Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘asex’ Category

Sound problems throughout marred this, though I didn't really notice most of the time. I quite liked it being mostly quiet, in fact.

The Scottishness felt like an exaggerated stereotype throughout. The boy must've said "Jings!"… well, even once would've been gratuitous. This was made for an American audience.

The frame story was lame, corny and unnecessary.

I found the character of the mother very dislikeable and her behaviour, especially in certain respects towards the son, inexplicable.

The humans' storyline ultimately went nowhere and made little sense. Nothing was developed fully, whether the "kids know something secret and have to hide it" angle or the romance bits or the political situation. There was even a hook for a shell-shock/PTSD subplot, not made use of.

The climactic action sequence made no sense ("why? What makes it imperative that this happen? How on earth did you know or decide to do that?").

The ending (of the frame story particularly) was lame and predictable.

The creature effects were GREAT! Let's face it, that's why I was there. The little neut (no, srsly, canonically parthenogenetic hermaphrodite) had by far the most personality of all the actors (but then, I would say that). Plenty of slapstick and action from hir. Lovely movement, says I who don't know much about how large aquatic mammals, horses or aquatic dinosaurs move; it looked right and was very very pretty. Thus, I suspended my disbelief concerning the passenger's lung capacity and the bends.

Finally, ZOMG THE DOG????

Dream the night before last:

Running away from some killer, in the company of a portly gentleman who was faster than me. Killer caught me by the belt (of a dressing gown in which I'd gone to sleep), dragged me back to some building, took me up in a lift to the badly-lit top floor and sliced my face off, followed by a few fingers to the first joint. There was the general impression that this would continue.

I think there was some begging on my (female) avatar's part, but the overall show was all very matter-of-fact in tone, no pain and I only remember being annoyed because it was all so damn predictable.

There was (so my dreaming self thought) some really good backstory to the killer, which I forgot. I think that was what irritated me most.

Had finished reading a novella about a torturer online the evening before. This might have had something to do with it. Nothing matched up with the details or themes of the story, though (Quentin-Andrew didn't cut fingers or do the Hollywood film serial killer thing, and the later stages I'd been reading that night were mostly about gods and redemption and an adorably innocent little soul), so maybe not.

P.S. Platonic friendshippery for the win. This is why I'm linking the book, which the author is doing an incredibly thorough job of linkspamming everywhere remotely relevant by desself.

Loads of school league tables and statistics out today, all of which I'm ignoring because yawn.

Epic win first of all:

Battery farm eggs banned by 2012—the government grew a spine and didn't cave to farmers.

(Who could have had more time to react if they hadn't wasted time kicking up a tantrum.)

Conditions inside a battery farm (also see video linked on that page)

32% of eggs produced in the UK are free range—better than I would have guessed. That's a big "niche", hmm?

Meanwhile, these things:

Blasphemy law 'may be abolished'

Brilliant, Mary-Jane!

Arrest after 32 dead horses found along with 80+ neglected horses, donkeys and ponies.

Australia to act on plastic bags

Paper fined over champagne 'ad'

I think I've had some emails from him…

Oh, and these guys.

Tony Robinson reveals the guilt he felt when he put his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's, into a care home.

I'm not sure a picture of him as Baldrick is particularly tasteful…

I suppose a shot from Time Team would have been worse.

Australians vote on word of 2007

Hampshire Constabulary is a gay-friendly workplace

Huge animal audit in UK zoos

Rare lion cubs born at Belfast Zoo

Ever considered that they're just immature and perverse? Heh. Yes, yes, I can see how this could be a serious problem and ruin friendships etc, but… eh. I'm not entirely qualified to comment? Dammit, I look with distaste at binge drinking and drug-taking and there's not much difference.

Artists, sports bodies 'should share profits from ticket touts'.

"The bands are entitled to a proportion of the money [from resales] because that's what people are paying for – to see the band."

Excuse me what? You want them to be paid twice? Epic no. If you don't like touting (and neither do I), make it not profitable for the sharks and let the goldfish get theirs legitimately—e.g. by stopping creating artificial scarcity and inflating prices.

Some kind of regulation on bulk ticket sales – for example, prove that you're a coach party and not a reseller—might be workable, but would probably cause more red tape than it's worth.

