How do you think we in the US can get a good health care system like Sweden and other evolved countries have?
Well, my knowledge about the US health care system stems from such reliable sources as "E.R" and "Grey's Anatomy", so it might be that I'm not really in possession of all the facts. But off the top of my head I'd say tax funded health care for everyone in the country.
Skip this insurance stuff and pay for it with tax money and agree that everybody is a person, that a society that leaves people dying from treatable illnesses because they're poor is a rather crappy society, and that everybody benefits from some basic things like school and health care being accessible to everyone.
Oh, and this "mal practice suit"-thingy where doctors and hospital administrators go around being afraid of being sued for crazy amounts of money seems really strange to me too. Again, I'm not sure if I have it right, but if I have the right idea about it, it seems really really ineffective.
In Sweden you file a complaint to the proper authorities and they investigate and if someone's been maltreated the doctor can lose his or her license and employment, and if there's something wrong with hospital procedure's they are forced to change them. But the hospital doesn't have to spend millions of tax money on insurance against being sued or paying off people who has complains. But then again, our health care are tax funded, not businesses, I guess that makes a difference.
On the other hand, the last eight years the (right wing) government has made a lot of changes to our health care system, which for one thing has led to hospitals and other health care facilities starting to act like businesses, and venture capitalists getting revenue from them, that is tax money going to off shore accounts belonging to already wealthy businessmen. I can't wrap my head around how anyone could think that would be a good idea, but obviously more than half of the Swedish population did, because they voted for them (twice, as a matter of fact).
Would you ever like to move to another country?
If I would, it would be to Scotland. I could easily imagine living in Scotland, and Mistress was actually about to apply for a job in a town called Pitlochry in the Highlands a couple of years ago. It didn't come to anything, but we could definitely move there, if the circumstances were right. But I have no drive to move abroad just for the sake of it, no. I like Sweden, and if I would want to move it would have to be because the other place has something really good to offer in terms of quality of life one way or the other. (But Mistress is where my home is - she could take me anywhere in the world and I'd gladly follow her. Not likely though, since I think she likes it just fine here.)
It pisses me off though that there's a lot of places in the world I wouldn't dare move to with my family because we wouldn't be welcome. It's not as if we could go to Russia anytime soon, for example. Not that I would want to, particularly, but it sucks that we can't.Or almost anywhere in Africa, and big parts of Asia.
My father is something of a globetrotter, and he rubs me the wrong way sometimes with making light of how easy it is to fit in and "when in Rome" and so on. It's easy for him to say, as an older white male. He belongs to the most privileged demographic on the planet - for him going to Togo, West Africa for a month isn't really the same thing as if me and Mistress would do it. But I don't think he realises that, and it bugs me at times.
Have you been to visit the US or would you like to some day?
I've never been, but I would love to. Ever since I read a blog where a thirty-something Swedish writer described how she rented an apartment in New York for a month and vacationed there with her husband and their two little kids I've been thinking we should do the same. I'd love to have a kid-friendly place to stay and then explore things in a slow pace, not running around rushing things but going into it with a kids eyes, going back to favourite places as much as we'd like, just enjoying the place and the rythm and the experience of making a everyday living somewhere else. That's a dream vacation of mine.
Another dream place to visit is San Fransisco, not the least because of it's gay history. And redwood trees. I'd love to see redwoods. I also have a cousin who lives with his wifes and two teenage girls in Alaska, and I'd love to go there. My mom went there last year, and I was insanely jealous of her. I want to see grizzly bears! Or not, as the case may be. She didn't, actually, and she described how she and my cousin had been out with the car somewhere and he'd said something about there being a risk of grizzly's being around and she'd been all "oh, a chance to see one you mean?".
Mar 11, 2014
Questions 4! Babymaking.
Did you have the baby and how did you get pregnant?
Yeah, I had the baby. I really wanted to be pregnant and give birth, and Mistress really really didn't. We both wanted to have kids together, but it took like three seconds for us to figure out who would do the actual baby-building.
We went to the local hospital and I got inseminated with donor sperm. The donor is anonymous, but the kid can find out who he is, and read a letter he wrote when he donated, when she's 18. Since 2006 the rules for treatment of infertility in Swedish healthcare are the same for lesbian couples as for straight couples, so it all went relatively easy. It was about a year from the first phone call to the clinic until I was pregnant.
How are lesbians treated in Sweden?
I don't know if there's an easy answer to that one. On the one hand me and Mistress could get married, and had the right to assisted insemination at the hospital. No one is making fun of our kid at pre school or other places for having two moms (as far as I know) and me and Mistress holds hands on walks without usually thinking twice about it. On the other hand, there's two major political parties in Swedish parliament that are openly homophobic and they have about 20% of the Swedish votes, so it's not like it's universally accepted. It's not as if there's no homophobia or judgement going around, and we're often thankful that we live in a urban part of the country, where we're not alone.
