How to hook up
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit links to this piece on how to negotiate a “friends with benefits” relationship.
It seems to be addressed to women, and the gist of its main caution is to make sure you don’t care, and make sure you’re in control of the situation.
Sounds like so much fun! (Not.)
When I was growing up this wasn’t something that magazines for young women recommended. It’s not that such behavior was unheard of; I knew contemporaries who operated that way, even back then. But they were outliers, and not necessarily something to be emulated or envied.
What’s more, it seemed plausible that the act of sex and especially orgasm causes women to release a hormone that enhances bonding. When we college girls of yesteryear (we called ourselves “girls” back then, not women, because for the most part we pretty much were girls) talked into the wee hours of the morning about love and boys and what was quaintly known as “dating,” we agreed that we tended to fall in love with those guys with whom we had sex (or even sex short of intercourse), whether we wanted to fall in love with them or not.
I don’t think biology has changed very much, either, in the intervening years. But the messages given to women—and men—certainly have.
[NOTE: And yes, I know it’s political, and part of the left’s agenda.]
It’s a brave new world, divorcing sex from feelings, and the genders from each other (in the name of equality).
It is voluntary genocide. It is an integral aspect of the civilization paradox, where once proscribed dysfunctional behaviors are eventually normalized. It is a progressive devaluation of human life. There is a reason why prostitution is considered immoral. It has a basis in the natural order, specifically evolutionary fitness.
Oh, well. Clearly recreational sex is a human rights priority.
All the preferences and prejudices of the 66ers are the main memes pushed by the popular media these days.
Ugh, so glad I’m married!
And this type of thinking/living not only impacts the ability to create stable. long-term relationships (the foundation for a family), but it leads to nonsense like “Slut Walks” and this:http://tinyurl.com/cr4q978
Grrrrl power, indeed!
Glenn also linked to this with the comment about the must-read reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047E0EII/?_encoding=UTF8&ascsubtag=US-SAGE-1354578439980-TZEYJ&tag=wwwviolentkicom&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
If you need a break from the world’d problems for a few minutes, check it out.
I’m a bit bewildered, having discovered that this article originated in Fox News Magazine.
Promoting sex without feelings is the direct result of abortion on demand… for both women and men. After all, if the man has no legal say in the disposition of the ‘fetus’, why should he bear responsibility?
I find it interesting, if not surprising, that the liberal left hasn’t a problem with the ‘unfairness’ inherent to the position that the man has no say in the survival of his offspring prior to birth but that he bears financial responsibility, if the woman decides to have the baby.
Is it any wonder that, facing that level of hypocrisy, so many young men feel no sense of responsibility?
The level of denial and willful rationalization that the liberal left engages in, so as to avoid making the connection between abortion on demand, sex divorced from consequence, single motherhood and absent fathers is mindboggling.
It also reveals an intentional hypocrisy; a complete lack of caring and indifference to the welfare of children and future generations.
That hypocrisy is understandable from the committed leftist, as they wish to destroy the social infrastructure of America.
Liberals however, who purport to ‘care’ about children, yet willfully refuse to face the consequential results of the social policies they advocate… are merely contemptible.
Laura Cannon makes the perfect case for not intermixing the sexes in the military.
We had WAVES in the Navy in my day. They were segregated from the male sailors for the most part. They mostly did adminstrative duties. When I had an office of all women, the work was done efficiently and well. When I had an office with all men, the work was done efficiently and well. When I had an office with mixed males and females, the work was not done as well or as effcieintly. There was too much sexual tension.
One of the best kept secrets of the modern Navy is the fact that so many young women (about 60%) sent to sea aboard ships, get knocked up. It is costing the Navy plenty in the way of lost efficiency and extra medical expense. But it is what the powers that be (The civilian honchos) want, and the political flag officers will not or cannot stand up to them. It is a travesty. How in hades did we manage to put together an efficient fighting force and win some wars, (WWI, WWII, Korea) when there was separation of the sexes and all those tough “rules” that Laura Cannon finds so objectionable? To serve in the military means you should exert discipline and self control – even of your lust.
Sex is a wonderful, pleasurable thing, and is most important to the survival of the species. However, casual sex and uncontrolled lust eventually lead to the breakdown of the values needed to sustain a society. To every young hedonist hopping from bed to bed and hook up to hook up, I wish I could show him/her a movie of what their old age will be like. Their physical attractiveness gone, no reliable, loving partner to share their life with, no children or grandchildren to dote on, they might see the bitter harvest of their single-minded pursuit of pleasure.
