I am there! With one of my old roommates!
Ben, I will miss you in Brooklyn by almost exactly one month, as I do not live there but do travel there on occasion. Happy trails, compadre.
I think the NYT has started writing articles just so Unfoggeders will have something to talk about.
Read to the end, there is free advice!
there is a wonderful McMoment on the McMegan McBlog at this precise minute, btw:
This first sentence is just here for all the bloggers who want to read the first sentence of the post and then go write an angry rebuttal of my claim that poor Americans should have to torture puppies in order to be eligible for Bandaids.
The rest of the post will be for people who want to, well, read the rest of my post.
OK, look at that introduction. Is the intention of writing those two paragraphs to try and reduce the number of unpleasant responses? I don't believe it possibly can be. If you don't want people to be insulting to you, and you do want them to read your essay carefully, then you don't start the essay by insulting them. Not even in a bogus counterfactual "oh well I didn't mean youuu, if the cap fits wear it" sentence construction, which makes the insult more rather than less annoying. If we assume that was the intention, the introduction is asinine.
I think it looks much more likely to me that the intention of that introduction is specifically to incite more aggressive and/or nasty responses, in order to make the author look reasonable and to forestall other and more serious critcism, by allowing the author to ignore serious points by saying "well all the responses were horrible and insulting". Viewed in that way, it's well-written and well calculated.
As Matt Turner said to me once, a neoconservative is a liberal who got mugged by reality, but if someone is repeatedly mugged over and over again, always in the same place, you begin to suspect that it's an insurance job.
You do not need that hyphen in the last paragraph, gentle Ben.
If any DCers plan on attending the Barbez concert and would like pleasant company, I am planning on attending alone but would enjoy meeting up with others for the show.
3 contains this infuriating line:
Ms. Spina is quick to disagree with his choices. Sometimes he'll see someone attractive, he said, and usually she is curvy, with big, blonde hair. "Ranee will say, 'Does she look like an intellectual person?'"
Grr! I have been told before that there's nothing I can really do about it; I look like a dumbass. Now it's in the NYT.
You just need to have some intellectual reading material in your hands at all times, AWB. Like Sophie's World or something.
5 is great. No kidding, eh? Nothing like preemptively dismissing your critics with an utter irrelevancy to prove your seriousness.
8: whatever I do I look like a vaugely frat-ish preppy. These are the crosses we must bear. Have you considered wearing glasses, though? That always works in the movies.
I do have very intellectual-looking glasses, and they sit low on my nose, which is so librarian-chic. Except when you're either lifting your head to see or peering dimly over your glasses all the time, you look 80. Plus, I look like a dumbass who's wearing glasses to look less like a dumbass.
Have you tried tattoos, Tweety?
I do have very intellectual-looking glasses, and they sit low on my nose, which is so librarian-chic
I'm picturing Pamela Anderson in the short-lived sitcom "Stacked".
The stripper I know through my son wears librarian glasses IRL. I'm not sure she even has a prescription.
Let me know when this woman comes to town:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ssEWpT1eA
Have you tried tattoos, Tweety?
Nope. Nor have I tried dying my hair. In the first case I never had the right drawing and the cash simultaneously, in the second, well, it looks stupid.
15: That singer offends many ethnic types.
Is living in North Dakota really considered an ethnic type?
I would probably attend such an affair. You might also like to sample the jukeboxes of Fifth Ave (Commonwealth, Buttermilk, Great Lakes)...
P.S. w-lfs-n, why did the Unfoggedbot die?
The bot kept crashing the site; when the Unfogged Technical Team (Ben and Becks) have some time, they'll try to resurrect a more stable version.
8: Hah! I saw exactly the same line -- dude, blond with tits? She has to be stupid, everyone knows brains make you ugly. Fuckers.
everyone knows brains make you ugly.
If you are a girl trying to hide your femininity, arent you bowing to the Man?
OT, but the Portland Oregon Patriot Act case was one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice I've seen from the Bush justice system. The plaintiff, Mayfield, had his house secretly searched without a warrant (black-ops type stuff) and was held without charge (incommunicado at least some of the time) for two weeks.
The only real basis for the case against him was that he was a Muslim convert who gave legal advice to mosques (and possibly also to some local Muslims accused of terrorism.) There was also bogus information provided by the FBI which I believe was produced by the completely fraudulent data minding of a fingerprint database (basically I think they just weakened the criteria for a match until they found a Muslim). The FBI data seemed to require him to be 8000 miles away from where he actually was.
