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When all the men are dead, go after the women.

11:27 / 10.08.03

clizzickity

its worksafe, dont you worry.

*

15:57 / 10.08.03

I find some of the things they're saying very interesting in terms of what it implies about the thinking behind this initiative. Married and miserable is better than alone and free? Who believes that? Financially it might be better, but then again it might not if your spouse was a drain on you.

The thinking behind this initiative seems to be that sexual orientation is fluid and self-determinable, which goes against the party line of the gay rights movement. Is it safe yet to say that yes, in some cases, people's sexual orientation might be a choice? Will saying that destroy any hope for progress in gay rights?

Hm. If this conversation gets too intelligent it might need to be moved to the headshop or something.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:10 / 10.08.03

I'm not sure that the Gay Rights movement (or rather, movements) depend on the idea that sexaulity remains as it is at a certain point - the idea that homosexuality is no more a "choice" than heterosexuality does not preclude the idea that one might move from one to the other. Likewise, I think that the idea that the credibility of the case for gay rights depends on homosexuality being hardwired and not a lifestyle choice is an argument back from the idea of anti-gay groups that homosexuality *is* a lifestyle choice...

I think the Head Shop might do this discussion very nicely.

16:15 / 10.08.03

Can I still make a "queer granny" joke?

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:22 / 10.08.03

Until the thread is moved, yes.

Of course, question the second is why these relationships have to be *sexual*. The institution of the "Boston Marriage" - two spinsters living together for company - has long existed, and the question of whether or not a sexual element was involved in each case remains largely open. Is the desire to move people towards sexualising their house sharing sprung from a desire to move the situation to as close to the norm as possible, or just an attempt to acknowledge that cohabitant relationships may take on an intimacy that the people in question might not be prepared to deal with?

18:29 / 10.08.03

Damn. That wasn't fair.

I couldn't help but see this in the context of the "gay marriage" confuffle that's taking place in the US. You could look at it as supporting the validity of same-sex unions, but also being conservative in it's own way - people only live together if they're married, and a proper marriage is based on a sexual relationship. So, yes, that would be "mov(ing) the situation to as close to the norm as possible".

On the other hand you could also look at it as reaffirming the idea that people need sexual relationships no matter what their age, another recent theme and one which I think will come up more in the future with an aging population. It's in a way conservative, but less socially so, and potentially liberating.

The "sexual fluidity" element is probably what's going to cause the most discussion though. I don't know how realistic it is to encourage people to "go lesbian" and my immediate reaction is that it's not going to work. This strikes me as something of a publicity stunt. Suggesting that people have sex with other people for economic reasons... it would probably be better all round (except for corporations) if single people generally would form committed sexual relationships with members of either sex, but I can't see that happening either.

10:36 / 11.08.03

the "Boston Marriage"
That was the first thing that struck me, why explicitly sexualise it? Old women as best friends is nothing new, who cares whether they have nookie or not?
Maybe the idea is to suggest to ladies who were raised in a different age that they're allowed to if they feel like it, rather than pressuring people to become homosexual. It could be a lot of old ladies would like to be 'companions' but are conditioned to deny their feelings since the '50s (as the article says).
Re-reading though, it does say they are being 'Urged' so I'm not sure this is a good idea. Imagine if old gay couples were being urged to go straight for practicality and convenience.

You could extend the idea though, why not urge young people in overpopulated countries to 'go gay' to decrease the birth rate, (a la 'The Forever War') homosexuality as a reflection of your social conscience... I jest of course, to show the absurdity of recommending sexual preference based on practicality.

12:45 / 11.08.03

A certain Gayle Madwin has the following to say (in her LiveJournal info):

I'm the number one person responsible for finally succeeding, in November 2000, after a year-long daily letter-writing campaign of mine, in persuading PFLAG to abolish their 11-year-old international policy which had previously stated that "sexual orientation is not a choice."

From what I've read, her logic occasionally seems a little... odd, but there's certainly a fair amount worthy of interest there...

22:23 / 12.08.03

i personally think my sexuality is defined largely by choices.

i am not gay or straight, but the line i walk inbetween is one i have chosen rather than having been born to it.
the thing with this article i feel is not that it brings up the qeustion of nature versus nurture versus educated decision, but that it is a government agency releasing advice on which way one should swing.

(what is the etymology of boston marriage, by the way?
PM me if that counts as threadrot over here.)

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:42 / 12.08.03

"Threadrot" is an attempt through accident or design to pull the topic of conversation within a thread, guided by the topic title, topic abstract and a degree of common sense, away from the topic and onto, for example, personal opinions or discussions of elements largely irrelevant to the thread.

For example, if somebody opined in the midst of a lengthy disqusition on the topic at hand that they enjoyed cake, and the next post read simply "I like cake too. I especially like chocolate cake. What other cakes do you guys like?" it would be threadrot unless the topic at hand were "cake".

Thus, clarification of the idea of the Boston Marriage in the context of unmarried women living together is clearly not threadrot.

This article may fill in some of the blanks.

01:40 / 13.08.03

gotcha. the request wasn't, your ruling was.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:19 / 13.08.03

Ahhh, Queer by Choice. I'm on the mailing list. It tends to be fairly quiet. The only problem is that people on there always seem to say at some point that they're bisexual, which worries me that it's not necessarily a group of people who have genuinely switched (or feel they've switched) their orientation from one extreme to the others, but people on a sliding scale. But then, who am I to complain?

