by popular request

So here’s how it goes.
I’m hardly old-fashioned and I’m not overly sensitive (no, no I’m not, Mom, I swear I’m not overly sensitive.)
This has many many benefits, the least of which is not that I don’t get my psychic ass kicked on a daily basis, but also it means that I can be friends with a variety of people who might experience say, a deficit, at times, in the empathy department. Or just say stupid shit. Or, you know, have an off-color sense of humour.
That’s nice…I have my down and dirty, hard and tumble, black and blue moments, and I don’t want to share then with some mamby pamby new age boy or “womyn” who wants to talk about our feelings.
Let’s go kick the shit out of a punching bag and do shots of whiskey.
Let’s go laugh at something completely inappropriate and offend people with unPC propaganda.
Let’s go get laid.

And likewise, being the non-judgmental sort, I often feel that people have a lot more wiggle room before their standards, morals and priorities are apt to bump up against mine.
I don’t believe in sin, I don’t ascribe definitive boundaries to sex, profanity, drugs or personal hygiene.

But I don’t believe in hurting people, either.
It’s weird. I mean as much as I believe that anything and everything can be private and nothing necessarily need be a secret, as much as I grant people the freedom to do what they wish with their money, their heart, their bodies, I have certain standards.
As being as flexible as they are, I’m always shocked when they are violated.

And I wonder, sometimes, if maybe it’s that I have so few standards, that I set those few inalterably high. You want to sacrifice a small lamb to the devil and engage in an orgy with identical triplets? Go to town, but do it with grace, do it with class, and do it with sensitivity.
See, I believe that if you are going to conduct your life with boundaries that are apt to confound expectations, you need to pay special attention to other’s likely reactions, their feelings, and you need to communicate that much more clearly what it IS that you draw the line at. You must let people know what are capable of if you hope to survive unscathed.

Conscientious behavior is that much more necessary when you are not proprietous.
Unless, of course, you are actually just a dick.