h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"adultery (where one spouse has sexual relations with someone other than her marriage partner)" - so what do they call it if one spouse has sexual relations with someone other than HIS marriage partner?

;^)#

If it's ADULTery if the woman does it, maybe it's childish if the man does it!

I'm just waiting for someone to post 'understandable'.


;^)#

Surely that could apply to either sex.

Besides, I once read that sex is 5% of a good relationship and 95% of a bad relationship.

I've also heard that, when surveyed, most women said that they would only be unfaithful if their partner was unfaithful first. Come to think of it, that sounds childish to me. Personally, if my husband was unfaithful I'd just dump him.

I also understand that men are monogamous by nature (hence infidelity in men is understandable?) because they can perpetuate their genes by having sex with as many women as will have them. Women, on the other hand, TEND to be monogamous (or have been in the past) because they can only have one child per year and need to be sure of getting the best man for the job. However, this shouldn't (doesn't?) stop them moving on to another partner if they find that the first one wasn't up to the job!

"men are monogamous" - whooops - looks like a typo to me. Yep, I'd agree generally throughout nature that males want to breed as widely as possible so that their genes are spread as widely as possible, and are therefore interested in the maximum number of partners, whilst females are interested in finding the best mate.


;^)#

Sorry, I meant polygamous, but you knew that. I was trying to hold two thoughts in my head concurrently. It's something we women are meant to be good at, but I have trouble with from time to time.

So I got the pronoun gender thing wrong. Big deal. Yes it could apply to either gender but at least I got most of the words spelled right.

This reminds me of the argument some years ago about a need to put 'nongender' oriented pronouns in our language, to avoid things like this. Generally you're supposed to use the masculine when indicating either gender, and in context it should be clear as mud.

I'm an equal opportunity pronoun user.

I had this problem when writing my Masters dissertation, made worse by the fact that I was writing about software engineers who are mostly male but sometimes female. I got round it by using 'they' and 'their' instead of 'he' / '(s)he' and 'his' / 'his/her'. Use of they/their in such situations is, as I understand, acceptable (or becoming so).

I wish we had a non-gender pronoun. In France they have 'on', which effectively means 'one'.

I've been reading this book which is written entirely using the feminine gender for all nongenderish references. Whenever the gender issue comes up in the book, where the narrator is talking in hypothetical terms and the gender of the individual described is irrelevant, they use her instead of him. I like that. It reads better for me.

The entire book is this way. And there's a lot of times when they talk about this person and she may be short or tall it doesn't really matter she may be the cause of the divorce or she may have just been the victum of it, but regardless of what they say about her, they use feminine gender references, even if she may actually be a him. It's irrelevant.

I like that. I think I'll write like that from now on, just to confuse people and tick them off. "Her" when I mean "him or her."

I'd be very careful if I were you, particularly if your writing is aimed at a wide readership. Some women might feel offended if the subject matter is critical of certain activities or types of behaviour. They might feel that you consider that only women go in for such activities/behaviour, or that it is only reprehensible if women do it. The only 'get-out' is a clear statement at the start that you are using feminine pronouns to encompass both sexes. Even then there are no guarantees.

I know this may sound silly; after all, masculine pronouns have been used for years without men kicking up a fuss. But people are like that.

I am new to all this but am finding these conversations hysterically funny. Quite on the mark about a lot of the aspects of divorce. Merry Christmas everyone, single or married.

Hello there. I'm glad you find the conversations funny. Many of my contributions are tongue-in-cheek, although the other conversation on divorce ('Overlooking the obvious') did get a bit serious. I guess the key with H2G2 is not to take everything too seriously and not to get offended. Personally, if some one is getting a bit pompous (or whatever), I feel duty-bound to take a verbal pin and deflate their ego.

Happy Christmas to you and yours, and to every body out there!

Well if it helps, in my particular situation regarding the issue of divorce and adultery, both my wife and I participated. Granted, she committed adultery first but I attribute that more to opportunity than anything. If the opportunity had arisen for me before it did for her it's just as plausible that I would have done it. In that territory I don't think either of us were truly satisfied at that point, though I told myself I was.

I don't feel this is important enough to warrant having Mark go back in and edit the piece in question just to change one pronoun, but I appreciate the input. If enough are upset about this, I'm sure Mark would be happy to change it if he found time.