Civil liberties cases are important even when you have an unsympathetic, guilty defendant, but this was an ideal case to bring because it was exactly the kind of frivolous prosecution of the innocent that the Bill of Rights was intnded to prevent.
everyone knows brains make you ugly
Let's not let PC-ness get in the way of truth.
No, we in North Dakota are the only true Americans. But we object to the ethnic stereotyping of our darker brothers and sisters.
5: You know, I snap at McMegan as much as anyone, but a skim of the post is entirely unobjectionable. The opening is pissy, but given the amount of crap she gets (even stipulating that it's mostly deserved), I'm certainly not going to object to her being pissy -- I'm not much worried about pissiness going in either direction, I'm rude myself often enough.
There's also a nice weird little story a post or two above that one about a Soviet nuke guy who didn't start World War III in 1983 based on a false alarm.
But we object to the ethnic stereotyping of our darker brothers and sisters.
Ah, the age-old question: Is a penguin dark-skinned or white-skinned?
I didnt think it put them in poor light.
Emerson:
I don't know any penguins, but I have raised many zebras and have fondness and affection for most of them. So I cannot be anti-penguin.
She wants clients, most of whom are women in their 20s and 30s, to devote 15 hours a week to their search (surfing the Web counts for three hours, max).
Holy crap.
a skim of the post is entirely unobjectionable
it's totally objectionable. It's the false dichotomy between "health care" and "emergency/life saving critical medicine". Because the latter is provided free of charge by private hospitals, everyone's rights are met. The analogy to rubbish collection is totally tendentious too. And the point of the introduction is to generate nasty comments; it's not a reaction to them, except in the sense that throwing your line back in the pond is a reaction to landing a fish.
I remain convinced that McMegan is and always has been a slick, Brooks-style liberal-baiter. She has a well-established track record and many of us (me!) made up our minds about her long ago. She hasn't shown any signs of learning anything, and she continued her fake-libertarian refusal to oppose Bush far longer than was even arguably justifiable. Her media niche is "liberal-baiter", and that's where her bread is buttered. She just had the bad luck to enter the market at a time when her team was being taken over by bigots, criminals, religious fanatics, and imperialists.
She can't whine. She plays hardball herself whenever she feels like it. I ignored her for the greater part of two years, once I figured out that the people who tried to respect her were deluded. The only reason people are picking her up again is because the Atlantic gave her a new prominence.
At the Atlantic one moderate liberal (Yglesias) has to be balanced by three slick, nasty conservatoids. Partly that's because Matt is much smarter than they are, but mostly it's because the conservative case is collapsing into garbage. Sure, there's a plausible conservative case to be made in theory, but not here and not now.
Zebras? That's a boutique kink. I guess you're too good for sheep.
Have we discussed Bush's refusal to talk to NPR, except through Juan Williams?
8,21: Seriously. It's not like the boobs comprise the useless cells draining out of the brain.
I agree with dsquared, but Christ Almighty did we not just have a 360-comment thread about McMegan? Do we really need to go back there?
re: 35
It's all part of the same world-view that thinks that handsome men are usually stupid (or jerks), that athletes are dumb, that really talented musicians are going to be idiot-savants or whatever.
Yeah, if someone wants to start fiskingmeaganmcardle.com go for it. But I'm bored with the topic.
37: But those things are all true, ttaM. As a handsome, athletic musician, you're finding it difficult to face the truth.
I seldom raise political topics myself, but cannot resist when they're brought up. I used to be a political blogger until I decided that things were hopeless and that my contribution was not accomplishing much. So I came over here for the snark and lewdness, but not without feeling guilt.
I cheered up briefly when the Democrats took over Congress, but we see now how that ended up. Cheering up is always a mistake.
It's all part of the same world-view that thinks that handsome men are usually stupid (or jerks)
Perhaps I'm an outlier, but when I see a handsome man, my initial assumption is that he'll be bright and sensitive, too. I'm a glass-half-full kinda gal.
I used to be a political blogger until I decided that things were hopeless and that my contribution was not accomplishing much.
Yeah, me too. Now it's all just exploding whales and cock jokes.
when I see a handsome man, my initial assumption is that he'll be bright and sensitive, too.
Hey there.
Hey there.
