Tara Tainton

Writing, though some may deny it, is a very personal thing. In fact, the very words chosen are. Someone's speech, a few lines in an e-mail, or a full novel, tends to reveal the writer's beliefs or stance on many different subjects. I hope mine are clear in my own writing as well as my being, even if I'm just testing out the "opposite side" for how I feel about it or how it may work for some people.

And so I stand among you as one that offers a small message of hope,
that first, there are always people who dare
to seek on the margin of society,
who are not dependent on social acceptance,
not dependent on social routine,
and prefer a kind of free-floating existence.
–Thomas Merton

In designing a site to share my writing, my appreciation for sex, and my favorites with others, I felt the need to include an even more personal stance for all my visitors: my treatise on freedom. It's so ingrained in my core that it wafts out through everything else I do, say, and think. Right or wrong (something that can only be judged by an individual according to their own reality), here are my beliefs with which I approach the world.

Censorship is really just a legal term for lying.
–Susie Bright, How to Read Write a Dirty Story

I believe that every individual should have the right to choose how to live and love. (Does it matter if it's made in their soul before they're born or during their earthly lives afterwards?) Our bodies and what we do with them are our individual responsibility. We can't blame others for our faults or unwieldy strengths; and others shouldn't be allowed to dictate what we do with what is, ultimately, our own responsibility.

Without the suppression of sexuality and the imposition of anti-sexual morality,
you could not have an authoritarian government,
because people would be free from shame,
and would trust their own sense of right and wrong.
–Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt, The Ethical Slut

I believe in equal rights, freedoms, and benefits for women and men: gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, polyamorous, or otherwise. Whether part of the minority or majority, we don't have the right to push our wishes or way of life onto others. We're all people; that's all that should matter. We're individuals and should be free to make our own choices in any realm of our lives. Don't tell me I need to mention that harming others in our wake is bad; we all know that.

It's in our nature to judge, but I hope we do that based on our real experiences rather than the commonly known stereotypes or someone else's opinion. We owe it to ourselves to develop, and continually redefine, our own. And if we choose that something isn't "right" for us, I hope we still realize it may be perfectly right for someone else and to not pass our own fears or anxieties or discomfort to them.

We judge ourselves by cultural values imposed from the outside...
this is internalized oppression. When we apply these unfair judgments
to other people who are like us…
this is called horizontal hostility.
–Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt, The Ethical Slut

I believe in freedom of speech and expression, which also carries over to our other choices and freedoms. Our thoughts are our own, and we should be able to share them. Listeners have a choice to listen or not and to follow or not. I also embrace those time-honored labels someone besides myself deemed negative a long time ago: "girl," "bitch," "slut," "cunt," etc. They're just words; it's people who attach negative meaning to them, and only the recipient of that label, absolutely any label, can give it power over themselves.