Pledges and Candidates

Sadly… Also a demonstration of the sad state of our political process and the more or less poor quality of our political candidates.

It’s pretty well known that our politicians are out of touch with the “common man” What’s surprising is that three of our presidential hopefuls are also out of touch with the Constitution.

There was an article yesterday in which NOM (The National Organization for Marriage) was crowing about Bachmann, Romney, and Santorum having signed a pledge stating what these candidates will do in office if elected. I have another name for NOM but will refrain from putting it in print.

The summary of this pledge is below, the full text is available here on NOM’s website

  • Support and send to the states a federal marriage amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman,
  • Defend DOMA in court,
  • Appoint judges and an attorney general who will respect the original meaning of the Constitution,
  • Appoint a presidential commission to investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters,
  • Support legislation that would return to the people of D.C. their right to vote for marriage.

I’ve got some questions about this.

I was under the impression that STATES Rights were supposed to supersede federal power, particularly in the cases like marriage. Isn’t this why individual states can vote to allow same sex marriages even though the federal government doesn’t recognize them?

DOMA? I think that everyone agrees this is a toothless act and should have been struck down a long time ago. Why do our politicians insist on wasting time on dead horses like this? It was poorly written, poorly executed, and has cost us millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars in paper, time, and the salaries of congressional aids, and other government workers. I’d think the president of the United States would have better things to do with their time than screw around with a meaningless act.

When they talk about the “Original Meaning” of the constitution… WHICH ORIGINAL? If you mean the constitution pre amendments then black folks can’t be married or free. Women can’t vote, in fact no-one except landholders would be allowed to vote. Sorry, all you renters you’re now ineligible. And Ms. Bachmann shouldn’t be out campaigning for office… she should be home, making babies,  regarded as chattel  waiting to serve the Master of the house. Don’t forget divorce is right out of the picture too.

The appointment of a presidential commission to investigate harassment of marriage supporters… I wholeheartedly AGREE with this one. Organizations like NOM, The Westboro Baptist Church and others SHOULD be investigated for their continuing harassment of supporters of marriage. For example all those gay folks who have tirelessly campaigned for Equal Treatment and the ability to marry. It cuts both ways, gay folks trying to get married are by definition supporters of marriage.

Supporting legislation that allows the people of Washington DC to vote on Marriage? Well folks, which is it that you want? At the top of your pledge, you’re talking about making Marriage a Federal matter, now you’re saying you’re going to give the District of Columbia individual rights?

The saddest part of this for me is that these politicians are supposed to be leaders and well educated. On it’s face, this pledge is pointless, puerile, unrealistic and frankly insulting. Unfortunately, it will swing votes toward these candidates as well. There are far too many people who have bought into religious fundamentalist viewpoints regarding gay people.

Lets think about this a bit.

Latest polls say that around 50% of  “Average Americans” don’t really give a shit about same sex marriage one way or another. Most of them don’t see a problem.

I’ve never understood how Same Sex Marriage is a threat to Marriage in general. You’d think that more people getting married would re-affirm the institution not harm it.

Some of the fear mongering spouted by organizations like NOM say that churches will be forced to perform marriages when they don’t philosophically agree with same sex marriage.

Really?

What makes them think that same sex marriages would be ANY different from a situation when a Minister or Priest refuses to marry a couple that has not been through couples counseling, or someone that has been divorced but who hasn’t had their previous marriage annulled?

It’s unlikely a divorced Catholic couple with no annulment is going to demand to be married in a mosque.  It’s equally unlikely any same sex couple is going to choose to get married in a church where they are surrounded by hate. It’s simply a non-issue, yet another red herring from NOM like their dark scary clouds commercial.

Marriages don’t have to be performed in churches. Regardless of WHERE a marriage is performed it confers spousal rights and privileges the minute it’s registered.

It’s those rights and privileges that same sex couples are seeking to secure for themselves, not the destruction of Western Civilization.

I personally think it’s time for NOM, the so called “Family Protection” , and other ultra conservative religious organizations to get off the opposition to same sex marriage bandwagon.

Perhaps they should use their millions upon millions of dollars to set up food banks, homeless shelters, and pay for medical services for the needy in their communities.

Same sex marriage is a non-issue for at least half of America, but unemployment and hungry families are big issues to every American.

NOM, would you and your ilk please go do some good for a change?

I have to thank NOM for one thing though, It just eliminated three candidates from my voting pool.