Report predicts wave of green technology

Abhorrent puppy-farming animal abuser given lifetime ban on keeping animals. No mention of additional punishment.

New guidelines on home education

The world's first trainspotter

Rat infestation found at warehouse supplying food to care homes and schools; defence citing Ratatouille dismissed.

[audio] Call for pardon for last witchcraft conviction in UK. Fascinating story. This was during the second World War; Helen Duncan was a medium, not a witchy witch, and she apparently revealed the sinking of a ship before it was announced.

Before you go all knee-jerk paganfriendly on me, note what the Witchcraft Act actually legislates against: fakery, which is to say people pretending to have speshul powurs. A pity they don't use it against some of the quacks nowadays who take money for nothing pills or waving glass crystals around.

(Yes, I'm aware that glass is an amorphous solid. Incidentally, it's a lot of a fallacy to say it flows over time, which goes to show you shouldn't take science lessons from Megaman.)

Specifically, polyamory as a 'solution' to asexuality. There's an interesting discussion on the asexuality community on LiveJournal.

Note: I've nothing against the concept but I don't think it's likely to work. In the linked discussion I say so very bluntly. If you're going to feel flamed, don't bother reading – I doubt I'm making any new points. If you're going to flame, I'll yawn.

Thread with me, another person with interesting perspective and the OP

Original post with all comments

edit, 13/12: Evidently I should post about HAWT GROUP SEX more often. Look at all the discussion it's generated on the LJ mirror.

The rest of this post, apart from footnote, is copied from a comment I posted to an asexuality community in response to a discussion about intensity of feelings¹. Well, anyway, as usual, feel free to discuss or flame or ask questions or whatever.

I have a very hazy concept of romance, which is all muddled up with chivalry, idealism – the broader definition of 'romantic'. People who define romance as 'flowers and foreplay' are missing the point.

In my mind you can be a tragically romantic soul without being sexual.

And it definitely possible to have strong positive feelings without being sexual. I have all sorts of categories of people towards whom I feel warm fuzzy sorts of things, and not one of those has anything to do with my nether regions or theirs.

I've always loved innocently. I can't help it; to do otherwise simply isn't an option. Not that I think this makes me 'purer' than anyone else, exactly, although I admit I tend to be suspicious of sexual people's motives.

¹ It seems that The Rules say friendship has to segue into romance at some predefined level of emoshunal intensity or you're doing it wrong, which means all asexuals are frigid and uncaring or in denial, and also that friendship is quantitatively less valuable than sexual wub. Yep.

Oi, people who do sex! Sexuality questionnaire! You don't have to answer, but I'd like you to read it. Especially you, ya pervert.

(Actually I am interested in answers, provided they're undetailed, but more interested in your reaction to being questioned in that way.)

JK Rowling outs Dumbledore as gay

We here at work suspect this may have been a joke the audience fell for. It doesn't bother me either way, though. His sexuality's a non-issue to me.

I certainly don't think she should necessarily have made it explicit in the books, as Peter Stuck-Record Tatchell suggests. It wasn't relevant. She didn't say Minerva McGonnagall was straight (or not) either. And yes, Sirius/Remus fans, I don't think she's ever said Lupin wasn't bisexual.

Either way, the Stonewall quote is beyond parody. "It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."

(If I see one comment anywhere insinuating any kind of equation of homosexuality with paedophilia, I'm going to flame a bitch so hard their ancestors will be shouting Aguamente.)

Heavy metal star turns classical

(Another good man lost to the light side…)

Optimism has no bearing on cancer. In your face, quacks!

Though, as the article makes clear, depression can of course have an effect on long-term recovery.

However, don't let that spoil your interest in this story, which is cool too.

[video] Japan stages Robot Olympics

(Not "cyborg", fools.)

Aussies and Very Northern Europeans, high-five, you guys!

This is so retarded…

Cries of "[Majority] pride" do always seem more offensive than "[Minority] pride", and yes there are arseholes who make their majority-ness reason to hurt other people. There are also members of minorities who do the same. Fewer of them, because hello, minority.

However, just as my actions as an atheist aren't influenced by, oh, Stalin, so my actions as a white probably-Anglo-Saxon-though-honestly-I-don't-really-know pay no heed to imbeciles in white pointy robes calling themselves Grand Dragon. I hate what they do, but I'm not going to let them control me or make me afraid. I think if I was a Muslim I'd feel exactly the same way about the boom-happy fringe.

