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Our old school-year carpool disbanded in June due to children going off in different directions, so I’ve been casting about this summer for a new gas-saving and time-saving way to get my child where she needs to be.
We hit upon a likely candidate in one of my daughter’s friends who lives several blocks from us. I’d spoken to the friend’s mother in the past, but I’d never been to her house until last week, when we went there for a post play date drop off.
I’d planned on inviting the mother over some morning so that we could get to know each other better, as her kids would be staying with me for a fraction of an hour before school each day. However, my heart fell when I pulled into her driveway and saw the McCain bumper sticker on her car next to the metallic fish emblem, as well as the small wooden cross placed directly above the doorbell.
“Rally!” I heard a calm voice say in my head, so I choked down the ever-present but completely irrational worry about being seen as a slut by everyone, not just my parents, and asked her over. I’m at fault for making the same sort of assumptions I fear others will make about me; when the visit rolled around we found much in common, including a difficult yet amicable divorce and a fervent desire to educate our daughters rationally about sex.
I have to wonder though if she would have been so accepting of me if she knew about my employment. I have to wonder this about all my friends who know little if anything about my means of support other than that it involves words and the internet. Would they still like me? Would they dump me immediately, or pull away gradually? Would they worry about allowing their children at my house?
Er…just for the record? I’ve moved the box of dildos to an even more secure location. And I’ve not yet begun the project to recycle my unwanted vibrators into an altogether unique wind chime.
It’s something I’ve struggled with since the inception of this blog. I want complete transparency. I want no appreciable disconnect between the online persona and the real life persona. I want nothing less than no secrets from anyone, anytime, anywhere. Not, you understand, no privacy…just no secrets.
But probably that’s way too much for me to hope.
Sigh..this is something I am struggling with right now. I feel the need to be merge the different parts of myself, but I do know that some just wouldn’t “get it”. I wish you luck in finding that balance in bringing your persona’s together. They are both fabulous!
I was just glad you thought of me this time!
Hi AAG,
Look — part of having a somewhat ‘divergent’ lifestyle is the secrecy. It’s really time to get over wanting strangers to accept you for who you are, and giving them a lever for control over your life.
If you want to play submissive, I’ll be over with a rope.
;-)
XOXO
Chuck
AAG,
As someone who has been in the “scene” for many years, it would possibly cost me some friends and maybe my job if I was completely transparent about my proclivities.
We who live lives outside the “norm” are still thought of as odd and deviant.
Maybe someday we will be accepted, but for now, with few exceptions, we must hide that part of ourselves from the general public.
Pete
After having been kicked out of a church for my new re-emerging beliefs, I find your hope endearing. It is our hope (for whatever we hope for) that keeps us expending our energy to find balance.
Oh, this is deep. I didn’t want it to be. But, it is the human condition to want and need balance or peace. Because of the continual chaos in our lives, we spend the greatest part of our lives working toward equilibrium, balance, peace. And so it goes…
That process will never stop. That’s the stuff of life. Like I say, “All that work for two minutes of pleasure.” Your thoughts?
You can’t be friends with everyone, AAG, no matter your occupation or proclivities. Be civil with everyone, and gather a few good friends along the way.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t.
Welll I am not going to get deep..You sound like an amazing person.
And you made me laugh at you making a wind chime out of dildos!! hehe
Did you think I was joking about the dildo/vibe wind chime?
:)
The boundaries are difficult! I’m dancing a fine line myself, but not in as explicit way as you, just simply bearing my soul and hoping to not hurt others in the process.
Our world is better for not having secrets. Look at all the evangelicists who ending up crashing in revelations of sexual misconduct. You are brave enough to speak the truth. Those who are ready to hear it will accept you open-heartedly. Those who are not…well, eventually perhaps.
keep it up!
Hello AAG
I recognise your dilemma. I too have quite a visible persona in the vanilla world, but AH is most truly myself. I’m pretty sure that if I outed myself I’d be lucky if the vanillas thought me within the acceptable limits of eccentricity. So I’ve concluded that discretion is the better part of valour.
I really really like your stuff.
Yrs in pervery, Adrian
Thing is, there is no reason for Carpool parents or other casual acquaintances to know about what you do in bed. Probably, I’m a writer/blogger is enough about your job. I’m sure your carpool friend hasn’t shared many intimate details of her work (Be it at home or in an office or factory) so I wouldn’t worry much about sharing yours with her.
