Richard Lives!

Dispelling my fear of an exodus, Richard has written to tell me he is still a member of Like You Really Care. However, his infrequent Internet access makes it difficult for him to post.

He did, however, want to chime in about the recent debacle. The following was written by Richard and is posted on his behalf.

Its a tricky thing with me, see. Being a sadist and all--well, it gets pretty complicated (I like to humiliate and dominate my partners--but only if they WANT me to. I figure part of it has to come from a very dark place in my psyche, but it leads me and my girl to a level of intimacy, trust, and love that I don't think that vanilla relationships can even approach.)

As a child of an era that set up Alan Alda and Phil Donahue as the pinnacle of evolved male perfection, I welcomed and embraced the whole cocktail culture retro-sexism, forgotten lore of the red-blooded american male thang that started showing up in the '90's. But I think that this comes less from hatred of women and more from wanting to love being a man. I don't think women shouldn't have jobs and power and the vote and all; but I like to be able to play the roles.

And I love pornography. But it has always been my contention that it degrades and commodifies all it touches, male or female--at least the good stuff does, anyway. And what about the women on the web who WANT me to jerk off over them? Bad Kitty, and Dagny, and the Suicide Girls? I suppose it could be argued that they're just buying in to the whole thing, but I don't think the Suicide Girls are minting the old dough-re-me hand over fist.

As always, I have no answers--just a bunch of questions. That seems to me to be the general state of modern gender relations. But I do know that I like women, and any number of women like me, even though I am evil and weak. Some of them because I'm evil and weak.

Here in a place where pc attitudes are everywhere you look (did you know that the women that the pirates are chasing in the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disneyland are now carrying food? Y'see, the pirates don't want rape them--they just want a sandwich!) I am fast reaching a boiling point. I think its a twofold problem--on the one hand, everyone could stand to be a lot more sensitive to the experiences of others. On the other hand, any number of people could stand to take the apple out of their asses and grow a sense of humor.

At this point, about all I know is what works for me. I doubt I can change the world, but I can set an example, and only spend my money on the VERY BEST porn.