The DOs and DON’ts of Sex in 2012

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by KilljoyKlown, Jun 11, 2012.

  1. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Be that as it may the origional question remains, if she's telling the truth and she didnt love him for that long how could she sleep with him? I can't get my head around that, though concidering love is only a recent concept it lots of people must have done if, royals certainly married for state not for love but I don't know, the concept just feels slimy sort of
     
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  3. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Many people get married for reasons other than love and they are not always truthful about it to the people they are living with for any of a multitude of reasons. Inexperienced people sometimes think things will work out once they are married.
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Our wedding cost about $300. (Those were 1977 dollars, probably equivalent to about $1,200 today.) That was a nice dress for her and a nice jacket and tie for me (all of which have been worn again many times in other festive circumstances), the minister's fee, the legal fee, some flowers and champagne, and a nice dinner for the entire wedding party: the two friends who were witnesses, the minister and us. The friends held the ceremony in their house so there were no rental fees, and since Mrs. Fraggle is the best cook in seven counties there was no way she was going to let us eat a cake that somebody else made.

    It was a really nice evening, a celebration. A "rite of passage" if you will. Very meaningful. We really felt like husband and wife when we went home that night, even though it had already been our home for a few weeks.
    There is no accepted standard definition of "a relationship." Most people assume that if you bother to call it that, there must be some emotional attachment or you'd just say "friends," but even that is not cast in stone. This is one of the things you get with a wedding and the marriage certificate. If you're married, we all assume that you're in love (or at least were once), that you make plans together for an indefinite future, that you give each other priority over other people and relationships, and that you count on each other in any kind of emergency. You may not have sex, you may not have or want children, you may not even live together due to other commitments like jobs, but that's okay.

    Sure there are unmarried couples who satisfy all of these definitions, but no one is going to assume that about them until they've been together for many years. And sure there are married people who don't do these things: marriages of convenience, gold diggers, shotgun weddings, mail-order brides, various kinds of fraud, and just plain horrible mistakes. Every definition has outliers and that doesn't invalidate the definition.
    I must be the eighth or ninth person to point this out to you, but lots of people have sex without love. Over and over again. All those people in the "exceptions" I listed above, for example. In many countries it's still more-or-less acceptable for men to have mistresses.
    Oh sure you can.
    That's not quite right. Marrying for love is a recent concept. But love goes way back before recorded history. All the ancient legends feature lovers.

    Human children require more care than those of any other species of mammal, and furthermore they require more years of care. Elephant babies grow up in five years and the large baleen whales in two. This means that they absolutely must have two parents, or the species cannot survive. Love makes that possible. (So does the human female's almost unique ability to copulate when not in estrus, even when pregnant or nursing. Helps keep daddy at home every night. Dolphins and chimpanzees have this trait too, but they use it for social bonding. Bonobo chimpanzees have orgies that the entire pack participates in, including the children.)

    Love is an instinct in our species. Of course we're not totally unique, there are other mammals and many birds who mate for life.
    It was taken for granted that all of these husbands and wives had lovers that they met in secret. This probably helped mitigate the inbreeding problem that led to so many cases of royal hemophilia, etc.

    And don't dismiss the possibility that two people who are introduced to each other by their families can fall in love too. Being in I.T. I have a great many friends from India. Some of them had marriages arranged by their parents, and they seem as happy as the rest of us, and happier than quite a few of us. I'll never forget one man telling me about it after something like 25 years of marriage. "I could have spent my whole life searching the world, and I could never have found a wife half as perfect as the one my parents found for me. I didn't know it was possible to fall so deeply in love. Every night in my prayers I thank them for introducing me to my wonderful bride." There were tears in his eyes.

    Don't we all hope we'll feel that way 25 years from now? (Well 35 for us and we still do.)
     
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  7. R1D2 many leagues under the sea. Valued Senior Member

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    I been meaning to say those "questions" are intriging. Some are depending on who your with like porn.
     

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