Teofilo, where were you when Di was complaining about being lonely and horny?
Your timing is wack, dude.
Teofilo, where were you when Di was complaining about being lonely and horny?
Huh, I don't know. I would have been all over that.
I would have been all over that.
I'm sure that'll win her over.
I'm hoping my looks make up for that sort of thing.
31: See, while it wasn't terribly clear, I thought that was exactly what she wasn't saying:
However, I think that schools and health care will be important exceptions to that general rule. Schools, because not all parents are responsible, and the state has a compelling interest in seeing that children are well educated even if their parents would rather spend the money on cigarettes; and health care, because of high variance in costs, and moral hazard.
You can't just give people money and say "Buy the health care you need to make sure you don't suffer and die", because unlike the other items in the package of basic goods--food, shelter, clothing, maybe a car--the costs each person will bear can vary from $0 to several hundred thousand dollars. And you can't just tell them to buy insurance, first, because their insurance costs may also vary much more widely than those of the other basic goods; and second, because many of them won't do it, relying on the fact that we will not let them die. Unless you can make a credible committment to not treat someone who shows up at the emergency room without insurance (and I certainly hope we can't make that kind of committment credible), relying on remedies that work very well for the other basic goods will not work.
I would still expect her to get any actual policy recommendations screwed up, based on her past record, but if I'm following what she said, she's saying that (1) there is a basic right to some minimal standard of living, including health care, and (2) in the specific case of health care (and education) just giving people enough money to pay for it themselves and telling them "fuck you" if they screw up the spending doesn't work.
That far, I'm all the way with her. Again, I wouldn't rely on her suggested implementation of anything, but this particular post, unless I'm completely misunderstanding it, is fine.
(Mindbogglingly unlibertarian, admittedly. It's funny, if you split libertarianism into a civil liberties half, and an economic theory half (yeah, I know, an actual libertarian would say that the economic bit is also civil liberties) I'm very fond of the civil liberties bit. McArdle doesn't seem much for either half -- I disagree with her on the stuff where I agree with libertarians, and when she comes up with something I agree with, it's usually something that would make a hardcore libertarian throw up in her mouth a little.)
47: Aw, teo, you know everyone who's met you in person thinks you're a dimwit.
If you don't want people to be insulting to you, and you do want them to read your essay carefully, then you don't start the essay by insulting them.
What, D2, she was asking for it? Anyway, look who's talking, ya cunt.
Also, obviously the reason the dating coach is dissuading her client from approaching the smart blonde chicks is that she wants to keep the money coming. Even I can figure that out, DUH.
throw up in her mouth a little
LB is banned!
Yes, there seems to be an obvious problem with the dating coach's financial interest here.
I'm sure that'll win her over.
Everyone knows that the correct phrase is "I'd hit that!"
So it looks as if only one person is interested, then?
I'm sure that'll win her over.
Yeah, uh, actually it probably would. Alas, I gather not only is Teo's timing whack, but his geography as well. Also, I am old.
But we'll always have Unfogged.
Unfogged: Where lonely horny people meet and discover that they are unlikely to have sex with each other.
Kind of makes you tear up a little, doesn't it.
So it looks as if only one person is interested, then?
Hey, you're doing better than Teo is.
And she's bringing her roommate!
Unfogged: Where lonely horny people meet and discover that they are unlikely to have sex with each other.
But, I'm being a little glass-half-empty now...
Dude, you're young, and vibrant, and alive, and will soon have your maddening ex out of your domicile! I wouldn't worry much about trying to date before then, the insanity level has to be prohibitive. But give it a couple of months and the Almost Entirely Useless Unfogged Fixup Machine can swing into action!
Maybe I can just lie to Teo about my age -- quick, someone redact the part where I confessed my oldness!
trying to date
She didnt mention wanting to date.
There's still the geography problem, though.
She didnt mention wanting to date.
LB is smart and was able to read the subtext. Of course, same goes for Ogged...
Di, I'll be in Chicago for Thanksgiving. That gives you plenty of time to buy some sexy lingerie and for us to decide whether to get busy at your place, with your ex, or at my mom's place. Also plenty of time for Will to fly out here and murder me, but I'm willing to live dangerously.
Di, do you wear the bottoms of your trousers rolled?
I think that it should be at Ogged's mom's place, so that she can have her mom-fun too.
