Split identity

I'm reading a wonderful book for history nerds, called Masculinity and the middle-class Home in Victorian England. Part of why this book is so much fun is that the anxiety linked to the place of man in his family, his role as father and husband and his socio-economic rights is still very much a topic of thought and controversy.

I could quote the entire book, from the description of marital tasks, sexual mores and club culture in 19th century England, but this passage held particular meaning for me.

"The more alienating the employment, the greater the tendency to conduct life in separate compartments. The classic literary expression of this split comes in William Hale White's autobiographical novel, which draws on his own experience as a junior employee at Somerset House in the 1850s.

I cut off my office life from my life at home so completely that I was two selves. I was a great comfort to me to think the moment the clock struck seven that my second self died, and that my first self suffered nothing by having anything to do with it..."

Now that I have started working in a office, I understand this so completely. I feel like a split personality. It's the language thing as well. In German, I'm demure. I know no swear words. In French I am...different. Articulate. I love swearing in English. It doesn't feel real. So at the office I'm a slightly stupid, nice girl. At home I become me again.

I miss my family and friends most of all when I transition back to myself.

All in all, I wonder how many of us change drastically in the work place.

Sex in Berlin

I know why people read this blog...Because of the sex. Well, I am here to pander to those so-called baser instincts. I visited the Museum of Eroticism in Berlin, and boy have I learned stuff.

The museum is mostly about pedagogical information. Confusingly, it also presents a collection of antique erotica and paraphenalia. There's a sex shop on the ground floor with very nice and helpful salesladies, in case you didn't understand the exhibition section on toys.



An 18th century dildo, in ivory. It's very decorative!



The BDSM section was not very informative. It was mostly a photo op ploy, with sniggering tourists taking pictures of themselves within or around the contraptions. I didn't like the way this was shown at all.




As usual, my photos are atrocious but to be fair, the lighting was bad.



The two great things about the informative sections were how homosexual sex was always included in the videos, not as a separate thing. So for "kissing" or "erotic massage" you would see gay couples as well as straight ones. There were interracial couples shown as well. A whole wall of plaster molds of penises and vaginas was titled "every size is right" which I also thought a good message. Surprisingly the snickering tourists usually went silent in front of the wall, maybe busy comparing themselves to the different models.

A safe sex video was well-made, with STD descriptions and a catalogue of symptoms. Very non-judgemental.

Finally, a bit of hands-on action with the following photo where you can see a German incitation to look for and feel the G-spot. Two mannequins with realistic inner body parts were shown, one for women and one for men. I enjoyed how sheepish the tourists look when looking for where the prostate was. For all their swagger, they seemed very ignorant.






This was about how nature looks sexual. Cue pictures of rocks.

Finally, a bit of information on how to understand men and women. The museum really went against the usual clichés, and refusing the submissive woman/aggressive man dichotomy.

All in all, I thought the museum was odd but useful in its way. People go there for the giggle factor but will probably leave slightly less clueless.

Open relationships

I went to a bar with my statistics class some time ago. And the conversation turned to the topic of open relationships. Most of my comrades are around 21/22, and many have been in relationships for more than a year. I've noticed this trend among my friends before. I think my generation is into serial monogamy.

So many of them are considering at one point opening up their relationships. Mostly the girls, because they have been their boyfriends' first girlfriends, and feel that they cheated them from the normal playing around boys do(Yes, for French girls playing around is a boy thing). One girl told me as we sipped lemonade: "I feel that I would be able to control his cheating if I supervised it."
"But if you're opening up your relationship, it's not cheating, though, is it?"
She giggled.
"It's Cheating Prevention Tactic! It's a genius idea: you get to spy on him under the pretense of being open-minded.Hopefully I could choose girls that are almost as good as me, but not quite." She smiled evilly.

I come from a family where almost everyone has been divorced, even my grandparents. However I am not a relationship skeptic, on the contrary. I've had two serious, long-term relationships and I wouldn't say they were failures at all, or wastes of my time. But I find it difficult to believe that most people are brave enough or willing enough to put enough energy and effort into something once it stops being fun and effortless. I often see one person doing all the work, and getting discouraged, and that leads to separation.

I have no idea if I'll ever be in another serious relationship. But I've been thinking about what would prevent me from having an open one, and it boils down to this: I don't feel attracted to people only on a physical level, even very beautiful people. This would make it difficult for me to separate the physical from the emotional. And I think I would feel judged and compared to other women/men.

In fact, this second problem has nothing to do with open relationships, it has to do with me-my self-esteem, my confidence. Working on it!

The conversation ended on a funny note: a girl told me about her failed attempts to open her relationship for the summer, because she wanted her boyfriend to have more experience. He spent the entire month griping that no one was attractive/funny/interesting enough. He then realised how much he cared for her, and proposed.

Awwwww.