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<p>Emeraldkitty said:</p>
<p>But many people would consider this “bad”. </p>
<p>Then I guess they wouldn’t be having sex in that situation.
So I don’t see the problem?</p>
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<p>But we don’t live in a vacuum, we have other people in our lives who will question our choices and morals.</p>
<p>This has made me think, I wonder why we have laws against prostitution? Maybe because the lawmakers took a moral stand on the context under which sex should occur?</p>
<p>Bill Clinton had one thing right: there are ways to have fun that run no risk of pregnancy. Convince your daughter that if she gets carried away to at the very least avoid the ONE act that can result in pregnancy. As somebody said about 10 pages back, “there are virgins and there are VIRGINS.”</p>
<p>But we don’t live in a vacuum, we have other people in our lives who will question our choices and morals.</p>
<p>Why do we have people in our lives who judge us?</p>
<p>[WWOS?](<a href=“http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_past_20010226.jhtml”>http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_past_20010226.jhtml</a>)</p>
<p>What Would Oprah Say?</p>
<p>[Judging</a> Others, Judging Ourselves - Rabbi’s Corner - Tufts Hillel](<a href=“http://www.tuftshillel.org/jl-rab04-judgement.html]Judging”>http://www.tuftshillel.org/jl-rab04-judgement.html)</p>
<p>Interesting discussion, it’s certainly a worthwhile topic exploring, especially since many of our children will be facing these issues.</p>
<p>It appears that by far the minority viewpoint here is that it is optimal to wait for complete intimacy until you are in a loving, married relationship. </p>
<p>To answer several posts back…yes, there is birth control these days and yes it is often successful in preventing pregnancy. However you just can’t get around the fact that pregnancy is the result of sexual intimacy and that any birth control has a certain percentage of failures.</p>
<p>Because a consequence is unlikely in no way diminishes the significance of that consequence when it occurs – having a child/becoming pregnant is a life-altering event for one, two or three people (often more when extended family pitches in to help w/an unplanned pregnancy). Such an event only seems like a ‘weak argument’ in this discussion when you haven’t lived through it. </p>
<p>No one is saying because you wait to share this dimension of a physical relationship with someone until after you have gotten to know each other extensively and committed your lives together that you are filled with moral condemnation against those who act differently or that you believe sex is purely procreative even after marriage. </p>
<p>It’s also not the case that if you don’t sleep with someone you will be a ‘deer in the headlights’ when married (Opie?). There are many, many ways to get to know someone’s character (whether they are kind & cherishing, for instance) without complete physical intimacy. </p>
<p>Moreover, when one waits to put something valuable and beautiful in the most appropriate emotional/practical context it does not necessarily follow that one lacks interest/ability in that area. (thank you for the gentlemanly comment on that salient point, Opie!)</p>
<p>Further—such a decision can based on pragmatism, idealism, self-valuation and an investment in long-term happiness – it need not be based on negative or dysfunctional experiences with the opposite sex. </p>
<p>Almost every guy I’ve known/been acquainted with has been great in some way – or at least had a variety of redeeming/interesting qualities (including each and every of my male family members!).</p>
<p>If someone, anyone, wants to call me a s**t I really don’t care. I’ve been called crazy, a plagiarist (for a work that won a national prize after being fully vetted – the male faculty in my department didn’t think I was capable of that level of work) and probably other derogatory terms by students who didn’t like their grades although I think I am rather lenient as a grader; I am easy going about classroom rules. Still, there are always disgruntled students.</p>
<p>I can’t live my life worried about what other people call me or think of me. I have had quite a few men propose to me, two husbands, well, I won’t go on.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t marry anyone who would call women s’s for enjoying physical intimacy. Not part of my world.</p>
<p>I could give a long lesson here, but I’ll limit myself to saying that regulation of female sexuality is the essence of patriarchy and not something I condone in any way. </p>
<p>I do believe in self-respect, and I taught my daughter not to do anything she didn’t want to do just to please someone else. I stand by that. I also told her that a lot of emotions accompany sexual activity and to make sure she was ready to deal with the fallout. As I said before, I also stressed condom use. Beyond that, she is a very level-headed young woman, and I trust her and my son to make good decisions. They always have.</p>
<p>My mother certainly didn’t extend the same trust to me, but somehow I muddled through anyway. I am not ashamed of anything I have done, nor do I regret anything in the area we are talking about.</p>
