03-11-06 3:12 Too Bitter to Trust
Anne Marie: Oh Swarm there is a huge variance between chastity and prostitution.
You might as well claim there is a "huge variance" between the head of a penny and its tail.
Chastity is a vile concept. Prostitution is at least honest.
Anne Marie: The word 'whore' would imply that she was impure.
All women are impure in jewish, muslim and xtian theology. It is one of the more disgusting aspects of the abrahamic faiths.
Personally I can't understand why any woman would give them the time of day.
Anne Marie: Oh and the modern term for a woman in a position of power is bitch.
The modern term for a woman in a position of power is Mam. As in "Yes, mam."
Tehara: Chastity is WHAT?????????????? VILE????????????? That is what I said.
Tehara: So, you think very little of a woman who would prefer celibacy if she were not in a committed relationship? I don't really care who or how often you care to screw around. It really is of not great moment one way or another. But judging another based on their body functions and obedience to arbitrary restrictions instead of the quality of their person is vile.
Chaste and whore are both the same kind of judgement of a woman based not on the quality of her relations but on whether or not some guy used her and whether or not she toes the line. I will not pretend that a chaste woman has any inherant merit or that a whore is in any way the lesser just because of the respective body counts in their bedrooms.
Sleep with or don't sleep with according to what you think is right and what you have agreed to with your partner. Either way I will not think you chaste or whore. I will only think you human. And if you trip up, it is no sin. You are still only human like every one else.
Tehara: The men and women I see who don't value this same concept---well, I see them all the time, and they only have shallow, meaningless lives. And they are matched one-for-one with those who do value it and still have shallow, meaningless lives.
I value it not at all and have a life I would match against anyone's for depth.
Tehara: Sorry to hear that you don't see it as a calling to a higher standard. There is only one standard. Know what is right and why, then choose it.
Tehara: I think lack of chastity is the downfall in American society. I think you should live in the muslim world for a while so you can appreciate what it is to have a voice and rights. For example you could enjoy being raped with no recourse, having to hide your body, no recourse to birth control, not access to emergency treatment in normal hospitals, unable to work, drive, receive social services, no vote...this is the religious alternative which our secular society has rejected in favor of boinking on demand.
It's called freedom. You get to choose to boink or not.
As for the problems with our society, they relate more to our enforced breakup of the extended family and nomadic jobs.
Tehara: ...and the word you were looking for is ma'am from the French word, Madame.
Yes ma'am.
Later...
Tehara: I think I see what you are saying..... I'm looking at the two, chaste/whore, from a personal choice of what each person would do with their life. You are looking at it from outside, as judging another person's own life choices, with the judgement being unacceptable.
Yes.
It is a shame that sexuality has been defiled by prudity, but if you look at how you reacted you can see that these terms are inherantly prejudicial. There is no respect left those terms.
Neither chaste nor whore is inherantly to be preferred. It is not just what one does, it is also why one does it. Someone chaste for the wrong reasons is not better than a whore. A whore for the right reasons is fully moral.
Mary Magdelene's story is far more compelling as a whore. Why is Saul the murderer is ok, but Mary M. the whore overcoming her past and becoming the lover of god, that is unacceptable? Is not xtianity supposed to be about forgiveness? Would you turn god away from your bed?
Tehara: Still, you shouldn't mention Muslim repression of women, considering you don't have to even worry about those things as a man.
What binds and slights my mother, my sisters, my friends, my partner, and my daughter, binds and slights me as well.
Tehara: We women in America still face many of those same things in America with all the "freedom."
You do not face it alone.
03-11-06 3:12 Too Bitter to Trust
Francesco: I've been burned too often! I have this great difficulty in ever trusting relationships again (not just bitter but cynical as well.) How can I deal?
This is my understanding:
There are people who suck and people who are great and a huge mass of people somewhere in the middle.
If you don't trust, you never form deep relationships. That sucks hard over the long haul and the people who suck will still try to find ways to burn you.
If you trust, the people who suck will burn you, but generally they will burn you up front. Sure it hurts, but it also passes.
