Sex And The Middle Aged Single Guy

Yeah that's right. I'm going there.

When you're a single middle aged male and you're trying to date somehow it always seems like sex is the elephant in the room. That one issue frought with danger to discuss. Or perhaps it just seems that way, given the nature of my mind and how I think about things. I still discuss it. I think it's vital to be discussed, but only because it is part of a larger process that HAS TO HAPPEN. This is probably also why I intimidate some, because I go there in a frank and candid way most females are not accustomed to. But meh, it's me.

Sex, sex, sex! It's one topic women reliably steer clear of. I don't get it at all.

Sex is one of the primary points of this though, isn't it? I have tons of good friends and quite a few really close ones. People whom I truly care about and love. And I'm not having sex with any of those people. They are just my friends. Granted  this is true because many of those friends are guys and I'm not attracted to other guys. Many are women however. Some of these I'm not attracted to, but that's ok isn't it? Some of these are already in relationships with someone else so you don't go there. DUH? Are these things less than obvious?

Seeking someone to date, is seeking someone to reliably have sex with. If you don't look at it like this, not only do I not understand you at all, no one does or ever will. Do you just avoid making it clear you understand this? Why? Because it's a taboo? That's even weirder.

Granted, that's not all I'm seeking. But I'm also not seeking chess partner's or pen pal's either. I have friends that I game with, and anyone who knows me well enough knows what happens when I have a keyboard in front of me. Those things can and should be EASY for everyone. If not, then I'd say you have bigger problems than finding a significant other.

Why is it on women's personal profiles you often come across this specific phrase over and over again?

"I'm not looking for one night stands. If you're here for sex keep moving.." or words to that effect.

Very few men are looking for just a one night stand. I think the same is true of most women. If that's not your thing, then I feel it's appropriate to mention that. But the second sentence confuses the hell out of me.

"If you're here for sex keep moving."

EVERY SINGLE MALE ON EARTH is there for sex so if you're planning on this strategy working well for you I have some bad news.

It is what we're supposed to be there for. Dating is about finding a sexual partner. Sex is mandatory. It is a normal, natural, and necessary part of life. It's why we're all struggling to be with someone else. It's not the only reason, but it most certainly is the pivotal reason. To think otherwise is just strange.

How is this going to play out? I've seen it over and over and OVER again with my female friends over the years, and it always plays out the same way. They find some guy who's clever enough to not make sex an issue (at first at least), but smart enough to coerce her into thinking it was her idea to "go there". So she finds that this clever guy just manipulated her into getting what he wanted, and on his terms. And you bought into this strategy because you made sex into something that it is not (a prize to be won). At the end, it's another horrible guy, you're ability to trust is further damaged, and you wonder why shit happens like this to you every single time.

DUH!!!

People create so much grief for themselves by placing the incorrect amount of value on entirely the wrong things. Sex is way the easiest part of a relationship to get right. It's simple. No manuals or classes are required. We're all properly equipped by nature. And you can figure out fairly quickly if your sexually compatible with someone. Generally this isn't that hard either. All good sex takes is engagement and enthusiasm. By engagement I mean actually enjoying pleasing someone else sexually. Only utterly selfish unaware people can fuck this up. Enthusiasm should be self explanatory. :)

It's all the *OTHER* stuff in a relationship that requires you're immediate attention. And it's all that other stuff people are so reluctant to do. Talk to one another. Ask pertinent questions. Learn how one another live their lives. Ask the hard questions, the adult questions, and expect adult answers. Clarity is only achieved when one is clear, and that only happens if you seek it.

Everything of true value in a relationship comes from two things. Trust, and shared ethics. These two things require candor, frankness, and honesty. And not only honesty from someone else, but honesty from yourself. *THIS* is the difficult part that people are terrified to face.

These things have absolutely nothing to do with your vagina or my penis. So stop making those two things such a big deal.

p.s. Just so you're aware, my daughters read my blog. And I encourage them to think about this topic exactly this way. Why? Because I want them to have fulfilling lives free of drama and unnecessary taboo laden b.s.

Women get dumped on enough as it is, so why add to your grief? Own this issue and be free of the problems.

The things that Facebook drives me to do...

Ran across a post by one of my friends on Facebook that I laughed at, and mostly agreed with....but much of it focused on irritations rather than facts. It's easy to knee-jerk react to things, especially given the state of the nation. But even the most jaded of us (me included) should be skeptical enough of "simple facts". So with that I'll offer some comments to his post, and add a few at the end. ;)

Sorry Dean....Not really picking on you...I just like it when people make me think and work for it. :)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.

