taboo subjects

A recent encounter with a funny older gentleman made me smile at first. But as I thought about it, I realized his interest was probably more malicious and prurient curiosity, than idle social chatter.

To explain the context a bit, he had come to pick up some purchases of the stuff ( furniture, appliances, etc.) that my housemate is selling off, stuff that her former housemate left behind when she flew off to take advantage of a great job offer and a new and, we hope, a wonderful new page in her life in Oregon!

As we chatted, he asked me how I felt about my housemate's plan to be in California in the next year-and-a-half, or so. I wish her well! Then he asked me if I had seen the news, all the politicians... big meeting, Steven Harpur's opinions on same-sex marriage, etc. I wondered why it worries some people so much, same-sex marriage. Certain hot-button issues, including abortion get people quite 'het-up'.

The man in this conversation immediately spoke up and pronounced that he is definitely against abortion! Well, I am too, for myself only, in most circumstances...not knowing what I would do in other circumstances. And, I suggested to him, pointing at his ample belly, that if he were pregnant, since I am not prepared to look after his baby, I would not presume to tell him what to do with his baby.

"What??" was his response. Partly perhaps because he had never imagined himself pregnant, ie responsible to that extent. Partly because I suppose I just did not make any sense to him. "What??" he repeated.
I repeated my response...but...well...

Afterwards, I came to the conclusion that he is of the type that loves the prurient-gossip aspect of the story...two women share a house...what do they think of Steven Harpur?...one of the 'lovers' (as he is imagining it) is going to leave the other in less than two years...what will the 'abandoned lover' do...was she shocked to hear his news?? (How some people seem to love to stir the pot in the hopes of getting a big reaction.)

Not that my sex life is any of his business! But, then, maybe I'm not being fair and my intuited impressions of what the undercurrents were are all wrong.

(another aside) I am single at the moment,but should it happen, a relationship with a man would be welcomed. that's where I am on the continuum of sexual predelictions, at the moment anyway, as I'm ok with the idea that sexual prediction may well be a continuum moderated in some part by circumstance, opportunity or nurture... reminds me of a disturbing movie I saw recently about the gangs of Los Angeles, the name of which escapes me right now...and a comment I read recently noted that some hyper-macho cultures of some central/south american countries where homosexual encounters by hyper-macho males are commonplace in certain social situations and put women at great risk for sexually transmitted diseases in a culture where women have no or very little say about what goes on in familial/spousal relationships... no point in being shocked at 'foreign' cultures when our own is not that different, in that our 'sports- mad' culture does expect our super-macho sports' celebrities to be somewhat unruly, to mis-behave, be promiscuous/hyper-sexual...I clearly recall my lovely sister and other attractive women being more afraid of (and angered by) the presumptious and aggressive overtures of many 'ivy-league'-type guys in college, than of the fringe 'sexual deviants'( 'deviants' who often behaved more like real, caring and respectful human beings than the privileged 'ivy league' guys) (end of aside/rant)

I came across Kurt (with apologies, I have edited this after Kurt corrected me--I got his name wrong the first time )via the Cassandra Pages, when I read his comments on the news about the exclusion of the US and Canadian churches from a major joint body, the Anglican Consultative Council, between now and 2008, the next scheduled meeting of the Anglican church at large (the Lambeth Conference). When I heard this on the news, it seemed like a sad old story to me, having experienced this myself again and again in my own church, ie the church of my childhood (which I no longer attend) with respect to the ordination of women and with respect to homosexuals holding lay- church offices (not even 'ordination'). The triumphant celebration of those who successfully exclude anyone says so much about those celebrating!

And as another aside, read this bit about gangs on Wild West Yorkshire.

Kurt's comments on American and to nearly the same degree, Canadian, attitudes toward the human body and human sexuality, I think are spot on!

...what is degrading is the joining of sex with commerce. Can our capitalist
society confront the question of sexual sublimation in an open and honest
manner? Or is the tie between sex and money the last taboo?

At Soul of the Garden a while back, Tom Spencer also had similar ideas about our self-deception when it comes to 'what sells', when he bemoaned the re-election of Bush, supported by the religious right. Perhaps if we were more open, respectful and accepting of the human body and sexuality, the 'forbidden' and 'dirty' aspects of it would be less of an attraction in selling us stuff we know we don't need. How interwoven the puritanical, the austere and the work-ethic are with the imbalances of our attractions to the extremes!