similar approach to alter a human being’s sexual orientation?

Although I am not sure my research is a big step in this direction, I think that ultimately the answer will be: Yes….The question of whether or not homosexuality should be turned on and off is not a scientific question. It is an ethical/societal dilemma. I am glad my work is stimulating the discussion earlier rather than later. History is replete with poorly thought out attempts to “cure” societal/behavioral ‘illnesses’ that turned out, with proper perspective, to not be “illnesses” at all.

John Teirney then takes the discussion in a much more interesting direction. Instead of the usual hand-wringing about Christian fundies slipping anti-gay fluoride into the water supply and turning us all straight, Teirney wonders if straight and gay people alike will want to use these drugs to manipulate their sexual orientations. So long as you can flip the switch back and forth, he suggests, wouldn’t some people think, hell, why not?

I don’t think of homosexuality or heterosexuality as an “illness” to be “cured,” but I wonder how people would use the ability to control sexual orientation—to have a designer libido. Would some people, gay or straight, who weren’t having luck attracting one gender decide to switch to the other? Would some people casually switch back and forth?

So if there was a drug out there that could temporarily flip your switch and take you from hetero to homo, or homo to hetero, and back again… would you be tempted? I don’t think I would, seeing as how set in my ways I am, but I imagine younger, more sexually adventurous types might be tempted.

Of course, social conservatives would do all they can to block the recreational use of a drug like this, just as liberals would do all they could to block the exterminational use of a drug like this. But… man… if you could, would you? Should you?

Finally, there’s this creepy note…

Would parents, gay or straight, want to regulate their children’s sexual orientation—and should they or their children be allowed to do so?

Now that’s an interesting twist. When we talk about parents attempting to “regulate” their children’s sexual orientations, we’re almost always talking about straight parents wanting to make sure their kids turn out straight. But what about the growing numbers of gay parents out there? Would we be within our rights as parents to chemically alter our children’s sexual orientations? I don’t know a gay parent that would do such a thing, of course. But if this drug becomes available we may have to threaten to give it to our straight kids to prevent bigoted straight parents doing it to their gay kids.

I posted a comment basically bringing up the question, what would this kind of thing do to bisexuals and those who do not conform to one single preference? What does this drug mean for raging bisexual folk like myself? Is it gonna just... turn us on to everybody EVEN MORE, making us something of a sexual force to be reckoned with? Or will it do absolutely nothing, meaning we must have the right chemicals flowin ;)

One thing for sure, it would weed out those true hets bis and homos that wear opposing labels, would'nt it! But more importantly..

going further into this type of research does more than simply bring up how simple change can come. It busts down the idea that sexuality is not something at least partly innate, that it's all in the brain and the awesome ways our brains work; what are conservatives going to do when something like this settles the fact that homosexuality is NOT a choice? What then?

This is awesome. I enjoy seeing the progression of science pushing ignorance into a smaller corner every single day. It's this kind of stuff that makes me look forward to life as a whole. God knows it isn't manual labor in North Hollywood.

Now Playing: ohhh tell me what, tell me what you want~

Interesting article on how the culture is slowly, but not absolutely, is changing in attitudes toward sexual behavior.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/11/real_men_arent_afraid_to_suck_on_straws

Real Men Aren’t Afraid to Suck Straws

Posted by Dan Savage on November 9 at 15:13 PM

Or, it seems increasingly, cock.

A study released by a sex researcher in the UK is garnering a lot of sexy headlines—like this one:

One Third of US High School Football Players Have Had Sex with Men

Sociologist Dr. Eric Anderson, studying American men who had played football in high school, said that out of 47 men surveyed, 19 had participated in sexual conduct with others of their gender.

Sexual contact was defined to mean behavior specifically meant to sexually excite others, and ranged from kissing to oral sex. The behavior also ranged from threesomes with one woman and two men present, to encounters involving only two men.

Mmm… football.