72: Okay, but I like just discovered the joys of make-up and high heels, and I'm not ready to give that up.
73: I'm not wearing trousers, John.
70. Teo, a gentleman would leap on his horse and ride ventre a terre to the lady's door (swinging through her window in a black catsuit is optional and considered a bit declasse in the best circles).
Okay, but it's like a thousand miles. I might need to change horses.
Teo always has a reason that it won't happen. You're never going to get laid, Teo. Never ever. For like, eternity.
From watching Westerns, though, I understand that the companionship of a good horse can be very satisfying.
How not to flirt:
"Hi, I'm horny!"
"But you're so inconvenient."
82: If you look carefully, you will see that Di was the one doing this, not me.
Now B's not going to sleep with you either, genius.
UnfoggeDCon
But now teo has reason to go to the Chicago version.
83: Perhaps B was chastening me, then. Rather than work out who is the bigger flirtation failure, let's just go ahead and agree now to all the sex and work out the logistics later. As previously noted, there's that slight complication of not being able to get my ex out of the house -- but don't worry, it sounds like we can just use Ogged's mom's place.
I'm not wearing trousers, John.>/i>
Now we're getting somewhere. Go on, Di.
83: Bonus points for defensiveness and blaming the other person.
88: Nope, you came around to lying about your age while Teo Eeyore-moped about the distance.
Okay, but it's like a thousand miles. I might need to change horses.
Pony express station in St. Joe, Missouri.
52: indeed. Myself and the Mc both start lots of fights, but only one of us then wonders why she gets into all these horrible fights.
btw:
because many of them won't do it, relying on the fact that we will not let them die. Unless you can make a credible committment to not treat someone who shows up at the emergency room without insurance (and I certainly hope we can't make that kind of committment credible), relying on remedies that work very well for the other basic goods will not work.
is not reasonable or nice or anti-libertarian. It's classic minarchist framing. Once you accept that as reasonable, you're accepting that the debate is going to be about emergency room care, critical or catastrophic illnesses and life support machines. Therefore implicitly giving up any supposition that it is reasonable to argue for public provision of dental care, mental health, general practitioner visits, breast and prostate screening, etc etc. it's the first move in a monte game.
I might need to change horses.
One the way, why not copulate with a lady on horseback or on an ass's foal? If you are equestrian by nature and betaken with the ethos of cavaliers and horsemanship, yet also in erotic matters you reckon yourself capable and erudite, then do as set out here and you shall rejoice doubly and trebly. Yet, take great care during the undertaking for the same is most dangerous and, for the unversed and untrained, may prove at once risible and profane.
Take the finest of your horses, whether white or black is of no consequence, and train it to canter finely and gracefully, with the head erect. Yet also to keep its back most steady and unshaking as it goes, be the terrain gentle or steep. Then take up your lady (paramour or spouse) and set out with her on riding trips of as many as a dozen in number. Commence with the horse well-saddled and sit with her in a single saddle, astride or sidesaddle as you wish, but make sure your genitals are aglow and swing innocently while cantering. Once you have grown accustomed to these jaunts, unsaddle the horse and, with boldness and liberty, set your lady upon it entirely naked underneath (though outwardly in fine and colourful attire) either against your flesh or that of the horse. Yet have no thought to ram her, even though you should burn in front, nor to feverishly clasp her buttocks if these same shine from the rear. For do as the noble and amorous knights in the wilderness who extend their right hand and clutch their air's mane and show their left hand empty and plaintive, that supposedly they are holding tight their incorporeal and dreamlike damsel.
Await the bright and blazing afternoon and, taking your horse, curry and scrub it thoroughly that it may again more cleanly perspire. Next, wash your own self and likewise your lady and lubricate yourself from her and lubricate her in similar fashion, to and fro. Mount with her, all of you unharnessed, and make for the nearest bower where are to be found abundant trees, herbage and blossoms and violets and fragrant blossoms. And ask that streams of cool water may flow all around and fertile plots and orchards may shine forth before you. Then set her to ride either turned away from you (for stoking ala recto) or vice-versa (for stoking ala verso). If you feel yourself to be in fine fettle and clean, get her to sit behind you and press against you either with her nipples erect or with her wet croup. And when you are thus arranged, give a whip and spur to the horse till it adopts a natural and airy elevation.
