Kay Prime > Recent Status Updates

Expecting this to be about how to cohesively integrate the practice and ideologies of a very egalitarian relationship structure like polyamory with a consciously disparate power dynamic. So far, this book has been from the perspective of a poly M-type introducing a mono s-type to poly, including which questions to ask yourself and each other- certainly useful info to have, but not what I was seeking.

"Teaching about M/s models with high standards helps would-be slaves to see that they are allowed to have standards from the beginning, before they make any arrangements, and that indeed they should have them. It's how they can keep themselves safe."

A wonderful reminder: "There is no one right level of intensity to a power dynamic. [...] The relationship is good when it's good for everyone involved, not when it matches anyone else's standards."

Manners listed are great reminders when taking your dynamic out into the vanilla world. The take away being that power dynamics can be off-putting for the uninitiated. "Part of mastery and slavery is courtesy, part of courtesy is not making people unnecessarily uncomfortable."

Thus far, the book has been providing a very brief background and context- very necessary prep when discussing such topics.

Many of the definitions and ideologies, I have some familiarity since I've been part of my local bdsm and poly communities in the past. Still, I found it informative, especially the overviews of the swinging community as well as the leather community since I am less knowledgeable there.

This is everything a good read should be. Every single page is engaging. The voice is authentic. The story is captivating. Walker leads her readers through a range of emotions via the characters (who are all so very real). For me, this is truly a masterpiece.

What frustrates me about Blanton is that his ideas are One True Wayist. He assumes everyone experiences emotions and receives information in the same way when that simply is not true! Also, he states that anyone unwilling to do it his way is not authentic. As a PhD he should recognize this approach is extremely flawed.

Finally! The plot is coming together and the book is beginning to make some sense... as much sense as a Murakami can make. Based on what I know so far, he is one of those authors that requires a layman like myself to peruse evaluations and discussions and then come back and reread in order to appreciate. Not all books are worth this effort and many just end up feeling pretentious. The jury is still out on this one.

Another idea that Blanton and I share is that many of us were taught- directly or indirectly- that we must protect our loved ones from our anger by withholding/suppressing it. Somehow this is virtuous so we martyr ourselves. When our efforts aren't appreciated we resent our loved ones. But no one appreciates having info withheld from them or being lied to.

I agree with Blanton that language and how we is it is important, especially in interpersonal relationships but his ideas on what that means and mine differ greatly! It's possible to share your negative feelings compassionately. Being an asshole is not always necessary, especially if you want a sympathetic result. (Non-violent communication.)

Hello, old friend. We meet again. This book is timeless. (And don't tell anyone I said this but the movie is just as good, if not better thanks to the FANTASTIC musical arrangement.)

I like Murakami's style and his knack for weaving the real and surreal. It is a new and pleasant experience for me. However, I am still confused and unsure about the book. Murakami often speaks in riddles, which would be ok if I had some way to orient myself. I feel I could be getting more out of this except I'm missing something, but I don't know what it is. (That's how I feel about most things Japanese.)

This book could be considerably shorter if Blanton didn't enjoy proselytizing about the homeopathic benefits of telling the truth and how exactly said truth should be told. He repeats the same ideas over and over using different anecdotes, excerpts from various pieces of literature, and Eastern spirituality. It's all so very tedious. But I must finish it. This book will not defeat me.

I'm not sure where the story is going. I haven't read any synopses besides the mostly vague and slightly confusing one provided here. I've heard good things about this book and its author so I want to like it, but it's feeling pretty sluggish and pointless, atm (and just as vague and confusing as the synopsis).

The issue I am having with Blanton is I gotta slog through his eastern-philosophy-guru-ness rambling to find the gems. Like this one that I enthusiastically agree with!: "If I calculate and put on phony behavior in order to please you, you may love my behavior, but you cannot love me, because I have hidden my real existence behind this artificial behavior."

Blanton differentiates three phases of telling the truth: revealing the facts; honestly expressing current feelings and thoughts, which is "[...] the practice of admitting how you feel when you feel it, speaking your secret judgements of others out loud and constant revealing your own petty and condescending ways"; exposing the fiction you have devised to represent yourself and your history.