Anderson’s sample was small—just 47 straight guys, 19 of whom cheerfully admitted to having messed around with another dude—and all the men had moved from being high school football players to college football cheerleaders. Says Anderson on Salon today…

“I’m not trying to say that these men are gay in any way, shape or form,” Anderson says. “That isn’t the point of this. The point is to simply make the point that homophobia is reducing at an unbelievably rapid rate, and this is one of the multiple benefits that come with that…

“I wanted to see what would happen when you take men who used to be football players and you put them in a field with the people they used to make fun of, the cheerleaders. And what I found was that they very quickly undo their homophobia, if they had homophobia. They very quickly change their views about women. And one of the things they do, they very quickly undo the ‘one-drop rule’ of sexuality.”

For the last few decades—ever since gay people started coming out and living openly—the “one-drop rule” has been in force. Any man that messed around with another man, even just once, had to be a fag. Period. But women were able to admit to one or two same-sex crushes and a handful of few same-sex experiences—hell, relationships (LUGs?)—without everyone insisting that they had to be closeted lesbians. And increasingly straight men—real straight men, not messed up closet cases—are insisting that they too can have the odd same-sex experience without being gay.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. But just as not everyone that has straight sex is straight—I had straight sex, for crying out loud—not everyone that has gay sex is gay.

Back to Anderson:

“When we were in high school, you kissed another man, you were a fag, fag, fag, and that was that. You’d get the crap kicked out of you. That is not the case at all anymore.”

Anderson says studies since the ’50s have shown that men have had sex with each other without identifying as gay. “The primary difference here is that in their peer culture, these behaviors aren’t stigmatized anymore, or are considerably less stigmatized,” he says. “The key here is that it doesn’t threaten their heterosexual identity in the peer culture anymore. They can do this now—which really isn’t anything new—but the difference is their teammates don’t go, ‘Oh, you fucking faggot.’”

Judging from my “Savage Love” mail I’d say there are a lot of folks out there that would go, “Oh, you fucking faggot.” The one drop-rule has weakened, it hasn’t been repealed. Every day brings a letter from someone utterly convinced that a straight-identified husband, boyfriend, drinking buddy, etc., who admitted to a same-sex experience simply must be a closeted fag. But I also get letters every day from straight guys who, like Anderson’s football players, cheerfully admit to a same-sex experience or crush and don’t think of themselves as gay and the least bit conflicted about it.

Seeing as we’re moving into a brave new world when straight men can suck dick once or twice in their lives without having to hang a rainbow windsock on their decks (who do you think is booking all those shemale escorts anyway?), hopefully we won’t be seeing many more “news reports” like this one. WCVB in Boston has a list of “10 Drinks a Man Should Never Order.” Because, you know, today you can suck dick without all your friends thinking you’re a fag—but, dude, order a blended drink, or one with too much garnish, or a Jello shot or a cosmo and everyone’s going think you’re a total homo.

My favorite drinking “don’t” for insecure straight men:

Anything that requires a straw. It’s hard to look coy with a straw, it’s nearly impossible to look macho or hot when using one.

Yeah, everyone is going to think you’re gay if you put that straw in your mouth. But sucking your teammate’s cock during a boy-girl-boy threesome? Nothing gay about that, dude. Party on.

So most of us core guys don't have to label ourselves anything do we! While this study sure requires further expansion and research, the direction that attitudes are taking is pretty clear.. and perhaps a little less anxious, for everybody involved.

Now Playing:

'assholes' are vain narcissists with no integrity.

Now Playing: LIVE AND LEARN!

oh shit son, I just died and went to gaming heaven.

Now Playing: Air - How Does it Make You Feel?

it makes me feel an intense rush of blood crash into every place in my head and my heart, like an intrusive reminder that this is life, and life is knocking at the door. That is how it makes me feel. Damn you life. You are here.

Don't leave!

Now Playing: Havergal - The Last Wayfarer

Starting in the.. next few hours, after my morning gym routine I am marching my butt to Target to buy a few things. This new skin thing, a new towel, maybe some powerade.. and a new notebook.

I am coming off probably the most important weekend in my post-college life since my last weekend in my old apartment. Thanks to spending time with my friends, crashing once I walked back into my home here, and especially thanks to Ismael I am ready - or almost ready - to try and put together my narrative. Right now my head and my heart feel so heavy.. heavy with anxiety, with ambition, with worries.. and with hope.

and a little costco. More on life after I let my heart sink further into my body.