Safety » CoupleDumb

Your safety word is 'J. Edgar Hoover'

Apr 022009

Harder, harder, wait, too hard, toooo hard.

I love Thursday. It has a certain hedonistic feel to it. It’s post hump day so you feel the need for a cigarette and yet you are getting all lusty for the weekend. The teasing is excruciating and we hope it lasts. We have been discussing safety all week and today is no different. However, today’s focus will be about establishing safety in the boudoir.

Lee says: Let’s talk about sex baby! I love talking about sex because I figure if you can’t talk about it, you don’t know how to do it. Sex is one area of life where you have people with natural talent and those who can learn to be what their partner needs. There shouldn’t be any bad lovers out there. I understand being quick on the draw and other biological reasons why your prowess is compromised but sex always has extra credit and, if you are lousy at one thing, you can excel in the extracurricular activities.

Euphemisms aside, if you are bad in bed or have a bad partner, the reason is you have yet to cultivate the safety with your sex mate. Safety makes it possible to say things like, ‘I like it like this,’ or ‘try it this way.’ An individual, who feels safe in a relationship, would not take this personally nor would a person feel awkward saying it. People will say that they feel embarrassed sharing these thoughts or pointers with their significant other but that begs the question, ‘So you can exchange fluids but not talk about it?’ This is not a question of awkwardness but of lack of safety. You don’t feel your sex buddy will accept you nor do you feel permission to express your needs.

Story time! Paul and I were very inexperienced when we got together. It was a gentle spring day and I was in kindergarten… seriously folks?! I met him when I was 21 but I had done little in the sex department. Paul and I fell for each other intellectually before moving into the physical realm. We decided to get married a couple of weeks after we started dating. I still remember our first kiss. Not because of how special it was but because it was terrible. I remember opening the door of my house and my mother walking by and seeing me cry. Yes, it was that horrible. She asked me what was the matter and I explained, through the tears that I had agreed to marry a man who couldn’t kiss. My mother, with wisdom I doubt she ever used herself, told me, ‘well, then teach him how! Tell him what you like!’

Of course the thought of it scared me but I thought it better to deal with this now then have a shitty sex life. I had been a good girl and waited. It would have been a real kick in the pants had I waited for bad sex. The next weekend, we went out and I had stopped at the book store and bought a few books; ‘How to make love to a woman’, ‘How to make love to a man’, and ‘How to make love to each other’. I told Paul how I felt about the kiss (he reminded me of the Sith and I understood completely). We read the books together, highlighting the good parts and giggling over the naughty bits. We shared this and, like most things in our successful corporation, we have had many, many more meetings which have yielded higher productivity with improved quality.

After 21 years of successful partnering, I can safely say that I can tell Paul anything and when he kisses me my toes still curl. If I haven’t said it before, thanks Mom!

Paul says: The Sith taught me that women don’t like tongue while kissing. Yes, she was Darth Maul’s meaner sister.

Madonna and safety in the same sentence without the words 'dental dam'.

Celebrity Smackdown

Apr 012009

Madonna Yuck

When we discuss our Celebrity Smackdowns at our daily meeting (which consists of us drinking coffee and waiting for Ricky to go watch Mickey Mouse Club House to dance his favorite jam so we can talk in peace for about 24 seconds), we often have difficulty honing in on a celebrity that fits the weeks topic. This week, since our topic was safety, we thought we would discuss the Shamwow guy, Vince Schlomi who beat up a hooker in Miami because she bit his tongue and wouldn’t let go. That one seemed an obvious choice. But was it the right choice?

In the midst of all this confusion this week, Madonna has decided to adopt another Malawian orphan. That seems benevolent enough, right? But when we discuss our need for safety to become healthy people, how healthy is it for that child to be adopted by her? We realize Malawi is a nightmare of disease and despair. We also understand that there is a significant portion of the population who are infected with AIDS and their children are ultimately left orphaned. Yet, these children still have families and their communities are protective of them.

Our concern over the safety of the kids stems from the obvious: it’s Madonna whose morals vacillate with fads. As a therapist, I worked with many mothers who were crack whores. There were times that I would strongly recommend that her children be taken away and then there were those times that I would fight for their right to keep their child. My main concern was the child, never the adult. In our western society, we have this idea of what is right in child rearing and assume, if it appears appropriate, it is. We think if a parent can buy anything a child needs, then that child will be happy. What you can’t purchase at any store is safety. Our feelings of safety come from our parent’s ability to create a safe environment which includes the physical necessities (not luxuries) and the emotional cocoon that will ultimately shield us from the stark realities of society.

