Jun 19, 2022·edited Jun 19, 2022Liked by Frances Leader
I am sorry you feel that way. My intent was not to raise anyone's ire; rather to state how I was taught and have held dear for all my years. It is these beliefs which have buoyed me throughout my life. Granted, as a male human being I have those feelings not unlike anyone else but I also realize that we humans are not 'animals';n the sense that we should learn restraint . To be able to practice sexual restraint is the first key step to self mastery. If I hope to grow in my spiritual life I need to curb my concupiscence and I can look at someone such as St. Augustine of Hippo as a primary example. Leading a life of debauchery he then had a major conversion and became the saint we know him as, today. Likewise his mother Monica who always held hope he would one day repent of his ways and experience conversion. For myself, to 'shop myself around', as it were would compromise my beliefs and leave me feeling very empty and devoid. Sexual taint can leave a person feeling far more soiled than anything else. Thank you for the exchange.
Very much appreciated. I respect one's choice to live as they see fit; 'free will". I understand about the extremes. For myself, celibacy is a blessing at this stage in my life. When I was younger I might have struggled with the concept (the old tug of war between the flesh and the spirit) and while it still might weigh upon myself at this point from time to time, I realize that my life has unfolded as it has because, if I believe in God, then this was the design for my life, just as it was and has been for a great many others throughout time. For myself, if I had engaged in any number of encounters then I would feel as if, like I mentioned before, I would have compromised myself and it would always be with me. That is why when I encounter women who seem to be carrying a great degree of angst for any reason; subconsciously I think it is because in a great many instances they have compromised themselves through their sexual lives and whether or not they realize there is sadness for having done so. I think they might have wished/longed for the hope of finding that one mate but they, through the sexualization of everything in this culture; get caught up in it and after the fact, have regrets and in some instances become 'man haters' because of the emotional wounds they have accumulated.
Using a pop culture reference about the subject of purity if I am correct in Camelot Lancelot is invincible and I was always told that it was because of his pristine life and only after his dalliance with Guinvere did he then become fallible. Just some humor there. On a biblical note I was also taught that John was the Disciple whom Christ loved because he was the only one who was not married (virginal) It is also interesting to note that he was the only one not martyred. I will continue to read your posts. Thank you.
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are Britain's favourite 'historical' myth-men. They have gained avid believers, the story being so loved. People in British pubs will argue for hours about the locations of Camelot and Avalon. Tintagel in Cornwall being the favourite contender for Camelot and Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, which used to be surrounded by a lake, is believed to be Avalon. Excalibur is expected to be located ANY DAY NOW!!
We have re-enactment societies, themed festivals, carnivals and jousting events too!
Some fun facts to illustrate just how wacky we Brits really are!
I imagine I am the contrary voice as one who (for myself) believes it should be reserved for the marital state. Am I formed by my religious upbringing/ Yes. But for myself it would be an emotionally deadening of myself to pass myself around to anyone on a whim because, in mys estimation, that is a part of yourself that you cannot get back; that it should be reserved for someone with whom one has a true emotional and spiritual connection within the bonds of marriage. Just speaking for myself and so, for myself, even at this advanced age and knowing that things will most likely remain as they are, given everything I have said; if that be my lot, as it were, then so be it.
You have reminded me of everything I hated about BuyBull bashers who lectured us kids in the 60s. I attended a Billy Graham event in London when I was 12 or 13 - I shudder at the memory even now. The mass hysteria frightened me so much that I fainted and was hauled out by the Red Cross. The group I was with were Baptists and convinced that I had "seen the light" - I sure had.... I saw how insane they all were.
Jun 18, 2022·edited Jun 18, 2022Liked by Frances Leader
As a late boomer, I recall all too well the dark cloud of the Sexual Temperance movement that descended upon us apropos of the Fauci-driven HIV/AIDS program. Not that I wholly romanticize the unbridled licentiousness of the previous era, it produced its share of weird pathology and extremes. I am not a Libertarian and think the economic ideas of that movement are silly, but they do get something fundamentally correct: Leave Us Alone..
Why do only this certain handful of clandestine operations get to assassinate with impunity?
I recall the 1960’s as the decade of Assassin Nation.
Why not open it up like deer season or some of the big game? Training with guides: ex Special Opps; give them something else to do other than mercenaries: Licenses. Quotas. Bingo Bango.