Once you have run around the area greatly inflamed and delight both in the breeze and the fragrance of the fruit, the moment will arrive when your beads of perspiration will appear and merge as one, yet too the roots of your pudenda will be loosened and will curl against the sheen of the horse's coat. Then assume a handstand on the horse, as the able and practised ride that you are, and adhere your lips either to your lady's vulva or to her darkest duct, which running wet, rubs and licks against the back bearing your both. Whereupon, endeavour to close your legs around the nape of her neck whether you be in front or behind. Do thise moreover to protect and subjugate her body that where she has her head, there your end is turned.
When you have imbibed well of the water and of your perspiration and you see horse and lady rider quivering together with you, give the whistle for perpetual and harmonious movement and steer your horse that it may rise up and sail smoothly on the breeze. And when your steed's back is inundated by aromas and its genitals rattle in the air, place your lady wholly prostrate (though supine will do as well) with her head towards either the animal's mane or tail. There, set her in equilibrium and bestride the horsewoman horseman-like and stoke her while riding and windswept and ram her ceaselessly and tirelessly two and three and four times, if, languishing, she deems you worthy and offers herself. Thereupon, as you breezily discharge, you will feel the spray from the horse's noble seed engulfing and anointing you and likewise the spray of the woman.
Then give praise to your Lord that he granted you to copulate and discharge there where only the most pure and hawk-weaned copulate, and cross yourself in thanksgiving and give voice to some old and suitable hymn. And when late in the evening you return anew to the bower from the heavens, you will see that where first there were leaves, no flowers bloom and what blossomed before now bears most delicious fruit. Take then your steed and woman and allow them to rest and feed them well and lavishly. Next place your lady against the horse's bosom and lull them both to sleep gently and most softly, and lay your own self beside them and keep watch in the wondrous garden till morn.
The same may also be undertaken on an ass's foal. Yet since this beast is not alone capable of elevated flights, curry the humble beast well that it may shine as much as possible, and strap to its sides seven holdy date palms, viz. sacred palm brances, to serve as wings and hold it up. Then set your lady upon the ass thus prepared and carry out all the aforementioned, praying devoutly as you rise to the heavenly passion.
It might help pass the time until you arrive.
95: Wow. I think I now understand why Mom never let me take those horseback riding lessons...
94: Eh. Evidence from earlier this week suggests that this is probably the right stage of a disagreement with you at which to drop it.
Di, I'll be in Chicago for Thanksgiving. That gives you plenty of time to buy some sexy lingerie and for us to decide whether to get busy at your place, with your ex, or at my mom's place.
Can you get busy at your mom's place, Ogged? I'm completely incapable of having sex in my parents' home.
Ben, washboards and tubas at Barbés sound fun, but I have a previous commitment that night. Enjoy the Slope, AWB, and her ex-roommate.
How not to flirt:
"Hi, I'm horny!"
"But you're so inconvenient."
memo to self: No reading Unfogged while on conference call.
Di, I'll be in Chicago for Thanksgiving. That gives you plenty of time to buy some sexy lingerie and for us to decide whether to get busy at your place, with your ex, or at my mom's place. Also plenty of time for Will to fly out here and murder me, but I'm willing to live dangerously.
Murder??! I'm the one pushing her to go get hot monkey sex.
Besides, one phone call mentioning that you have been taking pictures and that you have imminent travel plans is enough to get you locked up for at least 4 or 5 years.
Can you get busy at your mom's place, Ogged? I'm completely incapable of having sex in my parents' home.
Really? Is this common among you 20 somethings?
Can you get busy at your mom's place, Ogged?
My mom is surprisingly chill about it, and it has happened, yes.
102: Yeah, I've got Will on retainer as my dating coach.
Probably should sweep the room for cameras and pickups.
103: maybe her parent's home is full of Pat Boone memorabilia or something?
My mom is surprisingly chill about it, and it has happened, yes.
She's just hoping you'll get some girl pregnant and *have* to marry her, already.
107: You know, I think Pat Boone is so obscure and out of date that it wouldn't even be offputting. The Osmonds, maybe? I could see the glare off all those teeth making sex impossible.
She's just hoping you'll get some girl pregnant and *have* to marry her, already.
I doubt that. Once, when EBL was visiting, she'd gotten up before me and was chatting with my mom in the kitchen and I wandered in and said good morning by patting her tummy and saying "hello." I still remember the look of utter terror on my mom's face.
Which amorous Greek?
