Sexual Disorientation

Most people, I surmise, have discrete boxes in their head.  For most people you’re either in the “straight” box, or the “gay” box, and if you’re not in one of those then you’re bi.

Certainly I’ve not thought of myself as straight in an awful long time.  You’d almost have to go back to college days in Knoxville.  My best-friend/roommate was gay (still is, in fact – gay, not my roommate) and I used to hang w/ some of his friends and occasionally go out to the gay bars w/ him… and at that time “straight but not narrow” was definitely the accurate label for me.  But back then I didn’t even have a concept of my own kinky sexuality.  I mean, I was always turned-on by whips, chains, leather, and latex… but it was all just fantasy stuff then – I had no idea there was a safe, sane, healthy way to pursue all of that.  Once I did get into the BDSM scene, I soon dropped the label “straight.”

Anyway, back to the 3-box approach.  Some folks will say:  Look, if you have sex only w/ people of the opposite gender then you’re straight; if you have sex only with those of the same gender then you’re gay; and if you have sex with both, then you’re bi.  That’s a pretty sound approach, and I can’t argue with that.  From that standpoint I have no issue with being labeled bi.

On the other hand, there’s another way to look at it, which is who you’re physically attracted to, and that’s slightly different than who you have or haven’t danced the hokie-pokie with.  I recall a really interesting study that was done in which scientists showed subjects pictures of men and women while a special camera recorded their eye movement.  When you see someone you find attractive, you’ve iris automatically dilates some.  One fascinating aspect of this is that this reaction is automatic and unconscious.  That means, even if you were super repressed and deep in the closet even to yourself, that this test would still find you out.  (It also, by the way, offers yet more scientific evidence that sexual orientation isn’t a lifestyle choice but something programmed in our biology.)

As I explained once before in a previous post, I’m not, as a rule, attracted to other guys.  I’ve been hanging out w/ gay people for my whole adult life and one thing I’ve noticed is that gay men are always checking out other men.  This isn’t at all surprising; straight men are always checking out girls.  This I also know from first hand experience.  A pretty girl goes by and, sure, I turn my head to watch.  (Of course, if a motorcycle goes past, I turn my head and bark at it… and if a pretty girl on a motorcycle goes by, I bounce up and down and vibrate fiercely.)  Meanwhile, my Owner, who is definitely bisexual in this sense, is quite equally attracted to men and women.  If a pretty boy or girl walks by, her head turns.  (Though usually Shdwkitten is the one turning heads.)  For her, gender doesn’t seem to make a difference regarding physical attraction.  But for me, I would expect, on the afore-mentioned iris-dilation test, my eyes would not react to very many pictures of men… unless they tapped in to some fetish of mine, which changes the whole game.  In terms of physical attraction at least, I’m “mostly straight.”  Guys – good-looking or otherwise – just don’t really get my attention that way.

So what about “hetroflexible?”  Well… I have issues w/ that word.  It bugs me.  It’s just the sound of it.  I’ve always said that it sounds like the yuppie version of “bisexual.”  Like I’m supposed to be wearing a collared polo shirt and slacks, aviator glasses, cut my hair, and be upwardly mobile.  “Look at me; I’m not bi; I’m heteroflexible.”  :P

My Fet profile somewhat begrudgingly says “hetroflexible” mostly b/c I think that will probably be the more accurate-ish descriptor for the primary clientele of Fet.  On the other hand, I was on PupZone long before Fet, and my PupZone account has always said, “bisexual” – but of course most of the guys on PupZone are gay; it’s a different crowed w/ different definitions.

Now, some people get really bent out of shape if you don’t classify them by their chosen label, but that’s certainly not me.  Words mean what we use them to mean.  There is never a “What does X really mean?” only “What do we mean by saying X when we use it?”  That’s one reason why I really don’t care what you call me; just don’t call me late to dinner.

Busy Summer Highlights

Just time to do a quick recap on recent events.