13:08 / 13.08.03

In the original article I was most struck by the 'divorce akin to amputation' line. (I've misquoted slightly I think.) And the 'stay married if you want to live longer.'

This has got me thinking about quality of life. Would you choose a longer life/more years in a dead relationship, or perhaps a period of upheaval and stress, plus the possibility of personal growth and change.

It seems to me that society is largely focused on how long we can stretch our lives out.

It seems a little presumptive to offer this sagelike advice to all and sundry over the age of 60.

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:40 / 13.08.03

As ever, toksik, if you are going on one of your off-topic kid's-court whinathons kindly do so in the Conversation, the Policy or by PM. Attempts to rot Head Shop threads beyond the odd harmless whinge are unwelcome. Thank you.

Mr. Messy - in what sense "presumptive" - presuming that they will live long enough to make the advice worthwhile, presuming that they are looking for the features of a relationship - companionship and longer life expectancy, say - or rather presumptuous, in assuming that the person dispensing the advice knows best? Certainly, advising elderly women to "become" lesbians seems an odd day job, but perhaps a process of destigmatising lesbian feelings might be quite useful if there is an observable number of older women dealing with them.

Late-onset homosexuality (for want of a funnier term) certainly has precedents - the question of whether those involved "turned gay" at a certain point or whether they were socialised into acting and/or thinking straight at an earlier point is potentially very hard to sort out...

19:15 / 13.08.03

I think it's obvious, from Mr Messy's phrase, "sagelike advice to all and sundry," that he meant "presumptuous."

You know, like teaching grandma to suck, er, eggs.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:50 / 13.08.03

It's an interesting linguistic sympathy, though, because it *does* *presume* a lot, not least, arguably, that coupledom is a better way to life than companionship.

Then again, I'm not sure that it *is* necessarily presumptuous to assume that people who grew up in 40s or 50s might have desires that they have been socially bludgeoned out of acknowledging, or that working with them to remove these social strictures might lead to more fulfilling old ages. The problem is that so much of this seems to come down, for me at least, to *procedure* - how one goes about the process, whether one is reactive or proactive, that sort of thing...

20:22 / 13.08.03

Yeah I think that I meant presumptuous not presumptive. But I'm not altogether sure...

presuming that they will live long enough to make the advice worthwhile oh that did make me chuckle. My use of the term *presumptive* was roughly aiming to cover this: presuming that they are looking for the features of a relationship - companionship and longer life expectancy

The *advice* I was grumpy with, although perhaps *belief* would be a better term, was 'stay married and you'll live longer'.

Must try and sharpen up on how I express myself here. As for things on a purely cognitive level....

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:27 / 13.08.03

Dude, don't sweat it - there are all these fascinating ambiguities opening out now...

Certainly, the idea that longer life expectancy is an end in itself seems shallow, and if the marriage or other partnership is a source of constant strife and stress surely it can't be good for people?

The use of the amputation/mutilation metaphor to describe divorce is a very good point - it does seem to assume that the couple is a single complete organism and the single a wounded version, which strikes me as a very odd concept - people should certainly not rush into divorce, at any age, but by the same token who does divorce frivolously (apart from Lisa Minelli, anyway)?

10:52 / 14.08.03

it does seem to assume that the couple is a single complete organism and the single a wounded version, which strikes me as a very odd concept
but not without precedent, Plato mentions it. In the Symposium (IIRC correct me if wrong) they discuss the idea that mankind used to be siamese twin people, and love is the two seperated souls finding each other again. They also say that the male-male couple people were the best and that's why homosexual love is more virtuous than hetero, but that's beside the point.
That strikes me as the ancestral meme that might cause the concept of a single person being incomplete to be so prevalent. Although being somehow wounded is a little strange.

11:54 / 14.08.03

Yeah - wounded does seem severe terminology.
I suppose I have a personal experience of feeling that being single is somehow being incomplete, and I want to fight against that. I feel wary of getting into relationships just for the sake of being in a relationship.
Self sufficiency seems like a better place to come from when entering into a relationship.

However, this line of thought got me thinking about two plants growing intertwined, and how destructive it is to both when they are hacked apart - even if one is, say, a parasite and is sucking all the nutrients out of the other.

But that's just my head.

Hey, bitter is better.

*

22:38 / 16.08.03

Plato raised the issue in the Symposium, but did so by using the voice of the Aristophanes character, who was a comic poet contemporary of Socrates. Plato apparently wrote a lot of scathing things about Aristophanes, and one possible interpretation is that the pseudomyth presented by the Aristophanes character was meant to be taken in jest, or as the laughable attempt of a fool to appear serious. But then my reading of this piece might be slightly biased by the fact that I have a deep, abiding, unreasoning hatred of Plato.

See also the fact that the characters claiming that male-male love is more virtuous than hetero love are supposed to be even more despicable fools, and they're all supposed to be shown up by Socrates in the end, who argues unmemorably that love of the pure ideal of beauty is the highest form of love, and that all lesser forms of love are merely baby steps toward this greater goal. The point being that interpretation of this piece is pretty complex, and that it might be more supportable to use it to argue that Platonic thought held that being in a relationship was not necessarily superior to being alone (te contrived to say, as if with an effort to make all this appear applicable to the thread again).