Showing posts with label R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Show all posts
Showing posts with label R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Show all posts

Friday, 7 September 2012

Newsflash: the 'lympics are still on (for another two days at least).

Dear Roflympics,

A thing called the Paralympics exists. They're awesome; you'd like them. And just because the US isn't winning doesn't mean that you can ignore disabled people's successes.

I could understand concerns of offending disabled people, but seriously? We can be funny too. Surely disabled people should be given an opportunity to be in on the joke, and can non-disabled people really not manage to laugh with us?

Yes, there are complete idiots out there that might want to laugh at people different to them in any way, but surely that's a risk with any site where randomers can upload content? And considering the majority of the content on the site seems to have been uploaded by Cheezburger staff, it shouldn't be difficult for them to check and approve content fairly regularly.

Regards,
An apparently 'disabled' person

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On that note, during my PhD funding applications this year, I came across a rather confusing form. I was asked if I am disabled, and given the options 'yes' or 'no'. After ticking no, I was then asked to tick which options applied to me, with no indication as to whether or not I should skip this section if I had chosen no. So as 'long-term illness' applied to me. Twice over. I ticked this so that it would be on record should I have problems later on that affect my PhD (I regularly missed chunks of lectures during my undergrad, but have been lucky to just lose about 3 weeks worth of lectures this year.)

I then got a phone call from the person processing my form asking if I was disabled with a long-term illness, or not disabled without any long-term illnesses. I'm not the only person who doesn't feel that I can be summed up with tick-box options on an equal ops form. A student for whom I have been a notetaker this year is partially-sighted and has some difficulty with one of his arms and legs. However as he is capable of living his life as he wishes, he doesn't feel that he should be classified as disabled.

I'm not sure how I feel about people referring to Paralympians as 'inspirational'. I agree that they are, I would never be able to achieve the feats that they have, however I find them inspirational in the same way that I find the Olympians inspirational. Both groups show that hard work and determination can overcome a lot and allow you to achieve things that many people will never achieve.

Disabled people are disabled by society. Should Paralympic sports be more available to the average person, both for disabled people to partake in and for disabled and non-disabled people to support, should they be funded to the same levels as Olympic sports, and should they be better advertised, then what would be the difference between the two? The only additional obstacles the majority of Paralympians need to overcome are ones dictacted by society.

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And finally, I have PhD funding! I'll be starting at the end of the month. There'll be a couple of months' overlap with the end of my Masters research, but sleep is for wimps!


Thursday, 5 January 2012

I'm normally funnier than this when talking about suicide. Honest.

This is a little bit depressing. It also has to come with a trigger warning for child abuse and mistreatment of women, with a little nod towards racism and homophobia. Also a spoiler alert if you haven't read/seen the last Harry Potter. Come back tomorrow if you like your humour to be suicidal-thought-free when there may or may not be a post on the joys of working part-time service jobs, depending on where my thought train goes over the next 24 hours and whether or not I can get myself to get on with my essays...


By the way my internet's gone down, so the timings in this post probably won't fit in with the time that the submit button actually works. Just pretend it's early hours in Britain when you read this.

The other night I was talking to my paternal grandmother about some memories from my childhood, when we got onto the topic of when things had gone wrong. She suddenly forgot about all of the other things that we'd discussed before this and asked me if I had any good memories of her from my childhood, as she feels that if my father were to be listened to she was the worst mother in the world and the only parent he had was my grandfather. This got me thinking about how odd I feel talking about happy memories of my father. Although I don't go around introducing myself with "Last time I willingly exchanged words with my father I told him that if he hit me again I'd be calling the police." when asked by friends I do sometimes use those words as a quick summary that covers the fact that I don't speak to my father, want nothing to do with him, and why I have come to make the decision to get away from him, therefore eliminating the need for further questions beyond the "Where are you spending Christmas" that I get if the subject is raised in the November-December period. So when telling stories about my childhood that include playing games with my father, I sometimes feel that my friends will think that I'm exaggerating or lying about the fact that he is a far less than plesant man on a whole. When in my tweens I would refer to him in my head as 'Daddy' and 'the Bastard', and would look for signs as to which one was in the room/car when I came into contact with him to see how to behave. I actually have some memories of some very fun times with my father, and I'm sure that all of his exes have some very good memories of their time with them, otherwise he wouldn't have managed to get them into, and keep them in a relationship that was sapping them of all of their feelings of self worth and esteem.

