There is a great new web series on polyamory! Not a documentary, it's a drama. Each episode is only 5-6 minutes so it doesn't take a lot of time but it's funny and poignant. It's meaningful for all types of relationships and has some local interest, such as mentions of Microsoft employees. Watch it on YouTube!
FAMILY - a comic web series of alternative love.
http://www.youtube.com/user/3dogpictures

I'm sorry you are upset about the racial thing you wrote about. I can see why you think black people shouldn't say the “N word” but you don't seem to understand that it's different for them to use that word. It really depends on how it is used and it is usually used as a very hateful word by white people. It's just like lesbians using the word “dyke” or gay men using the word “faggot”. They don't use it in a hateful way; they are trying to turn a hateful word into something else that lowers the intensity of the word. I don't know if I'm explaining it very well! But if you wanted to use that word with a person of color you would have to ask if it's okay with him/her/them. That's only polite, really, and if you are really friends you would be able to communicate that you don't mean it in a bad way. But to my way of thinking it is way easier just to avoid the word. If THEY want to use that word with each other, they can and they are allowed. As a white male, perhaps it's hard for you to understand. But I really disagree with you that only black people are racist (you said “racial” but I think you meant “racist”). I see racism all the time from white people. I do experience people of color “pulling the race card” at the library a lot; they understandably have a chip on their shoulder since we are still such a racist society, despite Obama's win (and he is BI racial and very light skinned) and they are quick to claim that they are getting unfair treatment because of their color. And staff are frustrated by that and feel it's unfair. So maybe this is what you were trying to say. It's a helluva lot deeper than using the “n” word!

She always was single, terminally single, and didn't understand why no one fixed her up with someone. Everyone seemed too afraid. They were afraid the couple wouldn't get along and would blame them. Or maybe they just didn't care, didn't want to risk either friendship, or didn't know anyone suitable. She had a hard time understanding that since she herself loved playing matchmaker. She only had one success story it's true and they only lasted half a year. She had been helping her less computer literate friend post an ad in “Dreg's List” and then field and answer the ads. Up came a recognizable photo, a man she had gone out with five times. Although they got along, it wasn't exactly fireworks. She finally kissed him very lightly and that was the extent of their physical familiarity. So she couldn't really recommend him as a lover which was just as well! And when she thought he looked “weird” in his photo, the man in the photo being seated in a boat so perhaps he looked dwarfish, she was able to talk her friend into answering his message to her ad. It didn't hurt that her work friends also thought he looked nice or even handsome in the photo.


On the other hand, she'd resisted her Indian friend's desire to match a geeky slight guy at work with an overweight student friend of hers. The friend was Christian and the guy was not religious. The guy was so unassuming and lacking in self-confidence that he would never have had the nerve to call the woman so what were they to do? Her friend was in town for only a few days so the timing was impossible. Besides that, this friend like so many Indians was doing an arranged marriage so did she really know much about relationships, never having been in one?

Quote from my father after I gave him a puzzled look on the start of his lecture about how we are all descended from 150 original people*:

"Is that a smirk or a sneer?" Why are those my only choices?

*Wikipedia: "Some scientists believe that only a few people left Africa in a single migration that went on to populate the rest of the world. It has been estimated that from a population of 2,000 to 5,000 in Africa, only a small group of possibly 150 people crossed the Red Sea. This is because, of all the lineages present in Africa, only the daughters of one lineage, L3, are found outside Africa. Had there been several migrations one would expect more than one African lineage outside Africa. L3's daughters, the M and N lineages, are found in very low frequencies in Africa and appear to be recent arrivals. A possible explanation is that these mutations occurred in East Africa shortly before the exodus and by the founder effect became the dominant haplogroups after the exodus from Africa. Alternatively, the mutations may have arisen shortly after the exodus from Africa."

OUTMODED CONVENTIONS

You sound like a broken record.



telephones:

there are no longer phone booths



you no longer dial the telephone

CUDDLE PARTIES? HOW BIZARRE!

Have you heard of Cuddle parties? Scott Baio, the actor, went to one in NYC and did a YouTube video on it. He didn't want to cuddle with any men (horrors!) but he did let a "small person" massage a woman's foot while it was perched on his chest. How liberal of him!





It's really very cool. You bring pajamas and change into them. Then comes a lot of rules, 45 minutes of them, and you practice saying "no". I like rule #7, No Dry Humping. Well, I don't actually see that on their website so maybe they realized people (uh, men) are too cool for that. Yeah, right.





So, no sex? What's the point, sez some men I've mentioned it to. Yeah, they're the younger types with testosterone poisoning. There is SO much value and comfort in touch! There are SO many of us who are touch deprived!

I just wish it didn't cost so much! Yes, people are trained and trying to make some kind of living from it, but it shouldn't cost $30 to get a little touch!