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(comment: You can get arrested for both, you just have to get caught. A tag has a clear date on it, but an illegal immigrant doesn't glow in the dark. I've had illegals arrested before, so it's fairly straightforward when you encounter the situation)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.
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(comment: This is a non-argument that assumes an economy is a simple first grade math problem. Of course you cant spend and money-print our way out of debt. But we MUST spend billions (and more) on our aging infrastructure. Here's a neat tidbit. We spent more on AIR CONDITIONING in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 than we did NASA. Every economist worth their salt agrees the only way for our country to get itself out of debt is to grow the economy. It's the only way out. Investment in infrastructure and future technologies are vital. Think our 50 year old electric grid can handle a transition away from fossil fuel, given it can barely handle...summer??!?)

I LOVED THIS ONE.


You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.

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(comment: The 10 Commandments are displayed nowhere in the Surpreme Court building. It is alluded to in artwork on and in the building, but so is the Code Of Hammurabi and the Magna Carta. Seperation of church and state is IMPORTANT, and a founding principle of our country. Ask Thomas Jefferson...and try to not take his utter dislike for Christians as an insult. )

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of"underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools.


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(comment: No arguments here, though it's still "too simple". I have no love for DSS though, or the hell they put my kids through whilst feeling sorry for my irresponsible ex-wife and her now felon husband.)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Working class Americans pay for their own health care (and the health care of everyone else) whileunmarried women are free to have child after child on the "State's" dime while never being held responsible for their own choices.

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(comment: and yet we refuse to teach our kids responsible sexual behavior. Any parent who thinks "just say no" is working is an idiot, and yet it's been a federal mandate in sex ed programs for decades....the decades where our teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed to the worst among western nations. Coincidence?)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing.

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(comment: a sad fact to be true, but it's not the entire truth. Working in grocery retail almost 30 years I've seen government benefits skyrocket to now represent roughly 25-30% of our income in my business. And very few (VERY FEW) of these people are slothful lazy deadbeats. They're people who cannot survive on minimum wage. No one can, and yet more and more Americans are forced to settle for it, whilst CEO pay skyrocketed 725% between 1978 and 2011??)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).

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(comment: The government is providing 99 weeks of unemployment because the economy would stall without the spending power it gives people who cannot find a job. It's a bandaid for a far larger problem)

I LOVE OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS, TOO


You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.

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(comment: Most of that stripping in recent memory has been performed by a conservative dominated Supreme Court and the fear mongering after 9-11 that led to the evil Patriot Act)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•The rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual.

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(comment: Agree with this one. :D)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Parents believe the State is responsible for providing for their children.

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(comment: though there are horror stories to be sure, the real issue in my experience (having spent 30 years trying to feed people) is that parents who cannot make ends meet and take care of their families will do ANYTHING THEY CAN. The other options are crime or starvation and we have shameful amounts of both.)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...My personal favorite, plus declaring bankruptcy.
•You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iphones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).

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(comment: many dumb and naive people bought into the "American Dream" idea of home ownership. It's a uniquely American concept, because home ownership isn't such a big deal pretty much everywhere else in the world. Deregulation of banking and securities industries drove us off this cliff. A lot of people got filthy rich, the entire world is stuck with trillions of dollars of fractional reserve leveraged debt (roughly 44 times the actual value of any of the property involved in the crash) in perhaps the worst financial rape of middle class and lower middle class Americans in history. And we've still not seen the bottom of it, not by a long shot.)

You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".

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(comment: I still have my weapons. No one has taken them away, and getting a CWP is childs play in South Carolina...not sure what this one is about)

LOVED THIS ONE TOO


You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
•You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to have your unborn baby MURDERED, aka; get an abortion.

(comment: 41 states require parental consent for an abortion. Though Roe vs. Wade is a Federal court decision, administering abortions is a states rights issue. So talk to the nine states that don't require it)

......

Some of my own points in closing...


You know you live in an upside-down land if
- You think increasing taxes on the lowest 50% of the population will have any effect on our debt, given that they only posess 2.5% of the wealth, whilst the top 1% control 42%

You know you live in an upside-down land if
- You think our healthcare system doesn't need a complete overhaul, given the fact that we're the most expensive system in the western world by far, with falling life expectancy rates and worse infant mortality rates than Brunei, Croatia, or Cuba....CUBA!!!?!?!??!?! Do nothing is hardly an option.

You know you live in an upside-down land if
- You forget that the largest economically expansive period in our history was marked with...far higher progressive taxes on wealth, strong labor unions, and proper health insurance (not the fee-for-service system we have now, thanks to Richard Nixon and his cronies).

You know you live in an upside-down land if
- You wonder why we have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western world (and even higher than some impoverished nations), given that we have "Just Say No" mandated in all funded sex education classes, and are terrified to distribute condoms. Sex is not a moral issue, it is a quality of life issue and a health issue. A condom (even Cleopatra knew what birth control was) makes sex about as dangerous as eating ice cream in a room made out of Nerf®

Democrats vs. Republicans? Try Oligarchy...

During any election cycle is it any wonder that political discussion becomes keenly polarized? As it stands currently it seems as if we'll be facing a race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for the 2012 Presidential Election. Granted, Rick Santorum has made quite a stir recently, but so did Newt and Herman Cain previously. Like it or not he who has the biggest war chest wins in politics, and on the republican side this puts Romney way out in front.