I may be a conservative but I’m not a complete moron. Bachmann, Romney, and Santorum are no longer even on my personal radar except as candidates to be avoided at all costs.

Apparently missed one heck of a party on Saturday

This wasn’t a “normal” party it was an Adult kind of party.

I’ve been invited to the next one and I’m going to do my best to go.

It sounds like a good time was had by all, and I wish I’d been there to have a taste!

I’ve got an itch to get a little wild & crazy.

That’s one of those itches that needs to be scratched and damn soon. Otherwise the wildness just grows and next thing I know, I’m naked in a hotel wondering what the hell I was thinking.

In fact, usually I know exactly what I was thinking… it’s just that the little head was doing the thinking.

Ahhhh Home alone AT LAST!

Now that the house is mine….

What to do?

On the one hand, Getting, and staying naked all day has a certain appeal. I do need to catch up on my reading, and practice techniques to move toward the multi-orgasmic goal.

On the other hand It’s a very nice day, and a cruise through the mountains with the top down sounds really nice. At this time of day I doubt I’ll get much in the way of interesting photos,but you never know.

Then, there are the inevitable chores around the house to be done…. Nah, I’m going to play hooky from being the responsible adult…

The practice I need to do, requires a quiet mind, I doubt I can come anywhere close to quieting my gadfly thoughts today. Right now if I was practicing, I’d blow a load without getting anywhere near the intended goal of simply pleasuring without ejaculation. 

Perhaps a nice mountain drive is the thing to do.

Maybe I can find a quiet place in the forest and get back to nature…

Hummmmm That’s an appealing idea!

Amazing what we forget….

I’ve recently been reacquainted with something I’d forgotten about myself.

My libido is strongly tied to my self image…

I know, it seems obvious, but after spending too many years stressed out and too angry to feel like I had the time or the energy to actually take care of myself I guess I forgot about it.

Like a lot of things that I forgot about during the long ass commutes, and dealing with idiot bosses. I keep having these “Oh Yeah moments”

Since I’ve been Furloughed, I’ve been working a lot in the yard and I’ve had time to work out. Over the past 2 weeks I’ve started to see more obvious physical changes in my body. Now when I look at my naked ass in the mirror I’m not looking through the filter that allowed me to ignore things about my body I don’t like.

The filter doesn’t come on anymore because I’m enjoying seeing the changes and I’m getting visual feedback about my efforts paying off.

This isn’t meant to sound narcissistic, it’s just a mile marker in my acceptance of me and my acknowledgment that in fact hard work pays off.

I had a moment hit me last night.

I was bored and couldn’t sleep. Every man knows that’s an excellent recipe for a good old fashioned J/O session. I’m no exception and pretty soon I’m feeling pretty damn good even if I’m not sleeping.

There I am, stroking my dick edging myself and had been for about an 1 ½ hours at that point when I happened to glance in the mirror and saw myself… Really saw myself for the first time in years.

Yeah I still have a little more around the middle than I should, but the spare tire is shrinking. My pecs are firming up and my bicep/triceps are bulking out. My shoulder definition is starting to show and my legs are taking on more tone and definition. I looked at myself and thought damn! How had I missed those changes?

Then I felt proud, even sexy, desirable, and yes horny.

I guess that if you don’t like your appearance, and you’re always feeling tired and angry the effects are more insidious than you’d think.

In my case, those feelings make me feel like I’m unworthy of pleasure in the form of sex. It’s like I’m punishing myself. Actually I’m doubly punishing myself, I’m doing the crazy ass commute, putting up with all the corporate shit, AND I’m denying myself the simple release that sex can provide.

It had gotten to the point that my body would eventually just DEMAND I do something to relive the tension. 

But even then, I approached sex with myself or another person as a “Chore” akin to taking a dump… not as something that I really wanted to participate in. My body was doing it, my mind was just along for the ride as an unwilling voyeur.

As I’ve been more active, and getting stronger I’m much more interested in sex. When I’m lifting weights in the garage I’m watching porn. Seeing some of the muscular men in the films gives me incentive and a “Goal” state. 

Granted sometimes during a workout a hard dick is problematic but it always puts a smile on my face. So I’m not complaining.

These little remembrances and epiphanies have been good for me.

I’m getting back on track with my fitness goals, and have remembered some other things I wanted to work on.