Better than most of the rest of the world, I'd say, but still fucked up. Something like that.
Yeah, I had the baby. I really wanted to be pregnant and give birth, and Mistress really really didn't. We both wanted to have kids together, but it took like three seconds for us to figure out who would do the actual baby-building.
We went to the local hospital and I got inseminated with donor sperm. The donor is anonymous, but the kid can find out who he is, and read a letter he wrote when he donated, when she's 18. Since 2006 the rules for treatment of infertility in Swedish healthcare are the same for lesbian couples as for straight couples, so it all went relatively easy. It was about a year from the first phone call to the clinic until I was pregnant.
How are lesbians treated in Sweden?
I don't know if there's an easy answer to that one. On the one hand me and Mistress could get married, and had the right to assisted insemination at the hospital. No one is making fun of our kid at pre school or other places for having two moms (as far as I know) and me and Mistress holds hands on walks without usually thinking twice about it. On the other hand, there's two major political parties in Swedish parliament that are openly homophobic and they have about 20% of the Swedish votes, so it's not like it's universally accepted. It's not as if there's no homophobia or judgement going around, and we're often thankful that we live in a urban part of the country, where we're not alone.
Better than most of the rest of the world, I'd say, but still fucked up. Something like that.
Mar 10, 2014
Questions 3! Sex life.
How often you have a scene and what do you usually do? You mentioned in a
past post you life anal. Do you do it much? What is your sex life like?
Do you go down on each other, use strapons?
For us, sex function as a glue that keeps our relationship working. We need to connect that way, to reinforce our love and our dynamic. It's very much about her owning me, about me belonging to her, and about us being together. Unfortunately life has a nasty tendency to get in the way of our sex life. I tend to blame it all on us being parents, but the fact is that before the kid came along we had a lot of other stuff getting in the way. So not as often as we'd like tends to be the constant answer. But I know that if it's been a week and we haven't had sex and/or a S/M-scene, I start to feel crappy and get obnoxious. So somewhere between a couple of times a week and every forthnight, depending on health and stress levels mostly.
I'm all for fucking the stress away but Mistress needs to decompress and feel comfortable with herself and her home and her world before her libido gets going, and she's the one who gets to say when.
We don't have vanilla sex, I don't think we could even if we for some reason would want to. It doesn't necessarily involve toys or pain or orders, but she's always in charge. I'm receptive and present and willing and communicating, but she's the one deciding what we're going to do. I don't touch her without permission (it doesn't have to be verbal though) or change position or things like that. It's very much her fucking me, not the other way around.
She uses a strap on or her hands, and I'm often encouraged to use my hands too. We're not into oral sex, either of us, so we don't do that. When it's more scene-like, with more sadism and toys and perhaps planned a little in advanced it's usually very calm and slow and serene. She has trained me to lie perfectly still, and she's very methodic and focused. She never tells me in advance what she's going to do, and I'm pretty sure she makes it up as she goes along, but it feels almost ritualistic, very ordered, very centered.
I like anal, very much, but Mistress seem to be rather indifferent to it. If she just want to fuck me my pussy is more convenient, and that's usually what she uses. I always want more anal sex (like I always want more orgasms, and fucking, and beating, and hugging and attention and just generally more of everything because I'm a glutton) but it's not something I obsesse about. She fucks me that way sometimes and when she do I love it. That's about it.
For us, sex function as a glue that keeps our relationship working. We need to connect that way, to reinforce our love and our dynamic. It's very much about her owning me, about me belonging to her, and about us being together. Unfortunately life has a nasty tendency to get in the way of our sex life. I tend to blame it all on us being parents, but the fact is that before the kid came along we had a lot of other stuff getting in the way. So not as often as we'd like tends to be the constant answer. But I know that if it's been a week and we haven't had sex and/or a S/M-scene, I start to feel crappy and get obnoxious. So somewhere between a couple of times a week and every forthnight, depending on health and stress levels mostly.
I'm all for fucking the stress away but Mistress needs to decompress and feel comfortable with herself and her home and her world before her libido gets going, and she's the one who gets to say when.
We don't have vanilla sex, I don't think we could even if we for some reason would want to. It doesn't necessarily involve toys or pain or orders, but she's always in charge. I'm receptive and present and willing and communicating, but she's the one deciding what we're going to do. I don't touch her without permission (it doesn't have to be verbal though) or change position or things like that. It's very much her fucking me, not the other way around.
