Be the change you want to see.

She pissed. All over and around the containment pad, it overflowed the edges.

After I washed the floor yesterday.

I did have a moment of despair, I confess.

And I'm getting better at Feelings, because I let myself feel that as long as I needed, and then I went and got a piece of cheese (protein adjusts both my blood sugar and my mood).

Then after a couple of minutes, my mood settled and I went to do Stage One of cleaning the space again, and diagnose one of the suboptimal parts of the staging that let the pee overflow.

Now I know what I have to do to make this better. Ughhhhhhh. Do not want to.
Idonwanna. But this is what a responsible pet mom does, and I am her mom as well as a homeowner.

Because I said I would.

There's a YouTube channel called sexplanations (good job, voice to text spellchecker!) Dr Lindsay Doe does it.

She just released a video called sexual frequency, and I disagree with her underlying premise for the entire video. She seems to be taking it as given that's people will use sex to reward behavior that they want see more of. I have a problem with this and have since I was 18 and my college boyfriend offered to bribe me with unreciprocated orgasms, for every pound of weight that I lost. I was offended then, but didn't have the experience are the words to express that nor did I have the confidence.

I mean to give dr. Doe the benefit of the doubt, it might be that she was using that behavioral reinforcement model and using b******* just as how to explain behavioral reinforcement. (I think it's hilarious the voice to text censored BJ). Okay so the question for me becomes: is it ethical to use sexual behavior in the process of training other behaviors. I'm feeling like there is a ton of really sketchy s*** about that idea. And there's so much complicated business around sexual relationships and power balance and imbalance and peer pressure or pressure from your spouse or significant other.

Time to make a embarrassing confession, or if not embarrassing perhaps it's shameful. part of the problem I have with this idea of offering sexual behavior to motivate other kinds of behavior is that I have no such leverage like that in any relationships in my life at the moment. I have nobody for whom I could offer sex in that vein, also nobody who would offer sex to motivate me to do something. I have complicated feelings about this. This kind of power to influence *might* have been mine in the past, but I don't remember ever working like this with someone, and this still feels sketchy and even exploitative to me, unless negotiated thoughtfully.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm more inclined to believe this kind of a dynamic would be effective and enjoyable for both parties in more of a BDSM flavor dynamic. Where one partner does what the other partner pleases, or does what they say. Because that's what the two folks have agreed upon. A lot of BDSM seems to be about playing with and in and around power over, power with, choices and decisions.

In the past I have been pressured to have sex, and I have also pressured other people to have sex. I feel like the way dr. Doe explains her "sex as a motivational tool", could easily fall into the pattern of sex being had under pressure, and that's where I get uncomfortable these days and also wanting to talk about it (instead of suffering in silence without the vocabulary to express what I was feeling).

To start with, the video seems to start with the assumption that women, or the blowjob givers, have all the power of who gets to have the sex. In some sexual relationships I'm sure that's the case, but the "women as gatekeeper of sex" myth is one foundations of the toxic culture of the "MRA's" and "incels", and personally I don't wanna give that idea *any* boost or traction.

It would have been better, in my opinion, and more egalitarian, to use a euphemism like "going down" or the non gender specific "oral sex" or "mouth to genital contact" both of which she did use... but using that consistently. It would make the video more inclusive of lgbtq folks too.

By modeling the premise of using blowjobs to, for example, get someone to wash the dishes, it's... Like... Mixing the streams. Like, doing chores and getting motivated through rewards is... Fine? I guess? You're an adult. Take care of yourself and your business. If you are a grown ass adult you should know that Shit Gotta Get Done, and not require bribery.

Or Maybe it's the kind of bribery I object to. I definitely have rewarded myself for finishing projects or tasks with food, or with an outing, or with quiet time with the book. I don't have a problem with rewards per se, especially for motivation.

Bribery blowjobs just seem... Cheap, I guess? But also ripe for onesidedness, manipulation, and abuse. "I don't feel like doing my share of the chores, so what? No blowjob? I don't care... Now I guess YOU have to do the dishes, haha."

I don't know if I'm making myself clear.
*Pulling at hair*

See, the sex part of a relationship already has so much potential to hurt and harm people, and she's talking about "slurping the gherkin" like it's both silly and the ultimate answer to everyone's I don't wannas.

This framework... I'm just realizing has a dual problematic underlying assumption: not just the one of the b****** giver in a position of being the gatekeeper of sex, and also being the person who is the project manager for taking care of the household. There's an excellent essay which if I can find I'll try to link here later, about the invisible labor that goes into being the project manager of a household. And why so many women and femmes get burned out about it. It's an unequal load that we don't talk enough about.

