Thursday, September 29, 2011

Homosexuality

It seems to me there are a number of interlinked but separate aspects here:

1, the condition;

2, the person;

3, the behavior;

4, the social aspects;

5, the political aspects; and

6, the moral and religious aspects.

I do not intend to discuss any of these right now. I only want to point out as strongly as I can that these are separate aspects.

The only other opinion I'll put out now is that I firmly believe that almost any sexual behavior can be an acquired taste. And since human sexual drive is so strong, and sexual activity is so highly pleasurable, that acquired taste can become an addiction.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

On a lighter note --

One of my sisters and I regularly tackle the New York Times crossword puzzles. I was about to say that we're fond of doing them, but that's not accurate, because it's really a love-hate relationship.

One of the questions recently was: "Chilean cape"; answer, four letters.

The answer was HORN.

This is why my sister and I call the puzzle-makers "demented gonifs."

Stereoscopic Vision

Recently I was having lunch with a dear friend Kathy (who I first met in 1962) at a restaurant we both like, when two kids of the owner walked by -- Nick and Kate.  They said hi and it was nice to see me, and I introcuced Kathy and said it was very nice to see them both, especially Kate, because she was cuter than Nick.  Kathy laughed and said, "That's a matter of point of view."  To which I replied, "That's why you and I make a good team, Kathy: together we have stereoscopic vision."

Now I want to try to explain the intuition that came to me from Kathy's remark.  Stereo vision is a physical analogy for lots of things; for instance:

The two most different creatures on this planet are human male and human female.
The two sexes look at things differently  and perceive things differently.
If the two perceptions are combined, a better picture of reality emerges.
So the two sexes complement each other in all ways, generally speaking.

I have no wife or children, so I have to rely on what parents tell me about kids.
Even in pre-kindergarten years, maybe even as toddlers, boys are different from girls.
In general, a father will look at a son differently than at a daughter, because the kids are different, and because he is a man.
Ditto for a mother, because she's a woman.
So no matter the sex of the kid, it takes two parents of opposite sexes to raise a kid well.
This is one of the reasons same-sex couples can't (I bet) raise a well-rounded kid, boy or girl --
in general, that is; there are always exceptions.

I imagine men and women have different approaches to spirituality, though I bet that if you put an old husband and his old wife together, the sharp differences between their sexes has become softened with age and experience.  Maybe even more so for an old priest or brother and an old nun, because they've both been trying all their lives to be good children of God, and as they approach eternity, sex (in the sense of gender) becomes less relevant because it's "absorbed" by God, the creator of both.