On Staci Newmahr's choices of language

Well, I am now on page 19 of Staci Newmahr's book, Playing On The Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk and Intimacy, and at least one of my issues/questions about her research (raised in my earlier post) has been answered, which is "why the use of 'SM' instead of 'BDSM'?"

Since I raised this specific question and find it dealt with concisely and in a self-contained manner, I will not wait until the end of the book to have my say on this one!

Newmahr writes:

I use the term "SM," instead of the newer and trendier "BDSM" which seeks to blur and subsume all SM activity under one overlapping acronym (Bondage/Discipline/Dominance/Submission/Sadism/Masochism).

I do not recognise the characterisation of BDSM as "blurring and subsuming", nor as "trendy". To me, "BDSM" avoids making invisible parts of the identity that are for some people more important than sadomasochism.

Newmahr writes that:

I have found the use of the term "BDSM" to engender some suspicion on the part of more veteran scene members. Additionally, in my experience, most people who use the term "SM" broadly are not excluding bondage, discipline, dominance or submission from their frame of reference, as evidenced by the context in which they use it, as well as by the activities in which they engage on a regular basis.

I am suspicious of any argument that "but X includes Y too!" Acknowledging that Newmahr is reporting on the usage and language within one specific community, I still feel that that this is not reflective of the way language has been used in communities I have frequented. It is worth noting that i would feel the need to "correct" someone who used "SM" when they meant what I mean by "BDSM" in general conversation. As noted above, and in my earlier post, I would feel as though the use of SM as the generalised term is making my kink and my identity "invisible" in the community. I don't care whether the usage includes my kinks under your label - I care about the fact that my kinks are not recognised in the label itself. I feel invisible. It is also worth noting that I have not, to my knowledge, encountered any such suspicion or reticence towards the term BDSM among veteran scene members in the UK (except a single discussion thread started by someone who asked why we needed the term BDSM when SM already existed), but maybe I have not been listening for it?

I had hoped that the answer would be based in relationship terms, perhaps based upon an observation that casual, public, play is less likely to be based around a long-term D/s dynamic and therefore that bondage and SM (my usage) are the focus of the book because it is focussed on the play scene. I am disappointed that it is instead based upon what I feel to be discriminatory language use and definitions.

Newmahr raises in her discussion of language another distinction, that I find intriguing, and hopefully that will be clarified later in the book:

I deliberately avid the perhaps more familiar term S&M, or "S and M," for two reasons. The separator "and" implies that SM activity hinges on two separate and distinct interests or practices, sadism and masochism. First, it is not my experience that these are in fact two distinct interests or practices among people who engage in these activities. Secondly, SM play may involve activities that are neither sadistic nor masochistic, in the clinical sense. The focus on the clinical dichotomy renders the term "S and M" less relevant to SM experiences that do not involve pain, bondage or humiliation.

Now, terminology is everything here. Since I only use "SM" to refer to sadism and/or masochism - specifically, the infliction or acceptance of pain as a source of sexual pleasure - Newmahr's second point seems utterly contradictory to me. But Newmahr uses "SM" to refer to all of BDSM. This lack of precision bothers me!

Newmahr's first point is really interesting to me. I identify as both sadist and masochist, and I call myself sadomasochist because of these two self-identifications. From my point of view, in my body and mind, sadism and masochism are absolutely different things, and "distinct interests and practices"! I need to know a LOT more about what Newmahr means by saying that sadism and masochism are not "separate and distinct". Every angle I have to approach the question leads me to conclude that there are clear separations and distinctions. Hopefully, this question will be resolved as I read the book.

Newmahr finishes discussion of language use in her book by choosing "top" and "bottom" as the terms to describe roles and "SM identities". I favour the term as the generalised version - as Newmahr notes, "sadist, "Dominant", "submissive" and "masochist" all have specialised meanings that do not always apply to an interaction within BDSM (or "SM" in Newmahr's usage). I was, however, surprised by this remark:

I would not subsume "master" and "slave" (also nouns) under the terms "top" and "bottom," for these terms in the community often refer to long-term and/or contractual relationships, or to identities understood as fixed, rather than as kinds of play

A few things leap out at me from this: the first is that "top" and "bottom" are here identified primarily as play roles, and not lifestyle/long-term roles (otherwise there would be no need for the distinction that Newmahr makes), and secondly that "dominant" and "submissive" are also not seen as potentially long-term relationships or as fixed identities.

Identifying as "naturally" or "orientationally" Dominant, I feel really unhappy about that. Bearing in mind that were I a part of the Caeden scene (instead of living in the UK and being part of a BDSM community here!), I would have been a peripheral person in Newmahr's research, due to not being inclined towards public play, I still feel troubled by it. The only way I can think around this is if this is talking purely about roles and not actually about people's identities. That way, it would make sense not to view them as fixed in my case (because I would be willing to play submissive for the occasional scene, even though I identify permanently and in a fixed way as Dominant). But, in the same was as my identity as Dominant is made invisible by being subsumed under the term "SM", such a treatment seems to ignore deeper personal identity in favour of roleplay identity, and ironically in that way would serve to make my self-identification as Dominant disappear.

For all that I am not really a part of any public play scene (let alone the specific scene in which Newmahr immersed herself!), and therefore maybe I have no right to expect to see myself (or more accurately, people like me) represented in Newmahr's work, I find it very bothering. After all, one big reason why I do not go to public play spaces is because I lack the means to get there and if I lived closer to the available venues, I might be more involved in that part of the local scene. And doing that would not change my self-identity or sense of who I am. So, I feel as though Newmahr's choices on language render me (or people like me) invisible.

My current reading project: Staci Newmahr's "Playing On The Edge"

I am very excited.   This morning, an Amazon package landed on my doormat, containing my copy of Staci Newmahr's Playing On The Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk and Intimacy.   I am very likely to spend a lot of my time over the next week or so ploughing through this book and will, without a doubt, have something to say about it either here or at And You Thought I Was Sweet (or both) once I have finished.   I already feel I have stuff to say, and I'm only on page 10, but I intend to finish the book and see if my mind changes as I go along about what I want to say.


I was not actually going to buy the book, but I thought I would make my final decision on whether or not to do so, after finally reading through the PDF file I had been sent about 2 years ago of Newmahr's paper "Becoming a Sadomasochist: Integrating Self and Other in Ethnographic Analysis", which was published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Volume 37 Number 5, October 2008. That paper appears to be a summary of the same research that Newmahr is covering in more extended form in this book. Basically, I thought that if the main points were covered in the paper and I did not see anything about which I wanted to read more of her thoughts, then I could happily save my money and leave my knowledge of the work at the level covered by the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography paper.

Obviously, since I decided to buy the book, there were things about which I wished to read more. (And it's not because the scene descriptions in the paper turned me on hugely, although they did!)

There was a huge "click" moment when I started reading, at which I thought "OMG she's writing about me!" She gets it!"

Then there came a sort of "reverse click" moment at which I realised that there were big differences between my lived experience and the reported findings that Newmahr presented. Newmahr spent years involved directly with the community she studied, so her experiences have to be considered as having some solid basis for interpretation, so I realised that I wanted to find out why I felt such a big difference between my interpretations of my lived experience, and her reported interpretation of her findings.

The most obvious possible explanations seem to be: 1/. simply that the US scene is different from the UK scene, and 2/. that I do not get involved in much public play so that it is not central to my experience of BDSM community the way it is to the community in Newmahr's research. On the first, I would dearly love to see similar research carried out in the UK, and in particular in different types of community - for instance, I expect there are huge differences between the London scene and the more dispersed "semi-rural" scene across my region, which is in a way peripheral to the London scene in that there is some overlap where members of this scene go to some of the major events such as fetish fairs and markets in London. There may also be differences between London and some of the other cities that have thriving communities.

On the second, I note that Newmahr, in a footnote to the JCE paper, says:

Following consideration that is beyond the scope of this paper, I am comfortable using the traditional “SM” rather than the newer term “BDSM” (Bondage/Discipline/Dominance/Submission/Sadism/Masochism) to refer to the public scene, as well as to all activities subsumed under it—that is, those that involve the consensual and conscious use of: pain, power, and/or perceptions of pain or power for mutual enjoyment.

[ETA: On page 14, Newmahr writes:

Because there is so little contemporary work on SM and its participants, it is crucial to note that my discussion of 'the scene' is not intended to be synonymous with 'people who like SM'. The scene in Caeden is a public, social network of people who observe and engage in SM in designated public spaces.

...

This book is not, on the whole, about SM as it happens in bedrooms or during private parties.

...

This analysis should not, therefore, be understood as applicable to other SM communities in a quotidian sense.

It remains to be seen whether I think this is the reason for my feeling, and whether there is mention of people who are peripheral to the "play" scene (i.e. who do not attend public play events, but do attend other gatherings).]

I notice the "public scene" is to be the focus of her research. (I am very curious to see if the book explains why "SM" was preferred to "BDSM"; because a huge part of my identification is D/s rather than SM, I am troubled by the apparent erasure implied here, even though the D/s element is acknowledged in the footnote).

As I say, I am only on page 10 (14 after the ETA above) (still in the introduction) and already have found statements and interpretations about which I wish to comment. No doubt the alert reader will have guessed that these are things that I find problematic as regards to how they relate to my identity and experience. However, if Newmahr develops the concepts and adds more nuance then it may be that my doubts will be answered directly by further comments in the book, so I will hold my tongue until I finish the book, and then say what I feel.

I Feel Like An Alien episode 1

There are some social situations or norms that completely pass me by or blindside me, leaving me feeling like I am from a completely different planet from the people around me.