Unfortunately the majority of people don't realise how utterly charming abusers have to be to get away with things, not only in keeping the person involved quiet and willing to put up with the bad, (as the abuser convinces the person that they couldn't get the good without staying dependant to them and that they need the good) but also in not being suspected by the person's friends and family (but in my case doctors, social services, schools and numerous councillors) of being responsible for changes in the person's behaviour/demeanour or increased physical problems. When working as a Sabbatical Officer in the Students' Union last year, my father started phoning reception on a daily basis asking for me (he must have heard about my job from my sister, aunt and cousins). This coincided with the Census, so I assume that as I always took care of his official paperwork he was wanting to get me to deal with the form for him, despite not having wanted any contact with him for almost 3 years. I said to the receptionists that I didn't want to speak to him, and gave the line that covers most bases (which, as it was February/March, covered all) and they expressed shock as he 'sounded so charming on the phone'. People don't realise that men who can convince educated and successful women to become dependant on self-important, sexist, uneducated, unemployed, fat bastards and convince everyone that they come in contact with that they don't need to be locked up for eternity is by being the most extremely charming person most people will ever meet. Which makes it harder for people to ask for help amongst their friends and family who know their abuser. When I made the decision to try and get help when my stepmother was abusing me I went to my grandmother, who immediately went to my stepmother to speak about the issue. She was as charming as only a psychotic bitch who abuses small children and tweens can be, as far as I was aware my grandmother then did nothing. My stepmother then went to all of my family members telling them that I was spreading lies about her so that I had no one left to turn to. And I was, of course, punished for telling these lies.

I now know that when my grandmother was asked to take me to a hospital appointment for a condition I was suffering from as a result of my stepmother's abuse, she shared her thoughts on the issue with the doctor. The doctor had already suspected that my stepmother had something to do with my health problems from my demeanour around her and a specific previous appointment. I had asked my stepmother if I could go in alone before the appointment after I'd made the decision to ask for help, although I'm not sure if this was before or after I spoke to my maternal grandmother. She had refused to let me go alone and come in with me, then at the end of the appointment asked the doctor to speak with him in private, rubbing my nose in my helplessness because of my age. According to my grandmother, she had started to speak to the doctor about my stepmother during the appointment, however he had stopped her. Later on he'd sent me out to get a nurse to re-weigh and measure me to speak to my grandmother to get confirmation of his suspicions. He told my grandmother to make sure that my father took me to my next appointment, and my father left my stepmother shortly after speaking to the doctor. Unfortunately my father was charming enough to convince even the head of the local social services that he was an upstanding citizen, so I was stuck with him until I was pushed to take my chances on my own. I then realised that I'd have been much better off if I'd done this sooner.

The point of all of this is, I had intended to write about those happy memories with my father that I have been thinking about since my conversation with my grandmother. However today I found out that my father has been showing photographic evidence of how he treated some of the models and career women that he slept with/dated. He is apparently very into bondage, which makes sense for a guy who believes that men are superior to women but is surrounded by women who are more academically gifted, driven and successful than he is. This I have no problem with. Consenting adults can do whatever the hell they want. My problem is that he told his friends that these women had no idea that he'd gotten the camera out after blindfolding them. And then he shared these pictures with his friends. There's also the fact that in my teens I was constantly having to remove viruses off his computers (his room was like a computer graveyard, he was constantly getting new ones and having the hard drives of the old ones removed) and seeing unsavoury images. He always said that it was because he was going to websites full of jokes and pop-ups kept coming up and that he must be getting the viruses from these. I asked him if jokes were really worth it and why he couldn't just get some books or make wittier friends, however I knew he was visiting adult websites as, as I have mentioned before, I had walked in on him wanking after he'd gotten his laptop, and before this his bedroom door would only be locked when I could hear his computer on. Now I wonder if he was also contributing to these sites.

Today my maternal grandmother told me that she's been told about these photographs that he's been showing people, and then asked me if he'd ever touched me. I've never been able to properly talk about this subject with any of my friends, only skate around it with a couple of them when it was causing me problems and I wanted to try to talk to someone about it. So I just went for the easier "No." option since that can of worms is staying well and truly shut in face-to-face conversations. Perhaps one day I can use this as free counselling since the NHS and student councelling services are far too over-subscribed and when I have tried to speak to a councellor about these things before, I took so long trying to get to the main points that they decided I didn't have any problems I couldn't deal with and took me off their list.

