Rage, Calling Out BS, and Sex Positivity

Sipping Sex Positivity… or Coffee

I wanted this post to be about May’s sex positive challenge that I will be running on Twitter, IG, and Facebook, but, in light of what happened yesterday on Twitter, I feel this article is very important to write and share.

An account I follow shared a harmless meme, asking what people’s preferred body hair style on woman. It could just as easily been about any pubic hair customization for that matter and I would love if someone had one for all sexes. But, I digress. A commentor made an off the cuff remark in regards to their personal preference following it up with, they wouldn’t ever pick the fully shaved one as they are not an 8 year old girl. I went into full rage mode. OK, first I asked them to consider editing the post, but they doubled down, and I went off in classic me RANT mode.  For full details of the interaction if you’re curious please check out my Twitter.  But to the point of this article, let me share (unedited) my takeaway of the events, after I had a chance to reflect and sleep on it:

“In light of what happened yesterday and my raging on here, I want to make a quick clarifying statement. I love history, and spend the majority of my spare time reading and exploring it. It is through knowing our past that we can shape the future we want. This works in a historical sense, as well as in our individuals lives. The mistake we do not want to make, is holding onto outdated ideas and allowing them to remain normal. It is up to each of us to call out sexism, bigotry, hatred, and any statement that is no longer ethical by today’s standards. Do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Learn, grow, and shape your vocabulary to be forward thinking and inclusive. And if you make a mistake, own it, correct it, and do not repeat it! “

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I changed my whole writing schedule for this blog post, because when sexism, racism, bigotry happen, we must stand up and react. This is a shared responsibility of all members of society.  And pieces like this are an integral part of being a sex positive individual. I am constantly learning, taking accountability for my past and current actions, and growing as a person.  I expect the same of my community. I have zero patience for people who double down on archaic or problematic stances or beliefs. I scream into the void, that we can do better.  We can incorporate all the mistakes from the past into a better future for ourselves and the generations to come!

Thank you for reading, liking, sharing, and constantly challenging me to grow into the sex positive individual I am, and I know we can all be. And if that doesn’t get you excited for May’s 30 day sex positive challenge, then I don’t know what will! Ha!

Breaking Away with Jazz

Breaking away with Jazz

Late last year when things seemed pretty financially and emotionally hopeless for me, I set a goal; purchase my own piano when I paid off some debt. As I searched for the most budget friendly digital piano it dawned on me that I didn’t just want it to collect dust in the corner. I needed something to work towards, something truly meaningful to me. And that my friends was learning to play Jazz. The soul of the music, the delight I feel when it dips into minor tones and comes back again and the way it just sounds so effortless taking my mind on the most wondrous journeys. It truly is a genre with endless versatility: at one moment fuelling my creative soul, and at another calming my breathing so I can get the deepest possible stretches, then of course there are the songs that linger for days on end touching on emotions I hardly knew were there.

Jazz has been a part of my life pretty much from the moment I turned 18 onwards, when I bought my first Ella Fitzgerald CD and began researching her career and musical evolution. The obstacles she had to overcome just to share her gift was so beyond anything I could comprehend. I grew up in Canada, as a white girl, being told that I could do anything I put my mind to. And here was this woman, with more musical talent than I have in my whole being getting shut out of club, after club simply because of the colour of her skin. Being an 18 year old, idealist surrounded by people of all races, I thought proudly to myself, look how far we have come! Look at how equality has been achieved! 

I believed this right up until my half Jamaican niece was born nearly a decade later, and I saw firsthand something shocking, racism in my own backyard. Family members were worried that this little girl was going to have a tough time growing up due to the colour of her skin. They were concerned that life would be so much tougher for her, than for the rest of us. I fought this mentality, and debated with them, that it was their close-minded views projected on her, and that she would be absolutely fine. That this birth was amazing, and she would be given the exact same opportunities as everyone else. I even had heated debates saying that we as a society no longer see colour. I was so naïve.