Meanwhile I was looking at this mirror guy, Yep he was me… then I noticed something else about that guy…

He was happy… 

Sitting there 2 am, dick in hand and grinning back at myself with a happy feral gleam in my eye.

Yeah, my libido is coming back and I’m taking time to feed it.

After another look at myself, I took a deep breath & went back to stroking my dick… I was doing homework after all. Figured if I couldn’t sleep, I’d work on multi-orgasmic exercises. I kinda got a “F” for last nights session. I lost control and popped my load. 

Ahh well at least… I LIKE doing the homework!

Moving VERY slow this morning

I didn’t get home until after 2 and didn’t get to bed until almost 3:30 it was worth it.

I visited an acquaintance / friend  last night. I had the nicest time and shared intimacy with him that is often rare between two men regardless of their orientation. Perhaps due to this intimacy I’m inclined to think of him more as a friend and less as an acquaintance now.

My friend has recently been through a life changing event. He experienced a Patellar tendon rupture while playing volleyball.

He’s been through the surgery to repair the damage and as we talked I realized that he had been through this whole mess pretty much on his own. He’s had one or two friends that looked in on him during the initial phases of the injury and recovery. After that, essentially he’s been on his own. He’s healing nicely, still wearing a brace but the mobility of his knee is pretty good albeit slow and careful.

As we talked he mentioned that immediately after the injury, In between his thinking “GOD that hurts” and “But this is my good leg” he also had the depressing thought that all of his travel plans for the summer were shot to hell.

He’s also found that he had more than a few “Fair Weather Friends” With him out of commission several folks have simply vanished. Not the least of which was a model he’d been seeing that was pushing for a relationship after only a few dates. This person was oblivious to how life altering it is to one moment be playing volleyball in the sun, and the next to be hobbling around on crutches. Or how depressing it is when you’re facing at least one surgery and a fairly long recovery time, with the possibility of NEVER being back to normal.

A couple of days ago my friend broke it off with the model, the hell of it was that he wasn’t sure that the model was really out of the previous relationship anyway.

His birthday is within the next week. I asked him what he’d like for his birthday.

He said “some cuddle time. To be touched and held for just a little while.”

Dinner was over, the bill paid, wine glasses empty, it was time to take him back to his place. He’s pretty mobile but slow. I held doors for him, helped where I could and stayed out of the way when it looked like he was handling things ok.

There’s this really fine line between helping someone with an injury and just being in the way. That line varies by individual, terrain, situation, and type of injury. It’s never inappropriate to offer a helping hand to anyone.

If you offer to help… have the grace to accept that your offer may be turned down and not take it personally.

My friend was grateful to be home. It showed on his face. Even though he seemed to feel that he needed to entertain me as his guest. I wasn’t comfortable with him trying to be a good host…

So I sent him to his room.

Then I went to the kitchen, found a nice bottle of wine, two glasses, an ice pack from his freezer, and joined him in his room.

I don’t know if I’m unique in this, but another mans bedroom is a sacred space. Off limits, unless you’re invited in. The other thing about a mans bedroom is that his scent, (no not stinky stuff) is strongest there.

Each man has a very unique scent. Some pleasant, some not so much… however all are unique. My friends room and scent were pleasant. Despite his recent injury and subsequent recovery process his room was comfortable and neat.

His personal scent was clean, spicy, with a light touch of musk (not the cologne kind) and earthy. These scents are indicators that reach me on an instinctive level about a mans general health. Personally, I’m always suspicious of anyone that wears really heavy colognes and if their room or home reeks of it then I’m really put off.

He was lying on his bed wincing a bit as he settled in. He’d taken off the brace but still had his shoes on and was out of breath from moving in unnatural ways to protect the knee.

He smiled when he saw the wine, and grinned when he saw the ice pack. If he’d been a dog he’d have been wagging his tail and panting.

I started to hand him the pack, but he asked if I’d position it. He really looked tired I suspected that an earlier physical therapy appointment, his day, and dinner had really taken a toll on him. He closed his eyes and breathed a big sigh when the cool pack touched his knee.

I poured the wine and handed him a glass, then helped him get his shoes off.

While next to him on the bed with my wine, we talked about life, the universe, everything. He talked about the model, the strangeness of the short lived relationship, and the confusion he felt about the models desire to take the relationship beyond casual so quickly.

I think he’s happier to be out of that relationship than he’s willing to admit. He’s also perhaps a little regretful because after all it was a model, He’s a guy, and like most of us he’s primarily visually oriented. After all we all like to know we’re with the hottest person in the room.

