Well, yeah, the whole point is that it's something that makes a lot of people feel icky and this is a problem and we'd all (or at least lots of us would) feel better if we embraced the possibility of good feelings.
I haven't done OM and it seems like it's very much not for me in several important ways, but I have done some more standard meditation practice, and in particular something called the "compassionate body scan" was really surprising in what it taught me. In particular, I was shocked to find that being compassionate toward my own body was a new experience, that I had very little practice with. I had a very antagonistic attitude toward my own body and its needs and desires (I'm not just talking about sex here either), in a way that wasn't really helping me accomplish any of my other goals. I've been (slowly) trying to build a positive relationship with my body and it seems like OM is basically just another attempt to fix this, focused on sexual desire, because most people don't feel quite as conflicted about wanting a backrub or a warm bath.
most people don't feel quite as conflicted about wanting a backrub or a warm bath
I do! But there are plumbers fixing the supposed drip from the bathtub today, so that part at least will get better without my having to have public orgasms or anything. Wanting backrubs is something I don't feel like I can ask for since my back hurts all the time and so it's unfair to impose on a partner because it won't be rare and won't get much better.
I'm not actually sure how I feel about the OM stuff. I'm not tempted or intrigued by it, but don't want to be too mean and dismissive just because I hate fun. The gendered dynamic strikes me as creepy, but again so does everything else in the world.
Also the name of the company seems more than a little icky to me.
Also the name of the company seems more than a little icky to me.
It seems unappealing, but Gawker and The Atlantic have done articles where the reporters were negative until they tried it.
The Gawker writer didn't fully embrace it.
and frankly I don't like most people
You might like them better if you let them stroke your clitoris.
I should probably start an organization like this except much cooler and without the heteronormative b.s. and I'll call it Bonobo's Cousins.
I'll probably be the only one to come to the meetings, but I bet I'll have fun.
If this isn't the soundtrack it probably should be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yBG8kpud4cw
I don't have anything against this per se, but it's remarkable how you can get people to do things they would otherwise never contemplate doing if you just present it in the right context and give it the right label. ("It's OK--this is therapy! It's meditation!")
8: If you come by yourself aren't you missing the point?
7: And you'd probably get *at least* one 1000-comment thread out of it.
but I have done some more standard meditation practice, and in particular something called the "compassionate body scan" was really surprising in what it taught me.
I'm generally on board with Know Thy Body type self-awareness, and even some of the woo Experiences Are Stored In Your Elbow type claims.
Experiences Are Stored In Your Elbow type claims.
I hear that elbow stroking is going to be the next big thing.
Apo proposed a similar thing when we were in DC.
Know Thy Body type self-awareness
Babies are so excited when they first discover they have feet! We need to find a way for adults to recapture that experience!
Ace lets total strangers stroke her newfound feet.
I guess there's not anything wrong with this if you want to do it but Jesus fucking Christ you gross idiots just have sex in private and shut up.
Activity for the next meetup? One thing none of these journalists did was liveblog their OM.
this seems to be the right thread to post 50 Cent dubbed over a Jehovah's Wittness trying to get deaf people to stop masturbating.
Maybe messily can tell us more about this guy's pitch.
there are plumbers fixing the supposed drip from the bathtub today, so that part at least will get better without my having to have public orgasms or anything
I've seen that meditation video.
16: Noticing that you have feet is actually a fairly popular technique in some circles for engaging the parasympathetic nervous system, i.e. calming the fuck down.
Which is I guess one of the reasons I was taught to begin my body scan meditation there.
Who wants to OM Mutombo?
and everyone's all OM
I see what you did there.
I just want to know what any of this has to do with French soccer.
It's got more tongue than regular soccer.
20 is so great. Just when something like the OP makes me go into grumbling "let's end modernity, destroy the Internet and was the Inquisition really so bad?" mode something like 20 comes along and is too hilarious to resist. Let's all celebrate freedom and the power to share our beautiful, beautiful erotic souls with the world.
26: This retreat is designed to help women who suffer from Teary Ennui.
