How Do You Feel About Love/Relationships At This Point In Your Life?

This was a forum topic I recently encountered and the following was my response:

At this point, having been married, single and everything in between, as well as seeing the experiences of people around me and reading about these things online, I have to say that I am opposed to relationships in which the two parties are living together. At least for now. I own my own house and am perfectly content being alone in it. I have absolutely no desire to live with another woman at this point (I have lived with 2 in my life).

As far as relationships that don't involve cohabitation go, I am not necessarily opposed to them but at this point in my life I don't even want that. To be honest, I have much more fun hanging out with friends/my brother than I ever did with a girlfriend/my ex wife. Really, if you take sex out of it, you have a friend, but in most cases, one that isn't as fun to be around as are your male friends since females and males are often so different (what they consider fun, the conversations you can have, etc). Of course I am generalizing here but that's the nature of the conversation.

I really believe that despite what we tell ourselves, access to sex might really be the biggest/most potent motivator for the forming of relationships. Not many relationships survive without it and guys will go to extreme lengths to put up with **** that they would NEVER take from friends and the reason for that is sexual desire- which, if you really want to deconstruct this, is simply the biological urge to procreate. I believe that alone is the basis for all of it, and everything else is  a nice little narrative constructed around it.

Women Should Be Treated Like Corporations

I know how that may sound, but bear with me here.

There are a bunch of women out there vying for your investment (emotional, time, and yes, even money) and just like real companies, not all are solid investments. When you invest in stock you do an inventory of the companies' history (business dealings and practices, financials, etc) the current price at which their shares are being traded and you make an educated guess as to how their future will play out. If it seems favourable, you invest. If it does not, you don't. Simple. No guarantees (you can still lose everything) but you're not just dumping your eggs into the first basket that comes along. You are investing in the one that is least likely to cause you to lose everything/most likely to pay off. 

This is exactly how you should treat women. You don't just throw your currency (love) into the first thing that comes your way (or every thing that ever comes your way). Not all are deserving of it and you will get burned. Invest in the best ones only, and reduce your risk. 

Sex Before Marriage Rant

I wanted to rant about premarital sex and religion, and I decided to do it in the form of a response to a fictional character who would represent the real fears of many real people. Hence, witness my rant in the form of a response to Sam, a ficticious 18 year old who is concerned about the fact that he and his girlfriend of four years just had sexual intercource for the first time, despite the fact that they were planning on waiting for marriage. Sam feels dirty and ashamed of his 'sin,' as he calls it, and he is terrified of the possible consequences awaiting him in the afterlife.

Treatable STD Scarier Than Fatal Flu

http://www.livescience.com/18461-treatable-sti-scarier-fatal-flu.html

Passing someone a sexually transmitted infection is viewed as worse than giving them the flu — even if the flu turns out to be fatal, a new study finds. The stigma surrounding STIs can keep people from getting tested, discussing testing with partners or disclosing to partners that they do have an infection, Moor said. She and her colleagues wanted to understand how much stigma really influences people's perceptions of these diseases. To do so, the researchers gathered 1,158 volunteers via the Internet and had each read a short paragraph about someone transmitting either the H1N1 flu, also called swine flu, or chlamydia to another person. Though H1N1 usually causes nothing more than a few days of misery, people with compromised immune systems, the elderly and the very young can die of it.

In every scenario in the study, "Christina" or "James" feels a little ill, but shrugs off the symptoms, goes to a party and has sex with a fellow partygoer. In some cases, this sexual encounter transmits chlamydia to their partner. In other cases, it transmits H1N1. After reading one of these scenarios, each participant answered a series of questions about how selfish, risky and all-around irresponsible they would rate either Christina or James.

Keeping a sexual mode of transmission constant was meant to control for any automatic "sex is taboo" reactions from participants, Moor said. But despite the fact that the characters James and Christina acted sexually identically in all scenarios, chlamydia seemed to strike extra fear into participants' hearts.When Christina or James were said to have transmitted chlamydia, people judged them harshly, ranking them as almost as selfish and risky as was possible in the survey. When H1N1 was the disease in question, however, people rated the transmitter much more generously. Even when the sexual partner actually died of H1N1, transmitting chlamydia was seen as much more risky and irresponsible than transmitting the flu.

"It's quite confusing," Moor said. "If sex is taboo and that's why people are thinking STIs are so stigmatized, we just nipped that in the bud. We're showing that you can get H1N1 through sex, but it's still not stigmatized."

