Posted by Quintal on June 15, 2007, at 21:46:30
In reply to Sex , Politics and Religion., posted by Sigismund on June 14, 2007, at 22:47:14
I've noticed a definite lack of sexual shame here - there were a couple of teenage chavs having sex on the lawn outside my aunt's neighbor's bungalow last summer, in broad daylight and in full view of the CCTV camera their neighbor had installed too. I suspect they chose the spot for that very reason. When my aunt went out and asked them to go elsewhere they just said "Were you never young once?" and carried on, with even greater vigor, perhaps because of the trill of having an audience. Their elderly neighbor came out an protested "But they're not even married!!!". I think they may have been on drugs of some kind, or maybe just plain drunk.
There seems to be a great divide between shame in the gay community. I used to buy a magazine called 'Gay Times' but I got annoyed and put off by the shameless promiscuity. There were often articles on things like how best to organize your lovers and one-night stands in a sort of rota system while maintaining the open relationship with your long-term partner. I found the whole thing very cynical and off-putting. Then I actually got involved in such a dalliance with a guy who said he was in an open relationship. I never saw any evidence that the other guy actually existed, it was all very odd and uncomfortable. I stopped seeing him after a few months because it didn't feel right. There was something so very cold and un-erotic about it. Then there's the opposite extreme, gay men that marry women rather than accept their sexuality and live with all it entails. There was a documentary about it here a few years ago where a religious community were recruiting women to marry gay men so that they could live sinlessly, yet according to the guys themselves they undermined the sanctity of that marriage with illicit affairs or smoldered with covert lust. Their wives coped by just refusing to think about it. Hypocrisy in both cases I guess, but sometimes decisions we make in real life seem right at the time, even when they go against the values we hold in principle. Such is life I suppose.
Q
poster:Quintal
thread:763272
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070523/msgs/763479.html