So you’re on the prowl?
- I cannot help myself. I am just so strong. I don't hold back, I don't play coy. I don't even know how to not have fun. I need a guy with strength because I'm so strong and if somebody can handle that - if they can give it back - that's it.
- A sassy short-haired blonde with a give-it-to-me-straight demeanor
Ugh, here we go.
- explaining that love and sex aren’t synonyms and never will be
Well, yeah, maybe not for her, but it is for other people. Why doesn't she find a guy who feels the same way, then she wouldn't have to feel like a jerk!
- We threw my printer off my desk because we were so full of passion
I didn't realize that I had stumbled into a Mad Men episode, but, okay.
- I always ask them what kind of music they like, what they like to listen to during sex speaks a lot about how they'll perform
Well SHIT! No wonder playing Chrono Cross Vol. 1 wasn't doing it for her. Maybe I'll switch it up and play the Gundam Wing OST instead. Nothing like some sweet, sweet mecha based orchestra to get the mood going.
Something about this whole thing just kinda struck me as being really gross, but I haven't eaten breakfast yet, so it might just be my stomach grumbling.
It reads like a fictional sexual fantasy of the writer pushed onto a real woman.
I had a similar reaction myself 8bit. Maybe I should've put this in #funny. Your reply shot Jameson up my nose.
I would like to hear a woman's perspective on this. Personally, I wouldn't mind being a backdoor man. Guys do this all the time, and there's no stigma. Why should it be any different for the opposite sex?
The woman's perspective you ordered is here!
I don't think what the woman is doing is wrong as long as she is honest with people - but the article bothers me since it's all about how attractive this woman is and the writer seems to have focused so much on what she herself* likes in a woman and not on her or what she gets out of it.
* thanks lil
The author seems to be a woman or is presenting as one. Maybe. You think?
It still bothers me even if the writer is a woman, it is very sexual in a way that seems like a fantasy - it is possible that this is based on a real person, but the impression I get from the answers is not that of an happy person. They seem over-confident in that special "I'm-sexually-liberated-and-everything-is-totally-fine" way. You can be happy and promiscuous but that's not the feeling I get from it - the answers seem like a character-archetype and feel like a paper cut-out of a person to me.
I don't know, I might be projecting.
Hi SBG,
For the moment, let's assume there is a real "Amy" who has told the writer "Taryn" a true story.
- but the impression I get from the answers is not that of an happy person.
- we don't have much of a sex life at all. It's devastating,
Note her reply to this question:
- Can you tell me about a bad one night stand that you've had in your life?
It's sad to say because I've had so many one-night stands.
- the answers seem like a character-archetype and feel like a paper cut-out of a person to me.
The person is supposed to be an archetype. She's part of a series on archetypes of women who sleep with men (who read Maxim) for various reasons other than relationship reasons.
As for whether the story is real or made up...it could be either. The things that seem untruthy to me are
1. The title: "unapologetic cheater" -- Cheater is a judgemental and loaded word; yet the interviewer did not talk about the "cheating" aspect of the so-called cheater. That seems weird. Obvious questions are "Do you lie outright?" "Are you worried about being caught?" "Do you have a monogamy deal?"
2. The phrase "side piece" is so dehumanizing -- but, hey, it's in urban dictionary so I guess that's the term people use to express their gratefulness to a lover.
Secret lives are difficult and not particularly sustainable. Anyway, as people explore their personalities, sexualities, needs, and interests one might well come across someone like "Amy." There is much variety among the humans.
As for your last sentence, "I don't know, I might be projecting." Are you suggesting that you are unhappy with multiple partners, so you might be projecting unhappiness?
Anyway, you're not projecting. The "Amy" is devastated by her situation.
I'm cyclothymic, and some of the things Amy says sounds things I'd say when Hypomanic. So I kind of don't like it because it feels like it is fetishistic destructive behaviors I could see myself partake in.
(I have seen a therapist about it, she thought I was bipolar until she realized that my weird going from being extremely happy to extremely apathetic doesn't affect my life negatively.)
Although I'm so socially awkward that the worst I get is just staying up all night and thinking which is hardly healthy ( I haven't slept more than a couple of hours here and there that feel more like blacking out) but it's manageable.
Okay, that kind of turned into over sharing but whatever.
What are appropriate interpersonal boundaries when it comes to communication and relationships? This would be a great askhubski. Many angles and many opinions. For instance I have been becoming friends with a really great woman recently. I say "becoming" because we both can be a little reserved and don't like to talk about details of personal life stories with people until after we have begun to know them. It has been interesting to watch how our boundaries have begun to drop between each other. Two weeks ago we commiserated about our unhappy familial relationships, for instance, something which two months ago I think we would have decided to keep to ourselves a little bit more.
I recently found myself telling her something that, as I said it, I thought, "are we at that point in our friendship that I am comfortable divulging this?" I glossed over the details and she didn't focus on the vulnerability I'd exposed (nor seemed to judge me for it). It is interesting to experience the comfort zone progression.
- What are appropriate interpersonal boundaries when it comes to communication and relationships?
What would you want to know about a person you are considering for friendship (romantic or otherwise):
1. Jail terms?
2. Awards and recognitions?
3. Nude photos on line?
4. Psychiatric interventions?
5. Past addictions?
6. Debts?
7. Lineage?
8. Previous Addresses?
9. Surgery?It takes a long time for the whole story to emerge unless you are writing a biography of the person or asking targeted questions.
