Author Archives: Uncommon Courtesy

How To Politely Reveal Your Fetish (Yup, We’re Going There)

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Everyone has a thing. I want to get that out there before we go any further. Everyone, in bed our out, has a thing they like to do that maybe isn’t a thing a whole bunch of other people like to do. Or maybe a bunch of people like to do it but it isn’t “normal” or something like that. But at some point you will need to reveal this thing to another person. I mean, you don’t need to; you could hide it forever and become overwhelmed by anxiety and then start expressing yourself in dangerous and destructive ways. But that’s not very nice, is it? No, let’s tell someone.

As with most practices of etiquette (and this is one!), it’s all about making other people feel comfortable while at the same time not sacrificing your own needs. Just as there’s a way to ensure a guest will RSVP or a way to properly thank someone for a gift, there’s a way to reveal your innermost desires in a way that makes your partner feel safe and trusted.

When to Bring It Up

The trick of when to reveal a fetish is weighing the “normalcy” (I really hate that term but can we just go with it? And you can all know that I don’t want to shame anyone? Ok.) of what you want to do against how necessary it is for you to indulge in it. It looks something like this.

Generally, the closer to blue, the earlier you want to mention it, and the closer to orange, the later you can wait. Let’s go through four hypothetical scenarios to illustrate this a bit more.

Common and Unnecessary: This is where your fetish is something that’s known to the general “vanilla” (ugh, that term) world, and is not something you need to indulge in all the time. For instance, if you enjoy getting blindfolded, but you don’t need it to enjoy yourself, this is your category. This can really be brought up as early or as late in the sexual relationship as you want, depending on the others involved and your comfort with them.

Common and Necessary: This is where you have a similar fetish as above, but you need it to happen often or every time. If you need to use a vibrator every time you have sex, this should be talked about earlier, ideally before you have sex but after it’s been established that you’re both interested. This could be any time from dinner that night to while you’re already in bed, but it should be mentioned explicitly, so your partner doesn’t start getting confused about why you’re pulling out this toy every time you’re together.

Uncommon and Unnecessary: This would be a situation where your fetish is something a little off the beaten path, or maybe isn’t even a fetish at all, but just something you’d like to try. Maybe you want someone to learn a really elaborate knot system and tie you up. Maybe you’ve, on occassion, enjoyed being in a latex body bag . Maybe you like sitting naked in pies. I’ve seen Real Sex, I know what’s up. Anyway, if it’s something you’re casually into, it might be best to test this out later on. Wait until you’re already sexually comfortable with your partner and test it out

Uncommon and Necessary: If you need to have someone cover you in chocolate pudding and then run a knife over your stomach every time you have sex, I’m gonna guess your dating needs are best served within a specific community and not on OK Cupid. Use the internet, find that community, and go nuts. But if you do happen to meet someone in a bar you absolutely need to have sex with, then it’s best to bring this up before you get to the bedroom.

How To Bring It Up

Ideally, you will just totally own whatever fetish you have like the badass you are. I actually love Dan Savage’s idea that it’s best to share your kinks as if they were “added bonuses,” but here are a few tips on how to mention it.

1. Make sure that’s actually part of the conversation. It shouldn’t be “Hey, how do you like your spaghetti?” “It’s great, and I also need to eat it during sex.” If need be, make it part of the conversation. Once you’ve established you’re attracted to each other and interested in sex, ask your date what they’re into, and then you can bring yourself up.

2. Don’t be ashamed! There was this part in one of Helen Gurley Brown’s books about how to reveal to your date that you’re wearing a wig (and hey, maybe wearing a wig all the time turns you on, whatever!). You’re just supposed to flat out say “hey, you may be surprised to hear this, but I’m wearing a wig!” and then you take off your wig and if your date runs away then it’s their loss. Don’t let anyone shame you.

3. If you’re in Quadrants 2 and 4, bring “suggestions” of your fetish into your normal sex routine. I found this advice on lots of fetish blogs. If you have a foot fetish, touch your partner’s feet during sex before launching into full-on foot play. If you enjoy bondage, test the waters with blindfolding. That way, if your true fetish lies in the more “uncommon” territory, it won’t come as such a shock later.

So now, go forth and do your thing! And if you have any other tips, let’s talk about them!

Etiquette Urban Legends

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There are no alligators in the NYC sewers, so don’t believe these etiquette urban legends either. By Ludovic Bertron from New York City, Usa (Urban Legend? Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s amazing to us how many etiquette “rules” there are out there that have no basis in any etiquette book nor which are particularly logical. Here are some:

  • You have a year to send a thank you note after the wedding. Though guests have up to a year after the wedding to send a gift, a year for thank you notes is not true. So get that out of your head! Thank you notes should be sent promptly after receiving any gift, though with a wedding you have a bit more leeway because of the volume of gifts. Make it easy on yourself and send thank you notes for gifts received prior to the wedding as they come in.

