“Organized Intimacy” events in the Bay Area
vice.com
vice.com
San Francisco's national reputation had changed dramatically over the last 20 years, and especially over the last 10 years.
(I'm not implying that any of this is good or bad, I'm just stating a bit of history.)
The idea that there are benefits to this are based on my personal point of view: I am married, I have two children, one adopted. While my marriage works, from my perspective, as a financial and management arrangement. However, it has failed in a variety of other areas that something like this would solve.
Physical intimacy is an important aspect of human life, and finding reasonable access to it during our contemporary societal power shifts is going to be an ongoing problem. I expect to see more articles like this as people try to figure it out.
Sounds like you have a loveless marriage?
I guess what I'm saying is that marriage and relationship are two different things. Institutional marriage offers some legal and financial advantages, and in some cases it's important as a way to fortify a couple's commitment. But in many relationships, like my friends', it serves no useful purpose.
Every day, they meet for lunch at their favorite restaurant, where they sit at the bar with other regulars. It's like Cheers. Friday is date night, when they go out to dinner, watch a movie, whatever. Once a month or so they go on a little vacation, usually a road trip to the mountains, usually only for a day, but sometimes overnight if Lynn can arrange care for her sister. Once a year they try to do a longer vacation.
They've done this exact routine for nearly a decade, and they've been together for over thirty years. Pretty sure they've got this figured out.
Yes, I agree, I think we'll do just fine.
Once you realize that love is a choice and an action/behavior, it generally sorts itself out. The funny thing is that the feeling of being in love soon follows.
A good friend who married before I did once told me that, and I thought it sounded a little crazy. Then, I got married and understood.
Love is indeed a profound experience which will change how you view the world. However, Love is not a god. It's not an oracle unto truth. It's not to be worshiped. It's not a reason to turn off your rational brain. Anyone telling you otherwise, especially about that last one, is either trying to sell you something, or was told that by someone who is. (I suspect you're being downvoted by such zealots.)
The feeling of romantic love is a part of a greater whole. A relationship has other sides to it, like the companionate and practical aspects.
I tend to see a lot of this reasoning but never truly understood especially if both of you are on the same page.
Physical intimacy is not just sex. I can’t imagine (within reason) a medical condition that would prevent one from grabbing their SO’s ass every once in a while to remind them they are still thought of in that way.
Good for you for sticking it out for the kids. I hope you find happiness eventually, in any way it avails itself.
Also, clicks.
Don't believe me? https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/fashion/in-silicon-valley...
Had a more upbeat twist at the end vs the GP comment above though.
Pretty good episode. One of my favorites.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_the_DJ_(Black_Mirror)
People definitely are trying to optimize what they can get, I'll agree, but that's no different from pre-internet dating. People have always tried to optimize what they could get in a dating partner, usually men for appearance, and women for paycheck. As for ghosting, I've certainly seen that, but that's usually something you experience very early on, even before you first meet someone (at which point it's kinda hard to call it "ghosting" if you've never even met them). I frequently have women match up with me, and then never respond. These people I suspect are just seeing how many matches they can acquire, and then choosing from the ones that interest them the most and leaving the rest in the queue in case they're bored one night and want a date. Usually, it's "ghosting" when you've been dating someone a while and then they suddenly disappear. I wouldn't blame that on online dating, that's just bad modern behavior, and can happen regardless of how two people initially meet.
As for "serial monogamy", again, this is just modern behavior, as opposed to 50+ years ago when divorce was uncommon and taboo. If you have different partners in your life, but you're monogamous with them while you're dating them, that, by definition, is "serial monogamy". I don't really see how that's a bad thing, unless you don't think people should ever get divorced (which means you support people staying in abusive or miserable situations), or you're trying to push for polyamory to become normal. It's just unavoidable.
For most people the list of people that would have sex with you is longer than the list of people who would seriously date/marry you. This is especially true of women but is also true with men. The commitment of dating someone has a number of social implications that don't exist in a semi anonymous one night stand. Previously an individual had to go out to a bar and luck upon someone who was willing to have casual sex (and sometimes that turned into a relationship) now you can effectively visit every bar in town in a few minutes, several times a day. Due to the nature of this and social media perfectionism I believe that individuals are setting the bar for mates higher than is reasonable in contrast to what they have to offer. They equate the attractiveness (this isn't just physical, it also includes personality type and other factors) of one night stands with level of attractiveness they would acquire in a relationship.
Due to this many people have unrealistic standards, after a time they choose to "settle" and have dysfunctional relationships due to the fact they perceive themselves as "settling" as opposed to choosing a mate on a equal footing. Had those one night stands been more difficult to acquire, the bar may of not been moved so high and they may have more functional relationships down the road.
Just a theory of course, but something I'm been noticing.