Of course, some information may seem more "intimate" or "personal" than other information. Get it all down - before the memory goes.
- It takes a long time for the whole story to emerge unless you are writing a biography of the person or asking targeted questions.
A couple of thoughts: That's a nice list you put together, and as you said it would take a while to parse through all of that information. It ends up with one having to prioritize what is important to know and what you would be fine with learning down the road. For me, the questions are what are things that would prevent us from having a stable relationship (friendship or intimate)? Which could come from any number of things.
Of course, some of the questions that you have listed could be readily available online but that is a whole other issue and can of worms.
A person should be an open book, at least in my world. I may not be interested in reading every chapter, but I'd like to know that the information is not hidden, should I want it.
- Of course, some of the questions that you have listed could be readily available online but that is a whole other issue and can of worms.
You can be a perfectly acceptable parent or spouse, but after you die some carefully hidden secrets come out and cause havoc in the surviving family. Two recent stories: A friend of mine married into what he thought was a wonderful and close family all living on a large family compound. He embraced his new family. Then the father-in-law died and everyone discovered that the father-in-law had run up huge debts and had mortgaged the farm where the extended family were living. Creditors were coming out of the woodwork, and my friend, who had other goals and plans suddenly had to save his wife, kids, her mother, her uncle, and her grandmother from eviction.
Another friend's father died when he was around 28 and he then discovered that his father had a whole family, siblings, an ex-wife, kids in the US.
What makes somebody an open book? Is it more being forthcoming with information unprovoked as a source of conversation, enlightenment, etc. or being forthcoming with information when asked directly or tangentially?
Is it possible to be an open book and still have unexplored corners of information?
- What makes somebody an open book?
I should circumscribe my comment above a bit by saying a person should be an open book if he or she is about to embark on an intimate relationship with me...at least that's my preference.
But it is not necessary to be open with everyone. Some people can ask questions that are mean or manipulative. Some people I wouldn't want to be open with -- but I would like to feel that I could tell you anything if it came up and you could tell me anything -- that you would hear what I say in the sense that it is intended, that you would be sympathetic, not judgemental. That you would not see my information as a threat to you. It's ridiculous talking in generalities like this -- I am thinking of specific people and specific situations.
I had a date with a man who seemed to have a lot of keys. When I asked him what they were keys to, he wouldn't tell me. This is the same man who said to me, "I want to see you, even if it has to be through bullet-proof glass."
But I digress.
People have secrets, often interesting secrets, often shameful secrets. The secrets might be none of our business, no matter how close we are. I wrote a blog on the question, "Are you an open book?" The blog is about a good friend and a mentor. A wonderful person. But not an open book.
Finally, I must stress that no matter how open, self-disclosing, and honest people are, there is an essential core of mystery in an interesting person that we can approach, but perhaps never know.
At the end of the filme My Dinner with André, André says this:
- "But have a real relationship with a person that goes on for years—well, that's completely unpredictable. Then, you've cut off all your ties to the land, and you're sailing into the unknown, into uncharted seas."
As a person who has cheated multiple times, and has also been in open relationships, and thus feels she has explored the subject at least a little more than average, I feel this article gives one very superficial and one very "understandable" reason for cheating. Maybe this is an article to humanize cheating. the cheater doesn't really want to cheat. The cheater is a female who feels guilty over her sexual promiscuity. The cheater is in a position in which it is easily understandable, for basically all sexes/genders/non-asexuals, that she cheat.
However, although this may be distasteful for most of the audience (for whatever reason : I suspect my objections are not everyone's) , it is only what is promised in the title. What did we expect? A cheater who is not apologetic. It just so happens that this portrait of an unapologetic cheater feels waaaaaaay more kinda-sorta-but-we-don't-like-it justified than those cheaters that arise out of nowhere in our relationships and our friends, in tide clearly wrong cases where no matter what, cheating wasn't okay.
Well, we're getting the vision of the bad guy here, to be sure. And they are probably really appreciating the fact that they get to tell their side of the story, whether or not they make it purposely biased to hide their motives or whether they are really honest in an attempt to take responsibility. Who are we to know?
For monogamous people, it is vital to find cheating in general reprehensible. To accept others breaking this norm threatens your own monogamous relationship. I wonder if that is why I do not like this article.
I wonder if it's because I just don't find the cheater ... guilty enough.
I wonder how this article would sound like from a man's perspective and if it would feel into the stereotype that men can be ... Not ashamed of such consequences. Would it feed into the trope that men who cheat are ubiquitous and unashamed? That would certainly appeal to a certain audience, many of which probably also read this article.
This is content produced for the masses that delivers exactly what it promises in its title, yet manages to (at least for me) kind of bother me. I guess it's successful. It's made me think about it long after I navigsted away from the page.
I guess I can't relate to this woman.
There's a lot more I think I'd like to say about this article when I'm not in a small screen but I AM saying that if I were dating a short haired blonde bartender in a very busy successful bar in NYC, and I was a "salt and pepper dude" who also didn't have sex with my gf a lot, I'd be very suspicious after reading this article. Maybe he doesn't read Maxim. Maybe all identifying details were changed, but if they're not, this lady is stupid. (Also, I hope dude doesn't have any friends that read Maxim, either.)
- that if I were dating a short haired blonde bartender in a very busy successful bar in NYC, and I was a "salt and pepper dude" who also didn't have sex with my gf a lot
I would like to register the opinion that regardless of this article ever having been written (and I haven't read it, probably won't), I'd still be a bit worried about the cheating aspect.