One of the advantages of working on a different schedule from the rest of your company is that you don't have to wear clothes. I'll tell you right now, I really enjoy being naked. Not in an exhibitionist sense, and not in a tofu lotion sense either, it's just more comfortable than wearing clothes. So today, I woke up at 1:30, took a shower, and kind of had a towel draped around me until around 7:30, when people finally came home.
So what does the rest of the world care whether or not I spend my time naked, and why on Earth would it not be acceptable? There isn't any logical explanation for it. We were born this way, it's comfortable this way, and whoever created a society that deems that we should snicker at nipples is an utter crack whore.
Of course, whenever I make a sweeping generalization and dismiss the possibility of a logical explanation, there's one hiding right around the corner. Penis envy. I'd say don't get me started on penis envy, but then I wouldn't feel justified in talking about it. My penis isn't large, and I really don't give a fuck who knows, it is not a big deal. What I would do with a bigger penis, I don't even know. It's not as if my smallish penis precludes finding happiness, or making good muffins, or being good at basketball. Sure, it's easy for me to say as someone who isn't sexually active, but what about that 'motion in the ocean' stuff?
Maybe penis envy is the wrong term. I guess I mean penis shame, but it all seems tied together in this laughably immature comparison of sizes. Well, my television is a plasma flat screen 80 incher, just came out on the market. Of course it was expensive, but I do double my net worth every six months. And do you know what I got for Christmas? Barbie's Dream Trailer and Skipper's Potty Training Outhouse!
So in a nudist society, with cocks everywhere, I'm sure this size issue would compound itself if that's even possible. As it is, there exist plenty of people willing to enlarge their cocks through whatever nefarious methods, and they don't even see that much action. The shower, intercourse...anything else? I don't think so. When one considers having a giant dong, it seems to me the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. Consider for yourself the logistics of having a footlong anything stuck in your pants, and you're starting to get the idea.
But even if most people have a good reason for not wanting to walk around naked, what kind of dumbass laws allow you to have electrical tape over your nipples but not the entire bare breast? When I was in Spain, I remember how cool it was to see bare breasts on television, and have nobody shit themselves. In Spain, a hugely religious country, no less. Why is it that American women can't show nipples? There's no commandment in the bible barring nipples, only an unfounded puritanical tradition backed by the vacuous masses and their leader G-dub.
Sorry, this one should have been better. But I got up early today, so I'm tired.
So being at home, with all of its excess of television, means every possible channel known to man. And with that many Shotime networks, I'm bound to watch some Queer As Folk. Shit, what's not fun about an over-dramatic, soft-core porn soap opera? My parents watch it religiously, but feel compelled to keep my brother sheltered. But why on earth should they care if a 12, almost 13 year old, sees soft core? Or even hard core? He's got a computer in his room, and the door's closed almost all the time, I'd bet my ass that there's some porn on his computer. Shit, there was porn on mine when I was that age.
And there should be. Who the fuck says that we should all be so sexually oppressed all the time? Why exactly is it that youngsters are unfit to be confronted with sexual situations? If they don't want to watch, then they won't. And if they try to replicate, hell, that's better than nothing. I already mentioned my hatred of abstinence, and even without the influence of sexual material, six year olds all over the world are playing doctor.
Now, here I do realize some of the danger of showing explicit sexual material to young children, as they're going to want to copy what they see on television, and I know that pointing to childhood sexual exploration is no vindication of this. But at the same time, what differentiates sex so much from any other activity to the extent that we can't do it in public, can barely talk about it, and have to hide the one thing most integral to a child's existence from the child itself? I made this point before in the sexuality class I took at NYU (and was subsequently laughed at), but sex, in and of itself, is only a physical act, which can confer pain or pleasure or whatever. The only thing that differentiates rape from battery is the social screen that colors everything that we see. And of course, the possibility that a child could result, but that's a horse of a different color.