Like I usually love the videos doctor doe makes for sexplanations, but this particular video just leaves such a sour taste in my mouth.

Can you help unsnarl this or find some more clarity?

I feel like the physical therapy is coming along quite nicely. I'm kind of just doing it whenever I think of it or whenever my shoulder stiffens up? Rather than chaining it to some other habit. But I've also invented a way of moving three of the separate exercises together into a flow sort of thing, and that's satisfying and it feels like I get a better effect then I would do if I did like 10 W's and then 10 t's and then 10 y's, you know like flow between y, w, and t. If that doesn't make sense to you then you don't have my same physical therapy. Which is fine. /laughing/.

The dust allergy is kicking my ass again, and I failed to take my medicine so it's settled into my chest again, God damn it. So I think I've been feeling under the weather for about a week. And one of the things about that is avoiding going out in public oh, and I also wind up not bathing. Which is very counterintuitive because being clean always makes me feel better? But it seems to be a pattern and I believe it's a common pattern for those of us who have some form of depression. Anyway, today I got clean. I'm going to cut all my nails and I'm going to write, I'm about to go make breakfast or lunch or something: FirstMeal.

But yeah I always feel better when I get myself clean and wash hair and scrub off the dead skin and smell and...

Physical therapy seems to be helping. Yay! Depression being held at bay today, yay!
It's a beautiful day today. So far there are clear Blue skies with high white clouds thin and stripey, a crow just flew overhead, leaves are falling from my trees so I can see out into the neighborhood. It's a pretty good day already!

A bunch of us who grew up touch starved developed unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I would like to share, please, the healthiest coping mechanism I’ve found for wanting the kind and quality of touch that I need, when I can’t get enough of it. And all it needs time, hot water, soap, and like $5.00!
Trader Joe’s Lavender Salt Scrub costs like $3.99 in store. Amazon has it listed at $15.00!! Plus shipping! Duh, don’t buy it on Amazon then…

Pretty easy to make a salt scrub at home if you don’t have a TJ’s. Olive oil, coconut oil, almond oil, or any kind of thick massage quality oil, with the same amount of non iodized salt and maybe a few drops of an essential oil. Lavender is good because it’s a natural antimicrobial, but you do you.

Exfoliating is pretty simple, it’s a bit rough on your skin till you get used to it but good grief does my skin feel amazing, soft & smooth right now, hands, arms, shoulders, legs, torso. And NOTHING ITCHES right now except for that spot I can’t reach in the middle of my back.

I like to get in the shower, wash my hair first, then turn off the water to scrub my skin. I do hands, then arms (underarms feels SO GOOD to scrub but please don’t try this just after shaving if you shave!), shoulders, boobs and torso, butt and hips, legs and feet, and face is last (and most gentle).

Then I get some soap on my scrubbie, get me and it gently wet, wipe off remaining salt and excess oil, before resoaping and washing as usual.

Many years ago, I left my ex husband, for a bunch of reasons but one of them was, that he refused to touch me in the ways I asked him to, the ways I needed. And I wrote myself a reminder:

“If nobody else is touching you in ways that you need, you need to do it for yourself.”

I forget this sometimes. It can be hard to get enough warm tight hugs, or enough neck kisses, or other things I wish I had more of and don’t seem to know how to ask for, how to get. But I can definitely treat myself on a Saturday afternoon, scrub my bod, cut my nails, do my hair.

I can do this for myself, and so can you, mostly. If this specific technique doesn’t work for you, or if you are differently-abled than I am (which is mostly able) then i encourage you to adapt.

You can still pamper yourself. You can still feed yourself in the non food ways, you can still treat yourself with kindness and gentleness (yes, for some of us it takes conscious practice, I know and realize).

Love yourself enough to care for your body, listen to what it needs, and do what you can to provide that.
I love all y'all. I finally love myself, too. (Mid forties fat cis woman.)

Take good care of each other and of yourselves, please.

#touch #deliberate touching #touch me #gentle touch #loving touch #self-care #touch starved #touch starvation #kindness #massage #exfoliating #exfoliate #exfoliante #exfoliantscrub #grooming #love yourself treatyoself

Feelings are just feelings. They aren't the same as reality, and they will change.

Fear will blow past you, through you, let it go.
Sadness will drain down and out, let it go.
Worry, you can move forward and leave behind, let it go.

The best solution is occupation: DO SOMETHING. The feelings will do what they do, and then they will go away.

And then you will be there, having done something useful, and feeling better.

This too shall pass, and you will be okay again.

Breathe.