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A few years after her birth, my cousin called me in a fit of rage, because she took her little girl to the public pool, and a lady asked her where she got her baby. Listening to her experience, I felt the most helpless pain. Then there was an incident a short time later, where a woman threatened to call the police on this amazing mother for apparently kidnapping a child that couldn’t possible be hers. I was horrified. Was this simply a small-town mindset or was something deeper going on? Again, I put these thoughts on the back burner, and proclaimed how proud I was that I didn’t see race. That I could look beyond everything and love this little girl with all my heart and soul.

Over the last few weeks, I have questioned this very painful thought, and am making progress to break away from it. I thought not seeing race was the ultimate goal, but my mind is changing. I don’t want to “not see race”. I am coming to the conclusion that we actually need to celebrate other races, and cultures and include all of these unique attributes into our society with open and loving arms. Embracing the diversity, and finding a way to integrate it as a complex system, rather than striving for us all to one day be the same colour (which I always in my head hoped would magically be purple). And that is when I got an idea, music is one of the most meaningful ways that I have learned about diversity, and the experiences of other people. Why? Because music brings people together. It is an expression beyond words, it is something you feel, and it is something I feel very deeply.

Personally I have a lot of work to do with breaking free of some of the naïve ideals I thought were important, and if you are willing, I will be sharing my journey every few posts. I do not feel that change will happen over night. I see racisms I didn’t even know existed and I want to do as much listening, and amplifying of amazing voices that I can, while at the same time staying true to myself and bringing positivity into the world. Uniting Jazz, into my sex positive blog is the best way I know how to do that. I hope you enjoy listening to the incredible music I am exploring, with my personal focus being artists who are black, and culturally diverse. And let us not forget, that once we are all free to be non-monogamous sexual beings again, that music plays an intrinsic role in sex, and just setting an atmosphere, which when the time is right we will explore together too.

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Defining Monogamy

Cheating and Infidelity in Animals and Humans

In my last post, I asked “why are humans so strict about monogamy, and yet so flexible when it comes to animals” which if you haven’t read, please take a moment to do so here.  Perfect, now let’s get right into the heart of the matter, defining monogamy: cheating, and infidelity in animals and humans.  Cheating and infidelity are the primary culprits or indicators for the failing of monogamy, and could lead us into learning more about our human definition of the word, why it came to be, and where this will take our species moving forward.

We have all asked our selves, why do we cheat at some point or another in our lives.  In fact, I asked pointedly, Why Do Men Cheat? Our Evolution Ignored, back in 2013.  And it comes up time and time again.  We as a species, cheat.  And when we cheat, we question our monogamy.  But what if, we questioned our monogamy prior to cheating?  What if we understood our species, and need for procreation and survivability of our genetic core or at a level beyond how we were raised?  Could that information lead us to loosen our definition of monogamy to something more in line with the one we use in the animal kingdom?

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Writing this, I still feel that gut reaction, that I was raised with monogamy and cheating is basically evil.  We loath the cheaters, and strive for the monogamous ideal.  But in nature, that is not the best practice for species survival.  In fact, if monogamy was as strict as it is in humans, the genetic variability would be reduced and many species would have perished.  Think of this in a pack of lions for example.  If the alpha was the only one to successfully mate with the lioness’s then only his genes would be passed down to the next pack.  Within one generation there would be 50% less genetic variability available to pass on.  That’s huge.  So, instead, the alpha tries diligently to impregnate all the females, but thankfully he’s got to sleep sometime.  And the polygamously dominated society gets an influx of genetic material from outlying lions and the few betas in the pride, pouncing quite literally on an unsuspecting lioness.  Therefore, providing one example where monogamy would just not work from a survival standpoint no matter how attractive having a harem may be.

