circumcisionI was circumcised and it ruined my life! I blame the Jews for this. -anon1
I doubt you're Jewish, or even circumcised. I circumcised, and it's no big deal, doesn't interfere with my life at all. -anon2
I agree that my circumcision is no big deal and I don't particularly care if other people do it or not. That said, the few cases of serious infection or nerve damage made me think twice before genitally altering my own children unnecessarily.
There also the fact that circumcised men everywhere hate condom use, while uncircumcised do not, which seems to confirm the "loss of sensitivity" claim. So much for the pro-circ groups claiming it magically prevents AIDS - condoms do that for real.
And Jewish circumcision involves far less actual cutting than American circumcision, so I'd go with that first, if I was going to put in the effort. But it's like piercing your baby girl's ears - why bother?
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( 3 / 934 )So it has quickly become a custom in my household that every February we cut back our spending to bare essentials, buying only what we feel we must not do without. This is a good thing, it brings us up and helps us examine what really matters to us, financially, emotionally, and as people. The idea comes from here, and we adapted it to ourselves: 21 day fast
The most interesting thing about this fast is the reactions we get from people around us. People are outraged that we would alter our spending based on nothing but a sense that spending money might not be healthy. To spend less because you are short on cas, or have creditors hounding you, that seems reasonable. But to cut back simply to stop spending and without any other goal? It angers people, and they cannot say why. And yet, I am not out to prove my superiority, nor even to improve my bank account. I am simply living now, without purchases to justify my existence.
Now, this did not originally come about because I am such a wonderful person that has found yet another way to look better than you. No, this came about because my spouse and I were desperately in debt and sought to end our cycle of running out of money and using credit, paying off the credit but then running out of money and borrowing even more...
Once we realized how hopelessly damaging this was, we stopped. We stopped buying things we did not need, we stopped buying things we somewhat needed. We also stopped paying our creditors. We simply lived within our means for five months. Now, this meant lots of angry phone calls to my google voice number by creditors -- calls I did not answer. But once our 5 months was up, I began paying bills, one by one. By the 7th month, I had made arrangement to pay off all my debts, at interest rates of 3-8% rather than 20-30%, and minus a great deal of fees and penalties. One has to call their bluff or they will never negotiate to take little more than they are owed. Of course, in the ninth month I did get a court summons, from one of the companies I was already paying. And another company I was trying to reach sent me to collections and won't talk to me now. But the collections agent is a very nice man, and he's working to ensure I don't get further trouble over it. In fact, my credit is very close to what is was before I stopped paying, and well on its way to a good score. This process was fairly painful, but will leave less of a mark than bankruptcy.
In August of 2009, I was worth negative $41,000. That is, I was slightly more than one year's wages in debt. As of now, my debt is hovering at $29,000. By August I will have payed off another 6,000 I think, putting me well on the way to living debt-free.
Additionally, as I pay off another large debt in the next couple months, my overall payments will drop off significantly, allowing me to put more into savings. Which is really good, since my car is very nice and quite reliable but really too old to depend upon without a backup plan.
And so, we return to February again, and we take stock by limiting our spending to essentials.
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( 3 / 128 )Date: 01-14-03 13:12
First and foremost, gays and lesbians are not trying to change their sex. They are not men trying to be women, or women trying to be men. They are simply people who happen to have found happiness in marriage with one of their own sex.
Transgendered people OTOH are people who have bought into social gendering so strongly that they believe physical mutilation can change their personality. They think that being a man is significant outside of reproduction, in the same way that zxz obviously does.
No-one can justify to me why it matters whether my secretary is male or female, unless I plan on sleeping with them. Further, no-one has explained why it matters what gender my spouse is, unless we plan on having children.
Believe it or not, there are enough ins on a man and enough outs on a woman to more than make up for whatever difficulties you envision. You forget, the most powerful sexual organ in the human body is the brain.
We are born with innate sexual desire. As we grow, society teaches us that we can only express that desire towards one gender, so we suppress our other attraction to the point that it feels like revulsion. In some people, this process goes "badly wrong" and they wind up fixated on their own gender instead of the opposite. This 'mistake' is not reversable since humans lose their flexibility of mind when they become adults.
Some however, remain mostly free of this inhibition. They remain bisexual, and they get a bad name because those who escape one batch of social programming probably escaped others too, making them unpredictable and dangerous by affiliation.
In a monogamous-based society bisexuality is not likely to be maintained. Once you pick a partner, people assume you are only attracted to people of the same gender as your partner. Since this is error is difficult to correct, it becomes accepted and eventually becomes the truth itself. A married woman is not likely to receive offers from other women, nor is she likely to accept those offers even if she would like to. She's committed now, remember.
Travis
Date: 01-19-03 18:40
I am quite glad that you see that you and I DO NOT live in the same world. We walk on the same ground and breathe the same air but rest assured this is all that we share.
I have read your posts and thought much about a response and still the only fitting response that I can think of is "Are you joking?"
I hope this .zinger. was a little more specific and a little less obnoxious.
Date: 01-19-03 19:51
This is something I can accept, respect, and respond.
I am indeed not joking, for a careful examination of the air and soil has lead me to this analysis.
Why you do not share it, you leave open. I am therefore forced to continue to conjecture as I have in previous posts, but I'll try not to poke fun, as much for your friends' sake as for yours.
You feel no attraction towards men, and you therefore conclude you are 'straight'. By common understanding, you are, and I do not seek to argue with you on that.
When you were a child, you loved men, such as you father, your best friend, brothers, etc. This is platonic love, for all childish love is platonic.
When you began to grow up, you found yourself feeling urges and desires that were frightening in their strength and unpredictability. By this point you already knew the appropriate direction for these feelings, though not their strength. You did not wish to feel any attraction towards men, so you probably did not.
Indeed, many people do feel this attraction, and simply lie about it to themselves. I credit you more honesty than that, so you may have simply avoided such feelings.
The question here then, is: are you incapable of such feelings towards men? A good indication that you are not would be revulsion at even asking the question. If you can look at the issue without any strong emotional response, then your answer is more likely. Keep in mind that sodomy is not the full extent of homosexuality, and there are other milder activities that you even now probably enjoy. Given an open mind and appropriate conditioning, I doubt that your preferences are as fixed as you imagine.
Keep in mind that the great philosophers of the past that you have undoubtably studied were for a large part homosexual.
Having said all this, I will not have you "turn gay" on me. I do not take responsibility for the havoc and disruption this would have upon your life, nor do I recommend it as a course of action. You are no more likely to find happiness with a man than with a woman, and nothing I have said should lead you to
believe otherwise.
The most you can take from me is a recommendation for openness towards bisexuality, and even that is only on the condition that you are having difficulty finding a life-partner.
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