Dorothy, we never discussed each others private sexual tastes. Do you?
Norman, I am very used to you and you are very far from stupid. The bits of paper I have do little to to influence my beliefs and my whole 8 years of juniority to you is verily a shorter life experience. However, as we so often are, I am heavily influenced by what I do to earn my crust. I have been too close to some of the things discussed here to be other than the way I am,
Has anyone said they automatically know more than you do Norman? Has anyone called you a jumped-up old git? If I have given you that impression, well I'm sorry - it certainly hasn't been my intention and I'm actually a bit confused as to how what I said could be interpreted that way. The joy of somewhere like Survive France is that one can talk/argue/discuss with all sorts of people about all sorts of things and learn stuff - I know very few people your age apart from my family, who aren't remotely representative for all sorts of reasons, or the parents of my friends with whom I don't really have other than fairly superficial chats; you are older than my parents and it is very interesting having a window opened for me into a world I don't know at all.
I would say much the same. Gays in Cambridge were as normal as so-called normal people, including among the many fewer women back then. I had two heteros and a gay to share with when we had a flat, the gay bloke never tried it on whereas my two rather posh pals got more slaps round the chops that I would care to have counted.
Ditto, re London pubs to the point that one has lived in Istanbul for pushing 20 years instead of London because he is safer. He has also chosen celibacy well before he left England, so that is not the reason he went. That is, Norman, an Islamic city but indeed moderate, even very liberal until recently. I have many Islamic friends, including one of my ex-students who came to the UK with an arranged marriage waiting who became confident enough to stand up to her parents and is now the professor of the only women's studies institute in a university in Malaysia. She is teaching moderation and expects her lecturers to teach the same. But what you said illustrates very well how we are very often conditioned to believe rather than know things.
Ah I see Dorothy, I started answering but now I see you weren't talking to me ;-). As far as I can see being gay IS perfectly natural, like being red-haired or left-handed or colour-blind it is just one of those things that are more or less accepted and people are more or less aware of it. I have an awful lot of British gay male friends of my generation from university possibly because Cambridge in the 80s was a more tolerant place than many, I think, so people were 'out' more. I went to an all-girls school and some of our housemistresses were openly lesbians but again no big song & dance... I think as being a lesbian wasn't a criminal matter it was allowed to remain personal. My gay friends are all very different relationship-wise (like the heterosexuals I know) - but few of them still live in the UK, they have moved to Spain or Holland or Germany, many are married and one couple have adopted. Like most people some are happy, some less so but they muddle along, there seem to be fewer break-ups than among my heterosexual married friends but my sample is probably too small to be statistically worth anything.
ah well we may be of a 'similar age' Brian, although I venture to suggest in passing that maybe a remain a little senior to you at 74? Be that as it may I most certainly acknowledge my lack of education and ignorance - which has remained with me all my life. However I have never found that a hindrance to arguing with people on my 'home turf' as it were!
Jumped up old git as well eh? Daring to argue with my intellectual superiors? Well there you go, could that be prejudice against someone with lesser gifts and or talent? I wonder where that stands for in the order of prejudices?
I have only life experience to support my positions, but refuse to accept that because others have a degree or other piece of paper they automatically know more than me who lived through it. But then again, probably I am as stupid as others see me, but its too late to worry too much about that now.
Like!
Norman, I am the hybrid then. Working class of parents who 'probably' (or almost certainly) married because I was on the way (my arithmetic is good enough to work that one out) but also very Calvinistic and moral. I broke out of that and became highly educated and qualified. I stand on two sides of the fence. I see massive difference between classes, not just bottom to top but by leaps and bounds through the whole system. I am also in my fourth marriage, none of the previous three ended acrimoniously or for any bad reasons but because we used good reason and practicality rather than the need to have a fight to justify separation. Two of them already had sons out of marriage and were forever being reminded of the fact. Both mothers (ex-partners) and sons have always remained friends, one to the point of being one of the people closest to all of my family until she died. She fought the system and became a don in an educational system/university where there was more resistance than encouragement. Oh yes, she was working class too.
