I have several ideas for new blog posts, but am having a really busy week so I’m not sure when I will have the time to write some new ones up. In the meantime I thought I would share the original photo I use for the header image. I took this from my kayak on one of the local lakes at sundown about three years ago (click for full size image).
I have always liked the photo, and I think the words on the buoy are words to live by. My wife and I often talk about people we know who have made bad choices and as a result left a trail of wreckage in their wakes (often involving kids). The words on the buoy are a reminder to me to take the time to make good choices as well as enjoy life. Plus there is something powerful about being on big water alone in a kayak, especially after sundown. I still try to get out at least once a week and paddle out to a nice spot to watch the sun go down.
Here are some other shots from the same series:
Gorgeous images.
Nice visual interlude.
so cool. beautiful image and beautiful story. something very zen about the whole thing.
Interesting (and beautiful pictures). I think this is a common theme in many philosophies. “Festima lente.” Taking your time (patience coupled with sincere effort) will get you there faster.
In a way, you inspired my blog-banner … it could almost be the top half of yours.
http://beijaflorbeyondthesunset.wordpress.com
Dalrock, I knew you were cool. From the front of my Kayak,..
http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=1183
[D: Very cool. That must have been a really calm day.]
That was in Cocoa around 5:30am. I’m usually out there or on Sebastian inlet, and yeah it can get windy.
I am in the market for a kayak, any recommendations?
Lake Ray Hubbard? I paddle from Miller Road to the Flying Saucer occasionally .. . .
[D: Yes. Under I-30.]
Dalrock is there a PO Box I can send my donations to? PayPal wont work the way my philanthropy is set up. Thanks for being a Christian Advocate of Game and for pointing out the hypocrisy of our Churchian brothers.
[D: Thank you for your generous offer, but I don’t have a way to accept donations.]
Dear Dalrock,
I have been avidly reading your blog over the past 2 days: I have now read most of the past couple of years’ writings. The reason is because I have left a huge wake. I have played a fairly extreme “game” and left a fairly extreme wake. I would like to recount my story, and see what you make of it. It strikes so many chords with what you write about changes in sexual politics.
I am now 41. My parents had an unusually good marriage, although both my parents worked, and my mother considered herself very much a feminist: My mother was committed to work, so I was sent to a nanny – a woman I called “mum” – every weekday from 3 months to 5 years old, when I went to school. I know that when I was a little older, and my mother stopped seeing work as a feminist crusade, and simply as a way of making a living, she first went part-time, and then took early retirement to spend more time with her kids and husband. She changed her attitude quite a bit in later life. But my, did her early feminism cause some tensions at home!
I was a bright student: straight As, and I got into Oxford for my undergrad. I did okay there, although I spent a while trying to find the right career after that. I had a pretty rough time as an undergrad: studying science, there weren’t too many girls around, and at the top university, there were a lot a bright alpha type males. I worked at becoming alpha myself. Nonetheless, at that age, my SMV wasn’t high, and that hurt. I had a few girlfriends, one of whom was the university Women’s Officer, really rub my nose in it, using every means to demonstrate her superior SMV. After leaving college, I spent a year in the army, but then decided that medical school and following in my father’s footsteps as a doctor was for me. I went to Cambridge medical school, and did pretty well there too. But here is where things began to unfold differently from most.
Most medical students in the UK attend medical school straight from high school. So at Cambridge, I was some 8 years older than those studying with me. All the girls in med school (and med school is largely female these days) liked me, an older guy with consequently higher SMV. Having been locked away from girls largely in the army, and previously of low SMV as a spotty science undergrad, I found my SMV suddenly very high. I made the most of it, and got around quite a bit at med school. As I had inherited some money, and was doing pretty well professionally (cambridge med school is still pretty high status in the UK), I was intensely aware of the risks of commitment for a successful man. I stayed quite aloof, and played the same carousel game as the young students I was dating. At the same time, I did my best to maximise my SMV – I am now a surgeon with good earning power.
At the beginning of med school, I received an email from a research laboratory looking for sperm donors for research. Keen to know if it all worked, I donated to the lab for a while. Through that laboratory, I discovered of the need for donors at a nearby clinic. I donated there for a while, but I found the process odd, sitting in the waiting room with couples and women staring at me, wondering if I was their donor. I thought there must be an easier, less medicalised and less commercial way. That got me looking on the internet, and I came across a website that matches up couples, straight and lesbian, and donors, so that you can actually meet, and arrange the practicalities of donation yourselves. I donated like that for several years. During the years when my SMV was low, and sexual rejection was regularly used as a power tool by girlfriends, it was refreshing to know that some women wanted my sperm. A lot. I didn’t tell my girlfriends about the donating thing.
After several straighforward successes donating to couples, I met a lesbian woman, in a committed civil partnership (what we call gay and lesbian marriages in the UK), who suggested that rather than using a turkey baster, as she did when her girlfriend was present, that she might like to try sex on the occasions when her girlfriend couldn’t make it – although in her 30’s, she hadn’t been with a man before. That sounded great to me. We did have sex, and oddly, she seemed to have fewer hang-ups and to enjoy the straightforward physical act more than most of my heterosexual girlfriends, who were too caught up in the etiquette and power dynamics of sex to just enjoy it. Anyhow, she fell pregnant pretty damn quick, so that didn’t last long. I soon realised that lots of the women on that sperm donation website were keen on much the same, including many of the married ones. Oddly the least likely to want sex seemed to the be the single ones. I ended up sleeping with several women – quite a number of them married to infertile men – or women. In total I think I have something like 40 children by 28 women. It didn’t end well.
