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Archives for October 2014

What Couples Can Learn From Gomez and Morticia Addams

October 31, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 32 Comments

I’m not a fan of love stories.

I realize this sounds odd coming from someone who teaches people how make others fall in love with them, but stay with me for a moment here.

The most famous, beloved love stories of all time all end in the death of one or both of the lovers. Tristian and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Oliver Barrett and Jenny Cavalleri, Jack and Rose, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, even modern books like John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars focuses on the tragedy of loss like a literary cheat code to make the love more poignant.

Oh, um... spoiler alert.
Oh, um… spoiler alert.

Meanwhile the love stories that don’t end in death tend to end with “and then they got together”. We get some final confirmation of their (implied) happily ever after – a wedding, an ironic repeat of dialogue from earlier in the story, something – and then the screen fades and the credits roll. It’s all very sweet… but we’re fetishizing the early days of love, when it’s all fresh and new and exciting. We rarely see a celebration of an old love – one that has withstood the test of time and has only been made stronger.

Which is why the love story I truly appreciate is the story of Gomez and Morticia Addams. When they were introduced to television the 60s they stood out in stark contrast from other couples – even ones in modern day sitcoms – as a pair who truly loved one another and have for a long time. In fact, whether in the 60s era sitcom or the movies from the 90s, Gomez and Morticia are, in many ways, the perfect couple… and many couples could learn how to make love last by following their example.

[Read more…]

Wednesday Open Thread – This Is Halloween Edition

October 29, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 127 Comments

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for the open thread. Today’s suggested topic: HALLOWEEN. So let’s talk about favorite Halloween memories, specials, activities and controversies. Are “Slutty $TYPE” costumes a pox on humanity or a way for people to express their sexuality? Do you go to haunted houses and do you prefer psychological horror or “jump out and yell boo” horror?

(Incidentally, the Walking Dead haunted house at Universal Horror Nights was kinda awesome. Not scary per se – it’s kinda hard to scare me personally if you’re going to jump out at me but can’t actually touch me – but so full of easter eggs and references that I went through the whole thing paying more attention to the set design than the scares.)

And of course:

Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are inherently superior to all Halloween candy except Kit Kat and Twix.

You know the rules. No hate, no trolls. Go.

What Do Your Secret Sexual Desires Say About You?

October 27, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 134 Comments

<This post originally appeared on Thought Catalog>

“Tell me how you want to fuck and I’ll tell you who you are.”

There’s a belief that, in order to be our true selves, we have to be exactly that person at every level. Consistency above all else must be maintained, lest we prove ourselves to be hypocrites – and surely there is nothing more despicable than to be a hypocrite, no? It’s a mortal sin. It calls everything about you into question – how can we trust anything you have to say when you’ve shown that you can’t be true to yourself?

And in the minds of many, there is no place where we are more honest, the most truly ourselves than when we have our hands down our pants.

It’s the fervent belief that who we are, deep down inside, is most accurately reflected by our libidos. Not in how we fuck or who but in the way we want to. We have a curious and – in many ways, antagonistic – relationship with our sexual desires. Sex, in many ways, defines who we are. Sex is communion. Sex is intimacy. Orgasm is le petite mort, the no-mind state in which our conscious shuts down and our inner self is open, revealed to the world. And so it makes sense – in its way – to believe that our deepest, secret selves are revealed by what goes on between our ears when it’s just us and our genitals, where nobody else can see.

There is always this desire to make sweeping judgements about people based on what they masturbate to. When 50 Shades of Grey became a runaway best-seller, suddenly there was thought-piece after thought-piece about “what it means about women”1 Oh sure, women may say they want equality and “nice guys”, but when so many women are getting the screaming thigh-sweats over Christian Grey, clearly it means that they just want alpha males to dominate them – am I right bro? Right? Damn straight I am. Bro-fist.

“Bitches, man.”

Similarly, people are very quick to demonize men on the type of porn they watch. Do they watch bondage porn? They have issues with women. Transexual porn? They’re probably gay and in denial. Do they watch cartoon porn? They’re freaks (or worse if it’s furry porn). Are they watching women getting “raped” or “degraded”? They’re would-be sex-criminals themselves.

In phantasiae, veritas.

But is it true?

I can’t keep track of the number of people who tie themselves in knots over how their sexual desires don’t directly line up with who they are in their day to day lives. They are literally terrified about what it means that they get off on these taboo fantasies – things they would never dream of doing in the real world, yet gets their dicks hard and their vajeens wet. And if they indulge in these fantasies – bringing them from the privacy of mental space into meat space – does it mean that their non-sexual life is a lie?