The people who don't suck will generally try to step up to the level of trust you give them. This might seem counter intuitive but it is a genetic bit of socialization. Part of why the people who suck, suck, is because they lack or supress these genetic social skills for some reason. No guarentees but in general you get desent friends over the long haul and that is pretty nice.
The great people in your life will form deep and lasting relationships. That is better than nice.
My conclusion after getting burned a few times is I don't care about getting burned that much and I greatly enjoy long term deep relationships. So I tend to give the people who suck a free shot. This flushes them out pretty quick and that is definately for the best even if there is a bit of pain. Pain I can take. It is wasted time and effort I want to avoid.
It also allows deep relationships to form very quickly. When I click with some one its like I'm the best friend that they just meet. :)
Francesco: Thanks Swarm - that's very useful. You are right that I should try trusting people a bit more, but sometimes it is bloody hard work. "Trusting relationships" implies trusting a process that has two sides.
I don't see trust that way. For me trust is about how I wish to live and interact with others. My trust is not asking anything of them, it is offering something to them. I don't trust my sweety not to sleep with other people. I trust her to do what she needs to and if that means sleeping with others, I've already given my go ahead.
The result is we can talk with each other about being attracted to people. There is nothing that needs to be hidden. No secret forbidden desires. We are both adults and we can sleep where we choose with whom ever we choose.
What we chose is each other because that is who we want to choose, not because we have to from some legal or religious obligation. Being my sweety is no loss of rights, freedoms or privileges. It is gaining my companionship as I gain hers.
She has proven time and time again she is fully worthy of my trust, but she could not have done that if I had not given it to begin with.
"Faint heart never won fair lady" is quite true.
Francesco: What if it is me that sucks big-time? Everybody sucks, first noble truth.
Learn to do better, eightfold path.
03-10-06 11:12 Homosexuality
Stephen: You said, "I've known several gays and lesbians who had normal childhoods with no big issues with their parents."
But, so far the people I've heard say they were gay with perfect upbringings have not checked out.
It is a sad reflection on the nuclear family we have become addicted to, but a lot of people have poor relationships with their parents, be they straight or gay. However, the people I spoke of were people I know directly. I know the parents and the children.
You are still trying to rationalize it as some sort of disorder, which it is catagorically not. The disorder is how homosexuals are mistreated and demonized. Homosexuality is a perfectly normal part of the total sexuality of the species and that is the same throughout nature.
Stephen: In such a culture, child molestation is to be greatly expected. Some ideals and lines must be drawn, otherwise you have ancient Greece or Sparta, where sexual confusion was a clear problem. Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with child molestation. The majority of child molesters are hertero males, not gays, and pedophiles who prey on boys uniformly do not consider themselves gay. To my knowledge we don't fully understand child molestation. But obviously, repressing homosexuality has not saved us from it.
As for ancient Athens and Sparta, it would behoove you to actually study them. They did not suffer from "sexual confusion" and their societies worked very well for the time.
03-10-06 9:00 Mary Magdelene
Star: Tell those guys to stop calling Mary Magdelene a whore....it is an insult!
Mary Magdelene was an incredibly beautiful High priestess skilled in the arts of Tantra and educated in the ancient Mystery schools of Egypt.
The real insult is to think that being called whore is an insult.
Being a whore does not lessen her beauty or her priestessness.
Neither does not being a whore.
Anne Marie: I can't believe you are taking this line of dialogue Swarm, of course being called a whore is insulting. Its a derogatory word anyway you look at it.
Sez who? Why do you think so? What is wrong with being a whore?
I'm tired of prudes making vile everthing to do with fun or sex.
There is nothing wrong with being a whore and pretending there is, is the whole of the problem.
Given a choice between a whore and a prude I'll take the whore every time, and so did Jesus.
Jon: NEW YORK -- A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, "God created man exactly how Bible describes it."
Another 31% says that man did evolve, but "God guided." Only 12% back evolution and say "God had no part."
Why is this!?
Because more than half the people in the country are stupider than ten rocks in a pile.
Is it a coinsidence that the stupid half are all religious?
03-08-06 8:11 What is Unconditional?
Shamay: What if you love someone unconditionaly and your wants/needs are not met, you feel like if you weren't there it would be no big deal.... you don't feel like you get treated with anything more than mild negelect unless you're really ill.... You shouldn't confuse loving unconditionally with the conditions needed for love to exist.