I think pride of any kind about something you didn't choose, namely your genes, is kinda stupid, but there you go. I also find most people who go on about their 'heritage' annoying, so perhaps I'm just being excessively grumpy again.

Being English means being a British citizen. Fact of geography and legalistics. I was born one, so I'm not especially proud of it. If you chose to be one and became one and here you are now, what the hey, be proud, I'm happy for you. Help me vote the Lib Dems in if you like.

This is all kinds of creepy too… gaah, I dunno.

Delay in blind, deaf dog search

Eighty million years alive without sex. A toast to the bdelloid rotifer! May I make it that far.

BBC launches The Archers podcast. The Archers is… um, how to explain it. A rural radio soap opera on Radio 4, which is kind of a national treasure, kind of a national joke. (The latter only to me.) Dead Ringers (the radio show, not telly) makes fun of it.

I drive these truckers crazy, I do it on the daily…

I apologise wholeheartedly for that reference.

Moon jets pinned on 'tiger stripes'

(Sometimes there just IS no way to summarise the content of a story in a comprehensible headline.)

The Allen array is on.

Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is to play Scotty. Yes, ST:TOS Scotty.

Suicide website man held in Japan, though at least it's not on false advertising charges.

Nine-week-old baby kidnapped. Horrible.

Awesome! If Vacanti's mouse can have one, why not?

Rare 1875 wine to be uncorked. Don't look at me; I never drink wine ah ha ha.

"Don't commit crime."

I have a sneaking suspicion that if people weren't allowed to get away with suing someone every time they slipped over, organisations wouldn't put up intelligence-insulting notices…

Eeeeeeeeeee!

More on the bleedin' obvious news front: chimps embark on fruit raids to lure mates.

Also bleedin' obvious: a scientific ethics code. A bit worrying that people need telling all these things. (But I can't believe scientists that act unethically don't know they're behaving unethically, which makes this just another "don't commit crime" sign.)

Israel prepares for 'fallow' new year

Letter rather than spirit, yet again. This sort of legal wrangling I find utterly compelling, though it sure as goats doesn't make me want to join the religion. I know it's perhaps more a different approach to the whole idea of religion than trying to cheat, but I can't help wondering why you'd sign up to a belief system only to exploit the loopholes.

Woman's Hour discussion of virginity (in women). I could rant about this whole subject, but won't appear to have without meaning to.

Surely the reason people are more bothered about it in women than men is fairly simple: it's demonstrable in females, and maternity is far easier to prove than paternity. And a man can spread it around without diminishing the product, whereas a woman can only carry one child at a time.

I can't believe they're alluding to the renewed fascination with virginity in the States as though it could ever be viewed as a healthy trend. I think I've got pretty prudish values when it comes to sex, but the filthy-minded authoritarian puritans over there scare me. Sexuality and the body are simultaneously disgusting and a source of endless fascination for that section of society that can fly into a frenzy when a woman's breast is accidentally exposed on live telly.

Breasts, bear in mind, are only 'dirty' because people like that fetishise them. Even I know this. Though I refuse to conform to the new sex-positive "there is no empowerment without bonking" ortho-doxies by learning to say "yay breasts" instead. There's such a thing as overcorrection. I'll stay prudish, thanks.

Yes, I'm really going to talk about comic books. Bear with me.

I was already very aware that the reason I enjoy this particular title is the dysfunctional friendship between the two main characters.¹ In fact, in some aspects, it ranges almost uncomfortably close to the relationship between two of my own characters, and I knew that was part of the furtive attraction of the comics for me.

However, I may have to stop reading, because they're apparently reading my mind in return. The other night I picked up the last few issues to catch up. And lo, in one of them, the dialogue went so close to the tentative 'famous last words' I'd sketched in for a possible character death that I was left speechless. And suffering the usual "am I so unoriginal" writer angst. Thanks, Marvelbutts.

Unrelatedly, I have a book on my desk about animals in wartime, lent by a colleague. It looks like it's going to be a superb read; it's just getting it home safely that has me nervous, because it's a rather big square hardback with dust jacket.

¹ Dysfunctional friendships just do it for me, ok? What with all the fucked-up need and the Odd Couple squabbles and the "why the hell am I doing this" moments and the banter and the glorious non-sexuality of it all.

