From the Onion: a guy who is refreshingly open about his personal life.
Some people never let you know the “real” them. They keep their deepest thoughts and emotions tucked away from the rest of the world. Why they would want to, I’ll never know. I, for one, am refreshingly open about my personal life.
Would you like to know about the problems I’m having with my wife? No need to ask. If you are vaguely acquainted with me, you doubtless already know about the miscarriage, the affair, the second miscarriage, the man from Oklahoma City, and the fact that Gloria’s allergy-relief medication has a dehydrating effect, which necessitates our use of lubricants during sex. (Chances are pretty good you also know that we prefer WET-brand lubricants over Astroglide.)
It’s good to know that. It’s important that we get rid of these silly inhibitions about boring people, being intrusive, talking endlessly about ourselves, oversharing, being inappropriate, and forgetting that we’re not the only people in the universe. We have to shake off all that and become free to tell everyone everything about Beloved Self.
You see, unlike some people, I’m honest enough with myself to admit that I have problems. And, as part of my healthy attitude, I’m comfortable letting everyone in on them. Sometimes, it takes hours of explanation to really get to the heart of things, but my friends, coworkers, and fellow Food Lion shoppers are worth it.
And the people waiting for the bus. The people waiting for the bus are always worth it, because they’re kind of pinned there unless they want to drift away and have to wait for a later bus. Being pinned there gives them the opportunity to hear a really full account of my problems.
I’m not just refreshingly open about my emotions, but my desires and interests, as well.
Take, for example, anal sex. I really enjoy it, giving and receiving it. Now, I know I’m hardly alone in this, but for some reason a lot of people consider this classified information. But why should it be? Do we really have to bury our feelings all the time? If my dentist asks me how my weekend went, I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that the highlight was all that great anal sex. Well, I’m no liar. And I refuse to put up walls between myself and those around me.
Knock down those walls!
I like to share with people. It brings us all closer together. That’s why, if you know me, you know I like masturbating to women’s tennis magazines. Of course, I like masturbating to plain old porn, too, but how many times can I mention that before I feel like I’m intentionally trying to hide my enjoyment of tennis magazines out of some societally imposed notion of shame?
Kink-shaming is bad enough but tennis-shaming is the worst.
Freedom is glorious.
This is humorous for its own sake, but it seems like it’s being employed as an allusion to Richard Carrier’s comments on a previous post. If that’s not true, and it’s just a coincidence, then I have misinterpreted it and the rest of this comment should be disregarded.
But if my suspicions are correct, I have to say that the comparison is inapt, if not inept. Richard gave a few personal anecdotes (which could, in fairness, have been more explicitly prefaced in some cases) that were both pertinent and essential to the matter being discussed. Clinically deconstructing some common pornographic practices and critically examining how those practices are interpreted and emulated by using one’s own sexual experience as a counterexample to certain well-established assumptions about those practices is, of course, hardly appropriate in a grocery shopping aisle. But Richard wasn’t ejaculating in a grocery store; he was posting to a thread examining pornography and its influences on people’s sexual experience and expression. If that is not an appropriate venue for such anecdotes, I am at something of a loss to supply one.
I have no idea whether this post has anything to do with that, but I agree with #1 and salute Richard Carrier, and his boner, for keeping us informed on what makes his boner happy. I salute him double for using his blog as a personal ad to solicite some horizontal snake wresting while on the road. And I say this without a trace of bitterness despite the way he dashed my hopes by specifying “chicks only.” It is a matter of sadness that I can only vicariously participate in the gladdening of his boner.
@ 2 A Masked Avenger
*rolls eyes*
a) Using the Internet to seek relationships is not unprecedented.
b) Nor is using one’s personal blog to “solicite” help with one’s personal life.
c) Your assumption that doing both simultaneously is all about “gladdening boners” says much more about you than it does about Richard Carrier.
(I mean, seriously. Haven’t the theists already cornered the market on sexual shaming and repression? Do we really need to infringe on their turf?)
#3 – I love sex, as I’m sure you do too. That’s why it’s only natural that we should carry out our mating habits in full view of each other.
But on a more serious note, it’s not really about sex–reread the Onion article. It’s really about narcissism. Everyone deserves to know what I think and feel on every subject. The happiness of my boner is just one subject among many. But if I omitted that one, you’d be missing out, and I couldn’t do that to you.
Masked Avenger, re read what you just wrote.
Someone who tells you exactly what they think and feel about every topic under the sun is a narcissist.
And the particular medium where you choose to express that opinion, out of all the media under the sun, is…a blog.
Really?
A blog is not Food Lion.
Er, yes, I realize that blogs are like buttholes: they’re personal, everyone has one, and very few people are eager to see yours.
Some blogs rise above the herd, of course, and develop a large following. They are usually blogs that (a) are actually informative, and (b) have attracted a bit of a community. That’s why, in particular, so many of the most popular blogs are actually written by experts in some field or other.
There is also a niche for a “come here tales of the exploits of my boner” blog. Some of them, I’m sure, manage to be popular. I wouldn’t know; I don’t read them. So far I haven’t become that fascinated by any blogger’s boner (or butthole, for that matter).
In this case we’re talking about a blog that has attracted a following among folks interested in atheism, freethought, and history, in some order. Injecting boner tales into it will increase the enjoyment of some, but for many of us it is a distraction on the order of showing up for history class and watching the professor drop their pants.
And an exhibitionist as likely as not. Exhibitionist-narcissist seems to me a fairly accurate description of Richard Carrier.