So, the first weekend of the month, Shdwkitten and I went to the beach to visit her parents.  We didn’t manage to squeeze in any mini-golf due to rain (wolfhounds love mini-golf!), but we did go fly a kite on the beach which was almost as cool.

On the 3^rd of July, my lovely Owner took me out to Charlotte’s UpStage along w/ two of her paramours.  We thought it was our usual kinky karaoke night, but there was actually an open mic thing at the bar that night, which brought a lot of vanilla people into our crowd’s usual Wednesday night hang out.  It was all cool, but there were a lot of “who are those people” looks from both sides of the room.  We had fun, geeked-out about comic book movies and obscure bands, drank a lot, and stayed out until 3 AM.

The next day was Independence Day, and I had to drive in the pouring rain (on like 4 hours of sleep) to Atlanta for Sir’s 4^th of July bar-b-q.  It was totally worth it.  I was there early along w/ Nitro and Master Dan (AtlantaRubber), and it was nice to spend a couple of hours just chill’n around the kitchen table drinking rum & coke and munching on potato chips.  Eventually we had like ten other guys arrive – almost all of them puppies, so thanks must go to Sir’s husband for opening his home to all of our craziness.  We didn’t break anything, but we did manage to dump half the water out of the hot tub.  Got another 4 or 5 hours of sleep before driving home (while eating cookies – b/c wolfhounds love cookies!), crawling into my kennel, and napping the day away, because…

The next day was, for Ma’am and me, Domination at the BoilerRoom in Asheville along with Noir and SanguineSnow.  This is a TNG, heavily geek-themed, kinky bar night that brings out a pretty fun crowed.  The costumes may range from leather and latex to Ewoks.  (No shit, Ewoks.)  Haven’t seen any fursuiters yet, but I’m waiting.  I got to watch Noir do a great scene w/ Sanguine and Shdwkitten… and later there were two hook suspensions.  Very cool.  The only downside was the girl who got hooked was wandering around the bar afterwards w/ blood on her.  She could have easily pulled on a shirt or a jacket or something, but no…  I’m not really blood-phobic, but that bugged me.  Common courtesy, people – use it.

Other than Domination, we also just really had fun hanging w/ Noir and Sanguine.  Discussions covered what we like and don’t like in evolutionary psychology, how we all want to see a Saturday morning cartoon called Cathulu Babies, to how hot Shdwkitten looks… and let the record denote the very important fact that another beautiful woman wants to fuck me w/ a strap-on.  *Wags*  (Wolfhounds love sexy women w/ strap-on’s!)

The next weekend, which was this last weekend, my ex-girlfriend and her husband came down from Michigan for a visit.  This was a definite highlight of the summer.  We haven’t seen her in about five years… which is unfortunate b/c she’s a good friend both to me and my Owner and her husband is also a really cool guy – and doubly unfortunate be/c they own a liquor store, a tobacco store/humidor, and a head shop… so when they visit they bring the best gifts: like two bottles of wine, a MASSIVE bottle of 1800 Silver, and some Johnny Walker double black (the smoothest scotch I’ve ever tried), along w/ various other things.  We spent a lot of time happily discussing religion and politics - the two subjects you're never supposed to discuss in polite company.  We also went spelunking (and my Owner hit her head on a rock), went hiking (and my Owner slipped and fell on a rock), and dropped in on my favorite pub up in Blowing Rock (where nothing bad happened to my Owner).

Since it’s a 12 hour drive back to Michigan, our guests had to leave after breakfast Sunday… so Ma’am decided to take her hound back to Charlotte for Up-Stage’s bondage brunch.  We hung w/ our peeps, Ma’am got hog-tied, and I got somebody to show me a simple technique for putting the rope away after my Top is done.  Still need to practice; wolfhounds aren’t great at tying knots.  We’ll leave the fancy knot tying to Saint Bernards.

And somewhere in all of that I managed to take the FZ6 into the mountains for some cycle-therapy.

Busy! Busy! Busy!