Not that there's anything wrong with sex jokes or fan 'shipping. I find that cute and amusing. I just don't roll that way.

Conservative leader David Cameron should "unveil the party's soul" rather than make "vacuous" reforms, ex-deputy leader Michael Ancram has warned.
–BBC: Tories warned not to lose 'soul'

That's exactly what they don't want to do — let slip their party's misogynistic, racist, WASPish, reactionary soul! Nobody bothers sucking up to their core voters, after all.

See? The mere existence of Finland makes everything automatically awesome.

Unfortunately, their printer has now run out of black ink.

Livestock breeds face 'meltdown'

I look forward to seeing the haxx0rs get their hands on this. *still not buying a mobile phone!*

In "no, duh?" news, men go for looks while women go for wealth.

Also, men don't like to smooch.

Spy hard! Yeah I'm just gonna 'test' this naturist magazine for 'hidden writing'. I'll be in the toilets.

This is a half-interesting question. Ban all materials written by convicted criminals? Is 'The Paedo' transmissible through writing?

Pupils 'shunning healthier meals'. This is because their stupid chav parents do things like this.

Oh Lucy, you're adorabubble.

Cyber crime tool kits go on sale

INTARWEBS KILLED THE CINEMA STAR O NOES. Maybe this'll teach the 'plexes not to charge a fiver for a dispenser drink and treat us all like criminals with their patronising "don't film this film" trailers.

BBC reveals Doctor Who 'gap year'

We have a serious problem these days with actors seemingly unable to commit for a long run. It doesn't matter so much with the companions, but if Tennant bails like the last one he's going to cut that cash cow's throat right in its prime; here's why. (Tennant is the tenth, so they'll only have three more incarnations before the party's over.)

I suspect more magic wand waving in the very near future.

If there's a romantic connection with this new companion too, I'll scream and throttle things. Y halo thar subtlety and non-sex-obsessedness, where've you been? Mainstream turning into fanfiction for the ginormous fail. *grumbles*

Check out the cute mini-god. Awww.

edit: poor pigu!

Donated blood this evening. This makes me happy.

Even if it was touch-and-go for a while, finding a vein. The nurse threatened to make me go home if she couldn't get one. :( I don't like having uncooperative arms, especially when under pressure.

I had to laugh inwardly at the questions they make you answer. There's a whole section about "During the last year, have you had sex with someone who…?". What with me being me, of course, it could simply have gone "During the last year, have you had sex–" "NO". But nope, sat through the questions anyway.

It's like a more boring, less inventive Purity Test.

Also, I couldn't even have the orange squash and biscuit. Boo hoo! They did give me water instead, though, so, er, hurrah…

Anyway, I now know I'm not anaemic and I'll get a new "you are B+, well done" card thingy in the post, hopefully also confirming that I don't have any nasty virus, and I donated an armful and did the lifesaving thing and so I am happy. Niffles.

Dear iStockphoto,

I know your new photo tagging/keywording system is vastly better than the old and continues to improve. I've done my part by reporting some badly-tagged images.

However, indulge me in a minor bitching session.

Because when one is searching for pictures of chains and slavery for work's Abolition anniversary season, and when one, whether out of SFWness concern or personal reasons, does not want to see pictures of young ladies in fetish gear or restraints, improperly tagged photos are a big problem!

For Cicely's sake! Someone shade my eyes!

[I mean, my search terms were as careful as they could be, but "Chain (Man Made Object) NOT (Sex (Single Word) OR Sexual Activity (Moving Activity) OR Sexual Issues) NOT (Fetishes (Sexual Issues) OR Fetish Wear (Specific Clothing)) NOT One Person (Number of People)" is still turning up a few kinky images, and some just plain weird. DO NOT WANT :'( ]

This started off as a reply to a post in Asexuality, but it got long and turned into a fairly good summary of where my head is during these changing times. Okay, during this hour of today; I'm not sure I can guarantee any more than that.

Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, a definitive answer on Weft and his boy toys!

Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of my favourite songs anyway, but the video really gets to me.

Sometimes, seeing friends – honest-to-grace companionship and laughter – hits me so hard it hurts.

(In other words, slash be damned, my only 'ships are friendships. And proud!)