I was scanning the bread and circus news this morning and ran across Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asking questions of the Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard Clark.
I thought, “This should be interesting,” and opened the article . There are times when I feel almost sorry for the top brass still in the military. They must long for the days when they could call all the recruits, maggots, faggots, pussies, or worthless excrement.
“Recruit! I dropped a deuce this morning with more brains than you’ve got!”
Ahhh, the good old days!
To be clear I wasn’t able to serve, so I never heard any of the myriad insults directed at me. But through my friends telling stories I gather it was brutal.
Holy shit! I just realized with all the bullshit gender fuck stuff, A DI probably can’t kick the door to the barracks open yelling, “Drop your cocks and grab your socks,” anymore, for fear of hurting someone without a cock (or socks,) feelings.
Ain’t that the shit?
Anyway Gaetz was questioning Lt. Gen. Clark about the Brooke Owens Fellowship that sets up internships in aerospace companies.
“Okay,” I thought, “it sounds like this fellowship is one of a number of similar organizations designed to encourage women and minorities to take jobs in areas where they typically haven’t had a large representation. That’s cool, and it’s nice to hear the Air Force is supporting that.”
Having worked in aerospace I can say that in higher level positions women were few and very far between. The executive staff did look like a boys club. It wasn’t all that surprising, since most of the executives had come from the military and given their ages, they’d earned their stripes at a time when there weren’t a lot of women in the military.
Notice I said earned their stripes.
Gaetz was annoyed that the Brooke Owens Fellowship excluded so called CIS Men from the running when setting up internships. Gaetz was questioning why the Air Force would support such an organization. A reasonable question, but …
I’ve been to the Brooke Owens Fellowship site and didn’t find any particular exclusion. I did find the usual word salad of diversity, equity, and inclusion terms. My brain shut down attempting to process the Fellowship’s explanation of purpose… It’s very likely that Lt. Gen. Clark hadn’t been to their web site or reviewed all the internship admission materials personally.
I think Gaetz was unfair to Lt. Gen. Clark I’m sure that Gaetz doesn’t have the time to personally review every bit of paperwork that comes across his desk and might well have been blissfully unaware of the Fellowships requirements if it hadn’t been brought to his attention.
As I read on I was thinking, “Gaetz shouldn’t have done a preamble to his line of questioning like this, he should have asked the Lt. Gen. the real question, just straight up.”
I was about to bail on the article but scanned down one or two more lines…
Gaetz asked Lt. Gen. Clark if he knew what demisexual meant. When I read that, in my head I heard the sound phonograph needles made when they skipped off the record.
Lt. Gen. Clark couldn’t define what the word meant. I can’t say that I blame him.
This is what went on in my brain.
Demi-Sexual…
—Possible meanings:—
Late Pubescent but still a virgin?
A person generally ambivalent about sex?
Yet another bullshit transgendered condition?
Half sexual (perhaps someone who’s only interested once in a given period like Spock)?
I knew, Demi-God meant half god, half mortal. See Hercules, or Perseus. However I suspected my foundation in English and spattering of other languages was probably not serving me… Again!
This is perhaps what was going on the the Lt. General’s mind as well…
I looked it up. After all that’s what one does when confronted with a word or term never before seen.
Demisexual – noun
a person who experiences sexual feelings and attraction only after developing a close emotional relationship and not on the basis of first impressions, physical characteristics, etc: since demisexuals require an emotional connection to feel sexual attraction, building trust is key.
Again, I’m thinking, “okay, I can see this, and have experienced this in my life.” It makes sense as a method to describe folks who aren’t entranced instantly by looks and lust. I thought perhaps that instant lustful attraction was something that was only the province of the young. I remember it fondly but appreciate not being driven by it now. (I still question the use of “Demi”.)
I’m not really sure that this slicing and dicing of human sexuality into finer and finer categories is healthy. Isn’t it possible that eventually the slices are so thin, the filtering so fine, that no-one is going to have sex because a prospective partner doesn’t check all the boxes?
As I’ve aged I’ve become far more selective, and far less likely to just want to shatter the commandments in an instant. I had no idea that there was a name for it, much less that there were people who might be this way from the get go.
As I said above I accepted it as normal aging.