Now perhaps you’re thinking that this example is not fair because no one believes lions are monogamous.  So let’s look at a monogamous animal grouping, the black vultures.  Here, the species practices social monogamy for the entire mating and raising of young, and actually attack any bird involved in infidelity.  But again, the key here is social monogamy, whereby the animals are only pair bonded for the duration of rearing offspring which is about 8 months.  Compare that to 18 years in humans and we have a huge problem, which almost everyone has faced in their lifetime.  How is one expected to be with only one human being for an entire 18 years, if we agreed to hold ourselves to a universal definition of monogamy?

I for one, was raised to believe this was possible.  But once I got into the real world, the likelihood of that actually happening quickly deteriorated.  Even with my first long term partner, with whom I lost my virginity, and spent nearly 9 years with, I still strayed.  I fully embraced monogamy, yet, I could not live up to the ideal standard.  And to come full circle, at that point in time, I never questioned if I was a monogamous human or not.  I wanted to be, I was raised to be, and I tried really, really hard, so I must have been monogamous right?  The evidence of course was contrary, just as it is with our animal counterparts. 

As I mentioned, straying from time to time, is part of animal behaviour and still allows the pair to be labeled socially monogamous.  Humans who stray from time to time are labelled cheaters, philanderers, and if then embrace this as part of who they are, a whole new spectrum arises called non-monogamy. So again, what if we questioned our monogamy prior to infidelity?  What would the look like?  And has there been a point in our human evolution where monogamy was not the standard definition of human bonding?  Further, how important is monogamy to the survival of the human race?

These are the questions I will continue to ask over the coming weeks.  So please stay tuned, like, share, and as always, feel free to ask your own questions via Twitter, Facebook, or in the comment section of this blog.

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Defining Monogamy:

Humans versus Animals

My take on Elmer Fudd: Defining Monogamy

One of my favorite blog posts is Something About Ducks, and the first time I thought about defining monogamy.  It was short and sweet, but meaningful because I was able to have a frank discussion about monogamy with a family member, and then get to geek out a little with some science.  So, may I present to you a comparative post discussing the definition of monogamy in humans and the animal kingdom, and how that interpretation impacts us.  Don’t worry, I won’t geek out too hard, and if you stick around until the end, you will find the link for the sexy, behind the scenes pictures I keep reserved for fans only. 

Let us start at the beginning, with the definition of monogamy thanks to our lovely friends at Wikipedia: Monogamy is a form of relationship in which an individual has only one partner during their lifetime, or only one partner at a time (serial monogamy).  And for a little fun, let’s compare to the definition of monogamy in the animal kingdom: Monogamous pairing refers to the natural history of mating systems in which species pair bond to raise offspring. 

Did you catch that?  It turns out that the very definition of monogamy is different depending on your species.  We humans, adhere to a very strict definition of monogamy, while our counterparts in the animal kingdom are a little more fluid about it.  In fact, many species are by definition monogamously pair bonded even if during the mating season one of them strays, so long as they return to continue raising their offspring.

So why are humans so strict about monogamy, and yet so flexible when it comes to animals.  Why are we OK with accepting animals doing what they do, behaving in a way that has obviously allowed them to survive, and even flourish, and yet, so critical of humans exhibiting the same behaviours?  Why are we so adamant to separate ourselves from animalistic instinct to sleep with more than one person?  Obviously we could blame many things here, religion, politicians, the battle of the sexes, and let’s not forget sexually transmitted diseases and genetic protection.  But talking about genes, can I share one more thing that I learned in my rabbit hole quest for knowledge?  That scientists are currently working to discover the neuro-molecular genes that may lead to monogamy in animals. 

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Can you imagine if they find an actual mechanism that predicts or determines if a person will be able to maintain monogamy or not?  This may not just be something that people do because they were raised that way, or want to for their children, or even just by sheer force of will alone.  It might actually be deeper rooted than that, it may turn out that we have genetic indicators to determine if we are supposed to be non-monogamous or a monogamous species.  Watching researchers trace monogamy in invertebrates and seeing where we branch off, or takes turns, and then following those shifts absolutely fascinates me.  It’s one thing to trace our human origins of non-monogamy in such amazing book as Sex at Dawn, but to delve even further, into our animal counterparts and discover genetic material and our actual make-up? 

