I don't see why the feelings of others are relevant other than if you are in relationship with them. What we need to do is accept ourselves, rather than seek others to accept us.
If what you say is true, then why ever discuss anything with anybody? You have heard of making conversation, yes? To me, conversation is another art form. What have I said in my above questions that make you think that I asking others to accept me? This is a cyber conversation, my friend. And I thank you for your input.
Rob,
One of your original questions took the form of should things be this or that way, and as I've said I think it just depends on the individual. I made a point, if you don't think it applies to you, then there's no problem right? I'm not only posting for you, it's this topic I'm addressing, you just happen to be the one that brought it up. I mention that because it may be relevant for some, it's just a natural feeling for human beings to want to be accepted.
In terms of why ever discuss anything with anybody, that is not what I was addressing. You had mentioned if it is possible to do this without being emotionally confused, and that's what I was addressing. Like much of what I post about, I am simply addressing the internal perspective from the individual point of view. Certainly on one level it's all relevant because we are in some kind of relationship with other people, even if it's not a very intimate one. From that perspective of course it's relevant to an extent, but if this is a personal issue then that doesn't ultimately bear on it directly. We can make conversation all day long, but my guess is most people will agree that it is something we each decide for ourselves.
All the 'shoulds' aside, what we're talking about is sexual intercourse apart from love, just in terms of what it is
You're right about this one, I should have qualified it more specifically. As you said yourself, it's a matter of sharing sexual intercourse with someone you are not 'in love' with, so it's fair to call that what it is, yes? So the question is simply one of are you personally okay with that being separate from the one you are in love with. If it is unclear, it's just unclear. By saying this I don't mean to reduce your experience or anyone elses to these words, I am only describing basically what's going on. Certainly there may be a lot of feelings that we are not capturing here, but we gotta start somewhere. In any case, the feelings around this will no doubt be different for each individual, if we're going to talk about the issue then it's going to be more general.
To go back to another question you brought up, I say never mind what society accepts or not, it's just a matter of the individual's (again this is in general now, I am not speaking about you personally) own feeling and how the people in their lives feel. Whether society accepts it or not, the fact is there are people who feel differently.
Maybe I can sum it up this way: There is a difference between our love for a person and our love for our relationship with that person. To me, loving a person is pretty much unconditional - you pretty much love them for who they are. Loving our relationship with a person would bear more on whether it is of a sexual nature and what have you, so there's that. If we love the person then we'll just accept and respect whatever lifestyle they happen to choose, because the relationship is only a limited aspect of the people involved. So again, I am just making general observations, I don't know how this might relate to your own life situation in terms of this issue, but I suppose there's a place for everything, both the old and the new.
Edited by - Introspection on 14 February 2003 13:23:38