I'm married man, but I grew up when online dating just started, when I was in high school we used AIM to meet girls. I would meet up with girls in different school districts that I would of never met a few years prior. I'm told from young men a bit younger than I that's it's even easier than that now. Highly attractive young men can not leave their house all day and still meet several new women sometimes from hours away. My feeling is that's going to have some sort of effect on the culture as those young people settle down into more stable relationships as often happens.
You're conflating divorce to remove oneself from an abusive situation with remarriage. I happen to think that remarriage after divorce is fine, but I can easily imagine arguments against it (here's one which leaps to mind, although I don't know if it's true: one's failure to marry well the first time is a strong predictor that one's future marriage will be poor as well).
No, I'm not. Christian conservatives are frequently bemoaning how common divorce is, and pine for the "good old days" when people stayed married for life, ignoring the fact that not many of those marriages were very happy, and some were abusive, and this was simply accepted by society because divorce was considered so taboo.
What actually goes on?
Events open to the public tend to be non-sexual and very structured. One needs to build trust in a community to be invited to other events.
Nearly all events have a hard start time after which no one is allowed to enter. The beginning of events cover rules and guidelines for the event. Then there’s usually some ice breaker such as introductions. After that it really depends on what kind of event we’re talking about.
There are also more socially acceptable activities which, basically, come down to the same thing - getting super close with other people physically but without sex: partner dancing, massage, some group games, activities in religious/spiritual groups.
Whatever works for some people.
Neither of those typically involve getting "cozy with strangers," at least no more than going to an art gallery or meetup or hike.
Related to discussion, Japan actually has something in this vein where you can book an appointment with someone and engage in non-sexual intimacy (hugs, etc.) I believe Vice also had an article or video on this.
"culture and fun has been sucked out of the city since the second tech boom ... when the artists [left] the sex parties would dry up ... Burning Man morphed [to] a multi-million dollar, helicopter valeted, elite event ... sex and intimacy parties altered by the world of tech and money ... You can smell hubris on the streets ... toxic and sometimes dangerous events that revert back to a very unprogressive and misogynistic dynamic, in which entrepreneurial tech 2.0 entitlement and hubris is leveraged to excuse treating women, usually lower on the career ladder, as little more than sex toys."
It's suffocating.
Yes, the events happen. They are almost always sincere, good-hearted, intimate, and problem-free. People in SF are experimenting to see if this is the vitamin that makes people happier in a culture that is hyper-connected, but scrutinized and isolating.
This writer takes these intimate events, and publishes an article about how they are "kinky" and "sexual." Author Andrew Chamings should write 1,500 words about he's the problem.
Your comment would be just fine without the first and last bits! Particularly the paragraph that starts with "Yes, the events happen" is really good and has much better signal/noise than the rest.
Try reading just the 4th para ("Yes, the events happen") in isolation. Do you see how much higher the signal/noise ratio is there?
The last bit is indeed directed at the author, but in the context of the comment's overall point ("Vice journalists earn a living by twisting pure things to make them easier to ridicule") it's spot on and doesn't really cross any lines IMO.
In other words: pulling those bits into isolation and judging them on their own is disingenuous to the commenter's point. Same goes for the remainder of the comment being evaluated without those two bits. The whole comment is a single unified whole, and ought to be treated as indivisible; failure to do so leads to these sorts of misinterpretations.
Maybe there would be less anti-tech sentiment if tech culture stopped taking itself quite so seriously and had a little perspective. A sense of humor would go a long way. It's possible to both enjoy these kinds of events and understand why some people might find them sad or weird.
The self-seriousness of the tech crowd, in my opinion, invites these kinds of hit pieces.
You know, maybe humans just trying to figure out what being human was supposed to be before suits and patagonia vests got in the way. /shrug
Much has been written about the potential isolation and alienation under the Soviet system, which to me qualifies as late stage socialism.
1) Vice.com, so it is automatically edgy, scant on actual facts and details, and often just completely wrong.
2) SV has a lot of people who work too damn much.
3) Not everyone in SV has "money" as in "Fuck you money" and for those who do, it should not be hard to purchase intimacy in some form.
4) All these cuddle parties, eye gazing, and what have you events are a poor substitute for actual intimacy (not that I am against holding them) in a loving relationship, which makes me think the substitution must mean something--people there are desperate for any human contact. We are PC-ing ourselves to death.
5) Every generation thinks they invented sex. This current go around is risk averse while attempting to appear edgy and yet at the end of the night, I'm sure there's the same hurt feelings and sense of rejection we all have had. It doesn't matter how inclusive everyone is, the hot chick is not going home with the fat, bald guy (unless he has #3).
By the way, I went to an engineering school, I know quite a bit about problems dating and how that all plays out. Seems like things are just a bit worse these days.
When you remove religion of any kind, that void does get filled, and in this case worship of sex is not uncommon, harkening back to thousands of years of deeply sexual pagan practice.
Intersectionality.