So, instead of writing about my happy memories of my father at a time where I want to hurt him, badly, I was planning on writing my customer stories from the part-time jobs I've done on weekends and holidays. however it's taken me at least an hour and three quarters to write this (or 2 Big Bang Theories, an How I Met Your Mother, and a Scrubs) so I'll go back to trying to tell my life story in an amusing way tomorrow.

Just so you know, I do rely on self-depreciation in my humour, and some people take this as me moaning about my lot in life. I actually hated using the words 'abuse' and 'abuser' in this, but my housemate, who is one of the people I've tried to speak to about the subject my grandmother asked about, insists that I should use these words. However I hate them. I won't use 'abused' or, even worse, 'victim'. Shit fucking happens. People put up with a lot of crap in their lives. Some people, unfortunately, sink, or find it harder to swim than others do. Some of us get on with it and are made strong because of these things. Even those who struggle are made stronger despite having to keep up the fight not to sink over and over again. But although these experiences have made me push myself, led me to achieve what I have, and, hopefully, someday will mean that the drive they have given me will lead to me landing the Dream Job and making a difference with my life - they don't define me. I wouldn't be who I am without them, but they can fuck off if they think I'm going to let them stick a label on me.

Some people find labels comforting, help them understand things better. I know my stepmother had munchausen's by proxy syndrome and another doctor told my father that he believed that she has hystrionic personality disorder - which doesn't seem to exist and was described by him as something completely different to hysteronic personality disorder. I know that my father has a type of 'small man syndrome' where he is inferior to most people in that he is of below-average intelligence with very few qualifications, he has no drive, people he's not trying to charm dislike him, he has no regard for other people or the law beyond what they can do for him, and he's overweight and spends his days sleeping in an armchair. However he does everything he can to over-compensate for this and prove his superiority to himself beyond doing any actual work to improve himself. Whenever he has a job he spends his time finding ways to avoid work, and in doing so congratulates himself on his ingenuity in pulling the wool over people's eyes, regularly boasting about his antics to myself and all of his friends. As I've gotten older and come to speak to some of his former workmates I've found out that they were in no way fooled and made jokes about his laziness, hence why he's never kept a job. And in trying to find ways that he can be superior to others, the easiest way is to buy into the sexism, homophobia and racism that my paternal grandfather, for lack of a better term, 'suffered' from. And in trying to instill his superiority in his own mind, he must treat these people like shit. And as it's difficult for him to get homosexuals and people of a different ethnicity into a position where he can treat them in a way that proves his superiority without getting into a relationship with an 'ethnic' woman, which would bring him down in his own eyes as that would show others that he can't pull a white woman, he's left with mistreating women. And understanding all of this makes no bloody difference, because I still had the childhood that I had, both the good and the bad, my father and ex-stepmother are still making people suffer, and I still refuse to be the scared, hopeless little girl that I once was, whose only reason for not committing suicide was the fact that the coroner and someone in the funeral home would see her 'disgusting' body naked. (When I disclosed this to my housemate we both ended up laughing. Unfortunately I can't work out how to get the humour into that part of my past in written form given the context of this post.)

I fought hard to get out of there. I battled a lack of funds, academic support from both my family and my school (although a handful of teachers did what they could to help me along, which unfortunately was very little within the school's system) and illness to get to University whilst caring for a special-needs sister. I choose to be defined by the work that I've done, and hope yet to do, not things beyond my control. As Dumbledore said to Harry, it's his choices that made him different from Voldemort, and not even by putting a part of his own soul inside him could Voldemort force Harry to be someone that he didn't choose to be. I think I may have just compared myself to Harry Potter. I did have a bedroom beyond a cupboard under the stairs. I even had the largest bedroom in the house throughout most of my teenage years. So since I had my own bedroom growing up (except for sharing with my sister for most of my childhood), and I've never had anyone accidentally stick a part of their own soul in my body (as far as I'm aware - I'll keep you posted on that one) then I choose to be a volunteer, a Masters student, a part-time notetaker for students with disabilities, a graduate, and a future campaigner who will help others have their voices heard and make a difference to their own lives (and hopefully, perhaps, one day a girlfriend, fiancee, and, if he's worth taking the label on, wife.) I am not a victim, I am not the abused. My father, stalkers, attempted rapists, attackers, and everyone else in the world, can fuck right off if they think I'm carrying a label around that I haven't chosen or done anything to earn of my own accord.