I'm not saying that sex isn't important, I'm just trying to point out that it doesn't have to have the weight that society assigns it. And it's this weight and its consequences which ironically keeps kids out of sex. So fuck that shit, man. Keeping everything a huge secret isn't going to help anything. It's just delaying things until people are hopefully mature enough to react in an intelligent manner. My conclusion? My 12 year old brother is mature enough to see Queer as Folk and Sex in the City. It's no longer a big deal, and it would probably be enlightening for him rather than ammunition for snickering. At least one would hope so.
I don't know if you can generalize that to include everyone, but if you're looking at pornography, the most graphic and tasteless means for arousal, you can see any movie, regardless of whether or not there's boobies in it.
Tomorrow: Nudism, and more of why society is stupid as fuck
The worst thing about coming home is having to deal with a suburban lifestyle, it drives me nuts. There is nothing so shallow, so empty, so droll as suburban life. It's like a capitulation to the throngs of stuff that drive American culture, giving up any hope of leading an interesting, unique life.
My family is utterly suburban, and I tried to deny it for quite some time, but after living a non-suburban life for any amount of time, the return only emphasizes the hellish suburban-ness of it all. The worst of it is my family's unabashed attachment to television. Our family dinners are spent jockeying over which seat one can obtain so as to better view the television. As if without Ebert & Roeper's expert commentary our lives will be lost to the void of meaninglessness. It simply saddens me.
Now, I don't want to place the blame squarely on television, and I don't want to sound utterly elitist, but when you've lost the will to discuss things in an intellectual manner, then has your life become pathetic and suburban. Television is the middle class surrogate for intellectual stimulation. My family has always depended on this, and it makes me wonder a bit how deeply they think if they have to turn to regularly scheduled programming for entertainment. I know they're not intensely shallow people, and that they are thoughtful to a reasonable extent, but then, if that's the case, why not have a conversation about something while eating?
Of course, I shouldn't even turn to conversation as Our Saviour from the antichrist that is television. After all, I spent thanksgiving this year drowning in conversation about television. So if I'm going to complain so damn much about why television and suburbia sucks, what can we do about it? The question leaves me hopeless and depressed sometimes, and then all I can do is turn on the TV, and let the quality programming push the worries from my mind.
If when I die, I'm judged by the frequency with which I update this log, I'll be placed firmly between purgatory and hell. Kind of like Florida, maybe.
Regardless, I now feel obligated to return to daily updates here, so that's what I'll do as long as I can. And if I can't, I'll give some indication as to why. Additionally, I'm going to place the focus in each entry on a single subject, and I'll try and come up with the next one a day in advance to keep myself going. And if that fails, well, you can't say I didn't try.
One reason why my updates were so sparse was because I was skiing. I love skiing, and the only time I get to go is with my father, who is painfully stuck in habit, just like I'm sure I am. When we go, we stay at the Carriage House, and watch MTV. Remarkably, they always seem to have plenty of reruns of the Real World going on, which usually entertains. This time, however, the focus was on sex education in schools, and how our genius leader G-dub is endorsing programs that teach abstinence only sex ed.
In my mind, enforced abstinence and endorsed abstinence are pure evil and sin against everything good in this world, namely liberated sex. I feel that people should be able to have sex with whomever they please, and essentially whenever or wherever they please, as long as it doesn't disturb the general population. From a logical standpoint, sexual oppression accomplishes nothing, and by using the proper protection, you can avoid most diseases. Making the active choice to remain a virgin is nothing short of short-sighted and silly.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't advocate running around having sex with anyone you can get your hands on. Yet if you find yourself in a situation that could easily lead to sex and you both are attracted to each other, there shouldn't be anything that should stop you. The fact that I'm still a virgin is only a testament to the fact that I haven't found myself in that situation, due to any number of circumstances over which I do not have complete control. To actively choose not to have sex in such a situation has no basis other than a religious one, and since any modern secular person picks and chooses what they are going to follow out of their religion, that should be left out as well.
I yearn for the day when sex is utterly liberated, and the mores that are present no longer exist in such force as they do today. I know this will probably never happen, especially when the most liberal generation, the teenagers, are already choosing to embrace God and active virginity in large numbers.
To you, I say fuck you and get fucking.
Tomorrow: Suburbia, Television and Family - The Holy Trinity