Honestly, the impacts of this make me super excited.  Mixing science, and knowledge, and a subject matter that has been my identity for what feels like a decade is just beyond… well… I think I am going to go formulate a few more posts to follow this up.  The first thing that comes to mind is the comparison between the young raising cycles of humans and animals.  And of course how this duel definition could impact our views of cheating, or infidelity.  The possibilities are endless with science at our side.  So please, if you have any suggestions you would like me to research or discuss feel free to share via Twitter or in the comments section of this blog as I would love to hear from you!

And as promised, here is the link to my behind the scenes photos… enjoy!

A Label by Any Other Name is Still… A Way of Creating a Box! Online Dating Sites, I’m Looking at You!

Breaking Away From Labels

Yesterday, I saw that OK Cupid has announced that they have a new way of labeling your sexual orientation, may I present the newest term: Sapiosexual.  Now while some people may applaud this as a progressive move, I am getting so frustrated by all these terms and labels.  Dating is not black and white, and people are not boxes that can be neatly categorized.  I have written quite a few posts on misuse of labels, and my frustration at people just jumping to conclusions when they hear a term they don’t quite understand .  And I maintain that by creating more labels we are moving further away from honest communication.  We are simply slapping a term the excludes more people from our internet wish list.

The evolution of our species has relied quite heavily on our brains ability to quickly categorize anything that will cause us harm thus creating the fight or flight response.  This survival mechanism is part of our reptilian brain and is most likely why I still run up the stairs when the lights go out.  The dark hides predators and my instinct to get to the light as fast as possible kicks in.  But the online dating community is whole different ball game, far removed from the necessity to survive and quickly categorize our life.  In fact, in might be the furthest thing away, being that it is completely anonymous and therefore you can make the experience relatively safe, especially for all of those without a profile picture and the overused “ask me” in your personality description.

With that potential debate on hold for a moment, let us get back to the vast increase of labels.  Do labels actually help you quantify your search when looking for new people online?  Can you describe how having the word Sapiosexual for example beneficial?  Could you not just read the prospective mate/partner/cutie pie’s profile and deduce if they match you intellectually?  You know, by reading, and writing and those basic skills that you claim are incredibly important?  Maybe I am wrong and this label will bring together hundreds of people that really need that little button to specifically filter out all those who find looks more important than brains and leave you with a much simpler to navigate pool.  But doesn’t that take some of the fun of meeting new people out of the equation?  Isn’t that taking what tiny remnants of human interaction we find on these sites away

Now I will admit that I used to use a tonne of labels to describe myself in my early 20’s.  The words straight, atheist, conservative, female, monogamous were quite important to whole who I was question, and who I wanted to be.  Now that I am in my nearly mid 30’s I realize that other than female, and perhaps atheist, none of these labels quite fit anymore with the encompassing power that they used to.  Instead I have found much more joy in the fluidity of my life and the rejection of the labels that defined me.  It has brought more happiness and satisfaction into my life.  Ironically with the breaking free of those definitions my confidence has actually increased.  I don’t need labels to be who I am.  And I can look around at the people in my life who are in or recently been through a large life transition and am amazed that they don’t quite fit into the categories I would have used to describe them anymore either.  They are just them, for all the good and the bad, and we exist very happily together. 

Because of the first hand happiness I have found by breaking free of the labels that confined me, I want to be an ambassador for other to break free as well.  It works, it’s amazing and my sex life has never been better as a result.  Isn’t that what it’s really all about anyways?  But in all seriousness, if I do not expect my friends to fit into a certain box, our lives become richer and more authentic.  And when I do not label myself, I am free to have fluid thoughts and opinions, and most important, an open mind for new education and people that I may have previously dismissed.  So to the dating sites thinking they are being progressive and modern by increasing their labels I say No!  Break free.  Let people write a description, or a brief what they are looking for, and allow more fluid interaction and less exclusionary labels.  Stop helping us put ourselves in more boxes!

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