CallaFirestormBW
Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008 Status: offline
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I think it's possible to enjoy yourself and not deal with excessive risk. Maybe it's just the question of what is "excessive risk"... My definition of "excessive risk" fits in the column of people who ride motorcycles without helmets. When I was a paramedic, we called folks who would ride without a helmet "melon-heads", because we figured we'd find them one of these days splattered on the pavement like a cantaloupe. Now I'll ride in my pants and a light top during the summer, but I'll always have at least a 1/2 helmet on. To me, riding without a helmet is asking to become a statistic. I think it's similar with things like multiple partners and STDs. I guess that my question is "Why be bitter about a choice you're making for yourself?" As a corrolary, I guess I'd ask "If this isn't making me happy, then why am I still obsessing about it and doing it that way?" In the end, everything we do is about choices. Selecting one path means, in many cases, not being able to go another way. For all the philosophical discussion about non-duality, choice still boils down, for the most part, to "this or that". If you're making a choice that is healthy and productive for you, the sense of resentment is dichotomous. If you resent, then perhaps it is because you feel there should be an option between completely cutting these opportunities and people out of your life -- and there are, but they will require compromise in one manner or another. Condom compacts and bodily-fluid-restricted relationships are an option that allow some activities to be participated in outside of absolute abstinence, however, the trade-off is that even condom compacts and body-fluid exclusivity may not be completely safe. A condom can break, and a lover can exceed the boundaries of a body-fluid agreement and not say anything until illness presses the issue. That being said, I'm STD/communicable disease free after poly/open sexual activity spanning 30 years (and that's despite having a compromised immune system from being born with an immune/autoimmune failure). Sometimes, that means having to say "no" to an experience... but resenting making a healthy choice just doesn't seem productive to me.
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*** Said to me recently: "Look, I know you're the "voice of reason"... but dammit, I LIKE being unreasonable!!!!" "Your mind is more interested in the challenge of becoming than the challenge of doing." Jon Benson, Bodybuilder/Trainer
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