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

Again, it comes down to "if we lived in a perfect world"....

In a perfect world, we would all, from birth, know what we need to know about love, relationships, sex, marriage, childrearing, and winning the lottery.

In a perfect world, we would find our "soulmate" right off the bat, get amrried, have compatable sex, raise the perfect children, and they would all abstain from sex until they got married, and like happy productive lives....

We don't live in a perfect world and, despite the best efforts of those of us who try to instill in our children (in my case nieces and nephews as I can't have kids --- in a perfect world I would) healthy attitudes towards their bodies, love, life, and all the rest, some of our children are going to get pregnant (or get someone pregnant), get STDs, be hurt in love, and run into the offspring of people who either don't care or don't know enough to teach their children what we have.

I'd rather my children (if I could have them) managed to avoid meeeting up with the children of the ignoramuses who decide that ignorance is bliss.

My sister's (step sister) mother died when my sister was a baby (actually, it was a suicide.... likely because she, herself, was unprepared for adult-hood) and she and my older brother grew up without a mother. They grew up without the cuddling, loving, and guidance of a mother. They were abused by care-givers, and my stepfather, who, himself, grew up in a home where his parents were distant wasn't given the knowledge to know how to be a loving parent. By the time my mother and I came into the picture, when my brother was 8 and my sister 6, the damage was done. My mother tried to give them the love and guidance that their own mother should have been able to give.

Even if she had lived, I doubt their natural mother would have been able to be the capable parent they so desperately needed. I have seen the legacy that ignorance leaves. Generations of children growing up into damaged adults, without the wherewithall to teach and guide their own children. Parents who all but abandon children from the time they are able to walk. Children left with grandparents, never to see their parents again. Parents expecting adolescents to, in essence, raise their younger siblings.

My adult nieces and nephews learned early on not to expect help or love from their mother. She wasn't and isn't capable of giving it to them. It is me that they turn to for advice and love. While I see in them the same problems I have seen in all their other relations, I know that, because I (and my mother) have been guiding them and nurturing their parenting skills, the cycle will, hopefully have been broken.

I have taught them to respect themselves and their bodies. I taught them that the love they give their children should be a reflection of the love they have for themselves. I taught them to have respect for others as much as for themselves.

A couple of years ago, my niece came to me because she was having a problem with her partner's mother who was telling him (remember, this is a grown man, with children) "If you stay with that woman, I will never speak to you again."

He was torn up and it was threatening to break up their relationship. They wanted my advice.

I told him that he owed no responsibility to his mother. Everything he owed was to his children and any parent who would make him try and choose her over his children was no parent. Parents deserve respect.... but only if they deserve it. I quoted the following to him:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. (Kalil Gibran)

He told me that whatever life threw at him, he considers his children (and family) first, and himself second.... whenever he has doubts about something, to do with his children or his family, he thinks about that poem and evaluate how what he is doing or expected to do is going to impacts his family. He says that that poem was the single most significant piece of information he has ever gotten in his life.

I can tell you, too, that I have seen amazing changes with my niece, her partner, and her family. She has gone from a parent who rarely picked up and held her children, to one of the most loving parents I have ever seen. She isn't perfect. None of us are. However, I feel confident that, whatever the future brings them, it will be a million times better than they could have expected before.

Icecoldinalex - I was only commenting on the girls because the boys I knew didn't ever talk about such things, so I have no idea how they felt. From the effects on the girls though, I should say a lot of them were just as confused, ashamed, and ignorant as the girls, plus they felt as men that they couldn't possibly NOT try to have sex when the opportunity presented itself, even if they thought the girl wasn't very attractive or they really wanted to be spending time with another girl.

Mudhooks - I found your post quite moving. Good on ya!

Love the poem.

No probs Agapanthus

Mudhooks - that was a wonderful poem. Quite beautiful.

Nice, Mudhooks.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out why strong religious viewpoints on virginity and marriage should be considered by, well, anyone else.

Very often well-funded religious groups start organizations that play down the religious aspect of the thing. Meanwhile everything they preach is based on religious teachings. I wonder what they are ashamed of or why they feel they have to hide what they are actually doing?


az

Religious viewpoints on virginity and marriage are religious viewpoints. However, the same viewpoints, based on moral conviction, rather than based on the accepted rules, moral directives, or practices of a particular religion, exist. It isn't the stand on the particular issue that bothers me.

What bothers me is that certain people (from a variety of religions) seem to think that they are the only people with morals or that their morals or approaches are the only "right" ones.

If someone has come to a particular belief because they have researched and examined the various factes of an issue, and don't just blindly accept a certain viepoint, then I say "Terrific".

I don't have a problem with someone choosing or not choosing virginity before marriage as the best choice for them, whether for religious or other reasions, if it is truly their choice, and as long as they understand and accept whatever consequences there are to their decision.

<>
No, actually, I haven't.
<>

Late night cable. Even if I could, I wouldn't! What makes you think that a show such as 'Sluts In the City' is worth any more as an insight into human behaviour, than say, anecdotal evidence?

As has so often been the case with you, you react to statements of fact, with insults, because you don't want to hear anything that contradicts your views! A few facts. The vast majority of the human race doesn't have 10 or so 'partners' before marrying at 27-35, being married for maybe seven years before experiencing "sexual boredom", and taking off into the wild blue yonder!
Another example of you ignoring what you don't have an answer to, is your lack of reaction to my remarks about divorce statistics.
If you'd stuck with the link you'd posted and the comments you made there, that would have been the end of the discussion, because with one proviso, I was prepared to agree with you. But you had to make with the arrogance, the insults (I presume it's an ego thing, and makes you feel clever.)
<>
You don't get tired of trashing me and showing your insecurities, do you?