I linked the Gawker story a few months ago. My favorite part is still the suggestion that OM be used to resolve interpersonal conflicts in the workplace. The thought of convening to a private breakroom with a coworker I don't get along with is just nonononono.
One thing none of these journalists did was liveblog their OM.
I could swear we've discussed this before and I linked to some journalist (maybe at nerve.com?) who described her experience with it. But I'm not finding it on cursory searching. I'm probably in the wrong quadrant.
Maybe 31 is what I'm remembering.
I see from the sidebar of the linked piece that buttsex is science's last taboo.
It's not liveblogged, but the linked piece does have her OMming several times.
32 is kind of destroying my faith in an ordered universe. The Apostropher can't find say what???
2: Someone I know mostly from the internet (but not from here) posted a link on Livre Des Visages to an article about light vs deep touch and how the author's preference for deep touch and dislike of light touch pretty well described her too, and this made lots of social and affectionate touching really annoying for her.
I of course wanted to say that I feel exactly the same way and then offer a proper so-hard-my-hands-almost-hurt massage, but I worried that it would be a bit creepy to just say "hey, want a massage?" So instead I stuck describing how my own preferences were similar, and then she challenged me to a massage contest. So that was a successful interaction. But we haven't been in the same city since.
More recently someone else wrote about how she had only recently figured out that a preference to act, or to be acted on, is a thing for cuddling, and not just for BDSM. I bet it's a thing for massage too, so it seems like you might be avoidably giving up mutually beneficial interactions if you don't let people know what you prefer. The hard thing I guess is to do this in a way that is clearly informational and not an implicit demand.
Oh, I'm an idiot - the OP link was supposed to be the Gawker piece, not the Salon one.
37: I have a portion of a crackpot theory that increased awareness of kids' differing sensory preferences will trickle up as people become more aware of that sort of thing.
39: That seems fairly likely. Hasn't that pretty much happened for autism?
Gawker link
Can't find and suitably pithy pull quotes. There is something about the provided bulk-purchase organic coconut scented lube. The smell in that room must be the stuff of nightmares.
the author's preference for deep touch and dislike of light touch pretty well described her too
Rather than shaking hands, she punches people.
20: Well, the first thing he says is that God thinks masturbation is gross.
Sex is for men and women loving each other, not for just feeling good.
God knows it's a struggle. It's okay to ask for help. Just keep trying, and say you're sorry a lot. God will forgive you, and eventually you'll get better at not masturbating.
I'm a little surprise nobody has linked this yet.
Wow, 20 synchronizes so much better than it has any reason to.
Molly suggested that it had been slowed down. I think maybe parts of it have been slowed down to get it to sync right, and because everyone loves slow motion masturbation miming.
Also, what is the sign he keeps making that seems to mean "giant tits"?
Timecode? Probably either "want" or "well" (as in a placeholder- you think masturbation is fine! well, God thinks it's gross)
God thinks it's gross
The downside to divine omniscience is never being able to just avert Your eyes.
There's one about 14 seconds in. It looks like he's holding his huge boobs out in front of him and giving them a little jiggle.
I swear I wouldn't have thought that if he hadn't already been making sex gestures.
No, that's just basically "well" or "eh". He says "Maybe [you] feel, 'well, nothing's wrong, [it's] fine', NO WAY, Jehovah [is] watching [and He is like] 'Gross!'"
(an alternate translation of that last bit would be "and He is disgusted" but I like mine better)
54: I like yours better, too. Good translation really needs to maintain the poetry of the original.
I have spent an insane amount of time over the past four workdays trying to get UPS to deliver two misadressed packages. The call center has to e-mail the warehouse, which will then call me, except UPS mistranscribed my phone number during call #1. I've corrected it three times now, but the correction gets lost. Apparently, there is no way for me to call the warehouse. They "can only make outgoing calls." So, I'm stuck at my desk for the next hour waiting for the promised "within the hour" phone call that hasn't worked out any of the previous times. Grrrr.
apo, I think you may remember when I was contacted on OkCupid by one of their center directors, and I posted about it on Facebook, and you talked about it in the comments
"Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
"Where were you when
I set the galaxies spinning?
tell me if you understand?
who knows the weight
of the supermassive black holes
at their centers?
