Response

That’s the “Word of the Day”: response.

Okay, sorry Stephen Colbert, for borrowing your phrase. Let’s call it the “Word of the Blog”.

I’m very interested to know what people think about this thing. I’ve gotten feedback from a few friends, whom I asked. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone would actually comment non-anonymously on this blog. I guess there’s the fear that someone will see that you’ve looked at it and not felt guilty about it.

Reminds me of that joke:

What’s the difference between a Baptist & a Methodist?

The Methodist will say hello when he sees you in the liquor store.

I’d be fine with anyone seeing this. Well, at least I think so. But, sadly, I know that many people would be fine.

The whole guilt thing is deadly. Whether it comes from religion or parents or cultural pressures—one might argue that they’re all the same—it tears people up, unnecessarily. I touched on this briefly in my "(like this guy)" post.

It makes people hate themselves for doing what seems natural to them, and it can make people do some really fucked up things. 

If you grow up being punished for being a really, bad, naughty boy or girl, then when you grow up you may go to some extremes looking for someone to punish you.

Can you imagine what it would be like if people were just open about stuff? What they want & need from each other. With their bodies. 

I think it would be awesome if people were naked more. I don’t mean just the “attractive” people. In fact, it's probably more important for some of the “unattractive” people to be naked. 

Imagine people doing housework in the nude, yard work, checking the mail & waving hello at the neighbors, just hanging out in the backyard with company or grilling up something on a summer evening (you might want an apron...for the grease spattering).

In a world like that, how much more healthy would people be about sex and body image issues? Young people would grow up seeing what actual, normal bodies look like, not just the dangerously skinny magazine models, with their digitally-edited looks, or the artificially top-heavy and silicon-ized porn queens. Not just men with 6-pack abs and tanning-bed-bronze skin. Just people...people who need people are the luck—

Sorry. Musical theatre moment. What I meant to say was just people who are “just people”.

Maybe trying to not feel guilty is part of what this blog is about. It’s partly a diary blog where I write about whatever’s going on or maybe something from the past. 

And it’s partly a “statement” blog. I guess the statement might be:

“You don’t need to be ashamed of your body. Nor of someone else’s.”

Maybe that’s not the statement. I’m not sure. I’m still figuring this blog out.

Maybe that’s part of my problem right now—that I feel like I ought to know what it is before I do it.

Maybe that’s why I want so much to get some kind of response... 

And that’s the “Word of the Blog”.

(from http://www.quotecounterquote.com)