A clear example came up recently and, even under analysis, it still has me bamboozled.

Over at Clarisse Thorn's "Ethical Pick-Up Artistry" thread, I have got into a discussion about the meaning and significance of "right now" in the context of "I’m not interested in a serious relationship right now." In the specific example, it was used by a man, but my reaction applies equally.

When or if I, personally, hear this phrase (or read it in a personal ad online),what happens is that the "not" fades and becomes less significant (as we're told NLP tends to work), and the "right now" becomes more significant.   I hear:

I’m (not) interested in a serious relationship right now.

Which effectively becomes, "I could be interested in a relationship with you at some point, and it could become serious even if it isn't now".

In my head, the phrase "right now" almost demands the question, "Okay, when?" and, while that would obviously be a tactless thing to say out loud, I would certainly be in a situation of thinking someone was available, if I played my cards right, and be thinking about how best to do that.

So in the context of PUA, I said that I felt that this was deceptive and leading someone on only to dump her later.

I was surprised when several people came back saying I had this one wrong.

Hugh Ristik:

I completely disagree. Actually, as far as norms go for people show relationship disinterest, his statement reads as pretty damn blatant.

Xakudo:

I agree with Hugh. I do not know how much more explicit you can get than to actually directly say, “I’m not interested in a serious relationship right now.”

I mean, really. If that does not communicate what he intended (i.e. the literal meaning of the sentence), then I have no idea what does.

Infra:

I’m inclined to side with Hugh and Xakudo when it comes to signaling that he had no interest in a relationship (though I’d differ from Xakudo in saying that there are clearer ways of saying it, such as “I’m not relationship material” — they’re just difficult to voice without introducing negative associations, given the image of male sexuality as exploitative).

I found myself completely thrown by all this.

Two further points came up in their comments:

Hugh Ristik:

As the Kitzinger research found, people have trouble making direct and explicit refusals, and one refusal strategy is “not now” to make a permanent refusal. As you point out, there was potential for “no means yes,” but interpreting his resistance as “token” was done at her own risk. She took the risk, and she struck out. But if someone sets a boundary, and you push it, that’s often what happens.

...

As Kitzinger suggests, people shouldn’t have to voice an explicit and permanent “no” to be understood as refusing, and this principle applies to emotional boundaries, not just women’s sexual boundaries.

All of which is undeniably true, inasmuch as a person interprets it as resistance at all, but as discussed above, that phrase "right now" turns "no" into "maybe if you're lucky" on a deep level in my brain. The absurd thing is, I will understand quite clearly a lot of more subtle, implicit "no"s (some of them not even meant that way) - maybe because I'm used to rejection and "expect" it, so I am on the look out for the "no".

Infra spotted something else of concern:

Something was bothering me about your interpretation, but it took me a bit to put my finger on it. It’s this: adding the “right now” qualifier is, in the main, the only honest way to make the statement as a way of describing the speaker, as distinct from describing a goal. To say that this is open-ended is to say that the speaker’s life is open-ended, but still has the qualities that it has in the present, and I fail to see how that’s a bad thing.

It might not be the kind of explicit statement that would set fully defined limits to what can and cannot occur, especially over time. But instead of this being unclear, a neg, playing hard to get, etc. — isn’t this one of the main ways in which we acknowledge and communicate our humanity?

To be honest, I can't quite appreciate the positions being taken in this comment because to me, another person's humanity is taken as read from the off, and it's communicated in so many other ways. I also can't see why "right now" changes the focus from "goal" to "speaker". To me, both statements "I'm not interested in a serious relationship" and "I'm not interested in a serious relationship right now" describe the speaker's relationship to the goal of "a serious relationship". The first one says to me that it is not a current goal of the speaker; the second one says to me (as outlined above) that it is not the primary goal of the speaker, but that zie is open to persuasion.

In amongst those interpretations, the astute reader may have spotted that I said "I am not looking for a serious relationship" to me was not a universal, permanent rejection: I used the qualifier "currently". Another underlying thing for me is that it carries the unspoken words, "with you", so that it can be either "I'm not looking for a serious relationship with you", or "In the time frame we're talking about, I am not looking for a serious relationship." This is the assumed humanity of the speaker in my mental approach, as opposed to the explicitly signalled humanity that Infra suggests is going on.

I spent some time trying to rephrase the statement, and I realised hat it is actually quite hard not to want to put some kind of vague time-related clause on the end. So I started to think about what sort of clause of that type would signal to me, personally, that I have no chance of getting something longer-term out of a hook-up.

"Right now", as discussed, is no good. "At the moment", "for the time being", and so on all have the same issues for me as "right now". "At this stage" would be even more perilous because that would say to me "until I know you better", and that would make me think I really had a chance!

Eventually, I hit upon "...at this stage in/of my life" as a good one, because it carries strong implications of a long-term ongoing situation. "Any time soon" was another one that I think would work.

The other way to make the equivocation I hear in "right now" disappear is to make the immediate goals explicit: "I'm not interested in a serious relationship right now, so please understand this is strictly short-term."

At which point, I know where I stand. Since at my current stage of life, I definitely am interested in a serious relationship, I might very well decide at this point that the answer is "thanks, but no thanks" (although short-term sex-centred relationships are not completely ruled out for me).

But yeah - the way my mind works, which seems to be alien to the ways of the other commenters @ the PUA thread, "right now" is dangling the prospect in front of me and leading me on. I would feel used if someone did that to me.

Sex-pos sex ed has to start young

(Via Blue Milk and Womanist Musings)

Airial Clark, writing at Good Vibrations Magazine, describes how she has had to combat her 11 year old son learning Slut-Shaming on the Playground.

The whole piece is awesome and quite frankly, I feel as though educators could learn a lot from this example. Here's a little taster, but the best bit is further along in the piece:

This is where it gets interesting for me as a sex positive parent. My son just went from wishing he was sexy to shaming a girl for being just that? I rolled up my sleeves and got ready to do some unpacking.

“Um, so what about the boys she is kissing, should they be ashamed too? She’s not kissing herself…”

I do not feel I have anything to add (not yet a parent, and besides, Airial's post is pretty self-contained and has everything). I'm mainly posting this to do what little I can to boost the signal and get this piece of awesomeness heard by a few more people if possible.

I'll leave you with Airial's closing remarks:

I don’t want to raise a hypocritical judgmental misogynist. Which means I have to have these conversations with him NOW, not when he’s 21 and in college.

I’m learning that what goes down in the dorm room starts on the playground. And mama ain’t havin’ it.

The more deeply we allow attitudes like slut-shaming to become embedded in a young person's mind, the harder they are to extract even partially.

Things that annoy me on women's dating site personal ads

This kind of follows on from my previous post on dating, PUA and "standards", but is much more personal, is much more rant-y, and as such is much more likely to offend someone. I am not making political statements here, I am simply reporting my personal reactions (which I distinguish from "responses", which are the behaviours I actually exhibit). These are things that tend to rule me out of their dating pool, and I (with, no doubt, a dose of socialised sexism/entitlement underlying some of them) react internally to these statements. Some things do not draw this type of reaction from me, even though they just as effectively rule me out ("I only date men with blue eyes" wouldn't bother me, for example, even though mine are brown - I might think it an odd restriction, but hey, YKIOK!)

Without further ado, then, the unfiltered, awful truth about what happens in my brain when reading personal ads:

1. Smoker! It's irrational, but this is a self-indulgent, self-centred post, so there it is. My reaction is nearly always "Hmm, maybe the reason you're still single is that YOUR BREATH STINKS LIKE AN ASHTRAY!" I hate smoking, and anyone who smokes near me. In a spirit of YKIOKIJNMK, I've no objection to people smoking in the privacy of their own homes, or even having smoking-themed nights every so often at clubs or pubs, but keep it in private between consenting adults, okay? Yes, my rant-y reaction is irrational and not in keeping with that YKIOKIJNMK principle, but damn, it annoys me that so many people advertising on dating sites seem to be smokers! So it feels good to (in the privacy of my own mind, etc) let it all out...
2. On OkCupid, women who answer "Have you ever had a sexual encounter with a person of the same sex?" with "No but I would like to" but have said that this is NOT an acceptable answer from the person she's looking for (guess what answer I've put...). So I'm supposed to be okay with you fooling around with a bit of bi-curious lesbian games, but if I want to get bi-curious with a bloke it's beyond the pale? WTF? I'm not willing to date a hypocrite! Or is it just that in your eyes it only counts as sex if there's cock involved? But that kind of heteronormative sexist thinking also is a non-starter with me.
3. "I want someone to treat me like a princess". I'm anti-monarchy, communist and revolutionary. Traditionally, people like me treat princesses (and other royalty!) by chopping their heads off or else putting them up against a wall and shooting them. Sure, if that's your kink, go with it, but probably it isn't and you might want to reconsider the messages you're sending out? (This one doesn't actually have to rule me out as a potential partner, as such - but it just really winds me up!)
4. "I like my men taller than me, and I wear heels so you better be TALL". I'm 5'10" which is not bad (though usually declared as not tall enough by the specifics of the "TALL" descriptor), and sometimes I wear heels too. But somehow I suspect that this is not considered an acceptable solution. One personal ad actually stated it explicitly, "Only I wear the heels!" Since that basically puts my more genderqueer expressions as unacceptable, it certainly ruled me out for her.
5. "I'm looking for an ambitious man". I am ambitious, I have LOTS of ambitions, in fact - but none of them revolve around taking home a big paycheque, which is what I always suspect to be the unspoken element of this request. If you're judging someone by what's in their wallet, then you're not a very pleasant person in my opinion, and certainly won't get on well with me (whether I'm loaded or, as is usually the case, skint).
6. Expecting perfection, a mind-reader and demanding instant chemistry. (Especially on BDSM personal ads - I intend to talk about this more when I do my "problems with M/f BDSM" post).   Nobody's perfect (and the wise know their own imperfections), and no one can read another's mind (though they may often make perspicacious guesses!) "Instant chemistry" to me simply means "judging a book by its cover".

