Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with experimentation

Should I consider dating a woman?

Anonymous — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:16:03 -0800

Is the idea of experimenting with a same sex relationship even smart when you aren't sure it is something you would consider in a long term way? I'm in my late 20s and have a what I think a fairly average sex life so far. I've had about 10 sex partners (all male) and dated plenty, some seriously. (I'm single at the moment though.) I definitely enjoy sex with men and am attracted to them, but I also find myself attracted to women, or at least the idea of women. At least half of my fantasies/sex dreams are of women, and I enjoy lesbian pornography. (I don't believe this is uncommon though.) I, like many women, have had the random kissing with a woman at a bar whilst drinking a handful of times, but that is about as far as anything has gone. As for my orientation, I would probably hasten a guess that I am probably bisexual, but even that seemed cliche somehow.

I think a same sex relationship is something I would be interested in trying but there are a couple questions I have:
1. Is wanting to experiment in something like this insulting to a woman I potentially dated (or whatever it would be)? I would obviously be totally upfront about my intentions but still. I know a lot of people use same sex experimentation around kind of like tiny dogs in purses in that they are trendy and that isn't my goal at all.
2. How would one go about this to begin with? I live in a fairly small city where everyone seems to know everyone else, so there would be no sense of privacy, which would be my preference until I established if it was something that was working. Yes, I know this sounds very "in-the-closet" but it is what it is.
3. Has anyone here done this? How did it work? Are you glad you did it?

throwaway email address: once.you.go.anonymous@gmail.com

No, HERE's my shopping list: amazing thing, amazing thing, amazing thing, amazing thing.

seiryuu — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:23:54 -0800

What sort of things do you do to make individual days worth remembering? I think it'd be awesome if every day had at least one thing take place which was somehow memorable. Not huge things like flying to China or climbing the space needle but even just "hey I remember that day, it is when I climbed a tree."

How do you wire up these tape heads?

godawful — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:04:40 -0800

Audio experimentation: How do I wire up these tape heads? I've been reading this wonderful book and carrying out some of the recommended hacks.

So I've ripped the tape heads out of an old dictaphone and an answering machine and I've got ideas about moving them around in different ways over magnetic tape (and other magnetized objects) to make weird sounds.

Trouble is, I can't work out how to wire them into an amp. The heads I've ended up with both have 4 wires coming out the back, but they're mono heads. Judging by the fact that one pair of wires is shielded, while the other is a black and a red wire, I was assuming that the head was supposed to take some power, and then produce the audio signal on the shielded pair. But a great deal of fiddling with different arrangements has produced no results.

So how should I be doing this? Also, another possibility, might my amp have insufficient gain to actually hear anything? This is the one I'm using.

Thanks a bundle!

Did you ever experiment?

pantheON — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 23:57:28 -0800

Is it common for men to 'experiment' as boys? I (male) had my first gay experience when I was around 12 years old. It was with a friend (also male and around the same age) and went on for two or three years. It was relatively innocent, involving nothing more than mutual masturbation. I never associated what we did with the idea of ‘gay’. In fact, I had absolutely no concept of hetero- vs. homosexuality at that age. That friendship eventually waned and only a couple of years later I began experimenting again with another buddy of mine, this time pretty much going ‘all the way’. In both cases, it was my friend that made the first 'move'. Now, as an adult, I primarily identify as gay, and I feel strongly that having those experiences during my formative years helped shape my sexual identity.

Probably as a result of my own experiences, I have long assumed that it was common for boys to experiment sexually with each other. Since I had fooled around with friends throughout my early adolescence and since I had never been the one to initiate things, I guess I just assumed everyone else had found themselves in similar circumstances when they were young. Still, as an adult, whenever I've brought this up with my straight (and generally gay-friendly) buddies, they without exception deny ever having had similar experiences.

So, to better place my own sexual development in context, I'd like to know how common it is for young boys to experiment with each other. Particularly those who grow up to identify as straight.

Getting started in alternative photography?

petah — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 02:35:12 -0800

I want to get started with alternative photography. I've been using my 350D and a normal film 35mm SLR for a while now and I feel creatively stale. I want to delve into the world of alternative photography. Help me MeFi. By alternative photography I mean everything from medium format to pinhole, polaroids to lomos, everything.

What's fun, what's interesting, what's wacky, what have you had the best experiences experimenting with?