"Would you discredit my justice?
I command you,
Never to touch your own joybuzzers!
I, who taught the praying mantis
To eat her mate,
I am all grossed out
When you play with yourself!"
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On the subject of Native Americans and R------s, this cracked me up.
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3: It could be worse. HandsOm, for example.
Intentional House of Digital Orgasm.
Actually, the most annoying thing about the name is that it doesn't quite make sense. Why taste? Why not touch?
67: Assuming nobody can resist a taste?
Wait, how does this game work again?
72: You find a set of student athletes that can run or pass an oblong ball better than most other student athletes. Then you avoid legal scrutiny for decades.
I couldn't get far enough into the astonishing cesspool of misogyny comments to see where the author comes in, but ick anyway. I suppose you should still be able to have orgasms if you hate sex, but what the fuck is wrong with having sex?
Well, it's kinda smelly sometimes.
So is farting and people fart on the bus.
If nobody has a whole 15 minutes, science has a new button.
One question I've had when reading these has been whose left? I assume the stroking person, but shouldn't it be more strokee-centric language?
I'm glad not to have been the only one puzzled by the required mechanics. Only in a specified quadrant? Why? I mean, why not, I suppose, but why?
Because it's high and intense, not deep and throaty, LB. Or vice versa?
South of the equator, it's the opposite quadrant.
Deep and throaty would be an entirely different location.
I think apo crossed some kind of international date line.
80: Huh, I was reading it as strokee-relative, but on a more careful reading I can't see anything that makes it clear who it's relative to. Possibly in their preferred orientation, the two lefts are the same.
81: In the most general case, the only thing I'd expect to break bilateral symmetry would be the handedness of the stroker. So if you assume the stroker is right handed, maybe the angle of attack for massaging the left side is in some way better? I might be overthinking this.
84: Of course, all circular motions should be consistent with the Coriolis effect for maximum pleasure.
Jesus is not being a very good Witness for his dad here.
Jackie and I tried the technique as described in The 4 Hour Body. It works extremely well, but lacks hottness. Still, fun to offer that intensity of experience every now and then.
I'm besquickened and feel dowdy. Not *quite* as besquickened as when my in-laws gave us a copy of _Passionate Marriage_.
(Apparently they hadn't actually noticed our having been late, blushing and freshly showered every time we went anywhere for years. Huh.)
In long boring meetings I sometimes reflect on how much better the world would be if everyone in the room could just pair off and have some sex...OM appears to be working toward that kind of world so I can't be too against it. But I'm basically pretty slutty, not everyone is that way.
They mention lesbians, but it seems to be very heteronormative - they always talk about pairing off male-female.)
I notice this kind of thing a lot now -- yeah, such and such a description may mention homosexuals, but it still seems to take heterosexuality as normative. But heterosexuality *is* the norm, in that 95% of everyone is pretty much heterosexual, so an accurate description of a typical population engaging in sexual/romantic activity is going to mention heterosexuality most of this time.
Jackie and I tried the technique as described in The 4 Hour Body.
there's a certain type of book-recommended sensual/sexual activities that bring pleasure but are somehow quite boring anyway, mostly because you have to follow elaborately detailed rules and proceed sloooowly. Your mind is always on whether you're doing it right, where your left thumb is supposed to be now, etc.
95% of everyone is pretty much heterosexual
Wait, what?
I thought something in the single digits like that was pretty widely accepted. The double digit figures strike me as a bit optimistic.
Or maybe you're worried about only running at 80 percent. Dude, I'm running at like 110, so the math works out.
Every gay person is actually the same balding 47 year old man.
I had thought the widely accepted figure was something around 10%, but I don't really know. I also find it amusing that the sentence I quoted can be interpreted as saying "everyone's 5% gay," although I'm sure that's not what PGD meant.
I also think PGD's probably conflating two different meanings of the word "normative," but I'll let the philosophers sort that one out.
10% was an early figure that took on a rhetorical life of its own. Recent studies with various methodologies get around 5% gay, but then probably the same again are bi, and then there's other kinds of queer along various dimensions. Plus of course most straight people are 5% gay.
