Your subject lines are neat, and created just for me!
And, WOW such a long post. Did the mods read EVERY word??

Well, since I'm a mod, at least one of them did. :-p Baldur is also following the convo--read his great reply to me above.

Sigh. Why is it that at any one time in a relationship, one person feels more secure than the other? And then at other times the roles are reversed.. I agree that expectations cause a lot of problems, causing jealousy and insecurity etc. Expect something, and you are sure to be dissapointed, but if you just trust someone, they are likely to exceed anything you ever imagined (in a good way that is).

So true.

I agree with this. As soon as people enter into marriage, things seem to deteriorate don't they?
People percieve they have new obligations, new limitations, when all that is changed, is signing a piece of paper. I can imagine that it would be easier for me to have children with someone who i wasn't married to, than someone i was, simply because it feels like more they choose to be involved, rather than obliged. It is is easy to perceive such people as being resentful when it may not be the case.

Yes ma'am. You know, the odd thing is, it may really frighten some people when I speak of having an open culture with open relationships that have no expectations. Alot of people imagine all these people having casual sex all the time and going from person to person, an extremely shallow culture with little real intimacy.

But I am convinced that the opposite would occur if the expectations/taboos were removed. People would seek MORE intimate relationships and stay longer with people because they want to and not because they have to. I mean, if you look at the current culture, where marriage is the norm, over half of all marriages end in divorce, and this trend seems to be growing. Why?

Well, I have answered this question before in a seperate post, and I'll cut out that section and paste it here because it was another long post:



The olden days weren't exactly ideal in some ways--girls and women had few rights, and people were expected to adhere to strict social roles. But there was a kind of safety in that. Girls could be expected to fulfill their lifelong role and it really didn't matter much how old or young they were, except that if they were too old the chances of landing a mate was low. So, better to get her married off early, where she'd have time to learn what was expected of her and grow comfortably into the role.

There's an undeniable sexism in that, but women generally benefited from this situation in several ways--there were few doubts about what they were expected to do, for example, and they didn't have to go through their peak adolescent years without sex and companionship. Their sexual yearnings were legitimized, and they didn't grow up with the shame, guilt and hassle many teens today have to endure for being what they are--horny kids.

Today, we have everything wrong. Kids are biologically wired to start having sex when their bodies begin to mature. According to nature's standard, they are ready for sex at pubescence. But we arrogant humans feel we know better than nature (which has had millions of years to perfect this process), so we add an unnatural extension to childhood. Not only that, we refuse to teach and train children what they should know about selecting a good mate, how to please a mate sexually, and perhaps most importantly, how to keep that mate.

The net result: We no longer have the strict social codes that compel people to stay in long-term relationships, and rightly so. A relationship should only stay together if the two people want to stay together. Creating unnatural social compacts (like marriage) or social taboos to compel them to stay together is wrong. But likewise, if you want long-term relationships to work, children need to slowly immersed in the culture of such relationships, meaning they need a suitable menor to begin teaching them what such a relationship entails and to allow them time to grow comfortable with that world.

But we toss children into the maelstrom of adulthood at the last possible moment and expect them to know not only what to do navigate it, but also to get it right from the beginning. As we are beginning to learn (with the higher and higher numbers of singles and the ever-increasing divorce rate), that will no longer work.



I would add to that the fact that the old notion of marriage, with its built-in expectations, is outmoded, and many couples are now rebelling against it, even if they aren't conscious of doing so. The logical conclusion to all of this is, children need to learn how to be in relationships romantic relationships (something our culture will not currently allow) and we need to update the concepts of both sex and love and break the culturally-instilled connection between them.

When that happens, some people will have casual sex (without guilt) and be happy, and some people will seek long-term relationships (and be happy)--the bottom line is, we'll all gravitate toward our true selves because no one will be pressured into conforming to some standard they aren't happy with.

Well i agree with most of this, although the way people raise their kids changes from generation to generation. It's quite scary how kids are being bought up today, compared to when i was brought up. Kids are more outspoken, are better at standing up for their rights, have more freedom, yet are they better off for it? They often have no respect for other people, and they don't know what to do with their freedom, roaming the streets, taking drugs etc. It's not their fault though! But the same basic limitations are still placed on them, and laws to protect their innocence. Hmm what other dubious laws are their to protect EMOTIONS?! How silly is that. How do we know wthat all kids feel the same way, and can all be protected from 'bad' emotions by a simple law?

Actually, I would argue that kids really don't have it as good as many of "older" folks like to believe. In the same vein as what I mentioned about young women marriage in the olden days, yes, kids had fewer rights, but they also knew their roles. There is something to be said for knowing what's expected of you, I guess--you may not be happy with the situation, but you at least don't have to think about any alternatives and wonder what you are going to do--you already know what you're supposed to do.

Today, kids are in turmoil, and this is for a number of reasons. For starters, they are far more uncertain about their future than older generations were. They are constantly bombarded with negative messages from the media about terrorism, sexual predators, pollution, war, the national debt, the drying up of social security, etc. Everywhere they turn they are hit with the threat of death, rape, and abuse. In short, they are frightened, and when you've dealt with fear for so long, you eventually grow numb to it. The end result is apathy.

Another problem is the huge discrepancy between what we tell kids to do and what we do ourselves. In the old days, kids were expected to adhere to a strict morality, but so were adults. Remember when I said that truth is universal? If that's the case (and I believe it is), then it should apply equally to both adults and children. At least in the sense of morality, children and adults were viewed the same way--what was wrong for one was wrong for the other. But nowadays, we adults are hypocrites. We flood the media with sex and we allow casual sex between adults, and yet we expect kids not to do the same? Why wouldn't they be disillusioned by us adults? We are hypocrites, not to mention jealous of they're youth, and so we make certain things off-limits to them so that we can feel superior.

The conservatives' answer to this dilemma is to return us to the old days of sex only in marriage between a man & woman only, and a censored, sex-free media, and there is a kind of logic to that, but it's flawed logic. You can't take back rights that have been granted--there will be rebellion and rightly so. It is immoral to repress the human instinct for self-fulfillment--the only laws should be against actual demonstrable harm.

Modern liberals, meanwhile, are major hypocrites as well. They want to grant rights to some groups (gays, minorities) at the expense of others (peds and white males.) Now, I consider myself a liberal in the classical sense, which is more akin to libertarianism, though I agree with the liberals on the need to place some limits on corporations. Many so-called liberals these days are really social conservatives wearing a mask. Anti-pornography feminists are a good example; so are those people who want to limit hate speech. I don't like hate speech either, but I wouldn't dare censor it, or any speech. I'm a 1st Amendment purist. Likewise, I'm not into guns but I support the 2nd Amendment, the right to bear arms.

I digress--back to the kids. :)

Yet another issue with kids is that many parents just aren't doing their jobs, or they aren't doing it the right way. Yes, I do believe there is a right way to parent, even though I don't have kids. Alot of parents think that makes me arrogant, but I really don't give a rip. I've been around enough kids on a regular basis and for long enough durations to have experienced the essence of parenting. I had one (7-year-old) little girl in my care for 3 days once and without the benefit of a spouse (though my mom was on hand some of the time,) so yes, I do know what the experience of having a child living with you is like.

The key to good parenting, as I mentioned in my post to Baldur in this thread, is consistency, fairness, and, of course, lots of love and affection. :)

Thanks for the reply. Always nice "speaking" with you.