Thursday, June 16, 2005

i'm animate but not narrow

Boys who like girls, girls who like boys, boys who like boys, girls who like girls, boys who like girls and boys, girls who like boys and girls, boys who like girls and then boys, girls who like boys and then girls and then boys and then girls and then boys. All fine, any-problem-with-any-of-it-is-your-problem, et cetera. I'll confess that I don't really get the whole polyamory or polyfi movements, but different strokes for different folks, let sleeping-shifting-configurations-of-dogs-of-both-sexes lie, whatever. I've had a couple different friends tell me anecdotes that would seem to suggest their having crossed traditional boundaries of physical propriety with their pets, and, lo, did these make me squirm, but I figure that given the continual converge of the way we talk about pets and people they'll eventually seem like pioneers and I'll seem old-fashioned.

Still, anyway, not to sound prudish, um, but: what's the deal with various women I know suddenly hooking up with their bicycles? (here and here) At first I thought they were just being metaphorical or something. Do people just see a particularly sultry sprocket one day, or an oh-so-alluring derailleur, and suddenly their passions switch gears from one sense of bipedal to another? Will Martine be next? Will she break off her budding courtship with that ATM first? And, what does it say about me that I seem to have left my own bicycle alone in pieces for months in a dank basement?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeremy, I think you messed up the link to Nina's pedalphilia.

nina said...

Allegorical rather than metaphorical. And hanging out rather than hooking up.

Anonymous said...

Oh you do get in a dither.
What's not to love? They take you there, smoothly and fast -- breeze in your face

(though I have seen some guys who seem to just thud along on clunky bikes; too bad).

Belle Reve said...

Like many recent developments in the Land of Reve, the bike came to me due to good copy: http://www.bicycling.com/biketown/moreabout.html#

Anonymous said...

Incidentally, just as a point of clarification, generally poly people view polyfidelity as a subset of polyamory. Polyamory is generally used to refer to having multiple lovers who know about each other (as opposed to infidelity which is multiple lovers who don't). Polyfidelity is the particular configuration where all parties are involved with each other but it's a closed system (e.g. a triangle where persons A, B, and C are all involved with each other but no one else).

Also, don't believe people when they say "it's just like riding a bike." I recently became involved with a bicycle after over a decade of no biking. Maybe I'm just particularly untalented, but it's a struggle. I'm sure we'll work things out and eventually I'll be singing the praises of my bike just like everyone else.

jeremy said...

Incidentally, what Belle Reve is saying is that she won the bicycle, continuing her long resume of contest triumphs. Soon, there will be a plaque for her in Defiance, Ohio.

Belle Reve said...

Look! Someone else can win a bike. Sorry, I cannot figure out HTML tags:
http://www.thedailypage.com/promotions/submit.php?id=45