I mention in my profile that I like submissive, kinky women, and I want to expand on that here. Some people see "dominance and submission" as nothing more than a dark variety of sexual playacting - a way to intensify bedroom sex, but not something that continues beyond times of sexual arousal. That isn't how I see it, because I don't see the sexual relationship between my lover and me as limited to the times of our sexual arousal.

For one thing, of course, arousal can happen at any time, either mutually or not, so the idea of renegotiating roles and personae (are you in the mood, too, and shall we play again, or shall we "be ourselves"?) certainly isn't very convenient and it limits spontaneity because it's not going to be clear at any fresh moment of arousal what aspect of your lover's personality you're going to come up against.

Yes, one must be sensitive to the emotional nuance and variable needs of one's lover, but since I don't WANT to have to renegotiate my position - because I want always to be the dominant partner during a sexual interaction (because this is what I am when I'm "being myself") - I don't want the uncertainty of wondering how much SHE will try to control the situation by not entering into her usual submissive role.

So, just as I always "want to be" the dominant partner, I want my lover to always "want to be" the submissive partner. Thus, in my view, dominance and submission are not roles at all, but qualities of personalities - qualities that are expressed naturally and not, in any sense, an act.

Women often talk about wanting a man with ambition. When I read or hear this, I suppose that she wants a man who has a job that she and people whose opinions she cares about think is respectable for "a man with ambition". The social rank of his job is important to her. Money is part of this, too. Certainly a man can't be "ambitious" and not eventually reach some respectable degree of financial security.

To my mind this is all about SOCIAL AMBITION. It's about reaching a "respectable" rank within society and living in such a way that women will be impressed with my achievements.  The problem I run up against is that I haven't organized my life in order to impress women. I've organized it in order to avoid as much as I could the power and authority of others over me. That means I've never been ambitious, because to me, to be ambitious is to accept the rules that others make about what it means to live well.

I have ambitions, but they are not ambitions for social rank or social power. They are not, I suspect, ambitions that make me seem ambitious in women's eyes.

I enjoy books more than people. Subjects I tend to read about revolve around either abstract structures (math and logic), rugged living of some sort (the American frontier, survivalism), warfare (American Indian wars, American Civil war, WWII), human nature (evolutionary psychology, cognitive science), history (American history mainly), firearms (history of them, how to shoot accurately with them, tactical use of them, hunting with them), general science and technology.

I don't read much fiction, although I have nothing against it, even the most easy-reading paperback fiction. It's just that there's so much I want to know, the non-fiction topics attract me more. I have absolutely no need for my partner to have these same reading interests. I mention them to show a little bit more about myself.

Writing reviews of the books I read - my amazon book reviews are now approaching 240 - is an important part of my reading. Some books I don't review - I recently read a book on rock music of the 1970s and didn't review that - but in most cases, if I finish the book, I post a review on it.

I'm not an expert on anything, and I try to stay within the boundaries of my real understanding when I compose the review. Writing helps me understand, and often my later recollection of what the book is about comes more from my recollection or rereading of what I said in my review than from the book itself.

I  feel I am in a dilemma. It's been two and a half years since my last relationship, also since my last physical intimacy with a woman, and that feels too long. There's a lot I miss about a lover's company and I wonder sometimes if I'll ever have it again. But the dilemma is that I enjoy being alone, too. I enjoy the emotional simplicity of it and the time it gives me to read and do or not do whatever I chose. I like that my time is my own, my money (what little there is) is my own, and that my emotions can flow however they might flow. I don't have to entertain anyone, or wait for anyone, or give account of myself or my choices to anyone. I don't have to endure the conflict of worldviews or moods that can happen between lovers. And I don't have to go through the emotional assault of arguments that make no sense and yet seemingly can't be avoided.

The dilemma is emotional. It arises from a conflict of desire. I want to be alone and be free to explore what matters most to me; and I want to love and be loved, to have joys of every good and deeply satisfying kind. I read the profiles here and I don't see myself fitting into anyone's life and have trouble imagining anyone fitting into mine. Maybe this isn't the time. Maybe not yet. Maybe I have things to do that have to be done alone and wouldn't get done if I was distracted by a beautiful, loving, sexy, adorable woman. But then, again, maybe not.

