Hamburg / Intentional Vanilla

(Experimenting with dual post format. Unsure of wisdom of approach.)

Today was ordinary. I went with my dad to work, we had lunch with one of his friends (he's a paramedic and we were trading call stories in "neither of us knows medical terms in the other language"-ese, which was fun) and afterwards we went for a long walk and went shopping. Which I enjoyed; I'd rather have a slice of life in a different place than do the Official Designated Tourist Activities. We're going to go to the zoo and do a boat ride and all that, but it's not "doing Hamburg" so much as just living in it for a little while.

This trip is a little like being a kid again, in a weird way. I don't have any real responsibilities of my own, I follow my dad around because I'd get lost in five minutes alone, I let him do all the talking, and (me not having Euros) I have to ask him for anything I want. It's not a bad thing, but it's strange; I'm so used to setting my own agenda.

For some horrible IP-confusion reason Google is now speaking to me in Finnish. At least with the German I had a chance at guessing my way around. Finnish just looks like Martian.

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Anyway:
You know who I really respect? I have a couple friends who are strictly-heterosexual, monogamous, and vanilla as the day is long--but not by default. They're aware of other options, they've either tried or seriously considered them, and they've realized it's not how they're wired.

I think it's cool when people are in touch enough with their own needs that they don't take for granted that they're vanilla, but they're willing to accept it and assert it even when well acquainted with the pansexual/poly/kinky world.

(And the pan/poly/kinky world can be kind of jerks about "vanillas," if you couldn't tell by the name. The versions of "whatsamatta baby, you uptight?" that I've heard used to accost people--generally women--who declare they respect you very much but it's not for them, are positively shameful. Clearly if you don't want to get spanked by somebody else's girlfriend you just have a narrow view of sexuality and are probably some kind of *ptooey* Christian.)