She uses a strap on or her hands, and I'm often encouraged to use my hands too. We're not into oral sex, either of us, so we don't do that. When it's more scene-like, with more sadism and toys and perhaps planned a little in advanced it's usually very calm and slow and serene. She has trained me to lie perfectly still, and she's very methodic and focused. She never tells me in advance what she's going to do, and I'm pretty sure she makes it up as she goes along, but it feels almost ritualistic, very ordered, very centered.
I like anal, very much, but Mistress seem to be rather indifferent to it. If she just want to fuck me my pussy is more convenient, and that's usually what she uses. I always want more anal sex (like I always want more orgasms, and fucking, and beating, and hugging and attention and just generally more of everything because I'm a glutton) but it's not something I obsesse about. She fucks me that way sometimes and when she do I love it. That's about it.
Questions 2!
Were you submissive before?
I've been a submissive masochist since I was five, that's as early as I can remember. I know it's crazy young, but that was when I started fantasizing about getting spanked and punished. I had no idea why, or what it was I was feeling, or why it was so damn embarassaing, but I knew enough to never ever mention it to anyone.
It was incredibly lonely, in fact. I grew up knowing I was a freak. That I wanted crazy things and that I could never tell anyone. My fantasies and urges evolved as I became an adult, of course, but the dominating theme was always me being controlled, dominated, taken over by someone stronger than me.
It wasn't until around 18 or something when I got internet connection and realised that I wasn't alone and that there was a name for it, that I started to make peace with my own strange urges. At that time I was in a committed vanilla relationship and when that relationship had run it's course, so to speak, and I was single again I promised myself to never again lie or hide anything for a potential partner. And I haven't.
I've been a submissive masochist since I was five, that's as early as I can remember. I know it's crazy young, but that was when I started fantasizing about getting spanked and punished. I had no idea why, or what it was I was feeling, or why it was so damn embarassaing, but I knew enough to never ever mention it to anyone.
It was incredibly lonely, in fact. I grew up knowing I was a freak. That I wanted crazy things and that I could never tell anyone. My fantasies and urges evolved as I became an adult, of course, but the dominating theme was always me being controlled, dominated, taken over by someone stronger than me.
It wasn't until around 18 or something when I got internet connection and realised that I wasn't alone and that there was a name for it, that I started to make peace with my own strange urges. At that time I was in a committed vanilla relationship and when that relationship had run it's course, so to speak, and I was single again I promised myself to never again lie or hide anything for a potential partner. And I haven't.
Questions!
Thanks Florida Dom for the questions! I'll take them a few at a time.
How long you been together? How did you meet?
We met in 1997 when I was seventeen, Mistress was 26. I had just found LARPing (see http://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Main_Page for more info, it's a weird hobby), and was blown away with how amazing it was. Mistress was one of three other women who were planning on going to an event as a group of soldiers in a 17th century setting, and they were one person short and asked me to join them. We were a tight group after that, for a couple of years on. Eventually the group fell apart, but me and Mistress stayed friends.
She was working towards her PhD, while I hadn't even finished the Swedish equivalent of High School when we met. I graduated eventually and the years after that was a bit chaotic for me. I enrolled at the University but never got a degree, I broke up with one boyfriend, slept around a little bit (very little, actually) and fell in love with a couple of other guys. Mistress on the other hand got her PhD, got a job as a scientist and lived an ordered, albeit perhaps a bit empty life.
We started organising LARP-events together, and we were good at it. We didn't really talk all that much, mostly about the current project, and it took us a long while before we realised that we had begun to come up with things to do just so that we could meet and do them together...
When at long last we both realised that we were in love, I was already living with my then-Master. We had a D/s-relationship since a couple of years back, and I was invested and loyal and in love with him. And head-over-heels in love with Mistress.
It was a recipe for disaster, and in time it was quite disastrous. In the beginning it wasn't though, because both Mistress and my ex was brave and open minded and generous persons, and decided to enter into a poly dynamic together. The dream was a family of three, with them being if not in love so at least infatuated with each other, and me belonging to them both.
It all fell apart in couple of months, and since we were all stubborn and deeply invested in the idea, we strived and tried and fought for it for two years after that. None of us was ready to call it quits, but we were increasingly unhappy. At long last I couldn't take it anymore an moved in with my mom for a week to think. After two days I missed Mistress like crazy, but not my ex, and there was my answer.
I broke up with my ex and moved in with Mistress, and we've been together ever since. That was January 2006, so we've been living together for eight years now, and known each other for 17 years (oh my God! Haven't thought about that before. That's a long time. Ah well.)
Mistress proposed in March 2006, and we got married in church in 2007, the happiest day of my life so far.
How long you been together? How did you meet?
We met in 1997 when I was seventeen, Mistress was 26. I had just found LARPing (see http://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Main_Page for more info, it's a weird hobby), and was blown away with how amazing it was. Mistress was one of three other women who were planning on going to an event as a group of soldiers in a 17th century setting, and they were one person short and asked me to join them. We were a tight group after that, for a couple of years on. Eventually the group fell apart, but me and Mistress stayed friends.