JJ,
Not a big fan of country western music but when its good, its good. So in keeping with your comment I offer;
Yesterday, When I Was Young
by Roy Clark
lyrics:
Seems the love I’ve known has always been
The most destructive kind
Yes, that’s why now I feel so old
Before my time.
Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue.
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game,
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I’d always built to last on weak and shifting sand.
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of the day
And only now I see how the years ran away.
Yesterday when I was young
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see.
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me and nothing else at all.
— Instrumental —
Yesterday the moon was blue
And every crazy day brought something new to do.
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond.
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died.
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play.
There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung,
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue.
The time has come for me to pay for
Yesterday when I was young…
Geoffrey Britain:
Ah, well you can increase your admiration, because guess what? It’s not a country western song 🙂 (I happen to like a lot of country western music, by the way—perhaps another foretaste of my incipient conservatism):
Aznavour wrote it in 1961, and then it was translated into a lot of languages.
Including English.
neo,
How delightful. I wondered, as its not a traditional country western song but failed to investigate.
Have you discovered one of my very most favorite country western artists, Don Williams? When my daughter was but a babe and feeling ‘colicky’ (teething?), I’d dance her to sleep in my arms to his records. In country western terms, he defines mellow, heart felt music. As solid and sincere as the heartland gets.
My favorite by him; I Believe in You
Wow, I haven’t thought about that song in years. I remember it being popular when I was a kid in the late 60s, but I don’t remember whose version was most popular. I never associated it with Roy Clark.
I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics at the time. (Of course not; I was young.) Those are great lyrics.
According to what I have read the lyrics to “Yesterday when I was young” were written by Herbert Kretzmer (who also wrote the lyrics to Les Miserables):
http://www.herbertkretzmer.com/history.htm
Kretzmer also wrote the lyrics to “She” which you may remember from the movie Notting Hill.
“But I believe in love. I believe in babies. I believe in Mom and Dad. And I believe in you.”
Oh how I believe in babies. I believe in my babies now grown into adults and I believe in my grandchildren growing day by day. I absolutely believe in babies, everyone’s babies. And most of all I believe in my sweetheart until I cease to breathe the atmosphere.
Steve: Kretzmer wrote the English lyrics, which are not a literal translation of Aznavour’s original French lyrics but rather an interpretation of them rendered into English rhyming verse. So did Kretzmer “write” the lyrics? Well, sort of. His lyrics are quite good, I think.
Here are the original French lyrics by Aznavour and a literal English translation. I’m presenting the literal English translation from that page so you can see how Kretzmer took the original French lyrics and then changed them somewhat to fit his needs:
Geoffrey, Don Williams: “Amanda”
neo-neocon: What’s more, it seemed plausible that the act of sex and especially orgasm causes women to release a hormone that enhances bonding.
I’ve known since, well, since the first time …that something like this had to be happening.
Men react to that hormone. If they’re paying attention, they’re aware of it. But even if they’re not, they react.
Sex …bonds you. One to one. It doesn’t go away.
Multiple partners screw with that.
But it doesn’t stop the reaction. At all.
@Davisbr:
When younger, it had that effect on me.
I’d date a girl, it would happen and I was surprised that the relationship was not as meaningful to her.
I realize now after reading this and your comment:
1: She was emotionally detached in general (as the article Neo linked to references)
2: She didn’t really have an orgasm. Ouch.
@Ed.
Yeah.
…and years later, the hormonally triggered raw emotion remains, etched in your soul, and imprinted deeply into your physical memory. Like an old war wound, that never quite heals.
They’re all there yet, distilled into the essence of memories that no balm can soothe. No distance can ameliorate
You live a dream; you could have lived a song.
O’ youthful folly, thine be whose perfidy be n’er o’ercast. Could thou but check my present lamentations.
And finally to come to the latter part of life to discover …it was all a mystical chemistry of magical scent released by a Darwinian imperative?
Jeezus.
Oh, Don Williams, I haven’t thought about him in years! I used to jokingly refer to him as “Velvet Tonsils” with one of my friends who was a big fan. My favorite of his is “Lord, I hope this day is good.”