Yoryis Yatromanolakis, author of such works as Eroticon, Report of a Murder, and The History of a Vendetta.
110: absolute arrant nonsense. I checked that assertion with the Oxford University Stephen Fry Institute of Tumescence and they said that I was right, right, right dammit. Let there be no doubt about it, I am certainly right, oh yes.
what? really? oh.
You patted some woman's "tummy" in front of your mother? In her own kitchen?? You mother had the appropriate reaction--what's wrong with you?
111 is hilarious, but doesn't contradict my theory. Tummy-patting in the absence of concern or a proposal merely suggests that you're content to sire a bastard. And since your mom's goal, as you report it, is a daughter-in-law rather than a grandchild, well.
You do not need that hyphen in the last paragraph, gentle Ben.
Armsmasher, defender of the hyphen! If only I could make people see the difference between a well-known misuse of the hyphen and a misuse that is well known. Pity the poor predicate adjective.
No, Oggedsmom had always secretly hated EBL. Not good enough for her little boy. She engineered the breakup. Ogged doesn't know this yet, so keep it under your hat.
113: Clearly, the only thing to be done is a randomized study with Pat Boone memorabilia, Osmonds memorabilia, and a control room decorated with the kind of 'art' found in cheap motel rooms. Go have sex under the relevant circumstances and report back.
My mom is surprisingly chill about it, and it has happened, yes.
When your family is involved in assisting and preventing reproduction, they tend to be relatively cool about such issues.
119 - It's more that there is serious cockblockage -- sleeping arragements on different floors, no time alone, and lectures of disapproval about how there are impressionable kids in the house (my brothers). Some would take this as hott and a challenge but it leaves me unwilling to even try.
Not very dedicated to the cause, are you, Becks?
When I brought my first really serious boyfriend home from France to meet the folks, my parents assigned him the guest bedroom and told me "not in our house." We snuck out to the park to have sex, where the police found us in flagrante and told us to knock it off, as it were. It was a tense visit.
I never actually got to the point of admitting to my parents that I'd had sex until I was married (well, I'd moved in with Buck by then, so it's not as if they were in any doubt, but it wasn't discussed). My people are a staid and prudish people.
121, 123. Good grief! Is this 2007? Why yes, I do believe it is.
The only mention of these matters in our house was my mother (born 1925) apologising for having twin beds in the guest room - which had been my room, but got recycled pdq - in case it was inconvenient for us. Sometimes I despair of ever understanding America.
Sex is for godless hippies and spreads disease and irresponsibility. I blame Reagan, as solidified by the politically motivated attacks on Clinton.
And then there's my mom, who offered to my brother's high school girlfriend to get them birth control if they didn't have it.
Well, some people are godless hippies. But I'm kind of serious about 126 as a background 'normal' middleclass attitude toward sex. It's not that people don't have sex, but it's deprecated.
I think my parents and I have a don't ask don't tell policy about anything that goes on out of their sight. They don't ask what I do and I don't tell them. The problem is the policy seems to be covered under the policy so I have only been able to infer its existence by the fact that questions that could be incriminating are rather obviously avoided.
If I was married I don't think I would have sex at my parents house. Granted I don't date so this probably will never come up.
Bedroom-sharing w/ boyfriends was allowed by both my parents' & in-laws (after token resistance--the first time I stayed at my in-laws I got the guest room, which adjoins my husband's anyway; after that, we just shared a room).
My parents were mid-messy-divorce at that time, & without getting into details, lacked the credibility to get all indignant about me sharing a bedroom with my long-term boyfriend. But I don't think it would have been a big deal anyway; me and all my siblings have lived openly in sin before getting married. My (non-Godless) grandmother disapproved vocally once or twice for the record, but without any expectation that we'd listen & she still gave us her old furniture for our place.
Parents being okay with this seems to be a godless big liberal city thing, though--several of our friends paid rent on two apts. for the sake of keeping up appearances.
The thing is, even the token resistance is weird. I mean, totally ordinary, I'd expect more people than not's families to act that way, but when you think about it, for adult kids?
I'm 30, and when my mom comes to visit I hide the condoms but leave out the cigarettes. Ahh, midwestern values.
123: Lucky he wasn't an anthropoligist. He would have written the JM family up.
Though I'm not sure that French parents are completely tolerant either. More a "home" thing than a "sex" thing.