<p>After I was divorced from my first husband I enlisted a boyfriend, now my H, to have a child with me. I didn’t want to marry again; he did. D was born when we weren’t married. I was thrilled to have done something that made Dan Quayle so angry (during his Murphy Brown silliness). H insisted we get married if we were to have a second child, so we did.</p>
<p>D is proud of her unconventional beginnings. I think S is a little jealous.</p>
<p>I never felt anything but free and self-directed.</p>
<p>These days people are shocked that both kids chose to adopt my surname. They started with a hypenated name and got tired of it, so they dropped H’s name. His position is that mine is the nicer name and I have the nicer family. The kids identify with my father’s family because they are the most interesting people. H’s parents had a hard time getting used to this, and so did my mom who is a partisan for her family.</p>
<p>But everyone eventually adjusted.</p>
<p>In my experience freedom creates freedom. Repression does not necessarily foster more conservative behavior, but it does create more guilt and self-loathing, something we can all do with less of.</p>
<p>So, I say, “bring it on.” By that I mean the derogatory names. (I added that; realized might be misconstrued. Aren’t I wicked.)</p>
<p>I also have a PhD, tenured position at a college and numerous publications.</p>
<p>Oh, and I also think I’ve been called (she whispers now) a liberal.</p>
<p>Jolynne:</p>
<p>I really like what you wrote in #345, and I agree that all of what you describe is both beautiful and possible. I certainly wouldn’t think badly of anyone with that set of beliefs, or argue that she should change them. </p>
<p>The problem is, I’ve never met anyone exactly like that. And I have met lots of people who have gone through a fairly bad period – from which they ultimately emerged, of course – because they thought maybe they should be like that, and were disappointed that they weren’t. Plus a few people who married young and disasterously because of it. And plenty who try to force it on others, and feel free to condemn, usually long after their own failure to live by it. So I regard that ideal as a little dangerous. If approximately no one lives up to it, is it actually a useful ideal? Maybe it is. Raise your daughters that way, I’m willing to trust you to balance out the risks you are creating. But I’m not going to adopt it, because I don’t think it’s realistic, and I think it can be harmful. Really harmful, if it leads to making bad, immature choices about marriage, and somewhat harmful if it leads to guilt and shame.</p>
<p>(Somewhat off topic, I am always fascinated by the “birth control failures” argument. I’ve never seen the most common kinds of birth control fail, although I have seen plenty of failures to use birth control correctly that led to pregnancy. I certainly subscribe to the idea that if you’re not mature enough to use birth control carefully, you are not mature enough for sex. Of course, that one is more honored in the breach, too.)</p>
<p>I couldn’t resist</p>
<p>Seattle has [SLUT</a> – Streetcar’s unfortunate acronym seems here to stay](<a href=“http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332081_slut18.html]SLUT”>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332081_slut18.html)</p>
<p>as for birth control failures- while I never became pg while on the pill, using a diaphragm or even luck, before I met my current H, with him I conceived twice, once while an IUD was inserted & once when using a condom & sponge.</p>
<p>After we decided we were finished having kids quite a few years later, I sent him to get snipped!</p>
<p>JHS, the IUD failed my mother in 1973. It failed me after 2.5 years of use in 2002.</p>
<p>These last few posts by Jolyne, Mythmom, etc… are wonderful, but I it does leave me to think “What do we tell our kids?”</p>
<p>By way of reference, my grandmother said “Only have sex within marriage”. I decided for myself that it was acceptable to have sex outside of marriage so long as I love the person. However, now that I am married and in my late 30’s, I do sometimes wonder if I should have said “To heck with it”. There were quite a number of guys that I wanted to physically, but mentally put on the brakes because I did not want to be “branded” with derogatory names (which did go on in the 80’s, even if not so much now). Or maybe if I had waited until marriage, I would have found my wedding night to be more meaningful. I’ll really never know.</p>
<p>OK. I do believe in IUD failure. I’m not sure I consider that effective birth control. (Although, like abstinence, a beautiful ideal? Absolutely.)</p>
<p>Oooof. I shudder to think about the possibility that my first time and my wedding night were the same. It would have been a miracle if the marriage survived that collision of fantasy and reality. Not to mention the fact that it would probably have involved a different wife than the one I love. So . . . no regrets there for me.</p>
<p>actually JHS- you are still correct- I have since found out that an aspirin ( anti inflammatory) can render the IUD ineffective- additionally in my case, although I was unaware at the time, I have a bicornate uterus, so it may have not been implanted where it would be most effective.