Hate me for being honest, if you must - the sentiments expressed here are perhaps not fully what you might expect from a feminist blogger, and as I acknowledged in my preamble, at least some of these and the motivation behind them will stem from internalised sense of entitlement and all that horrible stuff. But equally, I know my standards and the lines I won't cross just for the hint of teh seks. When I come across any of the lines above, my reaction stays private, I respond by simply moving on to the next profile without looking back.

Standards, PUA and dating - some thoughts

I have been reading, and occasionally engaging in, Clarisse Thorn's recent post/discussion thread about "ethical pick-up artistry", the OP of which included some links to some of the less offensive PUA resources available online.

Among these resources is an explanation by Hugh Ristik of some of the assumptions made by PUA. I want to respond in particular to one of these, and indirectly to some of the concepts raised in comments @ Clarisse's thread. Hugh writes:

I am going to outline what I think some of the main assumptions in the community are, in plain language rather than in seduction jargon. Some of these premises can be seen in this video. These are not all of the important ideas in the seduction community, and not everyone in the community believes all of them, though most people in the community believe most of them.

1. The vast majority of heterosexual women are sexually attracted to charismatic, socially-skilled, and dominant men of higher social status. These qualities are even more important in attracting women than money and looks. The vast majority of women are not attracted to men who display shyness, weakness, insecurity, obsession, hesitance, neediness, desperation, or obsequiousness.

I am something of a nervous wreck. I have a saying that, "I know I'm going to worry, so when I am worrying it doesn't worry me that I am worrying". I can say "I am jittery about this, but I knew that I would be and I can see that it is not time to panic, so I will ride with it".

I am vulnerable. I am emotional. I can be hurt, and I will not hide it (much). I am "weak". I suffer from depression.

When I met SNS in London for a first date, we decided we would cross the Millennium Bridge to go to the Tate Modern. As we approached the bridge, I confessed to her that I was not sure if I would be able to make it across. I suffer from acrophobia, and footbridges in particular really set it off. I was plain with her - "I may need your help to get through this". I got very close to a panic attack but I did make it on my own, although knowing she was there to support me if I needed it helped. I knew that she was a real "catch" because of how she accepted my needs.

I am vulnerable, and weak, and nervous. But I don't hide from these things. Fear and pain are old friends, I know them and embrace them and accept them for what they are. They are no longer external, controlling influences but a part of me and my armoury. I am afraid and feeble and easily hurt, but I still stand up whenever I can and face the hard things in the world. I am the Snowdrop face-to-face with Winter. And I am in control.

I will not play games of traditional performative masculinity where I have to cover these things up, hide from them and pretend they do not exist. If I have to do those things, I lose. Only someone who can accept me as I am, who can see not my problems but the way I deal with them, is worth my while. If me being emotional, and being okay with showing that, is a problem for you, then I am better off not being with (or, indeed, around) you.

I am soft and kind. That is part of who I am. And I am fierce, and will defend with steel (usually metaphorical steel!) my right to be as soft and kind as I choose.

I have weaknesses, but that does not make me weak.

I am sensitive, but that does not mean that I will break down.

I am worried and afraid, but that does not mean that I lose my nerve.

I hurt, and I cry, but that does not mean I cannot stand on my own two feet.

Ironically, some of the underlying methods of pick-up artistry, either directly discovered through them or developed before that on my own, give me the power and confidence to make these statements, to stand on them and to say, "This is who I am. These are MY conditions for being compatible with ME. This is what I want." I will not play by the scripts of PUA, because to do so would be to betray the positive elements that I think can be gleaned from PUA (the discussion of which seems to be the point of Clarisse Thorn's post and discussion thread), and would be to betray myself in the process.

More and more, I am coming to view HJNTIY as being a "cookbook" for women to expect PUA-style responses from men and to reject those who do not conform to those scripts. In those terms, however, it did give one good piece of advice that I have adopted:

Reset Your Standards:

“Let's set a dignified bar for you to exist at. Let's put you in charge of how it's going to go next time.

“A standard is setting a level for yourself of what you will or won't tolerate... Make sure you know what you stand for and what you believe in.”

Here's a few of the standards I have set for myself:

• Measuring "worth" (mine or anyone else's) by financial power or "status" means we are not compatible.
• Playing "consent" games (e.g. expecting me to push past an initial 'no') means we are not compatible.
• I am a helpful person by nature. This does not in any way interfere with my level of masculinity or dominance. "Compliance test" games mean that you are asking me to be other than myself. That is too high a price to pay.
• Judging me by my "issues", rather than on how I deal with them, means we are not compatible.

Doing any of these things will make me angry and contemptuous of you, and you will see it and hear it.   It will also mean that if you reject me as "failing" on any of those counts, then I win.

(Also, I'm assuming for these purposes that kinks are sufficiently compatible, or else will be disclosed at a later date so I'm not worrying about them at the time, and that political views do not clash too heavily - e.g. strong right-wing opinions, or any overt "isms" will be a big problem)

Last thing - today I found Suzy Bogguss' album Something Up My Sleeve, and the song "Take It Like A Man" had the following lyrics that I thought were great:

You won't come to me so tonight I'll come to you
If I give my love to you like a woman can
Will you take it like a man?

That's the approach to take with me!

On the bumpy road of writing

Regular readers here will know that I am slowly but surely working my way through writing a SF/F serial called "Cyborg Sleeps", which is basically appearing as a first draft published straight to the blog. I like the ideas in the story but I am not attached enough to think it worth polishing and trying to sell, so you just get to see the world as it springs into being.

However, I also have another novel on the go (I think Cyborg Sleeps will be novel-length even if I don't treat it as a novel per se in terms of doing a proper job of writing it). This other novel (working title "Not To Choose") is intended to be a Serious Work of Fiction, and I dream of it one day being published. It has been on the back burner for a year or more, but in reading through the writers' tips at the Erotic Readers & Writers Association (particularly those by Louisa Burton and Donna George Storey) has stirred my juices and reminded me that I do actually want to finish this thing some day, and to do that I need to write something today (and tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on...).

So right now, I want to talk a few things more or less at random, some inspired by what I've read elsewhere and some just musing on my own approach to writing.

One of them (mentioned by Storey in particular) is unruly characters. These are characters whom you create, give a storyline to follow and then you put them into your scene and they do something different from what you expected or planned.

For instance, Asira Y in Cyborg Sleeps was supposed to make friends with Bena Wainwright when Bena came to visit her in the hospital bed (potential TW, I guess, for discussion of sexual assault, although I didn't put one on the post when I wrote it originally). But I realised as I wrote the scene that actually, Asira was not going to play ball. She was going to be rude, dismissive and offensive. That was not the direction the story was supposed to go and I have spent a lot of the following segments working the two of them back around so that they can be friends and follow the damn story plan! As it happens, I think that probably makes for a better story overall, what with it meaning I have to work in more depth on the characters and their development arc. (It does mean I have lost Bena's original motivation for seeking the friendship, though).

In "Not To Choose", however, something rather more awkward has happened, because my characters between them jumped ahead a couple of chapters. As I was reaching the end of a scene I suddenly saw that the two of them at that moment were going to go right ahead and take the step that was not supposed to happen yet (and no, it was not jumping into bed with each other). That meant that the next scene was how that came about. As it happened, it was not going all the way that I had planned for the scene to do when it turned up later, but it means that the plot has moved along further and it feels like there's a bit of slack left over because other stuff was supposed to develop in the meantime. It makes the next "natural" progression in the plot harder for me to figure out because the pieces aren't in quite the right order any more.

Characters can be awkward beggars when they do their own thing! But it is also rather gratifying when they come to life, because it feels like I have actually created something and not merely narrated it.

***

One thing that bothers me a little about my writing style is that I find a lot of plot happens inside people's heads. For example, in the aftermath of the contretemps between Bena and Asira mentioned above, a lot of the new plot line I devised to work them back round to each other involved them processing the event in their individual ways, and then new events are causing them to reflect on it further until they eventually come around to see the other's point of view and, while tension still exists, they choose to be friends after all.

I think I write that way because it is how I experience life in general, the way my internal monologue works. It sometimes feels like I do so much more when I am on my own and in my own head, and then I come back to the next interactions with people with a new perspective. So my characters sometimes do the same, sitting and thinking about stuff, mulling it over and coming to a new realisation that progresses their story arc and the overall plot. I don't know how to "show" that. To me, it would make no sense just to have weird about-faces or whatever with no explanation, but if I concentrated on external events then I have no idea how else it could appear!

In "Not To Choose", I have actually started out writing it in a sort of "Dual 1st Person" point of view, switching between the two main characters so that I can explain what's going on in their heads (this was inspired in part by the style of Dave Gorman's book, "Are You Dave Gorman?", co-written with his friend). A good friend who has some experience with critical reading of manuscripts pointed out that in "Not To Choose", I was effectively using it as a cheat to tell rather than show. I am sticking with the weird POV for the time being, and calling this my "Discovery Draft" in which I try to ride in the heads of my characters to see what is going on for them as the events unfold. That way, when I write the proper draft I can write it in 3rd Person but I'll know what's going on well enough to show instead of tell (that's the hope anyway - I think I can already see how it will work on some scenes).

