Of Pavlov, Buttons and Capybaras

There are a few warnings for this post, both about sexual content (it's vague, but it's there), and generally TMI about me and my relationship. It's also very tangential, as I kinda just wrote this on the fly.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED


For the past while my zucchini and me have been working out what, exactly, we want out of this relationship and what we're willing to do.

This has been very, very slow and difficult going, not only because neither of us are particularly good at the whole 'talking about emotions and such' thing, but because the English language wasn't designed to have this sort  of conversation. In fact, we've found (I've found) that the English language is particularly bad when it comes to talking about anything which is non-normative at all, let alone feelings.

(I should probably explain right now that he's quite comfortably heteroromantic and heterosexual, whereas I, quite obviously, am comfortably aromantic and asexual. (Yes, I am aware of how strange it is that an aromantic asexual is willingly entering into a relationship which is both romantic and sexual*. However, it's working for us right now, and hopefully will continue working for us for the rest of our lives). As you can probably guess, this has lead to a few miscommunications and erronus assumptions on both our parts.)

The other night, it got to the point that we were adlibbing metaphors on the fly as we discussed what I wanted/felt and what he wanted and felt. One of these actually is useful for the both of us, so we're sticking with it for now. (I'll explain it in a bit, I promise). 

However. Before we discussed this, he was feeling a fair bit of turmoil as he was under the (incorrect) assumption that whatever feelings/sensations I'd receive from any more physical actions would be less than someone who was otherwise orientated (i.e. sexual) would recive from the same actions  (e.g., that if he were to preform an action which would normally be sexual for both parties, such as caressing a body part etc., that I would receive less sensation than someone who was equally sexual as him would), instead of different sensation to someone who was sexual.

As far as I understand it (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong/explain it better/put in your two cents/etc) and as far as I can conceptualise it, sexual people (and society as a whole) has a hierarchy of touch. At the bottom, you have the touches which you're expected to share with everyone you meet, like handshakes and pats on the shoulder and such. At the top, you have the ones which you're only meant to share with certain people (Shagging, etc.). This mostly coincides with the sensitivity of said location for touch (i.e., your nipples are far more sensitive to touch than your shoulders generally, etc.), along with the relative softness of the skin at that location. As it is a hierarchy, it is expected that you will want to have as much of the top 'ranked' actions as possible, and that you will value the top 'ranked' actions far above those at the bottom.

Most sexual people tend to have this hierarchy instinctively.

I don't. I have a line, instead.

On my line, there are still categories of touch, some of which are the same as society's. People, depending on how much I trust them, have access to categories. (S has access to all of them**, random stranger has access to one or none).

However. I don't place the same hierarchy on them that society does. Society wants everyone to try and get as much of as many 'top ranked'  actions as possible. I just want to get as many actions as possible. I don't care whether it's hugging, or cuddling, or kissing or whatever, I just want lots.

Quantity, not 'quality', is me. I want lots with the people I trust, and the actions become 'higher ranked' for me not by what they are but by who they're with. Thus, shaking hands with S is of a higher rank then hugging K. Something which ties into this is that, and I'm not sure if this is because I'm ace or because I'm just wired that way, I don't see most actions as inherently sexual. I see them more as "this feels good (SPAM THE ACTION)".

This leads to the metaphor I was talking about earlier. For S, who has, up till now, been in purely heterosexual romantic/sexual relationships, this is more than a little weird/different.

And this is where the Capybaras and Pavlov come in.

We used the metaphor that S was Pavlov, who so far has been dealing with experiments on dogs*** (experiments in this case standing in for romantic/physical relationships). Each dog had a huge control board of buttons which make it feel and do certain things. So, as far as Pavlov knows, push a particular button, dog gets hungry and eats. (standing in for sexual...ness. Yeah, my English is failing me, it's nearly 4 am)

However. This relationship is as if Pavlov (who done all his work with dogs and so knows, generally, how they react to having a particular button pushed) has just been given a Capybara.

Which, quite obviously, is not a dog. And Pavlov doesn't know how the Capybara will react when he pushes the button he pushed to get the dogs hungry. It might get hungry and eat, but it might also start dancing. (The Capybara, on the other hand, is just happy to have Pavlov paying attention to it, and so doesn't really care what buttons he tries to push. Both reactions are positive, anyway).

