Can We Talk About Sex? Part 3: Flipping the Perspective About Gender Roles

How humans perceive the world is subject to interpretation. The stories we tell ourselves about the events we experienced or witnessed are distorted, biased, conveyed with an arbitrarily chosen vocabulary. Whenever some interaction between two sentient beings happens, both of them will interpret it so as to suit their own preferences. If it is an interaction between two humans, both will use arbitrarily chosen words in order to create fictional and inaccurate portrayals of what just happened. We aren’t thinking or talking about reality as such, pure and unbiased, instead we are filtering what we just witnessed, we are distorting our perception of reality. For example, “a man penetrates and conquers, a woman gets penetrated and surrenders?” Or maybe, “A woman engulfs and conquers, a man gets engulfed and surrenders”? Theoretically it would be possible to say it either way, it’s the culture that favors and enforces one possible interpretation over the other. [Read more…]

Can We Talk About Sex? Part 2: Clueless Adults and Safe Sex

How do people find information? When it comes to safe sex, people are pretty much self-taught. Some had abstinence-only sex education at school. The few of us who got lucky to have evidence-based sex education probably only learned about how to avoid STIs and unwanted pregnancies. “Use condoms. If you are in a monogamous relationship and both people are STI free, you can use other contraception methods instead,” this was pretty much the extent of the sex education I got at school. And I was lucky. I know many people who, unlike me, weren’t taught even the very basics. At school nobody even mentioned lubricants and how to pick ones that are body safe. I wasn’t taught which sex toys are safe or dangerous to use. Nor did anybody tell me how to have anal sex without pain and injury. [Read more…]

Can We Talk About Sex? Part 1: Sex Education for Children

Can we talk about sex? No. Just no. It doesn’t matter what you want to discuss or why, the answer is always no. Polite people don’t talk about sex in public. You rarely hear a casual conversation between acquaintances discussing their favorite vibrators. And it’s not just sex as such, even a part of our bodies, our reproductive system, is shrouded in secrecy. It’s dirty, it’s private, it has to be kept hidden. Don’t even mention it. If you have a problem, ask your doctor. If you are religious, ask your pastor instead. Religious authorities mandate that people shouldn’t even think let alone talk about sex before they are married.

In my opinion, a refusal to have open, casual, and normal conversations about sex is harmful. Whenever I try to suggest that the society should stop treating this subject as taboo, somebody will say: “Think about the children. If they overhear our kinky conversations, they will get traumatized.” This is going to be a multiple part series of blog posts. The first part is about children, because their wellbeing is generally considered the number one reason why people shouldn’t publicly talk about sex. [Read more…]

How to Restore and Repair Old Wooden Windows

Wooden window restoration is something I am very familiar with. I have antique wooden windows in my home. Well, they are sort of old and differ from how windows are made nowadays, so I guess I can use the word “antique.” The house where I live was built in 1939. I do not know how old the windows are. It is possible that they are from later than the house itself, but they definitely are at least several decades old. More importantly, they are really pretty. I moved to my current home seven years ago. Back then the windows were covered with countless layers of flaky, dirty, old paint. Now they are restored and saturated with linseed oil.

Window

My bedroom window. It’s made from pine wood and covered with linseed oil. The plant on the windowsill is Nepenthes x ventrata.

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Symbolic Photography

This is a self-portrait I made two months ago, back then I published it with the title “Bold and Proud.”

Avester

For some people merely staying alive requires being bold. When you don’t fit into any of the boxes that the society has been trying to enforce for centuries, when your mere existence is an eyesore for conservative people who believe in traditional gender roles, you have to be bold just to survive. When all the “rules” the society tries to enforce clash with your personal lifestyle choices, all that’s left to be is to stay bold and proud. [Read more…]

My New Year Spruce Tree

Spruce trees are one of those goods that lose their value in an instant. On the morning of 31st December, people sell them as Christmas trees. At the evening of the same day, unsold spruce trees litter the dumpsters. In Latvia people start selling Christmas trees in mid December, and 31st December is the last date on which trees are still available for sale. Then, at the evening of 31st December, all the unsold trees become garbage and are thrown out. [Read more…]