***

As already hinted, I like to have some idea of where I'm going with my story before I set out. I am by nature more what Burton calls a "Pre-planner" than not (evidence is there in the floor plans of the central characters' home in Not To Choose, for example!) I know where all the little bits of Cyborg Sleeps are leading, how they will end up coming together and what I want to happen when they do. Everything that has happened so far in that story (including in the bits I have written but not yet posted) happens for a reason that builds towards the grand finale. Likewise, in Not To Choose I know at each point where I need to be heading next (although I am not always certain how I am going to get there - and since my characters just took a short-cut I may need to revise the map somewhat!)

The annoying thing is that sometimes there are bits I want to get to ahead of time. Storey wrote about doing it that way (also where I got the term "Discovery Draft" for my initial version of Not To Choose), but I lack the confidence to try that. I always feel as though I am going to trip myself up because something unexpected might have happened on my way up to that point and then the wonderful scene I wrote will have to be totally trashed and redone in the edit/redraft stage to make it all fit, and then I will be sad. There are at least three scenes of this nature in Not To Choose, and a couple in Cyborg Sleeps, but in each case crucial details will depend on stuff that has to unfold before then, and I don't want to have to force stuff together with a crowbar and mangle it all. After all, if my characters suddenly jump ahead a chapter or two all on their own, who knows what other deviations they may introduce that readjust the basis of the critical scenes? Besides, I treat it as motivation to get through the other bits and make those as exciting as possible so I'm really ready to go at it when the big moments arrive!

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. In the erotic D/s story I posted at (NSFW & TW for BDSM, violent sex and suchlike words and images) And You Thought I Was Sweet, "Switching Her Gift", I started with what I thought was a simple idea and no plan at all, but the arc and the ideas just kept coming and it snowballed into an 11k+ not-so-short story.

***

One thing I have often felt is that I think I am not cruel enough to be a good writer. Stories work because of conflict and tension, and that means ultimately, because someone is not happy. But I like my characters and I want them to be happy. I don't want to put them through horrible crises. Having said that, the stuff I have already done to Asira was pretty horrible. Maybe it means I'm getting better? Or maybe I just hadn't grown attached to her enough at that stage of writing.

I already know that I am going to have some terrible wrenches when I get to certain points in Not To Choose because for the story to work, I have to be very nasty indeed (oddly, one of those points is also one of the points that I really want to get to quickly).

***

So there you have it, some random rambling thoughts about the writings that I am concocting at the moment.

Ranty reply to Quiet Riot Girl on "faggy MRAs and faggy feminists"

After some thought, I've decided to preface this with a trigger warning for what I see as advocacy of nonconsensual sexual activities in a quoted passage from Quiet Riot Girl.

Quiet Riot Girl this week wrote a post about the "gender war" between MRAs and feminists, titled The Rite Of Faghood And Fagly Feminists. Frankly, I feel the title was the best bit, and even that annoyed me. The rest, well, it's made me really quite cross indeed.

I'm writing here pretty much to make a point, which is that QRG complained of being "banned" by Clarisse Thorn when Clarisse asked her to take her tone down a notch and perhaps be a bit less directly offensive in her criticisms of feminism on what is, after all a feminist blog. Well, another recent post by QRG says:

Sometimes I am too soft on people who like to have a go at me and dismiss my views and frankly insult me personally, Online (and also in ‘RL’).

But I am toughening up.

I do not censor people on my blog. I publish all comments unless they are persistently aggressive, personal attacks.

...

But show some respect ok?

Which to me sounds just like what Clarisse was asking for QRG to do. I don't know if QRG would consider what I have to say here to constitute an attack that is "persistently aggressive" or "personal" (I doubt she would, actually) but I do feel as though now I am unable to be as open and free at QRG's place as I would like, in much the same way as QRG complained of being stifled (or even banned!) at Clarisse Thorn's place. I have a thing about hypocrisy, have done since I was very small.

Personally, I could scarcely care less if someone feels stifled or silenced or banned by my comments policy, they are free to respond to me in the same manner as I now respond to QRG.

Anyway, after that lengthy preamble, on to the main show (which is probably now shorter than the preamble!)

So I was a little bit amused when I saw that a very vociferous young feminist blogger had been in contact with a MRA group, called, hilariously, Rite Of Manhood. I thought I would share her response to them with you:

Forty Shades Of Grey :: Rite Of Manhood

At the end of her post she writes, beseechingly:

‘I would also like to encourage everyone, especially Rite Of Manhood to read this excellent post from The Good Men Project, which explains why the solution to most MRA problems is actually more feminism.’

That’s it! The solution to most MRA problems, in fact to MOST PROBLEMS full stop, is MORE FEMINISM!

If that is the solution, I think we are in big trouble folks.

The way in which I think MRAs and feminists are the most similar, is how they are both so into the power of the COCK. Yes. I truly believe that ... [they are] just really rather faggy.

Maybe one way to sort this whole thing out would be for the feminists and the MRAs to take it in turns at a bit of manly sodomy. The feminists can strap one on, and do the MRAs up the arse, and then they can get down on their feminist knees and suck some MRA cock. And then they can bend over and take it like… a man.

And then. And then we might get somewhere with all this ‘gender war’ crap.

Well, I'm someone who suggests more feminism as the solution to men's problems. Know why? Because men are the cause of men's problems, typically. I identify as feminist precisely because of all the good things that feminism does for men, if we would but listen and take hold of them. The problem with MRAs is that they want gender war instead of cleaning up their own house first. It becomes apparent that they are more interested in keeping women form having rights than in ensuring that men get better ones.

Actually, what I want is not for feminists to do it for men, but rather for men to sort themselves out and stop teaching other men, and the next generations of men, to be "real men", and instead set each other free by refusing to police each other's gender performance (which goes hand-in-hand with motives to end misogyny and misandry). That's something men can only do for themselves and unfortunately, the very opposite of what MRA groups typically tell men to do.

Of course, keeping men in line is not restricted solely to men doing it - for example, all your talk of "fag" this and "fagly" that and "faghood" the other frankly smacks of gender policing to me. I'm not clear on whether you're trying to police it back to the harsh binary, or if you're trying to police it to something in the middle that everyone should be (the "faghood" of your title, perhaps?), but either way it's not helping and makes you just another faction like the ones you outlined above.

Again, your comments are treating feminism as a single monolithic entity and frankly, I feel as though you have already decided what "feminism" is saying and then it doesn't matter what is actually said, you respond as though a feminist said what you expected to hear.

Finally, suggesting anal rape as a solution to the gender war? And you claim that "rape culture" doesn't exist? Come on! If you really want to police everyone into "fag gender", then frankly I see no difference between your suggestion of enforced sodomy and fellatio to end gender war, and the current practice that some men around the world have, of "corrective rape" to "cure" lesbians of their lesbianism. And if you don't, then frankly, I can't see what on Earth would make you think that sodomy would have any effect whatsoever on the power structures of the world, or on the politics of the survivors of your rape-y scheme. Or was it just a vicious fantasy of vengeance on two groups you happen not to like? (In which case, I can at least share the violent sentiments of the fantasy, as long as it's understood to be ONLY fantasy. BTW, did you envisage the two sides offering each other reach-around?)

As it happens, I'm probably one of the more eager men in the world to try taking it up the arse from a strap-on (Incidentally, I don't think this makes me "fagly" either, and I would thank you not to erase my complex sexuality with your (and Mark Simpson's) dogma) - but even that doesn't mean I'll bend over for just anyone (particularly not a "radfem" of the type you seem to believe forms all of feminism). And no way I'm spreading my cheeks for a MRA dick either.

I would say, "Fuck you, Arsehole" but since that's what you were apparently advocating, it seems somewhat inappropriate in this context!

Fetlife phantasm

I have been pondering for the last couple of days Maymay's invective against Fetlife, the vast social-networking service dedicated to all things kink, BDSM and fetish oriented. And then some of the kneejerk reactions and Maymay's replies to them.

Maymay makes a number of key points in the speech/presentation he gave at a recent KinkForAll event. I've attempted to summarise them here (but to get the full detail, it's a good idea to go watch the video @ Maymay's, or read one of the transcripts in various formats he's provided).

1. Fetlife creates a "kink ghetto" online, allowing the rest of cyberspace to become a sexuality monoculture (specifically, a kink-free, largely heterosexual, dominant space for the dominant "way of being").
2. This is because of Fetlife's blocking of search engines, which means you have to be on Fetlife to find out about anything that is on Fetlife.
3. Blocking search engines as creating a "safe space" for kinky folks is ineffective, because of the lack of privacy controls within Fetlife, meaning that the main protection from human malice is the idea that those who hate kink will not be willing to associate themselves with a site like Fetlife, even for the purposes of gathering information on people within Fetlife.
4. Fetlife's false sense of security for kinksters presents a threat to kinky folks.
5. Therefore, Fetlife should seek to develop further by implementing "granular privacy", by which I understand user-controlled levels of visibility for posts, pictures etc.
6. If user-defined levels of privacy are used to allow people to be "open" (that is, visible to search engines) then this also breaks down the walls of the ghetto.
7. Fetlife's ubiquity means that kinky people are using it as a single, centralised place for all things kink, and not posting their ideas outside of Fetlife as much
8. This is risky because it makes the kink community more vulnerable to technological attack
9. It also exacerbates the effect of Fetlife being closed to search engines and creates problems for the wider kink (lack-of) community.
   • Useful information is hard to find, especially from outside of Fetlife, unless you already know it exists
   • Finding out about kinky sexuality and that you're not the only one who likes [X] is that much harder unless you already know about Fetlife.

