Your kink bores me.
Jan. 25th, 2006 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaIs there anything that can be coopted by le bourgeois faster than a game of épater le bourgeois? If there is, I'm not sure I've seen it. I am really, really sick of people trying to shock me. Do you know why? Because mostly other people's sexual tastes are just not that interesting. And the more convinced the people are that they are the most rebellious transgressive thing in the world, the more likely I am to be thoroughly bored by the account of it. It's not that I don't want to hear it because I'm too squicked, too freaked out, not edgy enough. It's just that what you like in bed, for vast, sweeping values of "you," is not at all my concern. Not my business. Don't have the energy to bother.
Is this because I am the coolest, hippest, most jaded kid on my block? Not at all. I am not particularly hip. I am not particularly unhip, either, and I hate it when people try to be hip by proclaiming their unhipness. "I am so far out of the mainstream! I march to my own drummer! I define my own drummer as the opposite of other people's drummers!" No. Cut it out; move along with your own life. I don't think I'm particularly outstanding here. I just...don't...care.
Here are the circumstances under which your specific sexual tastes matter to me:
1) I have agreed to have a sexual relationship with you. This leaves out the vast, vast majority of humanity: thank you, move along.
OR 2) You intend to do something that will do lasting damage to someone, particularly someone I care about (possibly including yourself, depending on who you are).
OR 3) There is an interesting story that requires knowledge of them. I mean story, not series of facts or events: not just, "You won't believe what the goalie did with the Roomba," but, "You won't believe what the goalie did with the Roomba. The queen died of grief." Interest points are especially awarded for storytelling skills, geekiness (science/engineering jokes/discoveries particularly), and hilarity. I judge what's hilarious for myself, so if you tell me a story and it's just not that funny, well, find yourself another audience; insisting that I need to loosen up is probably beside the point. I could be loosened up enough to be a gelatinous Mris-puddle on the floor, and you could still be boring me.
Extra points will be removed for persisting after I tell you I don't care (no matter how funny the story ends up when you finish telling it), for instructing me to broaden my horizons (why don't you broaden yours to include the concept of people who don't care?), and especially for informing me that your interest is "the ultimate taboo" and/or "more rebellious/transgressive than being gay." I would imagine there are a few exceptions, but for the most part gay people are not gay in order to be shocking. They are gay because they're genuinely interested in members of the same sex. Also, there is no ultimate taboo. One person's shocked nausea is another person's pleasant evening and a third person's bored yawn.
In many cases that third person would be me.
If you're talking about your sex life in your lj, I am perfectly capable of skimming or skipping those bits, or of reading them if you've met criterion #3 above. (Or, if applicable, of not friending you, or of de-friending you, or of asking to leave that filter.) It's like being at a party: not every conversation between interesting people will be of interest. That's fine. But I want relative strangers to stop accosting me with this kind of information. I want to go on the record here: I. Don't. Care.
Is this because I am the coolest, hippest, most jaded kid on my block? Not at all. I am not particularly hip. I am not particularly unhip, either, and I hate it when people try to be hip by proclaiming their unhipness. "I am so far out of the mainstream! I march to my own drummer! I define my own drummer as the opposite of other people's drummers!" No. Cut it out; move along with your own life. I don't think I'm particularly outstanding here. I just...don't...care.
Here are the circumstances under which your specific sexual tastes matter to me:
1) I have agreed to have a sexual relationship with you. This leaves out the vast, vast majority of humanity: thank you, move along.
OR 2) You intend to do something that will do lasting damage to someone, particularly someone I care about (possibly including yourself, depending on who you are).
OR 3) There is an interesting story that requires knowledge of them. I mean story, not series of facts or events: not just, "You won't believe what the goalie did with the Roomba," but, "You won't believe what the goalie did with the Roomba. The queen died of grief." Interest points are especially awarded for storytelling skills, geekiness (science/engineering jokes/discoveries particularly), and hilarity. I judge what's hilarious for myself, so if you tell me a story and it's just not that funny, well, find yourself another audience; insisting that I need to loosen up is probably beside the point. I could be loosened up enough to be a gelatinous Mris-puddle on the floor, and you could still be boring me.
Extra points will be removed for persisting after I tell you I don't care (no matter how funny the story ends up when you finish telling it), for instructing me to broaden my horizons (why don't you broaden yours to include the concept of people who don't care?), and especially for informing me that your interest is "the ultimate taboo" and/or "more rebellious/transgressive than being gay." I would imagine there are a few exceptions, but for the most part gay people are not gay in order to be shocking. They are gay because they're genuinely interested in members of the same sex. Also, there is no ultimate taboo. One person's shocked nausea is another person's pleasant evening and a third person's bored yawn.
In many cases that third person would be me.
If you're talking about your sex life in your lj, I am perfectly capable of skimming or skipping those bits, or of reading them if you've met criterion #3 above. (Or, if applicable, of not friending you, or of de-friending you, or of asking to leave that filter.) It's like being at a party: not every conversation between interesting people will be of interest. That's fine. But I want relative strangers to stop accosting me with this kind of information. I want to go on the record here: I. Don't. Care.
Tangenting, because I do that
Date: 2006-01-25 06:27 pm (UTC)But when I do it (rarely), it only makes a story when something goes wrong and I spend a Worldcon explaining that the reason I'm limping is that I put my leg down in a hole and wrenched my knee. And I could have done the exact same thing at sea level.
Re: Tangenting, because I do that
Date: 2006-01-25 06:38 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I do show pictures from mountain climbing, and people seem interested in seeing them. Maybe that means that pictures are not so much worth a thousand words as just saying a different sort of thing entirely. Or else it's because the pictures are not of mountain climbing but rather of mountains.