It could be argued that manners are a filtered presentation of self, that good manners may be nothing but a good act, and so observing someone's social behavior, the range and expression of their manners, is not a method of knowing with certainty the person beneath that behavior. It could also be argued that manners are a means through which we rise above the solipsism of our inner life and restrain the expression of our lesser selves, forcing ourselves to a maturity we may not otherwise achieve.

Those who claim that manners are a way of "being fake" and that those without manners are without the pretense of being something they are not, and are thus the truthful and psychologically honest members of society, expose themselves to the charge of narcissistic, self-indulgence, living at the moral maturity of an infant. On the other hand, those who are intent upon living a fully restrained, always well-mannered life are vulnerable to the charge of being conformist puppets with no public self-revelation, and perhaps even little self-knowledge. Neither approach to manners seems admirable. So how, then, should we mind our manners?

"Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted." - Algernon Sidney

We can encounter someone out in public or read their profile and see their public replies to questions, and we can become fascinated by the persona we imagine we see or read. This fascination can be persistent and endure even as we get to know that person during an ongoing acquaintance or friendship. But that fascination doesn't imply compatibility. People are naturally attracted by what they enjoy about others, how others make them feel good, but even mutual fascination doesn't imply mutual compatibility.

Fascination isn't forever. As the curiosity about someone is satisfied or otherwise lost through familiarization, the fascination often drifts off with with it. Compatibility, on the other hand, isn't built upon mystery or driven by curiosity. Compatibility, for one thing, is based upon shared enthusiasms and shared values. Differences, per se, do not imply incompatibility, but it is often differences that lie behind fascination. This is one reason why it sometimes happens that "opposites attract" - but the attraction may be only fascination or vicarious self-characterization and wish fulfillment, not necessarily compatibility.

Or something like that.

Goethe spoke of the eternal feminine, and although it may appear to be disingenuous and absurd of me to speak of such ethereal aesthetics as this in relation to the very bodily expression of pornography, my experience of porn is a kind of awe and envy of women's sexuality, and so in some way of that eternal feminine that is forever beyond and outside of me. In my view, there is nothing more beautiful than a beautiful woman, and nothing more engaging than a woman in orgasmic pleasure. I think for many men something like this is unconsciously beneath the rude, gawking stares and the incessant male urge to sexually join with a woman, and, in extreme cases, to keep her as a possession and captive object of his sexual passion. 

I've always thought that the vulcan mind meld would be the most intimate act possible with a woman. What I'm suggesting is that our aesthetic sense and our sexual urges are intermixed, and that in lust we are drawn in ways that are complex and difficult to separate. I cannot speak for women, and I probably should not try to speak for other men, but in my own experience, I feel that women are something beyond and forever mysterious and sexually alluring, and that our human sexual nature in all its vagaries is a vital key to understanding who we are.

I realize there is a reductionist, biological interpretation of lust and even casual sexual desire, but I'm speaking at the psychological level here.

I'm not impatiently hoping to meet someone here or out in public by chance somewhere. The reason I'm not in a hurry is that I like the freedom of living alone, not having to explain the choices I make, not having to take account of anyone's point of view or preferences, not having to accommodate anyone or deal with anyone's emotional condition but my own. I like my independence and the peace that comes with it.

But, as so often the case, there's another side: being alone isn't as fun, enriching or emotionally satisfying as being with a woman who's happy when she's with me and who cares if I'm happy or not when we're together. I miss the magic. Sure, I miss the sex, too, but everyone misses sex. 

Spock, representing the bifurcation of human nature into intellect and emotion and the battle between them, was given an interesting sexual side to his vulcan nature: every seven years he went insane and would do anything to mate, and in fact die if he didn't. It doesn't get that crazy for humans, and seven years would be an awfully long time between orgasms and sexual pleasure, but there is something to the concept that, even as an exaggeration of human nature, rings true. We aren't always horny. We don't constantly feel driven to be with a mate. But when we get the urge it can sometimes seem overwhelmingly vital that it be satisfied. We want a lover, a friend, someone to take us or come along with us (didn't see that pun, but there it is) to the deepest sexual gratification we can imagine. And then perhaps the intensity of those urges diminishes, and maybe the urges drop away altogether or they remain active but far less insistent. I think that's interesting, and it's one of the reasons I think Spock was such an intriguing character.