I don't know why you think I might have known who Bob Lee Swagger is! I am a Brit hermit who hates Hollywood and tell-lie-vision - I certainly do not read very much fiction either! I had to search online to figure out who you were referencing! lol
The only Keystone I know of is a somewhat controversial pipeline and strange military aircraft heading out to sea is something I often notice at dawn here in warmonger's paradise!
Didn’t imagine you did, that’s why I referenced him. I have read lots of fiction, but not in the last two- plus years.
Saw a clip of BBC on UK Column. Friday, NATO jet purportedly intercepting big Russian turbo prop, Irish Sea, Baltic?
It was all just a puff piece, dramatic music, handsome Czech pilot, who would not answer question. Then Ms.Truss’ demeanor quite different in Parliament. It’s a weekend carnival.
"In all the discussions I participated in about the coming metaverse, no one ever mentioned how people would reproduce if they were spending all of their time in a virtual world, or how young children would be onboarded to this new reality.
Perhaps this is the result of the NFT community being populated mostly by single men. The question doesn’t come up, as if they have just forgotten the existence of children or the physical sex necessary for them to be born. There is already a strange asexuality within the NFT community—a sense that sex and intimacy are probably not worth the effort. On NFT Twitter, a common category of memes depicts men skipping sex to buy NFTs, or using their gains to pay for divorce lawyers after their wives complain that they spend too much time trading."
I hope these Non Fungible Tokens and the Metaverse turn out to be a brief craze like pokemon but my inner sceptic is shaking her head in despair for the future.
Jun 17, 2022·edited Jun 17, 2022Liked by Frances Leader
Are you right?
Maybe for some but not for others. It's a subject I long to write into as an older woman released from the confines of a very long relationship.
I haven't quite decided what feels right to me, boundaried maybe.
Our ability to feel sexual energy can be beautiful and incredibly healing. Either in sexual expression with ourselves or with another. Or as an energetic flow that can be expressed in many ways. This is not something I have really understood until recently. By myself and also with others.
There is a whole movement of people doing work around this. Very beautiful work.
You seem to be taking this a tad too personal if you don't mind me saying .....
I asked if I was right in predicting that "soon we will be witnessing a generation of humans who remain virgin for their entire, short and lonely lives."!!
Also - given my life again there is no way I would opt to "work around" genuine physical intimacy. No way José!
I didn't mean it that way. I meant there are communities of people doing work in this area. So it won't be all and hopefully it won't look this way for any (although the likelihood is strong of generations of severely damaged people. If we as a species survive at all. I am so deeply sickened by all of this. But I just took a bath so yay me! Small triumphs.)
And......
Yay!!!!!! ------>>>
"Also - given my life again there is no way I would opt to "work around" genuinely physical intimacy. No way José!"
Frances - are you familiar with Jacqueline Faye-Hobbs who goes by Oracle Girl? I’ve been tuning in for the past 18 months - I find her insight, wisdom, and compassion to be relevant and refreshing. Her life’s work is to help us break away from our slave self and enter into the purification space. Worth a look and a listen
I am sorry you feel that way. My intent was not to raise anyone's ire; rather to state how I was taught and have held dear for all my years. It is these beliefs which have buoyed me throughout my life. Granted, as a male human being I have those feelings not unlike anyone else but I also realize that we humans are not 'animals';n the sense that we should learn restraint . To be able to practice sexual restraint is the first key step to self mastery. If I hope to grow in my spiritual life I need to curb my concupiscence and I can look at someone such as St. Augustine of Hippo as a primary example. Leading a life of debauchery he then had a major conversion and became the saint we know him as, today. Likewise his mother Monica who always held hope he would one day repent of his ways and experience conversion. For myself, to 'shop myself around', as it were would compromise my beliefs and leave me feeling very empty and devoid. Sexual taint can leave a person feeling far more soiled than anything else. Thank you for the exchange.
Do not presume that I required an apology nor that I was angry with you.
That is far from the truth.
One point I would like to make here is this:
Sexuality is not something that exists only at the binary extremes you outline.
Celibacy and licentiousness are extremes. Both are very harmful.
Somewhere between those two lies a healthy balance which I have striven to attain all my life.
I have neither denied nor obsessed about sexuality.
I have opted to enjoy it and share it with people I love without attaching provisos or demands or any shade of guilt.