My friend is a muscular massage therapist. (A REAL massage therapist, not one of those butt rub twinks that wants to jerk you off for $120 calling it a massage.)

I thought about his birthday request and that he’s a massage therapist and came to a decision.

“Would you like for me to give you a massage? I’m completely unskilled but I’ll do my best.”

He looked at me and without hesitation said “Yes, that would be very nice.”

I helped him out of his clothes and then got out of mine. Skin cleans easier than clothes, especially if you’re working with lotions or oils. It’s not like he hadn’t seen me naked before. I’ve subjected myself to his “Tender Mercies” (aka screaming like a school girl) on several occasions.

As I started working on his neck and shoulders he just groaned. He told me that I was one of the few people he knew that had ever offered to massage him. I suggested that people were intimidated and fearful that he would be judging their technique because he was a professional CMT. I kept working on him asking if I was hurting him.

He groaned, as I rubbed the tense muscles following his spine and the boundary between his trapezius and deltoid. “That’s nice..”

Slowly over the next couple of hours with breaks for occasional refills of our glasses and swapping out his ice packs, I worked as methodically as I could down his body. I was using what I remembered from being on the receiving end of good massages and my personal training experience to target his over used muscles.

Realize, that having an injury which affects your ability to walk puts stress on many muscles outside the injury  because they’re called upon to work in unusual ways. It’s a natural part of your body protecting the injury site and trying to redistribute the load so that your injury can heal.

I went to go get him another ice pack. When I came back to the room he was reclining with a big smile. “That was nice. I had to roll over ’cause my body doesn’t like being in that position for too long. I can’t even sleep face down.”

I put the new ice pack in place and crawled onto the bed beside him. He pretty much bear hugged me and told me thank you.  We talked for a while about more of life, the universe, and everything while I worked on his pecs. After I’d done all I could I just laid down beside him.

We were quiet for a while. Just two men, relaxed, no masks, no fear, no expectations, no demands. Listening to each others hearts and breathing on a warm summer night, somehow this time was as healing to me as I hope it was to him.

After an indeterminate time, he groaned.

“What?” I asked.

“Oh there are some flexibility exercises I still need to do. Would you help me?”

“Of course, you’ll need to walk me through what I need to do.”

So I helped him with the exercises mostly as a spotter and sometimes as a brake when his muscles gave out.

After his exercises we held each other for a while longer. I was gently caressing him, drawing the occasional sigh of contentment.

I was also enjoying a bit of one of my recently discovered / admitted to kinks. I was enjoying “serving”. It was emotionally satisfying for me to serve, help, and comfort this man.

A while later he invited me to join him in a shower, we bathed each other cleaning the lotion, and sweat off each other,  again enjoying the intimate peace between us.

Standing there in the shower watching me while I washed his legs and gingerly cleaned his swollen knee he gets this big grin and says “I’ve got some great chocolate ice cream, you want some?”

“Of course!” Hey I’m a sucker for good chocolate! The only thing I like better is sorbet…

While we were munching our well after midnight snack. He commented about how nice it was to have spent the time together the way we did. The intimacy was just what he needed.

Many people that he works with or socializes with are about sex. Admittedly, I can see why. My friend is a big handsome guy. He has always been an athlete and that lifelong habit shows in every aspect of his body. He’s got a bit of a body builders physique and well… god was generous in other ways too.

We were talking about the difference between just sex… (Usually fun), Intimate loving sex… (Fucking great), and Intimacy which we both agree is all too infrequent.

The problem seems to be that intimacy requires vulnerability. You can’t be intimate if you’ve got your guard up. If you’re having a casual fuck you’re likely to be somewhat guarded eve as you pump your load out in a gut wrenching orgasm. Casual fucking is fun don’t get me wrong, but by it’s nature, it’s not very intimate.

Even in relationships there are times when you just don’t want to be vulnerable. The trouble seems to be that we habitually keep our guard up even with those that we should be intimate with. We forget how to be unguarded and completely honest with each other.

I suppose that’s why the time last night was so special.

For several hours I was able to be completely myself, at peace, and had the pleasure of sharing that with someone else who was equally unguarded.

It may never happen again with him. It could have been simply that he was forced to be vulnerable because hes injured. It doesn’t matter why,  it’s a memory that I’ll always appreciate.

I’m going to have to be more open to the possibilities too.

Now that I’ve had a taste…. I want MORE.