This weekend is Atlanta Dominion, 1763’s all-male play party.  And next weekend Pup Nitro is coming to CAPEX to teach his super-sexy breath play class, and the whole puppy pack will be there.  If you’re in NC, you should join us.  See you there, maybe?

Yes, I’m still here.

I have not jumped ship on the mass exodus from Google Blogger.  Haven’t yet seen the point.

I started blogging in 2003 on Livejournal.  It was (and still is - the archive is still there) a locked blog where I used to share my thoughts w/ only about 15-20 people who could read it – all friends I actually know in the real world.  The blog dealt w/ kink stuff, but that was only about 25% of it.  Mostly it was about books, travel, movies, games, music, mythology, comic books, art, philosophy, motorcycles, and anything else I felt like essaying about.

In 2003, everybody was on LJ.  A few years later FetLife started.  I never liked Fet. (1) It’s all fetish community based, and surprisingly many of my friends aren’t kinky.  (2) It’s too busy and too “networky” for my taste.  I’m not much of one for social networking and tend to have a rather slight online presence in general.  I blog mostly as an essayist and memoirist – Fet seemed to be more about “chatting” and hooking-up.  The online equivalent of small talk at a kinky bar or party.  If I want to do that, I’ll go to an actual freaking bar or party.  (Like I am tonight – it’s kinky karaoke night at the Up Stage!)  (3)  I never liked the fact that you can’t “lock” your Fet and restrict who can view it, and at that time I was only interesting in sharing my blog w/ my friends.  (4) The ads are annoying.

However, as the years went on, more and more people left LJ and moved over to Fet.  Finally, it came to feel like nobody but yours truly was left on LJ anymore.

So I decided to try something new and, last year, started this bolg on Google.  This was new in two big ways: (1) It’s public.  Anybody can read this.  That, in turn, affected change (2):  It’s mostly about being a kinky human-puppy.  Since it is public, I’m not as comfortable making it really about me in a memoirist kind of way like the LJ blog was.  Instead, it’s mostly restricted to one interest of mine (w/ occasional tangents onto other topics).  Thus, someone reading this gets a pretty good look at Pup Emrys in the kink community but sees only peripheral glances of me in any other context – which is what I prefer since most of you reading this are strangers to me.

After building-up the blog for a few months, I did finally relent and create a nominal presence on Fet – mostly just to make it easier for people to get in touch w/ me, and to direct people to this blog.  Why Google Blogger?  Well, I do like the easy-to-use format.  It has more features than LJ.  It’s not chit-chatty like Fet and doesn’t have annoying ads.  And most of the other leather-pups I was getting to know last year were already on blogger.

“Were.”

Recently, as most of you probably already know, Google “changed” its terms of service for adult content blogs.  In fact, so far as I can tell, it wasn’t a change at all, but they reiterated something that was always there.  Which is:

“Adult Content: we do allow adult content on Blogger, including images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity. But, please mark your blog as 'adult' in your Blogger settings. Otherwise, we may put it behind a 'mature content' interstitial.

There are some exceptions to our adult content policy:

Do not use Blogger as a way to make money on adult content. For example, don't create blogs where a significant percentage of the content is ads or links to commercial porn sites. No incest or bestiality content: we do not allow image, video or text content that depicts or encourages incest or bestiality.”

Despite the fact that it says, “we do allow adult content” (obviously; why else have the “adult content” warning label) it looks like many pups and kinksters interpreted that otherwise and decided to jump ship and take their blogs elsewhere (which is fine w/ me – I’m not partisan here).  But the policy looks to me to come down to: ‘We allow legal adult content as long as you aren’t making money off it.’  Okay, I’m cool w/ that b/c I don’t want to make a buck off my blog and I sure as hell don’t want anybody else making a buck off my blog (i.e. through ads).  So, for now, I’m still here.  Now, who knows – Google might suddenly delete me at any moment, but that seems, to me, unlikely.

P.S.  I hate Facebook.  To me, its format is even more annoying than Fet is.