Very much appreciated. I respect one's choice to live as they see fit; 'free will". I understand about the extremes. For myself, celibacy is a blessing at this stage in my life. When I was younger I might have struggled with the concept (the old tug of war between the flesh and the spirit) and while it still might weigh upon myself at this point from time to time, I realize that my life has unfolded as it has because, if I believe in God, then this was the design for my life, just as it was and has been for a great many others throughout time. For myself, if I had engaged in any number of encounters then I would feel as if, like I mentioned before, I would have compromised myself and it would always be with me. That is why when I encounter women who seem to be carrying a great degree of angst for any reason; subconsciously I think it is because in a great many instances they have compromised themselves through their sexual lives and whether or not they realize there is sadness for having done so. I think they might have wished/longed for the hope of finding that one mate but they, through the sexualization of everything in this culture; get caught up in it and after the fact, have regrets and in some instances become 'man haters' because of the emotional wounds they have accumulated.
Using a pop culture reference about the subject of purity if I am correct in Camelot Lancelot is invincible and I was always told that it was because of his pristine life and only after his dalliance with Guinvere did he then become fallible. Just some humor there. On a biblical note I was also taught that John was the Disciple whom Christ loved because he was the only one who was not married (virginal) It is also interesting to note that he was the only one not martyred. I will continue to read your posts. Thank you.
Pop culture? lol
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are Britain's favourite 'historical' myth-men. They have gained avid believers, the story being so loved. People in British pubs will argue for hours about the locations of Camelot and Avalon. Tintagel in Cornwall being the favourite contender for Camelot and Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, which used to be surrounded by a lake, is believed to be Avalon. Excalibur is expected to be located ANY DAY NOW!!
We have re-enactment societies, themed festivals, carnivals and jousting events too!
Some fun facts to illustrate just how wacky we Brits really are!
Since you were musing: “The Figure A Poem Makes”-Robert Frost 1939; on learning, abstraction, construction, liberty, love and poetry: it keeps its fragrance still, after decades of at least annually going back, revisiting; https://www.poeticous.com/frost/the-figure-a-poem-makes?ct=eppm&locale=en&oe=t&pid=VOF7NMYJUR
I could not resist reading some of his poems.... he made me feel sad, nostalgic for better days than these. Thanks for the introduction xx
This is more than an essay for me, I have come to realize.
I imagine I am the contrary voice as one who (for myself) believes it should be reserved for the marital state. Am I formed by my religious upbringing/ Yes. But for myself it would be an emotionally deadening of myself to pass myself around to anyone on a whim because, in mys estimation, that is a part of yourself that you cannot get back; that it should be reserved for someone with whom one has a true emotional and spiritual connection within the bonds of marriage. Just speaking for myself and so, for myself, even at this advanced age and knowing that things will most likely remain as they are, given everything I have said; if that be my lot, as it were, then so be it.
You have reminded me of everything I hated about BuyBull bashers who lectured us kids in the 60s. I attended a Billy Graham event in London when I was 12 or 13 - I shudder at the memory even now. The mass hysteria frightened me so much that I fainted and was hauled out by the Red Cross. The group I was with were Baptists and convinced that I had "seen the light" - I sure had.... I saw how insane they all were.
As a late boomer, I recall all too well the dark cloud of the Sexual Temperance movement that descended upon us apropos of the Fauci-driven HIV/AIDS program. Not that I wholly romanticize the unbridled licentiousness of the previous era, it produced its share of weird pathology and extremes. I am not a Libertarian and think the economic ideas of that movement are silly, but they do get something fundamentally correct: Leave Us Alone..
Just for today, all I have to say about sexual “liberation” is that for me, it brought pain and acting out. Troubles.
Schiller Institute conference, June 18&19, invitation and 2 minutes outline:
https://youtu.be/_js7lthxPQM
The Good Citizen touched the topic 15 June 2022:
https://thegoodcitizen.substack.com/p/fun-for-the-hole-family?r=iz89p&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus aka Caligula (AD 12-41): Inbred? Lead? Hararist?
Maybe Harari is Caligula's reincarnation?
Why do only this certain handful of clandestine operations get to assassinate with impunity?
I recall the 1960’s as the decade of Assassin Nation.
Why not open it up like deer season or some of the big game? Training with guides: ex Special Opps; give them something else to do other than mercenaries: Licenses. Quotas. Bingo Bango.
I know you are serious.... that is why I like you!
Who me? Never! Well hardly ever…
Read all of Stephen Hunter, best known for Bob Lee Swagger.
