Down With Spooning!

Slate ^ | November 4, 2015 | J. Bryan Lowder

[C19fan]

At the end of this past summer, I dropped my partner off for a year of dissertation work in Spain. On the flight back, I decided that if I was going to make it through this period of lame but ultimately necessary physical separation, I would need to get a handle on my emotions. (This became acutely apparent after an in-flight viewing of Pixar’s Inside/Out that left me sobbing over my complimentary plastic cup of vino rojo.) Because I am a Virgo or Type A or whatever, I tried to divide the unwieldy mass of sadness I was feeling into specific things I would miss, the goal being to then soberly evaluate whether each was really worth feeling sad about. Among the list—physical intimacy, cooking for two—one emerged that seemed fairly legitimate: sleeping together, and in particular all the pre-slumber snuggling and cuddling that’s supposed to entail.

[C19fan]

Remind me again which side of the ideological spectrum wants to police the bedroom...

[sauropod]

That’s 3 minutes i’ll never get back.

[Argus]

Pajama Boy’s Lament.

[PapaBear3625]

Please recall the big spoon/little spoon roles I described earlier. A look at the gay adaptation of these terms is useful in exposing the power relationship they instantiate. Among gay men, big spoon and little spoon have become softer ways of signaling whether one is a top or a bottom during sex. But, as has been true of the top/bottom dynamic since the beginning, these also carry certain connotative weight: Big spoons are manly and will take care of you (provided you let them use you to take care of themselves); little spoons are fragile, passive creatures that need to be held and kept safe.

I think his familiarity with gay terms tells me more than I need to know about the author.

[Mears]

One paragraph mad me gag.

That was enough.

.

[struggle]

It’s not a Slate article unless it involves spooning a child.

[C19fan]

Would I be wrong in guessing Laz would join this movement too?

[Tax-chick]

These people are nuts.

[Uversabound]

In the end one behaves like the woman and one behaves like the man.

Now I sound like my Father! LOL

LOL

Gettin old is the best feeling sometimes.

Being born whole is a blessing. Efem all.

[ThomasThomas]

I started reading this and was distracted with thoughs of how exciting curling can be.

[Kickass Conservative]

Too bad his Partner will end up “Spooning” a Hot Spanish Boy during their separation. LOL

[Autonomous User]

Lets talk about my low T

[Trillian]

Haha.. sobbing over Inside Out. I know it was a terrible movie, but sobbing? Partner, top, bottom.. homosexual? Complaining about spooning? You’ll be down to zero soon enough. Just another lost soul that will never know what it’s like to be in a normal, loving relationship.

[punditwannabe]

Ohforgodsakes!!! Guess I’m a little spoon, and I like being held and kept safe. Feminist dogma didn’t quite hold the allure for me as it has some.

[Old Sarge]

[mountn man]

At the end of this past summer, I dropped my partner off

First warning buzzer goes off.

On the flight back, I decided that if I was going to make it through this period of lame but ultimately necessary physical separation, I would need to get a handle on my emotions.

Question: WHOOooo is writing this???
Answer: J. Bryan Lowder

Whatever... or whooever...

(This became acutely apparent after an in-flight viewing of Pixar’s Inside/Out that left me sobbing over my complimentary plastic cup of vino rojo.)

Wait...why am I silently reading this in my head...with a lisp

Because I am a Virgo or Type A or whatever... (even bigger lisp, with attitude)

Awww hell no.

I ain't reading about some flamer and his over emotional PH-EEEEELIngth

[needmorePaine]

It’s bracingly simple, I know, but it is the balm we need. Vertical cuddling—whether with an arm loosely paced around the neck, or a head freely reclined on a shoulder, or just sitting cozily side-by-side—removes much of the risk of physical discomfort and all of the semiotic violence that spooning conveys. It also allows for intimacy we actually experience because we are, you know, awake.

I wonder how long he has been waiting to shoehorn "semiotic violence" into an article.

When my partner finally returns, we will no doubt wish to be physically close (perhaps in yet unknown Spanish ways he is currently picking up).

Yuck.

But mark my words, we will not absent-mindedly spoon. Instead, we will cuddle with our wits about us, comfy in the knowledge that we are making the world a better place, one squeeze at a time.

Double Yuck.

[JimRed]

By the light
Of the silvery moon,
I want to spoon,
To my honey I'll croon love's tune,

[VanDeKoik]

“At the end of this past summer, I dropped my partner off “

Your what?