The "spin doctors" generally try to paint the sides in a political debate as polar opposite as humanly possible, which is why the republicans glom on to ridiculous statements about the ever looming socialist state around the corner. Democrat spinners are equally guilty of painting Republicans as greedy bastards who want to gut the government and let survival of the fittest take its course.

Neither view relates remotely to the reality. What they do relate to however is the insidious nature of politics itself. As Morpheus so eloquently puts it in "The Matrix", "It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." As much as democrats make fun of "Tea Partiers" and republicans decry "Occupiers" as a bunch of socialist hippies, these groups have three vitally important things in common. They both are outgrowths of the respective party ideologies their followers adhere to, that have realized their ideals are not tracking the realities around them. They are both frustrated with the glaringly obvious failures of our current political and economic system. And they are both being used to polarize others....for votes.

There is a lot that is fundamentally broken in this country, but the most important thing broken is the political process. With it broken, fixing the rest of the mess we're in is basically impossible. As much of a libertarian as I consider myself to be, even I realize that we need a collective will to right a ship with 330 million passengers. And that collective will has to be a governing body, one that serves it's constituency. But we don't have that.

Lets have a history lesson. A lot began to fundamentally change in this country in the late 60's and early 70's. Very specific changes drastically altered the political landscape for both of our incumbent parties, and in ways most people fail to notice.

The Democratic parties demise began with the McGovern campaign against then incumbent Richard Nixon. Why is this such a pivotal point in the history of the Democratic party? Because it is when the party changed it's focus away from big labor. McGovern royally ticked off big labor and quite distanced himself and his campaign from labor. Granted he did have strong ideological reasons for this, but the end result backfired in then unforseen ways. As corrupt as big labor was back then (and oh boy was it), it was also what kept Democrats truly focused on THE WORKING MAN from a policy standpoint. This led to the current state of affairs when it comes to campaign finance. More on that in a bit.

Who was responsible for what we now consider socialist ideas, such as the WIC program or the out of control price fixing and subsidies in our agricultural sector? It wasn't a Democrat. It was Richard Nixon. Want to remove poverty and cyclical food pricing from the political debate? Throw government money at the problem. Thanks Tricky Dick! And this is precisely why such things were done, to remove genuine suffering and problems from the political debate, and we fell for it. He also spearheaded the beginnings of change to our healthcare system, which became a fee-for-service system thanks to his and his political cronies efforts, and which has led to us having one of the WORST and most EXPENSIVE healthcare systems among western countries. Seriously! Even Turkey whips our ass in this regard! TURKEY!!!

The push in the 80's and 90's for deregulation has been an abysmal train wreck. Not because over regulation is good, but because we did not remove over regulation from the actual entities that are grossly affected by it. Small business accounts for slightly more than half of ALL JOB CREATION, and yet we deregulated BIG BUSINESS. Now we have a banking system that makes most of it's money from....MONEY...and NOT FROM INVESTING IN REAL CAPITAL. Even businesses we don't think would be involved in this are.

The airline industry? They obviously make a large portion of their profit from flying people around right? WRONG. BECAUSE they are involved in flying large amounts of people around, they have a vested self interest in fuel pricing, and most airlines shore up their balance sheets by speculating in futures markets. Most make the bulk of their profit from this. The list is endless, but most large companies do this to one degree or another.

So here we have two parties with their hands out, like all political parties do. Who has the money to put in their hand? Big business. Big corporations are not "bad" or "evil" in the moral sense, but you have to realize what corporations actually exist for. They exist SOLELY to turn the best profit for shareholders. And they will do this to the best of their ability, simply because that is what a corporation is meant to exist for. But we now have an economic system that makes most of it's money from other peoples money, and not from anything tangible. And BOTH PARTIES are getting their hand outs from this system.

As bad as big labor was, it did at least keep the Democratic Party thinking about THE WORKING MAN. Now the Dems take their social agenda and focus on the NON WORKING MAN, with deleterious consequences.

And as much as the Republican Party has always been neck deep into the coffers of big business, it was a big business that wasn't as big as today's version. More importantly it was a big business that actually MADE THINGS, and BUILT THINGS. Now our big business does none of these things. Our biggest business interests now make money out of thin air from even more money. And this does NOTHING but extract capital from an economy, which anyone with a first year of an Economics degree under their belt will tell you.

As we know, any powerful system is interested in maintaining the status quo. And the current status quo is to keep allowing this nonsense.

Moral? Our two political parties are bought by large interests that haven't got a clue about what real Americans are concerned about, and care more about keeping us angry at one another so we'll stop paying attention to what the real problems are.

We have an Oligarchy, not a democracy organized as a federal republic anymore. And until we can collectively get the influence of limitless money out of politics, what you and I think doesn't matter.

AT ALL!