From personal experience, the effect of the "walled garden" structure of Fetlife was that I would never have found it by my own efforts. I did find it, but only because I had found other kink social sites first, and then as Fetlife began to grow, people there started linking their Fetlife profiles in the assumption that others would also be members (I assume). Not knowing from the outside what Fetlife was like or designed to do, I was hesitant to join. Other sites allowed me to browse as a guest, dipping my toes in the water before taking the plunge and signing up myself. But I would always get the "Sorry my friend, you need to be logged in to view that page" message (which also annoyed me - WTF do they think gives them the right to call me their "friend"? I'm a member now, and I don't consider the site or its designers "friends", let alone before I joined!) So the "walled garden" actively serves to keep people out of kink, or at least, out of awareness of kink (even when they themselves are kinky).   It also serves to keep kink within its bounds and out of the way of "proper" folk so that they won't be disturbed by the differentness.

Some people piping up to defend Fetlife from Maymay's criticisms talk about how great it is to have a "safe space", and what a great tool it is for kinky people ("so leave off, alright?" is the subtext I hear there...)   But for me, Fetlife is no such thing.   Now, I noticed that one criticism levelled at Maymay was that he was effectively saying, "I hate social media. I am kinky. Felife is kinky social media, therefore I hate Fetlife." (A ridiculous accusation to make against Maymay!) I don't hate social media, but I sure as heck have a few problems with certain types of it.

Fetlife is self-consciously modelled in part after the biggest social media networks - Facebook especially.   There are several reasons why I am not on Facebook, and concerns about privacy and technological issues are only a part of that.   From what I see of how it is used, I feel like Facebook would not be a very useful space for me to be in because it seems to be geared towards the gregarious, which I most definitely am not.   I am pretty strongly introverted in character, I am shy, and tend to withdraw in large social groups.   My experience of Fetlife is that I find myself suffering from these same issues, and I would say that of all the kink social sites I have joined, I find Fetlife the most difficult to use.

Fetlife is not the only kink social media network of its type to which I belong.   In the region where I live, the munch organisers set up a group and a few years ago upgraded the website into a more interactive social media site, that I naturally joined.   Even though I know a fair proportion either online or in real life of the people who are members there, I still have the same problems in miniature as I do with Fetlife.

The best analogy I can think of is that these sites feel like stepping into a vast room full of groups of people all talking at the same time.   Not only that, but lots of them are giving slideshows or presentations with projectors, there are random light sources, lots of noise, there's a big bustle as people seem to move quite confidently from one discussion to another.

This is not my safe space.   This is a nightmare for me!   In real life in such a space, I feel a physical sense of being crushed under the weight of it all.   In online spaces when I find such a space, I just feel bewildered and unsure of where to go, what to look at, how to find anything.   In both cases, I am turned away by my own mental and physical reactions to the space.   I crawl away and curl up in a corner on my own.   There's a reason why I call this blog my own "safe space", and it's not entirely to do with the fact that I can control what comments I want to let through.   This is my little corner where I do not feel overwhelmed.

Now, there is a group on Fetlife called "Kinky-Ass Introverts" of which I am, naturally, a member.   but I had no idea it even existed or how to find it in the hubbub of Fetlife, until I saw an alert saying that one of my friends had joined it.   With over 25,000 groups, and several groups with over 10,000 members, I can't cope.   Far from being a great tool, for me Fetlife is an obstacle course.   It's a haystack/needle exercise.   Now, if I know exactly what it is I want to know, the search function will probably find it for me, but in terms of being social?   Fetlife doesn't work for me.   It feels instead like "Clique Central" (quite the opposite of the "diverse" community many of its defenders claimed). Sure, you can find any kink you like, but that in itself does not make diversity or multiculture, if they do not intermingle well.   And again, in each subsection you will also find cliques, the "in-group" as opposed to the "out-group".   Fetlife feels like cliques and ghettos almost on a fractal structure!   (And, of course, I lack any talent for getting into any "in-group" - if I ever have, it was by luck alone that I made it!)

And that leads to another issue Maymay raised, as he records in his follow-up post:

[...W]e’ve recreated the same privilege hierarchies apparent in the overculture, as discussed by prior commenters; trans people remain a minority who are frequently bashed, rape apologism is frustratingly common in the groups discussing legal issues, and so forth. In other words, shit rolls downhill. FetLife groups essentially function as ghettos-within-a-ghetto, only they’re worse because they’re not actually technically capable of being "cordoned off" within the FetLife walled garden, and are thus even less protected from the hostile mainstream of the fetish community (yes, the mainstream fetish culture is hostile to its own fringes).

Now, because I interact very lightly with Fetlife, I haven't had much chance to observe first-hand this kind of thing going on there, but I have seen it happen in a few other kink social sites and I try to raise a dissenting voice when I see it (I'm not the only one who does, thankfully). But the sheer size of Fetlife makes me suspicious that the anti-trans, rape-apologism, etc "signal" there is much stronger relative to the "noise" of dissenting voices. And the feeling of "in-group/out-group" social structures also makes me wary and inclined towards the idea that it will be a bigger problem there.

***

I frequently mull over what would be a better structure in general for social media oriented around introverted folks and to give us, instead of the extroverted, the best experience available (if you will, an "anti-social media network"!). I haven't quite come up with a plan yet for what would work, although I am sure there must be a way to do it.   (Maybe I'll get around to asking for ideas on Kinky-Ass Introverts?)

Impossible is *something*

This sort of thing really annoys me:

(From Brooke @ The Guppy Fish via You're Terrible, Muriel)

Image text:

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given, than to explore the power they have to change it.   Impossible is not a fact.   It's an opinion.   Impossible is not a declaration.   it's a dare.   Impossible is potential.   Impossible is temporary.

Impossible is nothing.

It annoys me because it's bullshit.   It annoys me because it reeks of privilege, of snobbery, of victim-blaming, of "boot-strap" economics and "ethics", of looking down on others.

It annoys me because some things are impossible, regardless of how strongly you want them not to be.

I saw a post recently (and at present I seem to be unable to find it again to give proper credit) written by a person with disabilities, ranging about the privileged outlook of a friend of hers who believed that everything is just a matter of willpower, and thinking something so will make it so.   A version of the, "you can overcome anything if you put your mind to it!" attitude.   And of course, this comes across as an implicit criticism of PWD if they don't just think themselves able to walk/see/hear /whatever their difference from the norm may be.

I'm in a warpath-y kind of mood right now.   So, let's take the above, line-by-line, and I'll show you why each line angers me, why each line sends waves of revulsion down my spine at the privilege and victim-blaming that's going on here.

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given, than to explore the power they have to change it.

The underlying assumption in this, the thing that really bugs me, that annoys me, and that shrieks of victim-blaming, of arrogance and of moral superiority, is simply this: the assumption that people who say something is impossible have failed to make an effort to do it.

The assumption that men and women who say "impossible" have not explored the power they have to change the world, and yet found that their power is insufficient to overcome whatever it is that makes a thing impossible.

The assumption that the person saying "impossible" has not sweated blood - indeed, has not literally bled blood, in challenging, testing, trying to change the world we live in.   Has not strained every sinew, pressed hir whole body weight into service, every ounce of willpower, in trying to change the world.   And sometimes the effort is metal, and sometimes it's physical, and sometimes it's emotional.   But at the end of it all, sometimes, the result is the same: the world stays stubbornly as it was, and you are broken, exhausted - in some cases, (literally or figuratively) dead.

Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion.

An opinion very often backed up by masses of evidence and experience.   All of science is essentially just "an opinion".   But it is an opinion based on huge amounts of the best available evidence, the best available tests, and the best available knowledge and thinking.   Science tells us that (in natural space, anyway) it is impossible to reach the speed of light (unless one has zero at-rest mass, like a photon).   That, too, may be proved to be "opinion" rather than "fact", but at the moment it's a very compelling opinion.

Impossible is not a declaration. it's a dare.

Do you know what typically happens to people who accept dares?   They get hurt.   They get damaged.   Sometimes, they get dead.

Also via You're Terrible, Muriel, this gem:

(From Maluna @ Joie De Vivre)

Image text: Don't be afraid to fail.   Be afraid not to try.

Is it okay to be afraid of the consequences of failing, though?   Is it, perhaps, okay to decide that, all-in-all, the costs of failing make it not worthwhile trying (given the risk of failing)?

Or should I be unafraid to try flying off a cliff by flapping my arms?   Because, between you and me, I suspect that I would fail, and that the consequence of that would be that my innards make a funny Rorschach pattern on the floor below.   Am I allowed to be afraid of that?   And if I am, then where do we set the marker for, "Up to this point, be afraid not to try.   Beyond this point, it's okay to be afraid to fail"?   Or should we, perhaps, leave it up to each individual to decide at what point the fear of (the consequences of) failure should outweigh the fear of not trying?

Impossible is potential.   Impossible is temporary.

As that great philosopher Henry's Cat once said, "If at first you don't succeed, try failing."   Sometimes success comes in finding ways to cope with the impossible, and in that way our potential is fulfilled.   However, I suspect that the above line means instead something like, "Something that is 'impossible' is merely 'potentially possible'."   Which is great, but if it takes, say, 100 years for that potential to be realised, I'll be dead by the time it happens.   It may be "temporary", in that eventually the impossibility would be banished, but for someone facing the challenges now, it remains impossible, and will for the rest of their lives.   To that person, it is not temporary.