At this point I worried about S getting something out of the whole thing, because as he's stated before what he generally gets out of the more physical side of things (other than the pure physical stimulation) is causing pleasure in the other person. However, continuing the metaphor, he explained that Pavlov is just happy to get data, even if it's not the data he's got in the past.

Then, because we have this need (I. I have this need, and I drag S along with me) to extend metaphors far past their logical ending point, we started having the buttons stand in for causing pleasurable**** reactions in the other. Thus, it became a case of "(other) reacts well to this particular action. SPAM THE BUTTON!" Thus, as part of a nerdy, sewer-located joke, S commented that a Mortal Kombat line***** would have been appropriate at some points during his visit ( it was tangentially relevant too as a common tactic in the game for many players is "spam all the buttons").

There were some more bits added, but that's the basic summary of the metaphor. (I am aware it probably doesn't make much sense to anyone who is not me or S. I don't actually care, though I will attempt to explain in further detail if anyone wants to ask me questions in the comments section)




*This is another problem I've run into recently. How do you define when something is sexual? Sometimes, when me and S preform an action, like rubbing each other's backs, it is nonsexual in nature. Other times, it is sexual in nature. Other times, he finds it sexual and I don't. Yet, at the heart of it, it is the same action(s).
(I am aware the answer is probably "you just know", but I am not comfortable with this answer, because a couple of times it has gone from something that was distinctly not sexual to ...something that was, and I was not really aware of when that happened. (S, I know you're reading this. This is not a bad thing, more of a "Huh, I fail observation forever" thing, with me trying to look out for landmarks for next time)

**Nominally. At any given point, however, I may not allow him to do so. Much like he has a keypass to a building, but sometimes the building is locked and the keycard won't let him into said building. He still has the permission to enter the building, he just can't at that point in time.

***Not to say anything about his previous girlfriends. They're, as far as I know, very nice people.

****Not necessarily sexually pleasurable. This also extends to general hugging, and such.

*****If you can't work it out, I'm not telling you.

"best friends"

As I have mentioned before, I don’t like the phrase “Best Friend(s)”.

I don’t like it because it seems to place (or imply) a hierarchical structure on friendship that I really don’t like. It seems to imply that you have (a) best friend(s), and then you have ‘lesser’ friends. I have very close friends, and then I have less close friends, but they are not inherently ‘better’ than each other. I am just closer to some of them, for various reasons.*

The phrase also seems to have a rigid structure of friendship implied, as if you have a friendship that ‘levels up’ once you have completed certain actions.** However, running with the gaming metaphor here, it is as if you can only have so many friendships of each ‘level’, and once you have reached the set amount you have no more slots for friends.***

Society seems to say that you cannot increase your number of friendship slots, you may only have certain people occupying certain slots (other gender? Restricted to level  ~4000 and below. Significant age difference? Level ~3500 and below. etc), and you must start all friendships at lvl 0, working your way up lineally to whatever level you attain. You may not skip levels, you may not do several at once, and you may not pass go and collect $200.

And I’m not cool with that. Everyone should feel free to have as many friends as they want to have, and not feel pressured to only have so many “best friends”/friends/etc. And friendships, relationships in general, don’t progress linearly. No two relationships are the same, so why do we act like they are?

Now, I’m not saying that everyone should have loads of friends. I certainly don’t, and I try not to be hypocritical. I’m saying that the amount of friends you want to have is the right amount of friends for you. If you want to have 50000 close friends, that’s really cool. If you want to have 2? That’s also really cool.

*This is why I use ‘close friends’. It does not presume a value judgement on either my friends or our relationship, but instead vaugly quantifies how close we are as friends. (think of it as plotting places on a map. Place A is closer to place B than it is to place Z. This does not mean that place A’s relationship is ‘better’ than place A and place Z’s, it just means that place A and place B are closer. (except that the metaphorical land distance is emotional distance, and there’s about a million other axes on which distance is measured)

**knowing each other’s names? Lvl 1. Knowing each other well enough that you can interpret their eyebrow wiggles into the entire English dictionary? Lvl 8002.

***in this metaphor, you’d only have room for one “best friend” (lvl >9000), and then more room for each successive ‘lower level’ friend. (i.e, you can have ~2 friends of ‘level’ 8999, and then 3 of lvl 700, and then 5 of lvl 600, and so on and so forth until you reach lvl 1, which would be acquaintances or something. You can have millions of those.

