Category: Culture Critique

5 Reasons to Question Monogamy at Elephant Journal

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Let’s look at both monogamy and commitment with fresh eyes and consider five reasons to question both cultural ideas. Let’s not oversimplify the deceit exemplified by Ashley Madison. Widespread cheating suggests sexual impulses exist beyond monogamy. Many arguments against freer sexuality provoke fear and even persecution exemplified in slut shaming, honor killings and LGBT harassment. The discovery of trial and error expands our choices. Discovery also exposes our mistakes. For example, discovering what sex will not do liberates us from our imagination. I treat lovers… Read More

Mistaking Means for Ends in Love

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Mistaking means for ends in love is one of the worst and common mistakes. What we learned about love often makes our love pretentious, an insane dream-world that murders affection. A commitment necessarily views people as means to some goal. Anything that we can commit to doing can be done without affection. Commitment is not love. We cannot promise to feel the same way tomorrow and be truly honest because we don’t know. Anyone who wishes to challenge the above argument should also display their… Read More

Our Sexual Value Judgments

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The way we learn to judge our sex partners is questionable. We see our bias whenever ideal partnerships break up in spite of what seems the best of circumstances. Often we mistake means for ends. In American culture, we typically put down harmless affections and pleasure of great intrinsic value and treat them as superficial when those things lack money, beauty, or the people are unwilling to play by our rules etc. We abase what serves no other purpose. An ancient Chinese story sheds light… Read More

Sexual Idealism

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Concening sexual idealism, I discuss with my beloved Sharon various topics, including sex, the morning news and our plans for the day. One day our conversation turned to the free love of the 1960s. A postmortem on the ‘60s is nothing new. My thoughts on that era I passed by Sharon’s critical eye who, being 21 years my senior, lived through that era while I was still pooping in diapers. I think some of the mistakes that people made in the 1960s haunt today’s attempts… Read More

We Believed Lies About Commitments

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What is commitment? If we say it is dedication to a cause or activity remember another  person is not an idea or something we do. When humans became domesticated the concept of property became relevant. Men started treating women as property. In finding a better morality, men offered themselves as property in return. Relationships became more equal but still a person is not property. Business and affection should be judged by different standards. You don’t need a commitment to have a friend and friends are… Read More

New Arguments Against Abstinence Only Sex Education

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Abstinence Only Sex Education

My criticism of abstinence only sex education rests on these grounds. Censored education is reckless because it suggests that young people will make better decisions by being uninformed. This idea is a felony against intellectual honesty itself. Regardless of intentions, abstinence only sex education is a lie of omission. A denial of relevant facts in defense of ideals suggests to me that, for some people, their belief is more important than the well-being of any young person whose suffering could be avoided by access to… Read More

Polyamorous Expectations Dare Letting Go

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The angst often associated with relationships may not be because a a problem exists, but because the events are different than our expectations. Letting go of unrealistic ideals becomes more important in non-monogamous relationships. We tend to cling to beliefs when we feel out of control and we use power to defend them. The use of emotional blackmail, coercion, wild accusations and threats to achieve our aims is itself destructive. Do not pole-vault over mouse turds! Such behavior does not lend itself to trust or… Read More

The Polyamorous Caravan – Part Two

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Many non-traditional folks carry conclusions that seem to rest on bias left over from tradition. For example, in a recent piece, Louisa Leontiades discussed applying the lessons of open relationships to monogamous relationships. I agree with her about many things, but we part ways when she starts to explain both success and failure by the same idea. In other words, her belief can never be false, then I explain how such ideas are a superstitions relationship mythology. The four indented quotes that follow are from… Read More

The Polyamorous Caravan – Part One

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In sexual relationships, consider the anguish of those that try everything they learned to do in order to succeed and still suffer. People often attempt what their contemporaries and therapists suggest, to create lasting relationships. Regardless of the money spent and sincere efforts, many do not find satisfaction following a set of directions to build or sustain sexual affections. Therefore, I question the assumptions upon which this system is built even though the ideas in question are popular among both monogamists and non-traditionalists. Some may… Read More

Having Sex with Friends

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Why are we afraid to have sex with friends? We fear to fall from the heights of affection, and we have probably witnessed this happen. The reason for this fall is we start thinking in terms of expectations, we start treating people like property and the friendship dies. When we give people a role to play, and judge them according to the results, we lose friends for the same reason we probably lost other lovers. If we want to make love to a friend, do… Read More

We Lose When We Withhold Love

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We distort our capacity to love others with reference to an imaginary future. We see ourselves in this story and believe we know what love will do for us. We use emotion to force others to do what they “should”; what we desire; what we have in mind. We even withhold and limit love as a threat, ignoring the fact that death stalks us all. If we do this, we are drowning in our minds reflecting pool. Ironically, we may justify our actions by imagining… Read More

Prostitution can be bad, neutral, or good!

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Our society suffers an epidemic of people seeking their own ends at the expense of others. Do not exclude the everyday folks outside of public view. Workaday people can make decisions or carry out boardroom choices that harm. When insurance companies deny a legitimate claim, some administrator cranks out the form letter. They probably know it is wrong but they have their life, debts or children to feed, meanwhile they crush an innocent or family. How many people have mourned on the account of such… Read More

How I Had A Big Ass Conversion

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By Todd Vickers At times, the wonders of curvy women seem overlooked. This regrettable fad harms both men and women and I hope my experience will help open some minds. However, stating any attraction to women involves sexist hazards, booby traps if you will. Sexism is real and serious but to use chauvinism as an epithet to explain away any discomfort trivializes the issue and disadvantages women. I discuss some of these views of misogyny here. The women I thought sexy, growing up in late… Read More

How a Man Discusses Sex in the Shadow of Sexism

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A man risks the accusation, sometimes correctly, of objectifying women when discussing either sexual joy or desire. Male shaming may occur even if the focus is in favor of women’s pleasure or well-being. I recall refusing to have sex with a woman in spite of my strong wish. I insisted on the use of condoms (we had just met at a concert) and when I stood my ground, this beautiful mid thirties female insisted that I hated women. I do not think sexism used unfairly as… Read More

Commitment Involves Prediction

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People believe there can be no love in a relationship without some forecast. As if, biological or emotional aspects of human beings mysteriously cease to function without prediction. When we consider the many failures of commitment, doubt becomes even stronger. When we can point to one or more failures for every success, the positive examples do not prove that commitment helped! The belief in such prediction rests on nothing more then custom. Why not look at lovers as they are in the current circumstances and… Read More

Confessions of a Female Sex Tourist

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The fact that it took me almost twenty five years to realize I was a female sex tourist is not a defense. Check the screaming tabloids and anti-prostitution literature to confirm that sex tourism is totally unacceptable. Zero tolerance. Flash back to Cuba 1978. I was a 25-year old teacher working on a fly-in Indian reserve in northern Canada and I managed to escape for a week in the sun over the Easter break. The woman who was supposed to go with me cancelled at… Read More