Impossible is nothing.

Impossible is nothing if you are rich, White, (temporarily) able-bodied, neurotypical, cissexual, heterosexual, etc.   Impossible is nothing if you are lucky.

For a lot of people, though, impossible is something that they experience as a real, physical, social barrier to their existence.   As an example, for a PWD in a wheelchair, impossible is getting up to the top of a flight of stairs when there's no disabled access provision.   For a person suffering from depression, impossible can be finding anything in the world to brighten the day (because the neurology actually causes everything to seem duller and less engaging).   For a trans person, impossible can be getting other people to accept them as their true gender (and not the gender assigned-at-birth) and in some (far too many) cases, impossible can be living through the hate-filled attack on their bodies.

For many people who conform to the normative standards of sex, gender, sexuality, body, etc there are things that they find beyond their ability.   Things that are impossible.

People take the stories of those who have been in horrific accidents and are told that they will never walk again, but who somehow manage to recover use of their legs, and they think that that proves that "impossible is nothing".   We never hear of the people, and they do exist, who had similar injuries, who put in just as much effort, but who did not recover sufficiently to be able to live without mobility aids.   Sometimes, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference how much you believe something, how much you want it, how hard you work to get it.   It just isn't going to happen.   It is impossible.

Only the lucky and privileged get to believe that "impossible is nothing".

***

ETA: there was a third privilege-imbued "PMA" saying posted at You're Terrible Muriel, it didn't completely fit in with this post but I added my snarky comment at my Tumblr instead and thought people might want to reflect on that as well!

FICTION: Cyborg Sleeps Part 19

In which Asira Y meets another cyborg and forms a tentative connection.   Catch up with the story here.

Part 19

Asira was allowed out of bed the next day, but Dr. McDonald was still adamant that she should not do any of her customary exercises. The stitches would need time to heal and anything strenuous ran the risk of reopening the wounds. Asira raged against it, frustrated and angry at the restrictions placed upon her. "So basically I'm just about allowed to shuffle my own way to the toilet and back without you slapping me with a caution?" she had cursed, but McDonald was unmoved, simply fastening a girdle to hold the dressings in place and restrict Asira from doing too much with her waist. Asira dressed herself and decided to visit her favourite places, even if she could do nothing there.

Her first port of call was the weapons range. She asked the quartermaster for a weapon but Orla had called ahead.

"Sorry, Agent, no can do. Doctor's orders are you're not to be given anything with the slightest bit of recoil. And honestly, much as I enjoy watching you shoot, I'd rather have you wait and be fully fit to go rather than rush things and see you out for even longer. Sorry."

Asira scowled, "Understood, sir. I'll watch a while then."

But soon the injured agent found it even more irritating, believing herself better than the regular soldiers who were getting their practice in. She decided that she should leave and see if she could talk her way into some other activity. It was too much to hope that the gym would be open to her right now. As she gathered herself to stand, however, a person entered the range whom she instantly realised must be a cyborg like herself. Though she didn't know it, Agent Charles Vee had been activated, just like Asira herself just two days earlier, to take on the new mission received by Gattell the night before. Like Asira, Charles was going to hone his skills to ensure that they were in peak condition for his mission. With blond hair, blue eyes and tanned skin, Asira thought that this newcomer could almost have been a poster boy for the army and wondered why he had let them mutilate his body for the sake of becoming a cyborg. As he checked out his favoured handguns and took his position at the range, Asira's senses focussed. It was rare for two cyborg agents to meet like this, because of the nature of their piecemeal lives, most of which were spent actually out on missions. She was curious to know how he performed at the tasks that were so instinctive to her.

The difference between the purely organic limbs of the other soldiers and the cybernetically enhanced body of the agent was instantly apparent. Asira considered the results and compared it to her self-assessment.

She called out, "Nice shooting, agent. I could do better, but only by millimetres."

A range of emotions passed across the face of the other cyborg. Annoyance, but then curiosity just as Asira had felt, at the presence of a fellow cyborg. Finally, professional pride and determination to accept the challenge.

A sneer, but not angry or contemptuous, twisted his features: "Go on, prove it then."

"Can't. Not allowed to shoot. Hurt after my last mission, Orla's got me sidelined." Asira allowed her bitterness to show.

"Shit, how bad? Wrecked your arm, I see."

"Scratched with a knife, lost a ton of blood. But the stitches are a bitch, that's why the doc has me sitting out training. Only happened last morning."

"Jeez, how'd you let that happen?"

"Successful mission. Then as I was going RTB, some racist arseholes picked the wrong 'Paki bitch' to rape. You know what they say – 'You should see the other guy'? You should see the other guys. My only regret is I didn't get all of them before they ran away."

"Shit. They warned me the Director was pissed off at something. Now I know what. What's your name, Agent?"

"Asira Y."

"Charles Vee. Call me Charlie."

"Will do."

"Pleased to meet you, Asira. Who knows, maybe I'll see you when I get back? But now I need to get myself ready." Charles didn't waste time waiting for a reply but turned, handed in the weapons, and left. Asira expected nothing else, but still whispered, "Good hunting, friend," to his departing back. She knew his magically and cybernetically enhanced hearing would pick it up.

Asira left as well, and decided to walk alone towards the perimeter of the base in the open countryside. As she walked, she thought back to her meeting with Charles Vee and the curious feelings it had stirred in her. It was, she thought, somehow a relief to know at last from first-hand experience that she was not unique, instead of relying on the word of others to tell her so. The strong wish for a connection with this man came from that more than anything else. Was there a connection? She didn't know. She had blurted out her injury in hideously embarrassing fashion but he had taken it in his stride and she felt as though Charlie had extended a wish for more contact too. He treated her as the professional she was, and as an equal. Something no one else had done ever.

Or was that true? A memory returned to her, a memory of a priestess sitting beside her bed and insisting on playing cards. Was he the only one, or had Bena also seen her as an equal?

Fuckity fuck, fucking fuck (make love), shag!

So I wrote in my last post about curse words, inspired by this piece by Ursula K. Le Guin (found via The F-Word Blog). I promised I would write about the word "fuck", inspired by that post.

Ms Le Guin writes:

Of our two swearwords, one has to do with elimination, the other (apparently) with sex. Both are sanctioned domains, areas like religion where there are rigid limits and things may be absolutely off-limits except at certain specific times or places.

...

But fuck and fucking? I don’t know. Oh, they sound good as curses, too. It’s really hard to make the word fuck sound pleasant or kindly. But what is it saying?

I don’t think there are meaningless swearwords; they wouldn’t work if they were meaningless. Does fuck have to do with sex primarily? Or sex as male aggression? Or just aggression?

Until maybe 25 or 30 years ago, as far as I know, fucking only meant one kind of sex: what the man does to the woman, with or without consent. Now, both men and women use it to mean coitus, and it’s become (as it were) ungendered, so that a woman can talk about fucking her boyfriend. So the strong connotations of penetration and of rape should have fallen away from it. But they haven’t. Not to my ear, anyhow. Fuck is an aggressive word, a domineering word. When the guy in the Porsche shouts Fuck you, asshole! he isn’t inviting you to an evening at his flat. When people say Oh shit, we’re fucked! they don’t mean they’re having a consensual good time. The word has huge overtones of dominance, of abuse, of contempt, of hatred.

I think there is a lot of underlying truth in this statement. But I also wondered about other words for fucking that we have in the English language. I had a quick brainstorm to come up with as many terms or colloquialisms that I could that are familiar to me (I may have missed some), that mean some version of "fuck":

• Have sex (with)
• Have sexual intercourse (with)
• Make love (to or with)
• Screw
• Fuck
• Copulate (with)
• Bonk
• Hump
• "Do ('it' (with))"
• "Take"
• Ravish
• Boff
• Rut
• Get laid
• Bed
• Shag
• (Interface)

There was another category, which is typified by such terms as "bone" and "knob" used as verbs for fucking, which are unequivocally "man does to woman" terms. A man has a boner, which he uses to bone a woman. A man has a knob, which he uses to knob a woman. And so on. It is hard to describe someone describing a woman as "knobbing" or "boning" a man (or another woman for that matter - although a strap-on might allow "knobbing" or "boning", the fact that you need a plastic phallus to make the term appropriate shows that it is at least phallocentric, if not androcentric (is that a word? It is now, assuming you got the intended meaning!) I am not looking at those unequivocally male-subject/woman-object terms now, although I am curious as to what the equivalent inversions might look like though - I recall suggesting @ Figleaf's Real Adult Sex, "cunt-wrap" as a verb for what a woman does to a man. But maybe the equivalent of "to know someone" would be "to cunt someone", although the way "cunt" is used as a term of violence in current culture, it might be understood as "to punch someone". To "pussy" someone unfortunately might be taken as "to sissify" (render a sissy) which difficulty shows up the misogyny in society on so many levels! The equivalent of getting a boner I suppose is to "become wet" or "get juicy", I can't think off the top of my head of any colloquial terms for other physiological events associated with female arousal. But "she wet him" doesn't seem to work, and "she juiced him" has a number of problematic elements (it might be taken as "she made him ejaculate" or it might be taken as describing the penis as resembling a lemon juicer going inside her vagina as the fruit). Any suggestions?

Anyway, I said that wasn't what I wanted to write about here! (Focus, Snowdrop, focus! **slaps self around the face**) I want to talk about the first list, the words that mean some variant of "fuck" in a sexual sense.

I didn't put them in any particular order, the list is just in the order in which they came to mind as I typed them.