The differences in class and how gender works within them, and perhaps even more in France despite their denial that class exists, exerts pressure on women particularly. The adjunct to the bread winning male who stayed at home to have babies and keep house is a quite modern standard. Remember Victorian women also worked down the mines with their men and children, as too worked in the factories, fields and wherever else. One thing women learned better than men was to escape a predestined fate if at all possible. That was achieved by marrying up a class at least, if ever possible, something men could not do with few exceptions.
Modern sexuality came with liberalism and the first cracks in the male/female dichotomy and was for a large part learned from the bourgeoisie where men had lovers and mistresses from lower classes. What you saw with girls appearing to accept their fate was the behaviour and attitude demanded of them, but not what many had in their minds. Women have also always had ambitions.
Things have progressed and changed but with bumps and collisions. The celebrity business is the tip of an enormous iceberg where they are part of the visible bit. We are of similar age but not of comparable view of humanity, that is how human beings are and within that diversity comes good and bad in all forms. It is the degree of bad that is important in this case and power of any human beings over others because of their status such as celebrities may appear to offer is one thing when men or women throw themselves at them but when those people are predatory and use their fame and money to justify pinching bums, fumbling at boobs and so on then they go well up the ladder of bad and once caught and should they be proven to have done so should pay the same penalty as everybody else, not more or less because of who they are.
One or two of my gay male friends have been beaten up coming out of pubs in London and elsewhere because some bloke has decided that they were 'looking at them in a special way' or imagined they had made a pass at them (can you pass the peanuts please mate, eg). Believe me they have sufficiently well-developed gaydar NOT to chat up someone who isn't interested.
Funnily enough these are the same type of blokes who think it perfectly normal and just a bit of banter to give women unwanted sexual attention, much more than just 'looks' and get abusive when ignored or told where to get off - the double standard is alive and well.
Norman I agree with almost everything you say except the bit about my "attitude against homosexuals". I am not "against" homosexuals! I also have friends who are gay & they are usually amusing interesting people. Their sexual preferences are not an issue as I am not of romantic interest. But gay sex is not a natural state of affairs. Not that I care, but I am angered, not by gay people, but by their self appointed defenders who try to convince me otherwise. If they would just shut up it would allow gays to be absorbed into society with no animosity at all.
No Norman - I think human beings are all capable of being bad but that groups that have political, economic or physical power have tended to exploit groups that don't and I think you are, as I am, capable of seeing just which group has generally had political, economic or physical power throughout recorded history.
Veronique and I am saying precisely the opposite. Girls were not naive and vulnerable as you suppose and even propose, in fact the opposite was the case, they were more than alert to the dangers of casual sex on all levels - including pregnancy, venereal disease and the lot. Comparing the 'breaking out of the 'social class mould' being impossible is complete tosh, as is the University bit, as my second wife went to Uni and her sister also and she was older than me - and they also came from a working class background.
What I AM saying is that marriage was normal as were the roles of the man and the woman, and 'downtrodden' might have applied in some cases, but was not the norm you tend to assume it was. And yes I DO tend to think you think of men as 'bad'.
At the end of the day we stand alone in life and are responsible for ourselves.....
Most children have a backdrop of complicated family life dominated by skeletons in the wardrobe....
We have PACS which is between 2 adults who may or may not be romantically involved, may or may not be of different sexes just so they are taxed together & if one of them dies then the other can live in the shared home for 1 year NOT the same as marriage.
Then we have marriage where assets pass from deceased to living without tax etc and there isn't the one-year house clause, and there's a load of other stuff but it is all just legal.
Religious ceremonies have no validity here. ONLY a civil marriage is a recognised contract.
That doesn't mean lots of people don't have a religious ceremony as well - but they aren't legally married if that is all they have.
Norman,
You have reminded me of an old schoolteacher friend. A mature Yorkshireman who claimed that he had come to the South to bring us the benefits of civilization.
On one occasion, a young teacher made the mistake of saying in his presence, "We mustn't impose our middle-class values on the children." "Quite right lad!" he replied, "I've spent the last thirty years trying to impose some decent working-class standards on them."