This is my beef with Madonna. Whereas she creates a foundation for Malawi relief, she does not donate to it herself. The bulk of her donations were to Kaballah. She makes a film about Malawi and the plight of the children, but how much of this is self promotion since she has only shown it at festivals and has not been released or shown on a mass scale. If you are raising money for these people, where’s the hype? She had difficulty adopting the first time and the country of Malawi was not happy with her decision to SAVE them. We think it’s pretty fucking arrogant to think that you have the answers and impose your belief on what can save people. Sure you can buy and sell the country 10 times over but if it were merely a question of money than backwards oil rich nations would be the safest places on earth.

Don’t get us wrong, we believe in adoption. We are the parents of an adopted child and at no time have we believed that we saved her. On the contrary, she saved us. And because of this we work everyday to create a life for her that is safe and healthy. This Mother Teresa bit that this bitch is pulling pisses us off and the ultimate victims will be the children. We suppose she grew tired of fucking a child so now she wants to adopt one. As you go gyrate your recently replaced hips and cheeks on your Sticky and Sweet Redux tour, I’m sure your children will feel nice and safe having twelve ninja nannies and 4 bodyguards take care of them.

My kids speak english good

Kids and why you can't kill them

Mar 312009

An adorable little heart attack in the making

We often joke with people that we left our kids duct taped to the wall with a box of saltines on those rare occasions that we are seen out without them. People laugh and then get very serious when they figure that that would not be so farfetched. We know as parents, those crazy thoughts enter our heads and yet, love and guilt win out. We stay home, get a second on the house for a baby sitter or suck up to grandma one more time for a few hours of peace. Our desire to be the best parents we can be sometimes lacks the basics in what the most important things in parenting are. We spend all our time taxiing our little ones to baseball then flute then tai chi then reiki then the doctor for the sniffles then the old folk’s home for volunteering then the calculus tutor for your toddler. Sure little Ambrosia can play the violin like a virtuoso and order in perfect Mandarin when you hit Panda Express but are they happy?

Lee says: Compared to today’s kids, I didn’t get to do anything as a child. My mother had this weird idea that girls shouldn’t do sports and should learn to knit. My sister and I would beg to be allowed to join try out for teams but to no avail. We never really were allowed to do sports and ultimately never learned to knit either. For a parent today, my parent’s actions would be considered abusive since we were not allowed the opportunity to succeed on the playing field or in front of an audience (actually, we did take piano lessons and that led to a recital that is a funny for me but sad for my sister story for another blog).

People actually believe that all this extra education and physical activity will raise their self esteem/confidence. People think that over scheduling a child and having them be ‘well-rounded’ will help them create a sense of safety. However, the only people who can create safety for a child are the parents themselves. From the moment a baby is born, it searches out for someone or something to give it reassurance. Trust me when I say, no amount of triangle lessons will fill that need.

Nurturing is more than just giving a child food and the occasional cuddle. Creating a safe environment is more than just covering the light sockets and padding the sharp corners. Child rearing is more than taxing your blackberry calendar to the brink of explosion with activities. A good parent creates a cocoon for child where they are safe. In this space, a child can express themselves and their feelings knowing that a parent will love them no matter what. There is no need for being the best in this space just a sense of acceptance and love.

This isn’t to say that we don’t have high expectations for our kids and push them to excel in academics but they know that these things do not define who they are. We are blessed to have intelligent children. Our eldest, despite all of her specialness, is still quite bright. And regardless of her lack of sight or physical abilities, we push her to do her very best. We encourage her not to allow her ‘disabilities’ to dictate who she becomes. But at the end of the day, she is still our little Jeannie and we love her in spite of her results.

We encourage our kids to be fiercely independent but squeeze them tight when they return to us from conquering the world. No, our kids probably won’t take tap dancing and learn to play the oboe, but they will be happy and content speaking broken English even stuck to the wall with their box of crackers.

Paul says: I think that duct tape and crackers should be considered good parenting. Being able to chew your way out of a duct tape harness is a very useful skill. Trust me.