Holy shit there Kinsey, really? (from wikipedia)
He also reported that 37% of men in the U.S. had achieved orgasm through contact with another male after adolescence
Based off of a survey of what, the Penn state football mentoring program?
Didn't Kinsey do much of his research in prisons?
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I'm at a hotel in Nome with annoyingly slow wifi. It's a little after 10 pm and the sun is just now setting. I think I'll head over to a bar soon, because, well, when in Nome...
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They mention lesbians, but it seems to be very heteronormative
except that the OP link describes one woman OM'ing another? (Being OM'd by another? ) Anyway, one orgasm from two women, which doesn't sound utterly heteronormative. Unless it's so Queen Victorianly heteronormative that it's not sex if it's two women, but that doesn't sound like their take on it either.
81: they're unlocked for in game achievements.
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So the bar I went to was pretty quiet; according to the bartender this is because they don't have a license for hard liquor, but they're working on getting one. I've gone there before when I've been in town, and it's certainly the nicest bar I've seen here in terms of interior decor etc. Much more of a hip, urban vibe than is typical of rural Alaska. When I first arrived there was a talkative local guy there who asked me a bunch of questions, then he left to go to another bar and I chatted with the bartender a bit. She's lived in Nome for about a month and can't wait to get the hell out and back to Texas, where she lived before. She moved up here to help her family out with some unspecified problems, but the current plan is apparently for her husband to come up this summer to do some gold mining, then they'll go back to Texas at the end of the summer. While we were chatting we watched music videos on the flat-screen TV over the bar. They had Fat Tire on draft; I had two then came back to my hotel.
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I'm not sure why I thought any of that would be of interest to anyone, but I guess bar-blogging is traditional.
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Is this sort of thing regarded as non-pathological behaviour? Ils sont fous, ces Americains.
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except that the OP link describes one woman OM'ing another?
Yeah but in the Gawker piece, which is the one I meant to link, all the instructions over the intercom are of the style "Ladies, get in position! Men, get your hand ready!"
But she did! From your link
The conference seemed peppy, silly, cultish and irritating until I bought into it. A guy in a top hat was my partner and it worked, the whole scary thing worked. I was in a room with a whole bunch of strangers and all we cisgendered women took our pants off. We let the strangers do this thing to us that felt, really, like an extreme version of going to the gynecologist. Yes, 15 minutes is a long time. Yes, I learned to ask for what I wanted. And yes, the results were amazing. By the third day of the conference I was a convert. I was touching people too much, and attentively listening to the benefits of orgasm.
(Yes, of course I had to check)
107: John Mackey is certainly not the norm for CEOs, and I think most folks would think overnight sleepovers were a lawsuit waiting to happen. If you want to complain about Americans, perhaps I could interest you in an article explaining that Americans favoring intervention inn Ukraine generally have no fucking clue where it is. (Australia?!)
112: hey, the Germans managed to call out an EBOLA TOTAL AIRPORT ALERT because some clown thought Catania was in Guinea: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/flughafen-tegel-falscher-ebola-alarm-loeste-grosseinsatz-aus/9718726.html
An opinion probably shared by many northern Italians.
112. Three or four of them seem to think Ukraine is in the mid-west. I think the US could legitimately intervene if the Russians were organising a coup in Missouri.
116 -- is Jackie Paisley Parker Posey or whatever her name was taken? It seems like they'd be a good match.
116: dammit, he's stolen my idea for making Facebook more unpleasant and divisive. Or one of my ideas for doing so anyway.
(I'm hoping to commission a mobile app so I can do that on the fly)
OK, he's having a laugh.
And I don't even want to think about what he regards as a political pass.
116 -- Your style can be "WASP", "Urban," "Exotic," "Chosen," "Hipster" or "Barbie." Those are your choices.
Is this sort of thing regarded as non-pathological behaviour?
Sleepovers at work have come up in several Silicon Valley job listings shared around the web recently, too. Okay, point taken: you don't want any parents to work for you.