This is something that I have considered for some time, and I am glad it is finally garnering attention in the scientific community. While the findings seem to concur with my feelings on the subject, I do have one criticism to make: They say that it is inexplicable that people view STI's in a harsher light than they do say the flu, even if both are transmitted sexually. They say that they controlled for the "sex is taboo" factor by making sexual activity the mode of transmission in each scenario. However, I think they are missing one crucial point: STI's are linked, in people's minds, with sex, while the flu is not. And this is quite likely directly resultant of the taboo nature of sex in North American culture.

Thoughts?

RANT: Religion and Masturbation

I recently watched a movie entitled 'Teeth.' The movie (which wasn't very good but I digress), an indie horror with some comedic elements (it mostly failed on both fronts....some of it was amusing, none of it was scary, but again, digressing...), is about a very religious teenage girl who has taken a vow of 'purity' (aka abstinence) and goes around to other schools prattling on to younger kids and other teens about the 'evils' of sex and how it's only right to save your 'gift' until marriage, and blah blah.

Vatican Priest: Sex With a Condom is like a Mugger Wrapping the Pipe he uses to Beat People in Foam

So, Pope Ratface recently made a comment on condom use that has gotten the world a talkin'. Here is said comment:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility...

The REAL Cause of Earthquakes......Women!!

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/131693/Earthquakes-caused-by-women-who-wear-short-skirts-says-Muslim-cleric/

Barmy Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi insisted girls who behave "promiscuously" are responsible for burying thousands under rubble. In a sermon the religious leader said: "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes." Women in the strict Islamic state are forced to hide their hair, and sometimes their faces, by law. But some young girls have dared to bare their bodies by wearing tight clothing and loose headscarves. And Sedighi raged: "What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? "A divine authority told me to tell the people to make a general repentance. Why? Because calamities threaten us."

Does he actually believe this bullshit, or is her merely doing the ol' get the people in line via the usage of fear bit? That's what I'd like to know.

Our Ideas Regarding Sexuality/The Body/Nudity Are Screwed Up

Warning: this blog contains FOUL LANGUAGE.

Still here? Alright, let's rock.

I just saw this picture of a fashionable, unknown (to me), pretty celebrity:

And it raises the question: In a society where nudity is frowned upon, how does putting a little star over your nipples make it okay to walk around with your tits out? Somehow we have decided that breasts should be covered up, but then have arbitrarily determined that it's only the nipples that are the ''offensive'' part? It's the nipples that somehow make the breast a breast?

If that's true, then why can guys walk around without a shirt? Obviously we aren't really ''offended'' by nipples. So if nipples are okay, and clearly, breast tissue surrounding the nipples is okay (that's why media outlets with no nudity policices allow pics like that) then I have to ask....what the fuck? How does that make any sense? Are female nipples somehow ''offensive''? If females walked around in topless bikinis at the beach, would that cause irreperable harm to those who witenssed it?

I also love how on a webistes with nio nudity policies, or in ''no nudity'' magazines, a good ol' girl who ''won't do nudity'' not only has no problem showing off 99% of her breasts (as long as those nipples are covered), but she will show her ass....oh, but she's wearing a thong. Um, that desn't cover the ass, at all. I can clearly see your ass, honey. So I guess asses aren't nudity......?

Good thing that ass is covered. Otherwise I'd have been offended

The whole thing, like so much else in life, is so arbitrary, and really, fucking stupid. I don't know how it was determined that our bodies are evil/dirty/sinful whatever, but it's ridiculous. It leads to stories like the one where that guy was arrested for making coffee naked in his own house,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6406630/Man-arrested-for-making-coffee-in-own-home-while-naked.html

because some woman was walking by with her little son and they looked in his window and saw him. OH NOES! A PENIS!! Guess what, sister? YOUR SON HAS A PENIS. Penises are not offensive. They are only shocking because we randomly said they are. If no one made a big deal out of it from the start, there would be no issue. Seeing a penis should not be a traumatic experience.

Funny thing is, she probably wouldn't have batted an eye if they walked by a male dog. Somehow, it's not dog penises that are the problem, just human ones. Unless this nutcase would have tried to get the dog arrested as well, who knows. Fucking soccer moms.

My mother in law exemplifies this. It's natural for babies to touch their genatalia. Well, when my daughter does it, my wife and I don't bat an eye. But my mother in law immediately moves her hand and scolds her (a ten month old baby). I haven't said anything yet, because I haven't seen it (my wife told me about it the other day) but when/if I do see it, I will make a point to nicely tell her that there is nothing wrong with it, and see if she tries to defend her position. I can't see her arguing anything other than ''it's just not nice.'' ''It's not proper for a lady.''

SAYS FUCKING WHO? If we ALL do it, maybe you should just shut up and accept it's normal, rather than punish people for not meeting some false, arbitrarily imposed bullshit standard.