I agree with UKLG that "fuck" has violent connotations. As it happens, that's the way I like my sex to be, and why I tend to associate "fuck" with good things generally. But "I'm fucked" or "fuck you" use it to mean utter defeat or ruin. It implies something being taken away by force, or it implies the loss of something valuable (e.g. dignity or virginity) - the idea of the "ruined woman". "Screw" has similar associations, and is used in a similar way, "screw you", "I'm screwed" etc. But while "fuck" still implies at the very least energetic and vigorous sex (from the violent overtones), "screw" seems to imply contempt rather than violence. Particularly, it seems to imply a contempt for the act as well as for the person one does it with. I do not like the word "screw".

"Hump" is another word that I dislike. Humping is universally the term used when describing what a horny dog does to a person's leg, and the connotation seems to be about as salubrious as that when it's used to describe two humans getting it on together as well. Like "rut" (another word I dislike), it seems to be basically tied to mindlessness and unemotional "animal" sex. The most positive reference I've seen is in Chixdiggit!'s song "I Wanna Hump You" (aggravation warning for the sexist "learn to play... adverts at the bottom of the page - really, if you're going to use women to sell guitar lessons, try selling them to women?), but even there it comes across as a horny teenager wanting to work off some of that teeny hormonal horniness (although I hear the line as "more than just a lay" rather than "more than just a maid/made" as appears in the transcript linked).

Then there's the "possessive words" category. "Have (sex/sexual intercourse (with))", and "take". I think it may have been Figleaf (again!) who asked why it's "have" sex instead of "do" sex (it was a while back, and I can't find the post where he may have said it). It always feels a little bit odd to put "sex" as an object in the verb - especially when that verb is "have". It is as though "sex" becomes a third entity in the relationship - me, you and the sex. On the other hand, it is better than "I've had him/her". I don't think I've ever heard "I'm going to have you", "I've had you", "I've been had" or "you've been had" being used to refer to sex. (The first one means "I'm going to beat you (at sports or as in physical violence; the last two are about being robbed or conned; the second one I don't think I've heard ever.) "Have" is all about sexual conquest and proclaiming it to someone else. It is the ultimate in objectifying language (since it automatically makes the partner into an object either before or after the fact). The only exception I can think of for this is The Beautiful South's "Don't Marry Her", which says "Don't marry her, have me" (in the radio-friendly version - the original album version has "fuck" instead of "have"). "Take" is almost the opposite of "have" in this sense: it seems to be almost always used by one partner to signify their own passive role, as an invitation: "take me!" It has particular usage in (romance) literature with the form "he took her" (or, less frequently, but just as valid, "she took him"). The one who says "take me!" (or is taken) plays a passive role, the one who does the taking is the active role (given romance novels' tendency to have the dashing hero sweep a woman off her feet, this active/passive dynamic is particularly common and therefore the definition of the roles that "take" provides seems especially appropriate for that genre). Again, an example of this is The Beautiful South's "Perfect 10", with the last line, "Promise me this: take me tonight". It seems to be very rare to hear someone say "I'm going to take you" or even, "I took him/her last night" - it is either third person narrative style, or else it's given in the imperative. That alone makes it awkward for discussing sex!

Of a kind with "have" is "do". On its own, when someone talks about sex using "do", they are talking to someone else other than their (intended or putative) partner - "I'd do her, wouldn't you?", "I've done her!" etc. If "have sex (with)" is disappointing because it makes sex a possession or an external party to the act, then "do" is disappointing because it seems to equate the partner (intended, putative or past) with an item on a checklist - a "to do list", in fact. "Done that, done that, done her, done him, done that..." "I'm going to do you" is another term for violence rather than sex. Another term that always feels to me like its common usage seems to be of the "checklist" variety is "bed". Maybe this is just my perspective, but I cannot feel that "I want to bed you" sounds like an attractive proposition - it conjures in my mind images of "another notch on the bedpost". "Do 'it'" and "do 'it' with" are terms used to avoid talking about sex, and again, the image in my mind is the uncertain fumbling of teenage sexuality, nervously asking "do you want to do... 'it' with me?" "It" could be anything, it relies on a shared interpretation, and is the antithesis of good communication.

If "take", "have" and "do" are bad, then what about "get laid"? Another term that can't easily be used to talk about sex with a partner, but only to one's mates before or afterwards. (I can imagine a scene where X says to Y, "You're so going to get laid tonight!" meaning, "I want sex with you tonight", but unless X and Y know each other well, that could come across as threatening rather than an invitation.) "I'm going to get laid" (or "I got laid last night") seems to make both participants into objects (or even, it makes the other person invisible or irrelevant). To use "lay" as a verb appears curiously archaic and still carries an element of conquest, like "bed" above (is it a coincidence that a bed is also something you lay?). But in modern terminology, "lay" is a noun, meaning "the person with whom one got laid" (see above, my interpretation of the Chixdiggit! lyric; interestingly, if the line is, "A girl like you is more than just a lay", then it suggests that to the song's narrator-character, "hump" is a more personalised action than "get laid" and has more value).

Then there are the "comic" terms, "boff" and "bonk". Again, it is hard to imagine two people agreeing to "bonk" or "boff" one another. These are terms usually used to describe other people doing sex together, or if it's used about oneself, then only in the most abstract terms. It's a media favourite, and used to construct such terms as "bonkbuster" (to refer to the more explicit types of romance novels or movies).

"Ravish", like "take" above, is a staple of romance novels. It is another word that carries clear connotations of a "powerful" partner and a "weak" or "passive" partner. It is also a violent term, and in my dictionary, the definitions list "seize or carry away by force" and "rape" before we get to "enrapture". Although we have common terms such as "ravishingly beautiful" so that "enrapture" might be seen as the common association, it is still a term of "taking by force" to enrapture (which is how it seems to appear in romance novels, for example). In this it shares a lot in common with "fuck", and might even be seen as the "posh" or "polite" way of saying fuck. When someone says "ravish me!" they are inviting not merely "enrapture me" but often specifically, "enrapture me with a (vigorous) fucking!" Needless to say, with my sexuality, I like this word. But it's not great for all situations! (I'm entertained now by the notion of someone cursing in the street, "Ravish you, arsehole!"...)

I don't think much of "make love to/with", either. First, "to" implies the active/passive dichotomy and makes sex a one-way street. But my main issue is that it equates sex with love, which is a huge problem (especially as there's a gendered assumption that women can't have sex without it somehow signifying emotional attachment). It's a problem because although sex can accompany love and vice versa, there's no need for them to do so. Using language that insists that love and sex are synonymous leads to some serious issues around consent and boundaries. On the plus side, "make X with" is a good formulation if we were trying to invent a new term (I'm not, in this post). It implies a shared activity, and while I might not choose the verb "make" in there, it is at least carrying implications of defining the activity and relationship (we make sex what it is through interacting with one another).

Diametrically opposite to that is "copulate", which is the cold, scientific-sounding term for the activity. It's the term used in science fiction to make a "robotic" character seem emotionless (e.g. ISTR that when Seven of Nine was introduced in Star Trek:Voyager, she analysed a male crew member's physiological symptoms as he started trying to chat her up and reported, "You wish to copulate with me?").

Which leaves me with "shag". Although this has similarities of usage with "hump" and "screw", it carries less of the venom or unpleasant associations either of those words and is considered far more acceptable these days. It doesn't get used as an expletive, for example. It is contrasted with "love" (compare James Bond: The Spy Who Loved Me vs spoof Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) and tends to signify a lack of emotional involvement, it doesn't preclude romantic usage either (in modern usage). Depending on class and social factors, it can be perfectly okay to say to a romantic interest "I'd really like to shag you" instead of (say) "make love to you". The derivation is unclear, but the suggestion at that link is that it comes from an Old or Middle English term meaning "to shake about", referring to the physical action involved in penetrative (or engulfing) sex. It certainly has none of the violence of some of the other terms, and my only real complaint is that it is considered low and vulgar. But then, that's a classist issue. I do actually feel comfortable with "shag" as a word. To me, it is hot, soft and slightly damp in tone - being a homophone with "shag-pile" carpet or rug, and similar-sounding to "shaggy" like a shaggy dog. There's also shag tobacco, and while tobacco itself irritates me a lot, the idea of smoky, smouldering or burning desire is also a nice addition to the word-image composition that "shag" can provide.

I did add one more term to that list - "interface", which I put in brackets because it doesn't quite belong with the others. It is from the lexicon of Transformers fanfiction (I read a lot of what Trinity @ Fierce Awakenings writes in that vein), where slash fiction writers had to devise language and concepts for how giant sapient robots with emotions would fuck each other. I assume it was derived from the concept of sticking one's jack into a port, which would lead one to the computing term "interface". I'm not sure the word could ever be constructively taken to facilitate sexual communication between humans, but it was a word that I know that can mean "sex", so I added it to the list anyway.

Some musings on expletives (and a question for the reader!)

I have always been a fan of Ursula Le Guin's writing, ever since reading the Wizard of Earthsea trilogy aged 13, and I love her recent rant about the ubiquity of "fuck" and "shit" as swearwords in modern writing (found via The F-Word Blog. It got me to thinking about swear words in general, about "fuck" in particular, and suchlike stuff. It turns out, I haven't written about "fuck" as a word yet, but I'll make that a later post. For now, I want to look at swearing, and in particular to consider Ms Le Guin's observation that, "It seems weird to me that only two words are now used as cusswords, and by many people used so constantly that they can’t talk or even write without them." I decided to stop and think of other words I use to cuss and swear.