  • At a fancy dinner or restaurant you will be given ten different forks and won’t know how to use any of them. This legend is a holdover from Victorian times when people did indeed use tons of silverware. Nowadays you will only have a couple of pieces, or the waiter might bring you something new for each course. When presented with multiple forks, start from the outside and work in.

  • You need to buy a gift/give money that is equal to the cost of your dinner at a wedding reception. AKA cover your plate. This is ridiculous. How are you supposed to know how much the dinner cost? And why should someone’s choice to have a lavish wedding result in a more expensive present than someone with a more modest affair? Buy within your budget and according to your closeness with the couple.

  • You should never talk about money in polite company. This is true to a degree, maybe don’t talk about it at a dinner party with strangers. But certainly discuss money and finance with your children- how else will they learn? And we should all be discussing salaries and rent with close friends so everyone will know if they are getting ripped off. Secrets help the man keep us down.

  • At a dinner party, you must try some of everything, lest you come off as rude to the host. Trying everything is good eating advice in general (you might like new things!) but “rude” might be pushing it. If you are allergic to endive, or know for sure you don’t like it, don’t eat it! And if someone asks you can say you just don’t like endive. That’s not a comment on the host.

  • RSVPs: some people think you only need to respond if you are coming, some people think you only need to respond if you are not coming. You must RSVP yes or no to any invitation, how is the host supposed to know which method you are following otherwise? And unless it’s a super informal get together that you’ve been invited to through Facebook or something similar, do not RSVP “maybe.”

  • You should stick your pinky out when drinking tea. You may think this looks fancy and proper, but it’s not! While it’s one thing if your pinky naturally juts out a bit when you hold a cup, sticking it straight out is considered an affectation (damn that New Money) and honestly, just looks ridiculous.

  • Etiquette is all about following rules and if you forget something you are an awful person. Etiquette is more about helping other people feel comfortable, and one of the most important etiquette rules is that it is more rude to point out someone’s rudeness than to break whatever rule in the first place.

How to Deal with a Wedding Invitation Snub

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This kitten is sad for you. [Via Flickr user Mourner]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

I recently found out that I was not invited to the wedding of someone I had considered a close friend for the past seven years. Knowing that wedding planning is very stressful and tricky, I’m hurt, but understand that there could be any number of reasons for being left off the list. Do you have any advice for avoiding friendship awkwardness in this situation?

Sincerely,

Hoping to Keep Things Smooth

P.S. Just to add, I’m planning to send her a congratulatory card, but any additional advice would be appreciated!

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE:

Miss Manners strongly promotes the idea of having a less fancy wedding so as to include as many people as possible so as to avoid these kinds of situations. Official etiquette always dictates taking the high road and not expressing anger at a snub like this.

OUR TAKE:

Victoria: So I totally get the hurt- I’ve been mildly disappointed in not being invited to super old friends’ weddings who I definitely wouldn’t expect to be invited to. And I’ve been really thrilled to be invited when it was an old friend I hadn’t seen in YEARS. I think, if it’s someone you see frequently, the best you can do is just smile and hope they don’t talk about it too much.

Jaya: Yeah, it’s rough realizing that you’re maybe not as close as you once were. But that’s also only one possibility, right? Like, maybe this person just has bitchy parents and a small venue?

Victoria: Yeah, there could be a million reasons why they couldn’t invite you. Although, it won’t be much consolation if they’re having 500 people. In that case, maybe re-evaluate how much effort you are putting into the relationship v. what you are getting back.

Jaya: Definitely. A Practical Wedding had some great posts on this, about how friendships are relationships like any other. And even though there’s no cultural narrative about how to end them, they need to be re-evaluated and ended sometimes, just like any other relationship. If she feels like this girl is a super close friend but she didn’t get invited, yeah, take a look at how the friendship has played out.

Victoria: What’s that old romantic relationship advice? Don’t make someone a priority when they are making you an option? I just Googled that.

Jaya: I love that we can just Google sage relationship advice.

Victoria: It sounded way more poetic written in my high school notebooks.

Jaya: But that totally goes for friendships too. And as for how to act, I think sending a congrats card is totally fine, and then maybe stand back and see if this friend steps up post-marriage.

Victoria: Yeah, exactly. The card is above and beyond and very sweet. I personally just like to comment on the photos on FB about how beautiful they look.