Often it seems, those of us with different tastes in love feel like we have to divulge our secrets, but when was the last time a friend came up to you and said “I am devastatingly boring in bed and I just thought you should know!” In other words, you need only tell the people you choose to tell, or those who will find out inevitably.
The level of what you share is up to you (unless the beans are spilled), but if you lose a friend when they find out about your blog/career, would you have really wanted said friend knowing they can’t accept you for who you are?
Yeah, that makes sense. I can absolutely see where you’re coming from, and believe that you’re right in not wanting to hide yourself. I have told one of my two best friends about our foray into the world of swinging, and she knows about me reviewing sex toys (kinda hard not to when the reviews are on my personal blog now LOL), but there is one friend who is much more conservative and whom I keep quiet about our sex life too.
I think it’s just one of those things where you have to keep in mind what they’re comfortable with as well. Sometimes to be a good friend, you have to be sensitive to their needs as well as your own.
Hmmm. Perhaps you don’t agree with McCain’s views regarding abortion (I don’t), but I really don’t think he cares that much what you do in the privacy of your bedroom (or somebody else’s living room…)
However, the bible thumpers scare the shit out of me. I have been living in the heart of the bible belt for 15 long years, and (to me) the fish emblem indicates “close-minded”.
I think you should get one of these:
http://www.rof.com/product_p/2145-pq.htm
The Procreation fish!
Keeping secrets can be fun. You just never know who is a slut in the bedroom. Sluts can hide behind some very unexpected personas. Even personas that vote Republican and put fish magnets on their cars.
I agree with Sem. You’d never guess at what we do in the bedroom and whom we might do it with based simply on our bumper stickers and fish magnets.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much hope.
AAG, you worry too much. Very few people “like” McCain’s proposals, just as not that many people like Obama’s. The election will be decided based on “which crook do I despise LEAST?” So be secure in the knowledge that many a Republican is just as comfortable with sex – including KINKY sex – as any Democrat.
My wife and I were wandering around the local “adult boutique” looking for some new toys (for her). In the background was the male store clerk talking with friends about his upcoming visit to the rifle range. When we went to pay for our selections, I asked if there was a veteran’s discount, He replied no, but he COULD give a 10% discount if we were Life Members of the NRA. Well, of course, my wife and I both ARE Life Members of the National Rifle Association, so we chuckled a bit about the fact that we were exercising TWO Constitutional rights at once; the First, as in “freedom of expression”, and the Second, in that we are both gun owners.
So, please allow your little one to ride to school in the McCain-emblazoned van. And hope that if they were ever to be involved in a drive-by shooting, that the driver WOULD have his personal firearm handy!
“There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.” W. Somerset Maugham
And I’m not referring to your or yours, but those who stickered their van with McCain.
;-)
‘Tis a scary one, indeed.
Parents of my kids’ friends commented on my Tantra books when they walked in the door and I was asked to hide them. One friend’s parents would no longer allow her child over because she though me an unfit parent. (and…ha…they hadn’t a clue about what I was really up to.)
Harper Valley PTA still exists for sluts and whores. I want all that you do, too, but I struggle with how my choices affect those I love. Not easy. My experience is that it gets even tricksier in the teens, when parents are even more concerned about the Sex Issue with their kids.
Hi AAG.
I really like your writing and how you let people in on all the aspects of your life, not just the sex.
When I read this post it really made me think about how you manage to conceal your actual job from most people. What do you tell your friends for example? Just that you’re a writer or a blogger? And do they never ask further questions or want to read something that you have written?
And not to mention your parents, what did they think you did for a living before they discovered your website?
I’m just curious, because I can’t see myself getting away with anything like this :)
No matter if you’re a libertine fetishist, a fundie Christian, or a Buddhist monk you can be sure that somebody is going to have something to say about it. It’s easy to say “Let ‘em say/think what they want” but a whole other thing to actually do it. But once your kid(s) is/are grown it gets easier if that helps any.
Appropos of nothing in particular, did you know that “Aag” is the Hindi word for “fire”? Fitting, na?
I’ve been told that! I love it!
Yeah it’s tough when you feel like you have to segment yourself for propriety’s sake.
All I really want is a few friends who totally accept me for who I am… without having to hide parts of it. Well, and I want them to live close by so we can actually hang out.
I guess that’s a lot to ask. Generally too much. But I still hope…