My cursing lexicon has several influences. Some are the usual 4-letter words of Anglo-Saxon origin ("fuck" and "shit" included in that category, for example), and apparently similar in origin (Old English, at least), is "bollocks" (literal meaning: "testicles"). Linked in meaning to "bollocks" and "arse" but I'm not sure if it's similar in origin, is "bum" (same meaning as "arse"); linked in the same way to "shit" are "crap" and "crud". Of later origin is "bugger" (which I suppose technically when used as a swear word is homophobic language, in the same way as "that's so gay" is now, although for a lot of people the association is so far removed in the past that it doesn't register as such - Winston Churchill's K.B.O. motto "Keep Buggering On" attests to that!). Similar to that in its original meaning is "sod" (which always brought a snicker when "Good King Wenceslas" gets to the line "it was in the very sod..."!) I still use some of the religious curses (Oh, St Paul would be so disappointed in me!) I use "bloody", which is a violence term, and occasionally "ruddy" which literally means "red" but also I think is a more "polite" term for "bloody", like "darn" for "damn", used on the basis of the rhyme (it also seems to be a dialect term). Speaking of "polite" terms in cursing, I will often use "bother" or "rats", even to express quite strong emotion.

Then there are the more... individual... terms that have less obvious derivation. I know a couple of Klingon curses, although I rarely use them in anger, they do sometimes crop up (I'm never entirely sure I have the situations correct for the right ones). My parents gave me a couple of very unusual ones. "Chickadarditch", which they told me came from the failed alien translator device sketch on "Not The Nine O'Clock News". Somehow, that entered the family vocabulary as a swear word and may very well be passed on to a new generation if I have children. I also learned a term that I can't possibly spell. It's from (says Mother Dearest) Bavarian dialect German, and has something to do with the Devil. Phonetically, it might be rendered "Pfee-tie-fee" (the "tie-fee" bit being the rendering of "Teufel" from "standard" German into this dialect - MD says the "pfee" bit might be "blow" as in). Said with venom, the "Pf" is very expressive, and can be spat out as a great plosive. The other term that has entered my personal curse collection is "Plarrd", which I deduced is a curse word in the Sims language from the fact that my sims seemed to say it when they were doing badly at darts (another one was "Om, rack!" but that isn't as fun to say - I guess I like my plosives when I'm cross at something). Another good one for its plosive beginning is "penc", which is rot13 code for "crap" (see above).

There's probably a few others that I haven't been able to bring to mind while writing this post, but that's a fairly good rundown of the curses I use in everyday life.

My question for readers is this: in keeping with the "more individual" curses listed (such as "pfee-tie-fee" and chickadarditch), what are the most unusual or specific to your own usage curse words that you have? What curse terms that come from outside your first language, or that come from a local dialect (yours or, as in the Bavarian instance above, someone else's), do you love and have incorporated into your own swearing? What about made-up curses from literature (like my adoption of Klingon and Sims curses)? What about other sources I haven't thought of?

In short, what makes your curse lexicon different from everyone else's?

(Also, as an aside, what unusual curse words do you know but have not, for whatever reason, adopted as part of your own usage? Like my "Om, rack!" above.)

Crouch - Touch - Pause - Engage!

In the Rugby Union 6 Nations match today, England gave Scotland a resounding thumping to win by a massive 89-0 scoreline (no reports available yet online, here's the build-up story on RFU website, hopefully a match report will appear there later). Player of the game Heather Fisher (who also represented Great Britain in bobsleigh) and several other players (notably Danielle Waterman, Katy McLean and Fran Matthews) put in highly professional performances and the scoreline represented the dominance shown by the England team. While there were a few mistakes, all-in-all it was some of the best rugby they have played recently.

Another star player from the game, Maggie "The Machine" Alphonsi, had an interview published in the Observer this morning, as well.

As a preamble to this event, the men's rugby team also played against their Scottish counterparts, but were unable to show the level of dominance that the women put together, scraping through for a 22-16 win.

The absolute star of the day's events has to have been "Grant", the fox.

I suppose the sexist remark by the commentators was inevitable :-(

Taking The Epistle: 1,2&3 John

The author of these three letters is identified in the second and third only as "The elder", and not at all in the first letter. The compilers of the NIV decided that the identification of this person is clearly the same person as wrote the gospel attributed to John, and it does seem likely given that 1 John opens with a passage very similar in language and apparent intent to the opening passage of that gospel.

1 John is the main letter here; the other two are just 20-odd verses long, and repeat one or two of the main themes of the first letter (namely, providing hospitality for travelling preachers, and being wary of false preachers or preachers of heresy). For this reason, and similar use of language, the NIV compilers say that they are probably by the same author as 1 John and, having read them, I tend to agree (although how much that is influenced by the compilers' choice of translation is open to question).

1 John has a lot in common, it seems to me, with the letter written by James. Like that letter, it seems to lean heavily still on harking back to good deeds (obeying the law) as well as faith. It is, however, a very different style. It is much more transcendental in its feel, like that opening of the "Gospel according to John", for example:

1 John 1:1-7

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched— this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

It also shares a theme with 2 Peter, which focussed mainly on warning against false teachers. The NIV compilers interpreted this in 1 John as referring to early Gnosticism, but from their description of that belief system, I don't really see it being criticised very strongly in 1 John (if anything, some of what I find there seems to reflect rather than counter the ideas, but what do I know?).

The other theme is the identity of God with love, and arguing that through loving others, we know God.

Need for good deeds

Whereas the author of James took a view that faith necessarily leads to good deeds as the way in which we show our faith, the author of 1 John takes a much more "theoretical" view of the situation, and the defence that I offered for James to square his writing with that of Paul simply doesn't hold water here. In 1 John, it is argued that the fact of having been saved and reborn in God makes it impossible to sin, because "...God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God." (3:9) This argument is repeated in various ways (always with that same style of poetic language as the introduction quoted above), for example:

1 John 3:4-6

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No-one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No-one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

An earlier passage makes it explicit that anyone who loves God will obey the laws, and it really does not seem to be possible that this can be anything other than Mosaic law:

1 John 2:3-6

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

If we wanted to stretch it to make it fit with Paul, then we might point out that Jesus did not live by the Mosaic law, but on occasion wilfully broke it to make a point about his authority to do so (for example, healing a man on the Sabbath). But 1 John's emphasis on obeying the law and being unable to do anything else if one truly follows Jesus seems to argue against that interpretation.

To the author of 1 John, it is that Jesus not only atones for our sins, but prevents us from sinning again, so that it can be said, "And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming" (2:28). Other New Testament writers explicitly or implicitly accept that we can never be fully free of sin, and that it is only through Christ's intercession that we can stand before God. Although 1 John does allude to this - "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence— Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." (2:1-2) but since this is followed immediately by the passage quoted above, it does not seem to stand with the same meaning as it would in the context of the other letters. Here, the author seems to be encouraging people that minor transgressions can still permit re-admittance into Christ, whereas elsewhere the sentiment is acknowledging the impossibility of staying 100% pure. 1 John, however, does not see such obedience as being hard: instead, simply by having faith one will find it easy - "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith." (5:3-4)

The rhetoric of right-wing conservative Christian campaigners seems to be rooted in this understanding of being "born again", allowing them to claim themselves to be sinless (since they would presumably claim that "the seed of God remains in them" - I am a poor sinner, but I can't help but think of a very pornographic interpretation of that phrase!) and to pour scorn on anyone who claims to be Christian but does not conform to their interpretation of Mosaic law.

Inasmuch as there is practical advice for Christians in 1 John, it is based around the concept of love, and this is where 1 John makes the identification God = Love:

1 John 4:7-12

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John does not give the simple descriptions of how Christians should show love, but rather goes for hyperbole, much like some of Jesus' reported speeches in the Gospels.

1 John 3:11-24

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence

In 4:18, we are told that there is no fear in love, that love drives out fear, and that fear is related to punishment (if 2 Peter did a reverse-Yoda, this almost sounds like another version of Yoda!)

If 1 John on the relationship between salvation and sin seems to support the Christian Right, then on social justice it seems to be directly against them, because they do not show love. Indeed, many of them are wealthy and yet do not show pity for those in need.

However, the final theme would seem in part to swing the balance back towards the (false) arguments of the right-wingers.

This is the theme of being wary of false teachers. The author of 1 John refers to them as "antichrists" who deny that Jesus is the Eternal Son, and therefore also deny God and "call him a liar". In 2 John, the self-identified elder warns, "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work." (2 John 1:10-11) This could be used by anti-immigration Christian Right campaigners to argue that non-Christians should be refused access to the country (thus ignoring the parable of the Good Samaritan). But this would be a misreading. The context here is of someone who is actively seeking to convert people from one's own religion to another, and most immigrants and refugees are not in that category - they just want the basic means to live and earn a living, in the main! 3 John covers the inverse - praising those who give shelter to preachers, and castigating those who do not provide shelter.

In summary, I would say that the letters of John largely comprise the worst elements of James and Peter - Peter's school prefect style (in fact, 1 John's frequent referring to the readers as "My children" suggests an even more "don't question my authority, I've been chosen!" stance than that) with James' apparent tendency to lean on Mosaic law (even though that seems unlikely if the identity of the author of James is correctly identified by the NIV compilers). 1 John is easily the most authoritarian and legalistic of the NT books I've read so far, and given Paul's background and manner, that says quite a lot! On the other hand, the author of 1 John is also much more fierce in his promotion of wealth redistribution and personal responsibility for helping the poor. The language carries that much more passion in it.