Blanton says all stress is caused by lying (and all lying is caused by moralism). "We are all the walking wounded. [...] Being overweight, uptight, a heavy smoker, a heavy drinker, a non-excerciser [...] are the direct result of a more central ailment of the mind. [...] Escape from the trap of lies in learning [...] to tell the truth." He makes claims that clients have experienced physical therapeutic effects. *hrm*

Blanton really dislikes values not based in individual, ongoing experience: The gap created by lack of grounding in our experience leaves us dependent on ideas, principles, rules, values, and imagination as our primary modes of orientation. Fritz Perls said in 1946, "Principles are substitutes for an independent outlook. [...] He hangs on to them because of the insufficiency of his own independent judgement." Agreed!

Not everything Blanton says sounds like malarkey: "People who are intensely attached to moral principles notice only the experiences that justify the rightness of the principles and simply don't notice anything else. [Few] people learn to treat principles [...] as less important "rules of thumb" to be validated or invalidated by new experience." But these are things I already know.

This book is not what I was expecting. I wanted a far more objective explanation about how being honest benefits us mentally and emotionally, considering Blanton is a trained psychiatrist. Instead, this stinks too much of Far East spiritualism and other guru-type ideologies. We need to get back to the being we were in the womb because that is our true selves? *sigh* This is going to be tedious.

Eugenie de Franval is my fave work so far. Unlike PitB, it has tact. It's reminiscent of a classic tragedy. Though, Sade has the bad habit of having his characters state his message rather than leading his readers to it through the action. This ruins part of the journey when reading a social commentary or personal philosophy fiction. Perhaps that's just Sade's ego showing. He believed he was too smart for the room.

Sade sometimes prefaced his writings with a plea that feigned regret and disgust of the topic at hand. "May the reader show himself indulgent for the monstrous details of the hideous crime we are obliged to describe..." Was this to get an audience? To keep from being prosecuted (obviously unsuccessfully)? To expose others to his topics and hope to awaken or identify a fellow Sadist?

At this point, the sex scenes in PitB have become absurd in their depiction to the point of comical. I hope Sade is making some cunning point that I am missing. Perhaps he is being so outrageous in an attempt to desensitize his original audience so that anything less absurd won't be considered depraved? If not, I was wrong about Sade not being in it (at least partially) for the shock value.

And the sexism and misogyny continues: "[R]ape, an act so very rare and so very difficult to prove, wrongs one's neighbor less than theft, since the latter is destructive to property, the former merely damaging to it." And pedophilia: "There remains but to fix the woman's age; now, I maintain it cannot be fixed without restricting the freedom of a man who desires a girl of any age." This man is nuts.

For Sade to be so forward thinking when it comes to sexual freedom, I can't get behind Sadism for ideas such as this: "It cannot be denied that we have the right to decree laws that compel women to yield to the flames of him who would have her; violence itself being one of that right's effects..."

And this doesn't even detail his highly enthusiastic support and defense of rape...

Tuning out the long list of things I don't like about the book, this last stretch has been keeping my attention (even if I already had a general idea of the ending since learning of the Vanger mystery). Not being a crime/suspense novel fan, I suppose I was never the intended audience to begin with. It is safe to say that I will not be finishing this series. 1.5 or 2 stars (depending on the ending).

Sade spends 6 pages explaining something that can be done in 2. He often uses his own argument to prove a point in another argument, which severely retards his credibility for me. I understand why many considered him to be mad. I may be swayed to agree. (And his "perverse" sexuality is a non-factor in my mind.) Because of these things, he makes for somewhat tedious and dense (albeit interesting) reading.

Why, Larsson, spend 350 pages establishing the characters of your protagonists only to have them behave completely out of character when they meet? And I'm not impressed with these "dark secrets/talents" of Lisbeth's that Mikael discovers. Either I'm a miscreant or they're not as scandalous as you'd hoped they'd be. Also, could there be any more crime novel cliches packed in here? Indifference is becoming dislike.

Sade is quite the narcissist: "Nature, mother to us all, never speaks to us save for ourselves; [...] prefer thyself, love thyself, no matter at whose expense [...] 'tis never but selfishly one should love people; to love them for themselves is nothing but dupery." One of the defining features of Sadism is that it is only your own pleasure that matters. How our pleasure affects others is inconsequential.