Sex and Relationships and Me.

Having read this post, I got thinking. And then I decided that I should state my position on sex and relationships, as it stands now.

I consider myself sex positive. (no, really)

I think people should be able to shag whoever and however they want, assuming it is both not harming anyone and fully consensual*. You want to shag in a bed in the missionary position with the lights off? That’s cool, you enjoy that. You want to shag dressed as horses? That’s cool too, don’t get fur in uncomfortable places. You want to shag on a wall, in a car, on the roof, six other people, one other person, a guy, a girl, someone(s) who aren’t binary identified? That’s cool, have fun.

My basic position when it comes to shagging is don’t make people nearby uncomfortable/involve people only by consent. That is, if you’re shagging in your own house, and it is just you and your partner(s) there? Have at it, go wild, whatever.

If you’re in a public place, think about the other people you could be making uncomfortable. Funnily enough, many people don’t like seeing total strangers (or even their friends) shagging or looking like they’re a layer of clothing from shagging. 

Basically, if it’s not your space, think before you shag. Public places are not the best place for a shag, because you are involving other people without their consent.

That’s not cool. That is really, really not good.

Other than that, go nuts! Have as much, or as little, sex as you want.

In my case, the amount of sex I want is none. That’s just as ok as someone who wants lots, which is just as ok as someone who wants a little, which is just as ok as...you get the idea.

Relationships though. There will be some people reading this who will go “But Bagheist, you said you would talk about relationships too!”

So I will.

I think people should be free to find whatever relationship(s) work for them. I think that we should view all relationships as valid, that we shouldn’t set up the hierarchy of relationships that we do** (look out for a post on this. I am currently mulling over it myself.) I think we shouldn’t lump actions into ‘appropriate for x relationship’ and ‘inappropriate for x relationship’. I also think we should have better words for our relationships. Ones that can actually express what we are to each other***

When I say that, I mean we shouldn’t lump actions into “for friends” and “for SO’s” (for example, hugging people for extended periods of time is usually lumped into “For SO’s only”.  I am not saying that every individual person groups actions this way, but in general, it is assumed that if people are hugging, they are dating/in a romantic relationship of some sort).

I think that the idea of having cuddle buddies and sports buddies and doctor who buddies and movie buddies and buddies for all sorts of things is fantastic. I think that people shouldn’t be told that “you will only get these things from this person, and getting them from anyone else is horrible and not accepted”. We should instead be saying “Find out what works for you. We’re all individuals, after all.”

And then, when people say “I have a girlfriend, and I have a friend who is a girl, and I hug both of them,**** and that works for us.” Society should not respond with “No. You cannot do that.” But with “Cool!”

I’m not actually sure just when I decided that the above was how I felt. As far as I know, I’ve always felt this way about relationships and sex.

And I think that’s because I never really understood the hang ups about them. I approach romantic relationships and sex from the point of view of “huh?”. To me,  all desire for sex is weird. I’m not going to say that “x type of sex is weirder than y”, because to me all of it is pretty weird.(Think about it. You are waggling your genitals around, and somehow society has decided that this means you (may) love someone.)

 I’m not saying people shouldn’t have sex. I’m saying that, while I may not feel the need, or even really understand the need, I accept that you do and encourage you to fulfil that need however best works for you (again, assuming consent and sanity. Run by Safe, Sane and Consensual).

To me, the desire for a romantic relationships is also weird. I actually don’t understand why. I accept that most people do want one, and I encourage them to find one or more that work for all involved. I wish you all the very best.

*People involved should also be actually able to give consent.

**In general, it seems to be expected that ‘Romantic and sexual relationship > romantic but not sexual relationship> family>friends>strangers on the street’. This doesn’t work for me, for obvious reasons.

***For example, I have a very close relationship with S. I would trust S with everything, and I know I can depend upon S to try to understand wtf I'm babbling about now. I have a less close relationship with G. There are some things I would not trust G with, not because G is untrustworthy, but because we are not that close and out relationship does not work like that. However, to outsiders, they are both my friends. I want words to express "This is S, who is my unrelated-brother-family-dearest-trustworthy-cuddle-buddy-support, and this is is G, who is my uni-mate-fellow-female-geek-friend-cooking-person", without spending half an hour explaining our relationships.

****Replace with whatever your relationships are.