Jaya: I mean, I don’t know their relationship, but if this is someone you thought was your BEST friend–like someone you talked to every day, shared everything with, and watched this relationship grow–I think you’d be justified in asking about it?

Victoria: Yeah, that’s a very good point.

Jaya: Maybe not saying “Hey, why the hell wasn’t I invited!?,” but I think it’s a decent catalyst for a conversation about your friendships. Especially if there was no discernible falling out. For instance, if you didn’t invite me to your wedding, and your wedding was a normal-sized, friends-invited affair, I might ask.

Victoria: There’s always the very TINY chance your invite got lost.

Jaya: True, but you probably would have gotten a phone call about an RSVP.

Victoria: Yeah, you’d have to be very sure. Maybe if the bride was talking to you this whole time as if you were invited, you could ask about that.

Jaya: If you feel like your relationship was close enough, you can maybe ask about it. But “closeness” is so subjective, and you have to be prepared for the option that this person didn’t consider you as close.

Victoria: I think this also might be a good time to remind brides and grooms that their wedding is still a party and maybe you shouldn’t be sharing all the details with your coworkers/acquaintances if you don’t want to invite them.

Jaya: Yessssss. I’m trying to be pretty aware of that with planning my wedding, but it’s so hard sometimes.

Victoria: Part of that is that people do like to hear these details, even if they know they’re not invited.

Jaya: Totally. I try not to put anything on facebook, because there are definitely people I’m not as good friends with who maybe think we still are? I hide behind Facebook a lot

Victoria: We all do.

Do You Swear?

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This is the kind of curse we mean, right?

This is the kind of curse we mean, right?

Swearing! We all do it, right? But maybe not in front of children? The practice of swearing or cursing in public is extremely varied, from when people do it to what people consider inappropriate, so we had a chat about what it means for us.

Jaya: How To Fucking Swear

Victoria: You can swear up a storm…I don’t swear.

Jaya: I will! Is not swearing something you choose to do, or does it just not naturally come up in your conversation?

Victoria: I don’t do it because I think it sounds forced and unnatural when I do it! But I don’t care at all if anyone else does it. I do swear sometimes when I, like, cut myself or break something, or do something else stupid. Oh and I do blaspheme a lot.

Jaya: This weekend when I was at a family party and there were a bunch of kids around, I said “god dammit” and someone (jokingly) said “oh not in front of the kids!” and I had no idea what he was talking about because it did not occur to me that what I said was a problem.

Victoria: Yeah, there are some circles in which blaspheming is worse than “vulgar” swearing.

Jaya: This also happened to me at college. I was waiting behind a girl on line and she was complaining about her professor saying “god dammit” in class, and how dare he blaspheme. And I was so confused.

Victoria: LOL. Well for your family, I’m sure it was the dammit that was the problem. I will say that, and damn, and crap.

Jaya: Even then! It does not register to me anymore as a curse. Maybe that’s a problem? Crap is so not a curse.

Victoria: Hahah I think it just means that you don’t really hang out with kids ever. I am sure you will adjust accordingly if you do have them or start hanging out with them more.

Jaya: Did your parents ever swear around you?

Victoria: Not when we were little! My mom started up again when we hit high school age.

Jaya: So did mine, my dad pretty much always did though. Not a lot, but he’d slip up way more than my mom.

Victoria: Yeah, I remember my dad telling me, when I went through a swearing phase in 5th grade, that he used to swear a lot when he was young but he didn’t really see the need to anymore. He doesn’t really swear that much- way less than my mom.

Jaya: I do find myself swearing less than when I was a teenager. But I also only started swearing when I was 13 or so, much later than most of my friends because I felt awkward doing it. So I think I started feeling comfortable with it, did it all the time, and then realized that a well punctuated curse word is far more effective than saying “fuck” in every sentence.

Victoria: Hahaha, see, awkward. I do start doing it more when I hang out with people who are doing it a lot.

Jaya: I’m not particularly squeamish about it though. I think like most conversational topics, you have to know your audience when you’re cursing, but there’s nothing inherently bad about it. I think at this point the sting has been taken out of most curses

Victoria: Right. I think you only have to watch it around kids and maybe in some office environments.

Jaya: I feel like if they are my kids (if I had kids), cursing would be like alcohol. I’d rather they get it from me than out on their own. Like, learn how to do it in the house.

Victoria: HAHAHAHAHAHA. You are the Betty Draper of swearing.

Jaya: And you just wrote my tombstone.