If a sleepover came up with any of my bosses I'd borrow a sick kid for the night and duck out. Snot and wailing would be preferable to hanging with the boss in my PJs.
Dude clearly has no actual friends, if he's managing to spend 4 hours a week on his friend list.
123: as Gabriele D'Annunzio apparently had someone tell his editor: "The Signor has gone up in a balloon and cannot possibly descend in time for lunch."
I shall steal that next time I get a call from Mumbai for one of the three people who to my certain knowledge have never lived here who keep getting junk calls.
Clearly, 121's misreading of "Bobo" as "Barbie" and skipping of "Alpha" represents important differences in culture on the two coasts.
Key quote from the sleepover piece: "This level of personal interaction, says Mr Mackey, prevents staff compartmentalising their work life and personal life, and means workers can relate on a deeper level." In other words, you don't have a personal life that isn't your work life, but let me express my control over my employees in a fun way that evokes memories of childhood. Christ, what an asshole.
...prevents staff compartmentalising their work life and personal life...
Translation: Staff will be encouraged to treat work as more important than family, work absurd hours, and neglect their personal interests in favor of those of the company.
127: there are both "Bobo" and "Barbie" categories on the spreadsheet.
Chosen
Help me out - does this refer to Koreans or Jews?
I've mentioned the firm retreats at my old firm before, where you were forced to have a roommate from the opposite level of seniority -- most senior name partner with junior associate, more senior associate with more junior partner, etc, for three nights. Combined with everyone being very drunk.
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Just WTF was Twitter thinking by fucking around with their web design? Was there something wrong with it before? This is very the opposite of an improvement.
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131: "Zionism was the belief that the welfare of the Jewish people required them to have a homeland of their own; a sort of Chosen Reservoir, as you might say."
His circles also include bro, ho, trouble, fixture, help, and scribe.
His tier A includes four bros but no hos.
His oldest friend by far is "radiant" "wasp" and "trouble."
Which column to you think indicates whether he has had sex with someone?
His oldest friend by far is "radiant" "wasp" and "trouble."
That would be HM the Queen.
Speaking of whom, I hadn't realised until today that President Higgins is a bona fide shortarse. I was well disposed towards him before, but he's now one of my political heroes.
I'll pass that on when I see him tomorrow.
Damn, it's too bad that guy isn't quite interesting enough to make this masterful trolling--because there's something to it; we all have that kind of information in our heads about the people we know. A missed opportunity!
"This level of personal interaction, says Mr Mackey, prevents staff compartmentalising their work life and personal life, and means workers can relate on a deeper level."
Can mandatory OM at corporate retreats be far behind?
139. ajay is David Cameron. Who knew?
Damn your eyes, sir, you will take that back or I will engage the Yorkshire Ranter to call on you with my request for satisfaction.
I have been a fan of Michael D. for years and was highly relieved when he was elected considering the range of oddballs who were running. (An Irish acquaintance who lives in Spain told me that during the run up to the election he Spanish papers got plenty of mileage out of such candidates as the former Eurovision singer and born again prolifer and the reality TV star. However they always emphasised that Michael D was firstly a poet secondly a university professor and only after that a former government minister. The Spanish take poets seriously.). He does have a voice which is irresistible to mimics but it is thought that the constant appearance of caricatures on radio etc. may actually have helped him in that younger people knew who he was.
Oh, hey, finally clicked through someone's link and got confirmation that the upper left quadrant is strokee-centric language.
In a typical orgasmic meditation session, a woman (the strokee) lies down and the stroker (we'll describe the stroker as a man, but it may be a woman instead) will place his right hand under her buttocks and rest his right thumb at her introitus, or the vaginal hole. The stroker will then take lubricant -- One Taste recommends its all-natural One Stroke lube -- and place it on the forefinger and middle finger of his left hand. Then with a stroke (also known as a lube stroke) he applies it to her clitoris. He then puts his left forefinger on the upper left-hand quadrant of the strokee's clitoris -- which they believe is a spot where thousands of nerve endings are bundled. For the strokee, the upper left-hand quadrant is at about the 1:30 p.m. position on a clock.
From SF Weekly, which got there 7 years before the rest of us.