Where did I say bad people? I thought I had said that that sort of upbringing is likely to make a girl vulnerable to predatory behaviour by some man, for a whole load of reasons. Set up to be naïve, gullible, certainly - but not bad.
I do find it interesting that being dependent first on parents then on a husband wasn't seen as frustrating by any of these young women, I can't believe it was always the case - but presumably social pressure was such that breaking out of the mould entailed risking loss of security/status/reputation and that anyone doing so would put themselves beyond the pale. Eg modern Indian or Pakistani families where the daughters don't get an education at university unless they are married, because they can't leave home unmarried for fear of being seen as fallen women.
I still think it is extraordinary that lots of women who had interesting jobs were expected (or indeed required) to give them up when they got married. In my lifetime! - it really smacks of The Olden Days to me.
Veronique, I'm not sure about France but in the UK a civil partnership gives a same sex couple those rights.
This from Cornwall council.
Civil partnership is a legal relationship exclusively for same-sex couples distinct from marriage. The Government has sought to give civil partners parity of treatment with spouses, as far as is possible, in the rights and responsibilities that flow from forming a civil partnership.
There are a small number of differences between civil partnership and marriage, for example, a civil partnership is formed when the second civil partner signs the relevant document. A civil marriage is formed when the couple exchanges spoken words. Opposite-sex couples can opt for a religious or civil marriage ceremony, whereas formation of a civil partnership will be an exclusively civil procedure although it may take place within a religious premise approved for civil partnership registration.
Mark, it is interesting to remember as I do clearly the days when homosexuality was indeed illegal and a lot of people lived in fear of being 'found out'. I cannot find it in my heart to condone your attitude against homosexuals, and don't agree with your emotive description of them, but I think your point of 'how people are wired' is a fair one, but I can't see an answer. The obvious one has to be to protect the innocent and this includes men, women, children and animals in my book. IF those involved in any activity are of an age to understand their actions, and can make a considered choice then so be it, and it is not for me to judge.
Ditto with those of a religious persuasion, other than those who are Evangelistic and bullying. There ARE weakminded or even desperate people seekinng a personal salvation in a mythical God figure, and so be it, but don't damage others in the process.
From my own experience of Muslims in THEIR countries leads me to believe there is no such thing as a Moderate Muslim, by European standards at least, the religion just doesn't allow for it, and it is a contradiction in terms. Your comment on PC is again a fair one, but it is a Western attitude against a Middle Eastern one, and never the twain shall meet in my relatively experienced view.
Gay marriage as I understand it from the few gay people I know and like, is NOT a priority but a Civil Partnership is, which covers things like inheritance and so on. I find that hard to argue against. It seems to be the activists who are promoting the 'marriage'cause, rather too vehemently one feels, and I don't like Gay Mardis Gras style events which simply seem to propagate sexual activity of dubious nature and nothing else. I also have deep reservations about gay adoption as again the third party is affected but has no say in the matter. Of course the return argument is the same applies to children of a standard male/female marriage - but biologically of course it doesn't.
But I don't think marriage is preponderantly about having sex, Mark - it is a civil contract establishing certain rights people have with respect to their living together officially. At least it is here. God doesn't come into it and that is as it should be in my (French) opinion. Marriage rather than PACS makes sense because of the surviving partner's rights after death (which should be the same, surely, for any couple willing to officialise).
Gay sex (male) was seen in classical times as the perfect relationship because it was between equals or potential equals - women weren't seen as equals, intellectually or legally; their job was to get married & have future citizens so they rarely got an education (exceptions eg Aspasia mistress note NOT wife - wives' lives were much more circumscribed - of Pericles). Historically marriage has been about procreation and security and people looked outside for recreational sex, when I say people I mean men because absence of contraception made it difficult for women to do so on equal terms. But now that people choose marriage with a different set of assumptions eg not just so they can have sex on tap (seeing times have changed and I'm quite sure few unmarried people outwith holy orders are celibate) perhaps it should be more respected, whoever goes in for it, as a commitment.
I don't think a Christmas tree is seen as a religious symbol here (well à la base it is pagan) because we have laws against religious symbols in public places and yet Christmas trees are everywhere in schools/Mairies/other administrative places - I wouldn't know about what gives in the UK