131: I'd actually be pretty creeped out if my folks were OK with it. Because that suggests that they might be having sex.
131: well, at the time, we were 19 year old college sophmores (& not actually having sex, actually, but we did sleep in the same bed).
I assume my parents would've had a different attitude in high school.
We had this discussion once, and everyone thought I was a prude for saying that I'd put high school aged kids in separate bedrooms, but that after they leave home I'd treat them like any other houseguests and figure that whether or not they had a wedding license wasn't my business.
My mom bought me a pack of condoms when I went away to camp the summer I turned 15. They were used in a chaste, goofy prank and nothing more.
My maternal grandmother had a rule against unmarried couples sharing a room in her house, but when my girlfriend and I said we'd just stay at my paternal grandfather's house nearby, the rule fell. Play 'em off one another, that's how the world turns.
That was random B. opinion #142, IIRC.
I think there were more people on your side of that than not. I was arguing the free-love side, but tentatively and against my instincts. But even your position is loosey-goosey compared to my impression of a middleclass American norm, which would stay "let's keep this under the rug" with children of the family well into their adulthood. (A norm that gets violated a whole lot, but it's there as a background.)
I was staying once with an aunt (biological relative) and uncle, and some other relatives (from the uncle's side) were visiting at the same time. My aunt informed me that her nephew and his girlfriend would be sleeping in separate bedrooms because, and I quote, "They can sin in their house, but not in mine."
The nephew and the girlfriend were approximately 65 years old and essentially in a common-law marriage at the time.
139: Oh yeah. My parents and Mr. B.'s both put us in separate rooms until marriage; that is the norm though I really can't see most people who aren't uber-Catholic doing it when a couple's living together.
I think the main difference between the US view and the UK view is that we see the shared bed as = sex, whereas the Brits see it as = relationship. Or at least that's my hypothesis.
141: Seriously, I think the difference is that we think sex=wrong, and they do so much less if at all. The combination of AIDS and the religious right did something weird to US culture in the eighties, and it hasn't snapped back. UK types talking about sex sound to me like characters from US novels written in the seventies, where random casual sex, even if it's not absolutely universal, is not particularly deviant.
I'm pretty hard core on the free love side of this. At a family vacation my sister put down a hard line about her son and his girlfriend, and I embarrassed my perfectly wonderful nephew by arguing in favor of letting them stay together. It was a very bizarre form of keeping up appearances, because everyone there knew that they were and item and nobody cared except for thinking that they were a cute couple. On top of that, the perfectly wonderful nephew was lucky not to be illegitimate (shotgun wedding).
A fine legal point. In her own house I wouldn't have argued with my sister, but this was a family vacation at a resort and I felt that there was a question of jurisdiction.
High schoolers are less likely to have pre-planned overnight visits, so it's more a question of to what extent you're going to actively chaperone & enforce a "not under my roof" policy +/or a curfew.
In general my parents thought they'd rather know about stuff than not. Our curfew was: "call if you're going to be home late or stay over at a friend's", & they made clear that we should always call to get a ride home if things got hairy at a party or whatever.
I & and my sisters led as non-scandalous lives as parents could reasonably hope, but I don't know whether it was their enlightened policies or the fact that we were just dorky, honor-student, good-girl types.
What happened is that progress was reversed. Before 1965 or 1970 things were very strict.
Did y'all know that Allen Ginsberg was in therapy to be heterosexualized as late as 1968 or so? His practice-dummy-girl wrote a book about it, I think.
Wouldn't want my sister to marry one.
Well, yeah. Not reversed all the way, it's much more lipservicy and less rigid now than it was before the seventies, but the sexual revolution got largely rolled back in the eighties.
I mean, it's weird. Your sister (I'm guessing) would probably have been somewhat concerned if she thought her adult son and his long-term serious girlfriend weren't having sex, right? That'd be peculiar.
The standard isn't about not having extramarital sex, it's about being properly shamefaced about it, and I don't get the impression that applies outside the US all that much.
Is "illegitimate" even a legitimate category any more?
We get warned not to use it on the bar exam -- I think 'non-marital child' was the terminology, but I could be wrong. It does have some legal implications about the presumption of paternity, but once paternity's acknowledged or otherwise established I don't think it has much of an effect in most states.
it's striking to see pre-aids hollywood movies.
e.g. 'victor victoria', where you get the feeling that equality for gays is just *right* around the corner. equality and mainstreaming and no-big-dealing.
and then aids happened, and kablooey. three decade set-back.
