Larry: Summer ‘10

By Lee Taylor
wemakezines.ning.com/profile/leetaylor

Taylor’s zine is sort of like thinking on paper, as it collects pieces of writing about whatever was going through his mind at the time, sort of like a collection of opinion columns. Taylor writes pieces of various lengths about personal issues, modern British society, music, and a number of other topics.

There are also quite a lot of pieces of Taylor’s art, and pages are filled with pictures of hands, trees, buildings, people, and the paraphernalia that fills his life. I like Taylor’s art style which is incredibly realistic, showing tiny details and which rarely seem to include a straight, ruled line.

Taylor also includes a two page, illustrated, art how-to showing two different methods of “drawing” with craft knives that seemed pretty nifty.

There are a few longer pieces, and it is about one of these which I will now go into greater detail, as Taylor says at the end that he would “love to hear from people with opposing views on the subject”.

That subject is the concept of “promiscuity”, or as Taylor puts it “Being a slut”. In this piece Taylor writes about his opinions on relationships, how they should, and shouldn’t go, and what he thinks about people who have sex outside of relationships and those that cheat on the people they’re in relationships with. Strangely, to me, he seems to equate the two, thinking that they are both pretty bad.

In the last couple of years I’ve thought about the concepts of monogamy and relationships a lot, and the only result I can come to is that everyone is different. There are people who can only be happy in monogamous relationships, and there are those who would be unhappy in them. The idea that if you are not in a monogamous relationship with someone means you don’t care about them is one that I really disagree with. I have many friends that I care about (“love”?), but if I start to go out with/sleep with someone it doesn’t mean that I lose these emotions. There are more than six billion people in the world, and so there are many who you will find attractive (both physically and mentally) and who will feel the same about you.

Taylor says that he feels some people view sex as a hobby, something they do without the “slightest degree of emotional connection”, and indeed many people do. But just because you like having sex, and may have sex with many people, does not mean you will do it with anyone or indeed that you will lack emotional connections with them. Some people feel and act more based on emotions, some on physical feelings. To some the act of sex is one that you do to get to know people better, to bring them closer, and to make emotional connections. For others they might be solely for the physical act (sex is fun after all), but this doesn’t necessarily mean there is no emotional connection.

You may be friends with someone, find them attractive, and yet not want to be in a “dating” relationship with them. You may have gone out with someone, and found that, in a strictly “dating” relationship, things don’t work between you, yet friendship and sex still can.
And as for polyamory? I’m of the opinion that as long as everyone involved is aware of what’s going on, things are done safely, and there are no creepy power dynamics (“I’m going to have sex with everyone I want to!” “I’m going to let you even though I don’t want to because I am afraid of losing you.”) then I think it’s okay.

I do agree with Taylor on a few things. Cheating on someone isn’t really cool. If you’re in a monogamous relationship there is an element of trust between you and the other person, breaking that trust isn’t very nice. If you want to break that trust you should perhaps question why you are in a monogamous relationship with that person in the first place. Maybe that person, or monogamy, just aren’t for you. And drunk sex is (mostly) terrible though.
(I’ll point out that there are few pieces in here that Taylor wrote that I did agree with, but those are possibly less interesting to write about.)