<>
Really? What do you understand "ignorance" to mean? Do you feel, as Blatherskite seems to, that anyone who hasn't had 5 'partners' by the time they're 20, is "ignorant"?

<>
I don't think anyone thinks that!
More of the anecdotes Blatherskite dismisses so airily...
My sisters lived with their husbands before they married them, for at least 5 years. One sister is divorced, and the other is still married after 28 years.
My mother didn't live with my father before marriage - but they were together 20 years before he died. (but both were experienced - my mother had been married before. They married at the very advanced ages of 35 and 36 - advanced in those days...)
The cousins I mentioned and my penfriend and his wife didn't live together before marriage but have been married 40+ and 60+ years.
It don't on that showing, seem to make much difference either way!
I've talked to many old couples, who, because of their religion, were what you'd call "ignorant" before marriage and have been together many decades, oh, and happily together at that.

American spelling of programnme - It said "did you mean to say abstinence programs"... No, but it didn't give me a choice...
Christian source? Political, I thought, but then "Christian" is like the proverbial red rag to a bull to people here, isn't it?

<>

You know that how? Anecdotal evidence is my guess!
You're a bit of a big baby, Blinky, referring me to animals! For one, humans are a bit different, and for another, duh, I know!

>>You know that how?

I was told that by a consultant in HIV/STIs medicine, who works at a very large teaching hospital. He also presented some evidence to back it up, which I don't have to hand, but it was based on a large sample size in several countries.

Crap... This was soimething I was working on and somehow posted. Please ignore this until I am finished it.

What the Hell????? I hit the wrong key, saw my work posted and now it is gone.... Probably just ended up doing a preview.... now all my figures are gone. No w I have to start over again.

One word: notepad,

Long posts should *always* go in notepad.

Or just highlight, ctrl+c it before you click post.

I didn't intend to hit post. Either it was my mouse hitting the edge of my keyboard ot it was a keystroke I hit accidentaly.

Della:

Ye gods. Where to begin.

"A few facts. The vast majority of the human race doesn't have 10 or so 'partners' before marrying at 27-35, being married for maybe seven years before experiencing "sexual boredom", and taking off into the wild blue yonder!"

These are facts? I would have mistaken them for opinions or wild assumptions. You're prepared to back these assertions with references to the appropriate research, then.

"You don't get tired of trashing me and showing your insecurities, do you?"

I'm quite secure, thank you. But that other thing? No, it doesn't get old.

"Really? What do you understand "ignorance" to mean? Do you feel, as Blatherskite seems to, that anyone who hasn't had 5 'partners' by the time they're 20, is "ignorant"?"

I said that? You're ready to point us to the thread where I used those words, then.

In fact, I believe the term "ignorant" had already been adequately covered in this thread. But since you missed it, I'll repost Mudhooks' comment: "Unhealthy sexual attitudes include such things as thinking every other couple in the Universe has sex 15 times a week, that women shouldn't enjoy sex, and the like, not "kinky sex". This stems from ignorance, which, in turn, stems from not having a healthy understanding of sexual and human relations."

And apart from unhealthy attitudes and just plain ignorance, waiting until the honeymoon suite opens up another host of possibilities because of sexual behaviors. This is why I suggested you watch a bit of late-night cable (but thank you for the histrionics, those never get old), for two reasons:

1) You can get an idea of the range of weird behaviors... people who cry during sex, or need physical pain, or tarty outfits, role-play, etc... some things would be weirder to some people than others, of course, as everyone has their own idea of weird. But in the honeymoon suite only one person's opinion matters.

2) This is where the sexually ignorant will turn for information (aside from porn), and so you can see what kind of wrongheaded ideas they'll come up with.

The honeymoon suite is the wrong place to find out she weeps during sex, or that one of them is gay.

"I've talked to many old couples, who, because of their religion, were what you'd call "ignorant" before marriage and have been together many decades, oh, and happily together at that."

Really? Old people share their entire sexual diaries with you? And they were all confirmed virgins on their wedding nights? Both partners?

Just popping in to register some amusement...

From Della: "Late night cable. Even if I could, I wouldn't!"

No! Close your eyes an ears children, for surely if you do not unrighteous information may pollute your mind! You might actually come in touch with that vile work of Satan, popular culture! You might actually start to understand why other people think differently from you and consider you a freak! So no! Don't listen! Shun the information! Read your Bible!



"What makes you think that a show such as 'Sluts In the City' is worth any more as an insight into human behaviour, than say, anecdotal evidence?"

For starters, how about the fact that YOUR anecdotal evidence seems to be in diametric conflict with all the other anecdotal evidence I've ever come across?

And for main course, how about the fact that 'Sluts in the City' as you so charmingly call it is a PRODUCT, the work of literally hundreds of people, targetted and marketed to appeal to as many intelligent, affluent people as possible in order to sell advertising space? If it were not speaking a truth its viewers recognised, it would not have been the success it is, and its creators would have been fired. Instead it was incredibly successful and went out on top of the game.

The interesting thing here is that the fact that you don't like it is further proof of its success. Programmes (this is the correct spelling, by the way - the New Zealand spelling seems to include an "n"... ) like "Sex and the City" are aiming for a specific audience - in this case an intelligent, literate, open-minded, affluent audience. That you don't like it, don't "get" it, is further evidence of its success. The people who write that show don't WANT you to like it, Della, because if people like you did like it, the people they're aiming for - the successful ones, the ones with money, and jobs - would see that people like you liked it, and switch off. Smart people actively don't want to be like you Della, so people who make TV for smart people make TV you hate. Isn't that great?

H.