When the staunch radical feminist is constantly aroused by the fantasy of being taken – not seduced, but overpowered – by a brutish, powerful man, is this her subconscious telling her where her true feelings lie? Is it an indication of what women really want? Or for that matter, what does it say about the mild-mannered, respectful man who believes whole-heartedly in enthusiastic consent when his ultimate desire is to throw a woman against the wall and have his way with her? Or when his fantasies always seem to revolve around blackmailing or coercing an underling – his secretary, his maid, a student – into having sex with him? Are these the manifestations of an unconscious anger against women? The subconscious acknowledgement that all men want to dominate and control women? Does the woman who gets off to watching simulated date rape have a mental illness that needs to be treated? Is the man who watches Belle Knox choking during fellatio to the point of tears on FacialAbuse.com waiting for his opportunity to use and abuse an unsuspecting co-ed?

And what if those fantasies get even darker? Age play, extreme dominance and humiliation like pony-play, torture or even eroticized cannibalism? What do these sexual desires say about someone? Are you simply lying to yourself about who you really are?  What does it say when our sexual desires are so different that they disturb or scare us?

 

[Read more…]

  1. Especially when the real question is “why do so many people seem to be responding to objectively shitty writing?” [↩]

What We Talk About When We Talk About GamerGate

October 24, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 1,105 Comments

Back in August, I wrote about the ongoing harassment against Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, the then-latest attempts by the would-be gatekeepers of gaming culture trying to evict women from their formerly1 exclusive clubhouse.

Welcome to the Internet.
Welcome to the gaming community.

While it’s (depressingly) common to see outbursts like this bubble up from the underside of the Internet, it’s rare for it to last as long as the supposed Quinnspiracy has. These moments tend to be like the Internet equivalent of herpes – they flare up and make people miserable2 before fading away again – if only to erupt again later. Instead, it became an ideology.  The supposed Quinspiracy morphed into GamerGate – a movement (or a “consumer revolution” – pick one) that supposedly is all about purging the nebulous idea of “corruption” from gaming journalism.

If only that was what GamerGate was really about.

Last week, game developer Brianna Wu was chased from her home after GamerGate-ers threatened to rape and kill her. Anita Sarkeesian was forced to cancel a speaking engagement at Utah State University after another threatened to commit a “Montreal Massacre-style attack”.3

Even more people have found themselves subjected to relentless harassment and threats if they so much as even mention GamerGate online. It’s become the Internet equivalent of standing in front of a mirror and saying Beetlejuice three times – say the words and if you’re lucky, you’ll only be swarmed by sea lions. If not…

beetlejuice

In fact, as of my writing this, Felicia Day wrote a powerful piece about GamerGate and why the fear of retribution has kept her silent. Within an hour, she was doxxed.

feliciaday_GamerGate

And yet, we are told over and over again that GamerGate is about ethics, not hate. So which is it?

Let’s talk about what we’re really talking about when we talk about GamerGate.

[Read more…]

  1. Except it never has been… [↩]
  2. Yes, it’s an awkward metaphor. But like herpes, in the real world, people getting butthurt over, say, cultural criticism of video games would be a minor inconvenience instead of something capable of ruining people’s lives… [↩]
  3. The Montreal Massacre refers to Marc Lepine shooting 28 people at École Polytechnique, targeting women specifically. [↩]

Wednesday Open Thread: Your Crazy Fan Theories

October 22, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 65 Comments

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for the weekly open thread – the day when the readers take over the comments section to talk about anything and everything.

Today’s suggested topic: crazy fan theories. Sure, you could go with what’s just written on the page or shows up on the screen, but it’s the crazy (yet plausible!) fan theories about what’s really going on in the stories we love that makes them so much more enjoyable. My personal favorite is from the movie version of the Minority Report: everything that happens after Tom Cruises is captured is his brain trying to comfort him with pleasant hallucinations as he’s stuck in cryo-sleep forever.

So what’s your favorite crazy fan theory?

You know the rules: no hate, no spam, no trolling. Have fun!

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About Dr. NerdLove:

Harris O'Malley (AKA Dr. NerdLove) is an internationally recognized blogger and dating coach who gives dating advice to geeks of all stripes. Making nerds sexier since 20011

Remember: Dr. NerdLove is not really a doctor. [Read More …]

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