Loving unconditionally means you accept the other person without imposing conditions or requirements on the continuation of your love.
But there is more to the genesis of love than just this, and still more to actually living together.
Love is something you both choose together. If the other refuses, it is time to move on.
A relationship requires nuturing with an even flow of give and accept. If the other is not interested, again it is time to move on.
Moving on will cause far less pain and suffering than staying in the long run.
Shamay: Could you clarify "loving unconditionally" and "conditions needed for love to exist"...?
Well, an example of conditions needed for love to exist is that the other person needs to be alive and you need to know them.
They also need to have certain mental and emotional capacities with a degree of maturity and desire to love, but exactly how much of these depends in part on your own mental and emotional capcities, maturity and desire to love.
The test is that these things are necessary in and of themselves. Neither partner is *imposing* them as a condition. Just like oxygen is a necessary condition for your suvival. Another test is that each partner is on equal footing.
An example of an imposed condition is: "I must always know where you are." Another would be: "You must agree with me." In this case the issue is not the existence of love, but its continuence. One partner is attempting to exercise control over the other's behavior so the partners are on unequal footing.
Love is always a partnership. That doesn't mean that no one ever takes the lead, but it does mean that the two partners are peers and each an equal footing in the processes of the relationship.
Of course I've presented the extreme here with a phrase like "I must always know where you are." Like everything there are degrees. "I would like to know" is less conditional. "Would you mind telling me" is more unconditional. "Have fun" is fully unconditional.
In each case the level of trust and respect increases and the degree of control decreases.
Shamay: Is saying I can't deal with this this and that about you, can you work on them, being unconditional?
No.
Shamay: What if there are things you can't deal with about the other person?
It is time to show them respect for their choices and move on.
Shamay: Is loving someone unconditionaly not saying look your actions are hurting me?
Love hurts. You cannot be that open with another and never get burned.
The difference is one who loves you is not seeking to hurt you on purpose. They care about your pain and would alleviate it if they could. They want to know when you are hurt, even by them, so they can help.
Forthright and caring communication is the heart of unconditional love. Speak your heart. The one who listens closely and acts appropriately is the one who loves you. Listen to their words. If you can hear them instead of yourself and act on what you hear then you love them too.
Anything else and it is time to leave.
There is no shame or defeat in leaving. You aren't one size fits any. There are specific people you can love and who can love you. If you want to find them in this short life, you do not have time to spend on those who you do not love and who do not love you.
03-06-06 6:11 First Month In Love
Ashleigh: I'm in love, it's great, it's so great! It's my first month in a new love. I feel like I am walking on air, but sometimes I feel very stressed. He is so wonderful I don't want to disapoint him.
What can I do to keep this feeling? How can love last?
What I've found that works:
A lot of people communcate in little jabs and sarcasm. Don't do that.
Be straight forward. Be extra kind and nice to each other.
You need to be able to trust each other not to be hurtful.
Love feels great, but it also hurts and has disappointments.
If you hold grudges they will kill your love with a thousand bleeding cuts.
Forgive and forget, and mean it. Never bring something up that was settled.
Try to do something special each day for each other and I don't mean buying anything.
An extra touch. An unexpected kiss. A word of encouragement.
A flower nicked from a passing garden.
The burst of love at the beginning is wonderful, but like meditation, it is the day in/day out specialness which builds a love that lasts.
Starbelly:
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Satan.
Satan who?
Whaddya mean, 'Satan WHO'? Isn't that enough? How many Satans do you know?
That was a good one.
Here's a Zen version.
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
.
Who?
!
03-05-06 3:11 Evolving in Love
Shiva: Love between human beings, in all its forms...the love of parents for children, of children for parents, of brothers and sisters, of friends and lovers, is all tainted with ignorance, selfishness and all the other defects which are mans ordinary drawbacks. So what can we do about the problem of evolving in love? There is no problem to evolving in love.
Pay attention.
Learn to do better.
This is the wisdom of all buddhism.
With it you are freed from all attachments and can pursue your heart's journey.
Read more in the Archives.