The sponge wasn’t so effective but we thought to boost that by using a condom as well- but …
Luckily I did discover I was pg early on and was able to use backup, but still contraception isn’t 100% and even not consumating doesn’t mean no risk because those little devils are determined!</p>
<p>Whatapain: Why you’re a baby. You could be my baby! (I’m 56.) Regret is kind of useless. We are all where we are. And joy is a worthier lighthouse than fear.</p>
<p>We all want to protect our kids. Can’t be done. </p>
<p>Before knowledge of paternity women were free to have sex with as many partners as they wanted with no judgment. There were even temple prostitutes. That term really puzzled my students when we were reading Gilgamesh. They couldn’t believe that the sex act was a religious sacrament when enacted between strangers.</p>
<p>We can create whatever mores (see accent please) we want. But that’s my sixties self talking. You can take the girl out of the sixties, but you can’t take the sixties out of the girl.</p>
<p>" Or maybe if I had waited until marriage, I would have found my wedding night to be more meaningful. I’ll really never know."</p>
<p>I am among those who shudder to think whom I would have married if I had waited until my wedding day. Sex would have been a disappointment, and the guy would have been a real jerk. </p>
<p>One can have meaningful sex without marriage. Sometimes it takes experience to have meaningful sex within marriage.</p>
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<p>Mythmom, I just reread that sentence 5 times. It knocked me out.</p>
<p>And prostitution is legal in various countries. My then 15 year old S and I were in New Zealand in 2005 when prostitution had been legal for about 6 months. There were articles and interviews in the local papers with the madames in small towns. Seems a mojority of their customers were just lonely. I was particularly interested in the fact that there were numerous listings in the classifieds by women who were free-lancing. </p>
<p>Prostitution is legal in parts of Nevada. I also understand that there is a company that is proposing to establish a house for male prostitutes to service female clients. I assume there are women who are lonely as well as men.</p>
<p>As another product of the 60’s, I’d suggest that having a large number of sexual partners prior to marriage didn’t always make the woman “happier” after marriage. Once again, it was usually why she was seeking out sex and the type of men she sought out that seems to have been the deciding factor in whether the overall experience was positive. Admittedly, then as now, there were females who seemed to be trying to fill a spirtual and emotional hole and often that isn’t very “pretty.”</p>
<p>I always felt that first you had to love yourself to be a really great lover since at its core sexual initimacy is about giving, as well as receiving. And sometimes (while unmarried), it is great to share with someone on a casual basis.</p>
<p>I also shudder to think of having waited till my wedding night. Life has been far more fun, and joyful before and since. But that was my marriage. </p>
<p>What to tell the kids? The best, and safest sex is in loving, committed relationships. What they choose beyond that is up to them. Marriage does not matter too much one way or the other to me, though a worthwhile institution when kids are involved, and when ready for that level of commitment. As I’ve been single most of my life, I do understand the value of a spiritual and heartfelt commitment. But getting there I’d think is born of experience, not innocence. I would be so disappointed in my kids were they to marry because sex was not otherwise available. Their are greater reasons to marry. </p>
<p>As I’ve spent time in Bangkok, where prostitution is not legal, but openly tolerated, I’d prefer it be unhidden. Foreign women are welcome in the bars on Patpong Road, and it is interesting to see what goes on. Some, male and female, seem to have a need for a high level of variety in their sexual experiences, and legitimacy makes that safer for all concerned.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think its too bad that it can’t be like when my parents were “dating”. My mother was seeing something like 5 different people at the same time…going out for dinner, dancing, movies, etc. with no sexual expectations whatsoever. She had time to get to know a variety of different people. Now there’s all this heavy one on one with sex that seems to be the norm. Its like a series of mini-marriages that starts pretty young in my opinion. This serial monogamy can’t be for everyone. I just don’t see it.</p>
<p>There was a certain amount of shame filled sex in those days. Hidden pregnancies, adoptions. Though I’d agree that seeing many casually rather than feeling committed too soon is a great idea. I like how my kids travel in big mixed male female groups, and while some pairing up occurs, they’re all buddies, year in year out.</p>