Ahh! There’s the question. Is this something that is, and has always been, a part of the wonderful spectrum of human sexuality, which now has a definition? Or is this just another way to create a specialized and potentially oppressed group?
As I looked further into online definitions and encyclopedia entires I couldn’t help but feel it was about creating a group to need to “Protect”. A healthier mechanism might be to acknowledge that sometimes you’re looking for something more intimate than just a quick orgasm.
My friend John described this feeling as, “Sometimes It’s just not worth filling the kiddie pool with lube.”
I share his sentiment, if not his particular kinks.
In my case I’ve attributed this to age, a certain personal jadedness, a bit of experience, a realization that physical pleasure can be had easily solo, but satisfaction and /or gratification seems to be a function of knowing the other person in a wider context than them walking in, stripping and 20 minutes later walking out again.
Having been on both ends of that particular equation. I’d prefer to be the dude walking in, being serviced, rather than the person who has to spend the next 45 minutes cleaning up. (After all, kiddie pools full of lube are a pain in the ass to empty, and get out of the living room before your parents arrive for Sunday dinner!)
Maybe the rise of Demisexuals isn’t about anything other than people being confronted with the immediacy and anonymity of endless meaningless hook-ups at our fingertips.
There was a time when that was exciting, it was the “Orgy” paradigm. You didn’t know these people but there was a smorgasbord of flesh to sample and the only limit was your energy.
Even orgies become commonplace and mundane if you’re in one every night. Sex itself can become formulaic. Porn is a great vehicle to describe this. A porn scene is essentially…
Plausible (or not) reason for persons to be in proximity.
Attraction sparks interest (or not). Alternatively horniness / rampant lust results in persons removing enough clothing that erogenous zones are exposed.
From there everything boils down to “Kiss Kiss Kiss, Lick Lick Lick, Suck Suck Suck, Thrust Thrust Thrust, Cum Cum Cum”
The only real issue for the writer is describing which orifice “B”, “C”, “D” is invaded by Tab “A” and the realization that not all orifices may be available.
Strictly speaking, real interactions between people aren’t all that different if there’s no emotional connection or component. The perk for porn actors is that they’re getting paid. I suppose that in part explains “OnlyFans”.
If you’re going to rub one out, why not on camera, hearing the cash register sound effect accompanied by some personal request?
Even that can get boring. Where do you go from there? Ever kinkier sexual activities, or at some point does jadedness and cynicism take over, making even the pleasures of masturbation, nothing more than another function like taking a leak or evacuating one’s bowels?
At some point when your friends notice you’re not getting as much action and that you aren’t interested in any. Perhaps you need to be able to say, “I’m demisexual. Oh, you didn’t know?”
After all, the hardest and perhaps the most dangerous thing these days is to be non compliant. Identifying with a “protected” group may be one of a few methods to be an individual and not be stigmatized as a MAGA Republican, or Domestic Terrorist, because you’re no longer interested in meaningless sex with complete strangers… Granted that’s a bit of a leap.
Oddly, prior to the ubiquity of hook-up apps, people were arguably Demisexual as a part of normal everyday life. That’s why we went out.
The purpose of nightclubs, bars, and theaters, was so that we could meet people and decide if there was enough of an emotional connection, or sufficient inebriation, to move on to being naked with each other. We used the time to answer the fundament question, “Was it with the risk of an unwanted pregnancy or social disease?” If the answer was “yes” then we’d spend a night in sweaty passionate embrace and hope for the best the next morning.
In those days, at least we talked. It was required that we say something more substantial than;
“Hi”
“Sup”
“Power bottom”
“14 inch, very thick cock”
“1234 Anton Street apt 104 door is open”
“Cool 10 min”
We used to hate doing the walk of shame. I know guys that do the walk of shame 3 times a day and think nothing of it.
They haven’t reached Demisexual status yet. I suspect they will one day, when they’re holding their phone while having sex, ostensibly filming their pistoning cock in a random hole, but in reality checking their email.
Perhaps all these names and victim groups should be a wake up call to us all but especially to psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists, that continuing to label and normalize isn’t fixing the problem.
Maybe it’s time to speak brutal truth to each other, not worry about hurt feelings, and see where that gets us.
These are small things. When you haven’t had them for most of your adult life they attain outsized importance.