November 21, 2010

SKYE BLUE

Recently, I decided to tell an acquaintance of mine, a woman I’ll call Claire, about this blog and all the topics we’ve covered over the last year. For the record, Claire is someone I love talking to. Whenever she and I bump into each other (generally when our work lives throw us together) and we have a few moments to spare, we always take the opportunity to have a chat about whatever is on our minds.  Her family life, my life as a single girl, politics, race, religion, you name it. No topic is off limits for me and Claire. Her open, honest and thoughtful way of sharing her views on many subjects others shy away from, has been something I’ve always admired her for.

So, you can all imagine how shocked I was when my revealing the fact that I was one of the contributors for a blog that tackled issues like kink and polyamory (among other things) was met with disdain. For the first time since I met her (or at least that I can remember), Clarie’s voice took on a judgmental tone, and she said,

“Why would you want to write about that? There are so many more important things to discuss.”

When her question was met with a blank stare, she hurriedly explained that it wasn’t me, but that she really couldn’t understand why anyone would choose “those kinds of lifestyles”. All the while her body language and facial expression made it clear that she felt the people who did were depraved, repulsive, beyond misguided, and definitely far beneath her.

As I pretended to listen to her, I thought of my kinky in her 50s friend TWO, who had told me on more than one occasion how much she appreciated the fact that she could share her kinky side with me. Apparently, in TWO’s (and a host of other kinky people’s) experience the vanilla set was often more like Claire than me. I had always assumed TWO was exaggerating a bit. After all, I reasoned we both lived in a big and very cosmopolitan city, a place where no one else would care what fetish their neighbor was into, as long as he/she partook in it with other consenting adults. Most people couldn’t possibly be so closed minded about such things, right? But here I was sitting opposite Claire, who had somehow managed to wipe the sneer off her face, as she ran through her long list of reasons why choosing to be kinky, poly and/or a swinger (the last two camps were one and the same in her mind) was all kinds of unacceptable and “soooo gross”.

Soon after she finished her diatribe, I got up to leave, excusing myself by mumbling about some imaginary deadline I had to hustle to meet, and then quickly bid her adieu. As I walked away from her all I could think was if Claire, one of the most open minded (or so I thought) people felt that way, anyone could. And what was it about sex, in all its many weird, wonderful and varied forms that makes otherwise tolerant people so damn uncomfortable and judgmental?

In an effort to answer that question, this week we’ve decided to take a look at a few sexual and/or sexually related issues that are shrouded by stigma, rarely discussed openly and often judged by others. So, be sure to come back tomorrow. It’s bound to be an interesting week.

Until then,

SB

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