Friday, 23 December 2011

Emo trees just need to be understood, the Woodland Trust want you to nuke Bambi, and other crap that wasn't supposed to be here.

I witnessed an incredible display of bullying today. As I was looking at the reduced section of Wilkinsons today, I saw a lone, black Christmas tree in a tattered box. Whilst behind me, another tree taunted "I'm the happiest Christmas tree" at the top of its...branches. The poor goth tree just lay there and accepted the abuse. It obviously hadn't read my rant about everyone deserving respect last night. In case any abused trees are reading now, trees deserve respect too.

The shop, which sells possessed Santas that sing with several voices at once, (and what's worse, they sing this stalkerish song about walking 1000 miles to turn up on your doorstep. I've never even told him where I live. As if Santa wasn't scary enough watching you when you're getting up to naughty things. I'm generally naked for that stuff.) also had red trees complete with red plastic legs and black tinsel for the festive emo. I believe this counts as tree abuse. Many speak of the cruelty of dressing their children and pets up in ways that could get them bullied, but children and pets (mostly) all have movable limbs and the ability to bite, and therefore the ability to defend themselves. Not all Christmas trees have inherited the Ent's ability to move and speak. And from what I witnessed today, those that have have not only evolved to be able to speak faster (potentially because their plastic offspring live much shorter lives and therefore do not have as much time to say things that are worth saying. We humans are such selfish beings that we're all aware of the benefits of technology in lengthening and enhancing our lifespans, but no one speaks of the damage we've done to trees, with some only seeing one Christmas before being chewed to death by a pet or child drunk on power.) but have also begun to use this ability to humiliate those of their kin who have 'gone tree'. Or perhaps they just evolved from Ents who had already gone tree. Where do trees come from? Do Ents that go tree produce trees or Ents through their seeds? Can Ents only come from Ents that haven't gone tree yet? Do Ents sometimes produce trees like witches and wizards produce squibs? Have any Ents ever caught fire when procreating? Is that how forest fires start? Are Australian and certain American forests hornier than forests in other countries or are they into some sort of deviant Ent sex in those areas that are more risky than traditional Ent sex?

Returning from my thought-train's detour - I don't know how it keeps managing to go off places where there aren't any tracks. National rail could probably learn a lot from my head. But considering my timekeeping abilities it would make trains even less reliable than they already are. And, let's face it, even though my thought-train's capable of going all over the bloody place without any tracks, it never goes where I want it to and never takes the most direct route. Brilliant for problem-solving and producing essays with unique points, the worst thing in the world for turning up where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be, and looking normal in the process.

Returning from my thought-train's detour on my thought-train: If you think dressing a dog/cat/small person up like a twonk is cruelty, just think about your poor Christmas tree. It has no voice to tell you what the other trees will be wearing, or to defend itself when the Ent's love children are mean to it. Look after your tree. Don't be selfish. Santa's watching how you treat the less fortunate who can't look after themselves. If you're around them whilst naked. I don't think he cares what you do when you're dressed to be honest. He comes across as a bit of a pervert. There's a bit of family lore that says that when I was a toddler, I took my inflatable Santa, who was slightly less inflated than he should be, over to my father, and, in front of my grandparents, aunts and uncles, demanded my father give him a blow job. I bet he liked that the sick nonce.

Do you know what? I have no idea where I was going with this whole abused Christmas trees with low self-confidence that have taken to dressing in black and cutting themselves thing now. So I'm going to give up on that and move on to my disgust at the Woodland Trust, who are encouraging people to nuke small woodland creatures. And cute little deer. Or a very deformed squirrel. I wasn't sure to be honest.

Back in the day, serial killers started out by burning ants and torturing puppies. These days, kids who would have otherwise turned out to be completely normal, are being set on the path to animal cruelty, serial killing, and eventually the torture of poor plastic Ents, by being bought microwaveable owls and other woodland creatures by sadistic adults who have gotten stuck in the cycle of abuse themselves. And this is all being endorsed by the Woodland Trust who have their own range of ready-abused animals for you to nuke at home. And now I'm wondering if modern Ents became so cruel because of the years of festive abuse, followed by months of neglect, that they experienced in their childhoods. An Ent is for life, people, not just for Christmas. And somehow my thought-train has managed to make the Woodland Trust's sick plan relevant to the subject of Goth trees.