The list is fun: musing/gisming.
Who 1st
The Keystone.
4 fighter jets overhead just now: Air show? Fly over at a game? They lend/lease to the forrgotten war?
I don't know why you think I might have known who Bob Lee Swagger is! I am a Brit hermit who hates Hollywood and tell-lie-vision - I certainly do not read very much fiction either! I had to search online to figure out who you were referencing! lol
The only Keystone I know of is a somewhat controversial pipeline and strange military aircraft heading out to sea is something I often notice at dawn here in warmonger's paradise!
Didn’t imagine you did, that’s why I referenced him. I have read lots of fiction, but not in the last two- plus years.
Saw a clip of BBC on UK Column. Friday, NATO jet purportedly intercepting big Russian turbo prop, Irish Sea, Baltic?
It was all just a puff piece, dramatic music, handsome Czech pilot, who would not answer question. Then Ms.Truss’ demeanor quite different in Parliament. It’s a weekend carnival.
Be TERRIFIED!!!
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fab47bd2c-092b-423a-8c84-a76a5621a8e0_975x1280.jpeg
Yes, that was the recent news which inspired my deliberations. I did not share it because it is so awful.
I'll take it down if you like. It's just so mind boggling I could'n't help myself.
No! I defend your right to spot the connection and to post it - even though it is the Daily Fail.... be impressed by my magnanimity!
discovered the brilliant ginevra davis via chris bray's stack https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/instrumental-tedium. this is what we will be up against in the next few years. on the surface it's hilarious, they're hardly an intimidating adversary. but on a deeper level it's heartbreaking. these children are damaged beyond repair https://palladiummag.com/2022/01/21/when-the-stagnation-goes-virtual/
From the Stagnation Goes Virtual article -
"In all the discussions I participated in about the coming metaverse, no one ever mentioned how people would reproduce if they were spending all of their time in a virtual world, or how young children would be onboarded to this new reality.
Perhaps this is the result of the NFT community being populated mostly by single men. The question doesn’t come up, as if they have just forgotten the existence of children or the physical sex necessary for them to be born. There is already a strange asexuality within the NFT community—a sense that sex and intimacy are probably not worth the effort. On NFT Twitter, a common category of memes depicts men skipping sex to buy NFTs, or using their gains to pay for divorce lawyers after their wives complain that they spend too much time trading."
I hope these Non Fungible Tokens and the Metaverse turn out to be a brief craze like pokemon but my inner sceptic is shaking her head in despair for the future.
So damned sad.... it is worse than I thought!
Are you right?
Maybe for some but not for others. It's a subject I long to write into as an older woman released from the confines of a very long relationship.
I haven't quite decided what feels right to me, boundaried maybe.
Our ability to feel sexual energy can be beautiful and incredibly healing. Either in sexual expression with ourselves or with another. Or as an energetic flow that can be expressed in many ways. This is not something I have really understood until recently. By myself and also with others.
There is a whole movement of people doing work around this. Very beautiful work.
So no you are not right.
You seem to be taking this a tad too personal if you don't mind me saying .....
I asked if I was right in predicting that "soon we will be witnessing a generation of humans who remain virgin for their entire, short and lonely lives."!!
Also - given my life again there is no way I would opt to "work around" genuine physical intimacy. No way José!
I didn't mean it that way. I meant there are communities of people doing work in this area. So it won't be all and hopefully it won't look this way for any (although the likelihood is strong of generations of severely damaged people. If we as a species survive at all. I am so deeply sickened by all of this. But I just took a bath so yay me! Small triumphs.)
And......
Yay!!!!!! ------>>>
"Also - given my life again there is no way I would opt to "work around" genuinely physical intimacy. No way José!"
You are right about Harari.
I'd hope not about the dystopia that he imagines.
Frances - are you familiar with Jacqueline Faye-Hobbs who goes by Oracle Girl? I’ve been tuning in for the past 18 months - I find her insight, wisdom, and compassion to be relevant and refreshing. Her life’s work is to help us break away from our slave self and enter into the purification space. Worth a look and a listen
https://www.oraclegirl.org/start
PS - she isn’t selling anything
She certainly is confident! Unusual style, all present tense prose.... spell binding 101.
Here is a short clip you might enjoy
https://youtu.be/a5jcWWuG-7I
But sexual expression is something other than being able to reproduce.