She was working towards her PhD, while I hadn't even finished the Swedish equivalent of High School when we met. I graduated eventually and the years after that was a bit chaotic for me. I enrolled at the University but never got a degree, I broke up with one boyfriend, slept around a little bit (very little, actually) and fell in love with a couple of other guys. Mistress on the other hand got her PhD, got a job as a scientist and lived an ordered, albeit perhaps a bit empty life.
We started organising LARP-events together, and we were good at it. We didn't really talk all that much, mostly about the current project, and it took us a long while before we realised that we had begun to come up with things to do just so that we could meet and do them together...
When at long last we both realised that we were in love, I was already living with my then-Master. We had a D/s-relationship since a couple of years back, and I was invested and loyal and in love with him. And head-over-heels in love with Mistress.
It was a recipe for disaster, and in time it was quite disastrous. In the beginning it wasn't though, because both Mistress and my ex was brave and open minded and generous persons, and decided to enter into a poly dynamic together. The dream was a family of three, with them being if not in love so at least infatuated with each other, and me belonging to them both.
It all fell apart in couple of months, and since we were all stubborn and deeply invested in the idea, we strived and tried and fought for it for two years after that. None of us was ready to call it quits, but we were increasingly unhappy. At long last I couldn't take it anymore an moved in with my mom for a week to think. After two days I missed Mistress like crazy, but not my ex, and there was my answer.
I broke up with my ex and moved in with Mistress, and we've been together ever since. That was January 2006, so we've been living together for eight years now, and known each other for 17 years (oh my God! Haven't thought about that before. That's a long time. Ah well.)
Mistress proposed in March 2006, and we got married in church in 2007, the happiest day of my life so far.
Mar 9, 2014
Getting through the days
March is question-month, and I want in on it. That is, I'd love to get questions since I usually have no idea who reads this and I'd love to getting hints of things to blog about. So if anyone want to know anything about me, just post a question in the comments, and I'll answer it.
More than question-month, March for us have been sickness month. When we got home from Paris, little S got chickenpox and I got the flu. Yesterday was the first day in two weeks I could take a bike ride without wanting to puke or cough up my lungs. Little S is still covered in scabs from the 'pox but at least she was virus-free and her old happy self again.
Except that she spent all day complaining about tummy ache, and half an hour before bedtime she throw up. She kept throwing up every halv hour the rest of the evening, and Mistress who slept in her room said that she was sick the last time at 2.30. Yey.
And I just shut down a bit for the time being. I don't want to play this game, but there's nowhere else to go. We'll just live through it and believe that we will get healthy again, despite the evidence to the contrary.
I was at a job interview last Thursday, and I will be going to another one next Thursday (unless I'm puking my guts out at the time). There's some kind of low level anxiety humming in the background all the time, and it contributes to me freaking out. What if no one wants me? What if they do want me? What if both jobs want me? And then again, what if they don't? What if no one will want to hire me ever? What if there's something wrong with me? And so on and so forth.
If I do get a job offer, I'll start fretting over whether or not I can do the job, and about the fact that it means we'll have to move and all the hassle that entails. But that's next on my fret list. For now, I'm stuck on "no one will ever want to employ me". Oh, and "we'll never have sex again, 'cause we'll be sick forever". Happy fun time all around.
More than question-month, March for us have been sickness month. When we got home from Paris, little S got chickenpox and I got the flu. Yesterday was the first day in two weeks I could take a bike ride without wanting to puke or cough up my lungs. Little S is still covered in scabs from the 'pox but at least she was virus-free and her old happy self again.
Except that she spent all day complaining about tummy ache, and half an hour before bedtime she throw up. She kept throwing up every halv hour the rest of the evening, and Mistress who slept in her room said that she was sick the last time at 2.30. Yey.
And I just shut down a bit for the time being. I don't want to play this game, but there's nowhere else to go. We'll just live through it and believe that we will get healthy again, despite the evidence to the contrary.
I was at a job interview last Thursday, and I will be going to another one next Thursday (unless I'm puking my guts out at the time). There's some kind of low level anxiety humming in the background all the time, and it contributes to me freaking out. What if no one wants me? What if they do want me? What if both jobs want me? And then again, what if they don't? What if no one will want to hire me ever? What if there's something wrong with me? And so on and so forth.
If I do get a job offer, I'll start fretting over whether or not I can do the job, and about the fact that it means we'll have to move and all the hassle that entails. But that's next on my fret list. For now, I'm stuck on "no one will ever want to employ me". Oh, and "we'll never have sex again, 'cause we'll be sick forever". Happy fun time all around.
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