And now the WT's plan makes sense. More serial killers = more people visiting forests to dump bodies = more search parties looking for said bodies = no need to advertise to tourists any more. I wonder if serial killers and search parties are more respectful of forests and careful with their litter than tourists. Serial killers obviously would be as they don't want to leave any evidence, so they'd be the most considerate visitors at all. If there were enough serial killers around then half of all search parties would probably be made up of serial killers trying to keep everyone away from their own dump sites. And could you imagine if they got caught because of evidence left behind when they were volunteering as part of a search party? They would of course use their fantastic skills at hiding any signs that they'd been in the forest in their everyday lives. Just in case they accidentally killed someone when they weren't intending to. So the Woodland Trust gets increased visitor numbers to prove their significance in modern society, and probably bring in more income from the gift shops, cafes and car parks, and doesn't have to do any extra clean up or conservation work when these visitors leave. And if there are less people around because they've all been buried under their forests, then there'll be less competition for space so they won't have to worry about trees needing to be cut down. Actually, that was probably the most important bit. Human population control, with a few woodland creatures as collateral damage. They're a sneaky bunch of gits at the Woodland Trust.

Thursday, 22 December 2011

The world isn't allowed to end until I get to have geriatric sex and feel someone up half my age without abusing a child.

So if the world is to end on the 21st of December 2012 (taking apocalypse to signify the more popular four horsemen interpretation rather than a major change as it is apparently supposed to mean), then we all have less than 12 months to live. I pointed this out to a friend the other day and got told off for being 'morbid'. I'm just really glad I never decided to discuss the finer points of the ethics of necrophilia with him. Although it may have been an idea to raise this with him at some point. He's the ex-boyfriend of a friend that I no longer associate with since I witnessed her doing something illegal (whilst doing many more immoral things), and now I am having to be a witness for the crown when she's taken to court (despite not being a fan of the Queen beyond her contribution to the economy via tourism). He has also confessed to having downloaded pictures of (a fully-clothed) me from Facebook to wank over. Recently he told me that he's been planning on asking me out if he ever sees me when I'm sober/not getting over a break-up, but I told him that was weird. Especially since his ex used to share details of their bedroom antics with me. However if he was open to discussing necrophilia in bed, perhaps I could have just accepted that my life is weird and I should just get over it.

As a 20-something student, everything I do is aimed at setting myself up for the future. Just like a German student I was speaking to on the train yesterday, my time is spent working on my Masters, doing my volunteering work, arranging work placements, and working to make sure I can eat, train and socialise in the more immediate future. So essentially if the Mayans did have the biggest crystal ball in the world, I may get to enjoy the fruits of my labour for 2 months, assuming that the PhD funding plan falls through and someone gives me a dream job as soon as I finish my dissertation.

But I really enjoy my Masters course, and all of my voluntary work, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. So even if I do die at the end of it it's completely worth it. However, today I realised that I was out on my grandmother's age by a few years and she's already passed the 75 mark, and considering the conversations I've been having about my grandmother and in which ways I would like to take after her in my old age over the past few weeks, it seems appropriate to write about those here in case I do live to see if I turn out like her in the ways that I'd like to (and get to bypass the bits that I don't want).

When I was growing up, my grandmother was always the horny old lady that flirts with any guy over the age of 18 and more than 10 years younger than whatever she was at the time. She was still saying 'If I were 20 years younger' after she hit 60 and would need to take about double that off. One time she took us swimming and broke her goggles. I saw her holding them and put them back together for her, and after I handed them back to her, she pulled them apart again and called the lifeguard over to help her. She'd pulled her goggles apart to use them as a Barney-Stinson-style prop in creating a flirting opportunity. This is how my grandmother has always been. She's never slept with anyone other than my grandfather, but she has really enjoyed herself since she reached the age that it's socially acceptable for her to openly appreciate the looks of men less than half her age. Whilst still having a fairly full sex life with my grandfather, which I was unfortunate enough to witness once.