It was the one-two punch of AIDS and the mainstreaming of the religious right, with all the conservatives talking up the 'values' of the religious right as the basis of our nation even when they didn't live that way themselves. AIDS made people vulnerable to thinking of sex as dirty and scary again, and the political movement locked it into the culture.
148- It was a category?! Like on hospital records and the like?
conservatives talking up the 'values' of the religious right as the basis of our nation even when they didn't live that way themselves.
Fast-forward to 2007.
My kids and my nieces get depo shots and condoms when they visit grandpa. Ok, maybe not every time, but we are pretty open.
Of course, they also have an up-close view their options if they get pregnant. I'm thinking that is a fairly good disincentive to pregnancy.
Our curfew was: "call if you're going to be home late or stay over at a friend's", & they made clear that we should always call to get a ride home if things got hairy at a party or whatever.
I & and my sisters led as non-scandalous lives as parents could reasonably hope, but I don't know whether it was their enlightened policies or the fact that we were just dorky, honor-student, good-girl types.
That's the same rule my folks had, and that I'd have, and I do think that enlightened policies lead to non-scandalous lives. Mostly because enlightened policies usually go along with other enlightened things, like telling kids the truth about birth control and treating them as intelligent people.
Though there may well be a reverse causation, in that parents with responsible kids feel comfortable giving them reasonable rules, to some extent. But mostly I think it's the reverse.
There's also the possibility that sex ed lessons from your mom at a young age make sex seem really gross.
My kids and my nieces get depo shots and condoms when they visit grandpa.
Okay, this is just a little too liberal. Really, you shouldn't be condoning your father's molestation of the grandchildren.
Though ensuring that they he doesn't impregnate them is a good thing. I guess.
"The the man pokes his thing into the hole...."
(I have seen the "trust her, she's a good kid" approach shade into denial of really serious problems, & heard the argument that treating normal teenage behavior as not-a-big-deal raises the stakes for what's necessary to REALLY rebel. But all in all, I don't know what would work better)
152: Laws that classify based on illegitimacy are subject to intermediate or "heightened" scrutiny.
162: "Apo" s/b "rob helpy-chalk"
Deviancy has been defined down, B, try to keep up.
I'd moved in with Buck by then, so it's not as if they were in any doubt, but it wasn't discussed
With a boyfriend named "Buck", how could they possibly doubt that you were having sex? They were probably just afraid of when the porn tapes would start to appear.
I think the difference is that we think sex=wrong, and they do so much less if at all. The combination of AIDS and the religious right did something weird to US culture in the eighties, and it hasn't snapped back.
I think this is true. On the other hand, some juicy taboo and hypocrisy may make sex hotter.
I was a bit confused by the fact the second quoted paragraph in 155 was not italicized.
My daughter's visited a boy she considers her boyfriend overnight in Missouri, known from the internet. My neighbor/best friends daughter has done something very similar. Both have been frank about what happened and what didn't and why. They're off to college next year anyway, and have had lots of opportunities already.
Seriously, I think the difference is that we think sex=wrong, and they do so much less if at all. The combination of AIDS and the religious right did something weird to US culture in the eighties, and it hasn't snapped back. UK types talking about sex sound to me like characters from US novels written in the seventies, where random casual sex, even if it's not absolutely universal, is not particularly deviant
One difference beyond the fundamental cultural disposition, which traditionally made "anglo-saxon" culture different from the rest of the advanced world, but now puts UK closer to Europe, is that the threat from heterosexual aids transmission was very much more effectively talked-up in the US, with its safety culture, than in Britain.
152: I meant just an operating category in social discourse, like "unshriven," but it could have been an official legal term as well. I don't much know from such things.
I can't really remember (after I turned about 17 or 18) going to visit a girlfriend at her parents' place and not sharing a room. However, usually by the time I was going to visit at their parents' we'd been going out for a few months, so I was 'the boyfriend'. Even the fairly Catholic parents of one girlfriend were OK with it.
However, I think quite a few of those same parents would have had an issue if I'd been some strange guy they'd picked up in a bar that night. Things are free and easy-ish, but not *that* free and easy.
And yeah, I don't think the 'sex = wrong' thing gets thought much at all, except for with respect to gay sex, where that attitude is still fairly widespread.