A few years ago, I met a married couple, who were seeking a donor as he had a vasectomy – it was his second marriage, and he had a grown up son. At the first meeting, I met them both, and it all seemed to go well. A few meetings in, when the husband wasn’t present, she suggested sex, and we went ahead. What I didn’t know at the time was that the wife (who I slept with) had a PhD in Womens’ studies and her thesis title was something like “A history of Domestic Violence against women in 19th century Britain”. I should have known better. Anyhow, she fell pregnant, then told me she miscarried, and that they were desperate to conceive again. She travelled to see me, and we had sex again. She conceived. That was almost it.
After she gave birth with her husband at her side, I started to receive calls from a journalist with accusations of sexual misconduct and abusing my position as a doctor, and worse. Eventually, it became clear that this woman had contacted the press and made accusations about me. When I confronted her about this, she said she wanted child support – money, now. We have been through a long paternity battle – although I am the biological father, if the situation is recognised as sperm donation, then the husband can be named the father, if he consented -it doesn’t just go with biology. I lost, and I am now due to pay child support for the next 20 years (until the child is 21 here). What I didn’t know is that here in the UK, in addition to child maintenance, you can be made to pay a capital sum, to split you assets as if you were married. I am likely to have to buy her a house out of the money I have inherited (my immigrant parents came to England with nothing – this money is very hard earned, I know – they were earning it instead of being at home with us when we were kids).
Next came the rape accusation, the police investigation, and acquittal. It transpired that she didn’t have a miscarriage, but an abortion, as her husband didn’t feel he could go through with it. She lied to me so that I would donate again. Then the revelation, as part of the paternity process, that she is HIV positive and knew all along, but still had unprotected sex with me. Fortunately, I am negative (it really isn’t that easy to catch apparently). It seems that neither the obviously false rape accusation nor the HIV are crimes. The police won’t prosecute her for either. They won’t prosecute false rape accusations for fear of putting off real victims, and they won’t prosecute HIV positive people for having unprotected sex for fear of putting off people who suspect they may be HIV positive from getting tested.
The difficulty I now have is this: If I am due to pay child support to this couple’s child, what about all the others I donated to? The others are doing just fine without child support. But they are just as eligible for my hard earned as this horrible woman. How, exactly, are the courts going to allocate my money? You wrote so well on this subject:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/we-are-trapped-on-slut-island-and-traditional-conservatives-are-our-gilligan/
Well, what you predicted has come to pass. Half a dozen or so other women have put in a claim also. Most don’t really want my money. Most are grateful for me donating. The child support is so clearly not about the child – those with good mothers and no support are doing far better than this mother and a million dollars will do. So hundreds or thousands each month won’t help this child at all. I am going through that court process now. Wish me luck. Several more mothers may come through the woodwork as time progresses.
PS My own plans? I have made many mistakes. I need to change the direction of my life and morality. I really don’t want for much materially myself – my needs are pretty minimal. I enjoy my work. This child support is really state-sponsored stalking – or forced marriage – which is really what this woman wants. She has made it plain that she wanted to trade in her ageing husband for a younger, more alpha sperm donor, and coerce me to be with her. In court, despite accusing me of raping her, she claimed not to have reported it for nearly 3 years because she is madly in love with me. I’m not into forced marriage. I will do my best not to play her, and the government’s game. I may well find myself not being able to practice the surgery that has taken me years to learn (and the state hundreds of thousands). I will only work hard if my work is properly rewarded, and can lead me to a happy relationship and fatherhood. Otherwise, Maybe I will find a career-oriented woman, and be the best qualified stay at home dad in the world. I don’t believe I’d find that impossible. And as the “woman’ in the marriage, that would be a pretty safe existence if things don’t end well.
Is the name Dalrock a biblical contraction. … originates from
Thank you for explaining your banner. This was something I thought was just for the calming effect but it has real meaning. “No Wake” is a beautiful way to view the balance we are expected to maintain as Christians.
Re this guy:
anonymous (legally required in this case) says:
August 27, 2013 at 2:06 am
I would counsel him to emigrate if possible, else go ghost. He’s already considering the latter.
When asked why, he could reasonably respond that he won’t be a slave, and leave it at that.
Man is raped at gunpoint by THREE women so they could collect his semen: “A man was kidnapped at gunpoint and raped by three women who collected his semen in a cool box and stealing it before abandoning their victim – and the method is part of a growing trend. The 33-year-old man gave the women directions when they pulled up in a black BMW. Suddenly, one of the women armed with a gun got out and forced him into the back of the car at gunpoint. The trio then drove him 500km away and fondled him in the back of the car but he did not become aroused, so they forced him to drink an ‘unknown substance’ from a bottle to aid him. They then raped the man repeatedly and collected his semen in plastic bags, placing them in a cooler box. The man was then kicked out of the car, 500 km away from where they picked him up in the Kwazakhele township, Port Elizabeth, and made off with the stolen sperm. The exact same method is being used by women in Gauteng, who
are also forcing men to drink from a bottle and stealing their semen but no arrests have been made. The man was fully conscious throughout his ordeal and he is still traumatised.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3071749/Man-raped-gunpoint-THREE-women-collect-semen-cooler-box-steal-South-Africa.html
When I read this, my immediate cynical thought was that in a few years, the man would be sued for child support, with a DNA test required as proof of being the father.
Nice