That's how I want to be if I ever get to be old old, I want to still have my libido fully intact and be rutting with my husband like a teenager. Although when she found out that my grandfather had been cheating on her for over a decade with someone younger than both my father and my aunt, she divorced him, sued him for everything she could get, and essentially threw the biggest woman-scorned hissy fit possible without involving pickled penises in jars. All in her late 60s. Unfortunately many of my family took my grandfather's side, but although I loved my grandfather (and still do since his death. Despite also witnessing him enjoying the company of his mistress following the divorce. The man just didn't understand the concept of locks or using rooms that your grandkids don't walk into on a regular basis in the first place.) I greatly admire my grandmother for having the guts to do that despite the fact that everyone told her that it was a waste of money considering her age. She had enough self-respect to stand up for herself and not take the injustice as 'something that happens'. Men don't have the right to treat women like that, no matter what generation they are from, or how old they are. Being past the age of reproduction doesn't mean that you have no reason to get out of a relationship with someone who has less than 100% respect for you as a person.

My father has never been faithful to any woman. He's told me this himself, with the exception that he claimed to have been faithful to my mother. However since then I've met two women who had affairs with him since I was born and before my mother died. (One of those later became my grandfather's mistress. The bad thing is after she told me my immediate thought was 'that was an upgrade, my grandfather's penis is much bigger than my father's'. None of the men in my family seem to understand the concept of having sex/wanking in non-communal rooms when you have kids in the house.) My father also dated some of the strongest, most intelligent, most confident women I've ever met, and turned them into self-conscious shells of their former selves. He spoke to them the same way he spoke to me. Calling me thick (despite an IQ of 164 and the fact that I've been helping him do his paperwork since his divorce from my ex-stepmother when I was 12), fat, and unattractive. As I am a klutz that's prone to injuries, and have a chest illness that flares up from time to time, my weight yo-yos frequently depending on how much exercise I'm getting at the time. In my teens if I put on a bit of weight to be a size 12-14 (US 8-10) then I was too fat. If I lost a little to be a 10-12 (6-8 US), then he'd threaten to force-feed me faggots if I became anorexic, but still tell me that I needed to tone up. I constantly had to 'get my fat arse out of the way', and everything I wore showed off my fat legs/stomach/arse. Even if I was in a 10-12 stage, so these would be interspersed with threats of force-feeding if I lost any more weight.

My grandmother ignored the reactions of my family (as best she could, for a while it looked like she would stay with my grandfather despite his long-term deception). Ignored the 'fact' that infidelity is just something men do. Ignored the attitude that women are no longer worth anything once they're 'too old to find someone else anyway', or that age, size, attractiveness and the ability to get a man are the only things that give a woman worth. She decided that she was worth respect, and refused to waste her time with someone who didn't give her that. Paul was the only boyfriend that I've ever had, but I made it clear to him early on that if he lost interest in me he was to tell me, because I'd hate to have to dismember him for cheating on me. And my father told me all of the tricks he used to hide his infidelity from women and 'keep them in their place', so if I ever find my partner smells of Ralgex (good for covering the smell of another woman's perfume on yourself and the bedclothes, with the added bonus of making it easy to get sympathy and having her run around looking after you for cheating on her) then his penis is getting pickled, and it's only fair to give them a warning. I also told Paul that I intend on being an extremely horny 80 year old. The mental image that may have given him should be added to the reasons why I'm single again. I wonder what 80-year-old me looks like naked in his head.

All of the females I've spoken to about this agree with me. They want to be tying their husbands to the headboard until they kick the bucket. Hopefully they won't kick the bucket during since that would be something to explain to the paramedics/coroner. And now I want to know if any little old ladies have ever been investigated by the police after their geriatric husbands died of natural causes during a bondage session. If it was a handcuffed-to-the-radiator-with-a-ball-gag-in-the-mouth job then you'd probably have to do some re-arranging before calling anyone.

Back on topic...The one guy other than Paul that I've discussed this with surprised me, (as a male perspective, not as his perspective. He's not someone I call when I need advice on men since he doesn't think like most of them.) if he outlives his partner, he wants his libido to die with them. And I'm the one that gets called morbid. I wasn't the one to bring death into this particular conversation about sex. In fact I never do in actual conversations; I save my more disturbing crazy for myself, and now this blog. But then again it's different for a guy. I've accepted drinks off of old men when already drunk, but when an old man starts trying to cop a feel (in the street or the pub), it's a lot scarier than when a guy your age does it as you have more reservations about slapping them or hitting them in the balls in case you end up having to call an ambulance. So perhaps it is best that only my female friends want to be randy when they're older, since my male friends at worst go a little red when a little old dear flirts with them or cops a quick feel, but they still find it funny, not scary. That's the kind of sexism I can get on board with.