Salutations in an E-Mail

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That’s Mr. Fancy Painted Alligator to you. [Via Flickr user planeta]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

I work at a job where I email a horde of people from different fields and professions: from professors to ambassadors to CEO’s to journalists, etc. I’ve got basic professional email language down, what gets me is the salutation. I know there’s a movement to get rid of the salutations and signature, but that doesn’t quite work for formal professional correspondence. Obviously you start off with the most honorific/formal, but then it changes based on their response/signature, right? I think rule of thumb says to reply back using how they sign off (Sarah, Professor Higgenbottom, Admiral McGee), but how do you handle it if they sign off with their full name? Do you revert to the more formal form again? Do you use the full name? (that sounds awkward). Do you refer to a former ambassador still as “Ambassador” or is it “Sir”? It’s a little thing that trips me up every so often.

Thanks,

Too Many Names

Official Etiquette:

“Dear Mr. / Madam Ambassador:” is the correct opening for a letter/email. We don’t see anything about a former ambassador, but we would guess they revert back to Mr/Ms. Professors should be addressed as Dr. if they hold a doctorate, though Professor is fine if you aren’t sure. We couldn’t find anything about when to drop formal titles, but following the lead of the professionally superior person is always a good rule of thumb.

Our Take:

Jaya: Alright, so, this is, like, a million questions.

Victoria: Like she says, the basic rule of thumb is that you follow their lead in however they sign off.  But I think what happens a lot is people automatically write their first and last name.

Jaya: Yeah, I do think it serves as a signature.

Victoria: But then, maybe in subsequent emails they will just be like -John or whatever. And that allows you to use their first name.

Jaya: So yesterday, I was emailing with a former volunteer here and I responded with just her first name, because in the last email she wrote “Dear Jaya” and not “Dear Ms. Saxena.”

Victoria: Right yeah, if they are calling you by your first name right away, you can probably do so too. Usually you are working together and not in a superior/inferior relationship anyway, so it seems strange, to me, to use Mr/Ms for too long. I’ve tried to drop it, personally, as it makes me feel very young. I think in my first couple of experiences with grown up work, I tried calling people Mr/Ms (in actual conversation) and figured out how weird that was very quickly.

Jaya: Yeah. I think if they have a title, continue to use their title. But if it’s a superior/normal person, hopefully they’ll respond with a first name

Victoria: Yeah, I definitely don’t think you should revert to a more formal title if you’ve already used an informal one.

Jaya: Totally not. But yeah, if someone signs Franklin Higglebottom, I think you can do “Mr. Higglebottom,” or “Franklin,” depending on how they’ve addressed you.

Victoria: Right. I definitely think you shouldn’t address someone by their full name. Saying Dear Mr. Franklin Higglebottom sounds like spam.

Jaya: What if…you don’t know if it’s a man or a woman? This happens to me all the time. I’m constantly Mr. Saxena.

Victoria: Awww. I think for many people, you would be able to look that up? Google their name- ambassadors should be pretty high profile and professors and such (for this PARTICULAR reader).

Jaya: Oh yeah I mean, those people you can Google. I meant like, random colleagues you’ve never met but who you need to email. Or if you’re applying to a job, something like that.

Victoria: In that case i might just use their first name. Once, I was applying for an internship and the person’s name was Stephan, but some how I read it as Stephanie, so that’s how I addressed him. I got the internship anyway.

Jaya: Hahahahaha. Did you apologize or acknowledge your mistake?

Victoria: Nope. I think people are generally pretty cool with this kind of thing

Jaya: Usually. Though I need to be less forgiving when people call me “Jay.” I wrote my name in the past email guys you should know it. “Jaya” is not a typo of “Jay.”

Victoria: Hahah yeah, that’s totally different. Sometimes I get addressed as Ms Pratt and sometimes Victoria in emails and I don’t really care. I do get a weird buzz when someone calls me Ms Pratt because I do not entirely feel like a grown up yet.

Jaya: Hahahaha, adulthood buzz.

Victoria: It’s like, ohhh they are emailing me and thus they don’t really KNOW that I am an imposter.

Jaya: They don’t really know that I’m actually a 7 year old with my mom’s iPhone, muahahahahaha.

Victoria: You have a remarkably good grasp of etiquette for a 7 year old.

Jaya: Hahahahaha. I think mainly, do your best to follow their lead, and be forgiving if someone messes up but is still obviously trying  I mean if they keep misspelling your name or saying “sup lady” when you’re the Queen, that’s a problem. But if someone calls you Victoria instead of Ms. Pratt it should really be fine.

Victoria: Totally. And, like, yeah, if you are emailing an ambassador or the president or something, err on the side of formal. But if it’s a random professor, if they get all upset about how you address them, then they are the jerk. I also think that you can drop all salutations within a couple of emails, especially if you are just writing a sentence or two.