i agree with you tash. i have a weird ability now that i don’t think i’m exaggerating. within seconds of seeing a couple together, just by the way they react when they greet each other, i can tell if they are happy or not. little expressions give it away. must be my mirror neurons working overtime. what’s the solution? get out of an unhappy relationship of course. but then children complicate things. since marriage is based on sexual fidelity, and sexual attraction can come and go easily, i really don’t believe in marriage. i believe in serial monogamy with a man (men) who is not the father of your children, and children come from adoption (and there will always be plenty of children in the world to adopt since i don’t expect my little idea to catch on). Whovever you are with should have no legal rights to your children. steady male figures for children should come from your male realtionships that don’t have a sexual component: male relatives and male friends. i know happy marriages exist, but unhappy ones are in the majority. live and learn.
Meaning fathers should have no rights to their children? Good luck with that. :loco:
So. Women get to bring up the children of a man who dumped them because they weren’t sexually attracted to them any more. Screw that.
Sandman, i said adopt your children. usually when you adopt you don’t know who the father is. Ditto for Buttercup. Did you guys read my post? it wasn’t that long.
With which part? I honestly didn’t understand your post, so I don’t know what it is you agree with me on. Sorry.
You’re speaking for yourself? Sexual fidelity is certainly an element of my marriage, but I wouldn’t say we’ve based it on that. Fidelity in all its aspects is necessary for a happy marriage, I’d wager.
Hold on. So you want to use men as sperm bags and impoverished women as foetal sacs for your convenience? I think I’m getting it now. God, it must be miserable to be you, v! I hope you get some peace and fulfillment at some point, I really do. Your apparent misery seems to be making you into a bitter and twisted individual. Peace.
Have you read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, by the way? It’s a long time since I read it, but from what little I recall it’s not a million miles away form your vision of Utopia.
tash, the part where you said ’ i couldn’t say it’s different from women in any other country.’ , meaning there’s a lot of unhappiness to go around. i went further to put forth the idea that marriage can be a great source of that unhappiness. then i offered a possible solution for women who want children and love and sex. adopt a child and have romantic relationships. but your lovers will have no rights to your child. i hope i was clearer this time. ps sandman, i’d like to ask a small favor. i’m going to put you on my ignore list, but i’d appreciate it if you would put me on yours, too. this way i won’t have to see your responses to my posts in other peoples quotes. PS sandman, i just read your compassionate response to my post. another winner from a winner…? when the supply of orphans runs out, i’ll call you.
No I won’t. I enjoy your diatribes far too much to do that. 
Ooo, fight!
In this marvellous utopia, is there any provision for women not to be stuck with their ex’s child? I mean, if you’re just not the maternal type? You’d be quite within your rights to say ‘You don’t find me attractive anymore? Fine, off you pop then. And take your bastard children with you because I’m sick of having a house full of crayons and hamsters and baseball caps. Let me know when I can take them to the zoo and stuff.’, wouldn’t you?
buttercup, in my personal utopia you would never have your ex’s child in the first place. you would adopt. to ensure that you wouldn’t become pregnant accidientally, you could be sterilized. I have 2 children now, and i had a tubal ligation. It sounds worse than it is. I tried to put sandman on my ignore list, but maoman informed me that since he is a moderator, i can’t do that. if you check his postings, you’ll see that personal attacks from him are not a rare thing. but i guess they are hard up for moderators…so i will have to use my powers of skimming to avoid his posts. but sandman, please continue to read mine. i love fans 
Bullshit. If you check my posts you’ll find simply that I don’t suffer fools. Most people aren’t, so most of my posts are not attacking anyone. Truth can be so damned inconvenient, eh?
Still, it’s kind of flattering that there are people out there who think I hold such strong sway over Maoman than I can order him about. I like that. Maybe I ought to buy myself a swagger stick or something. Start calling him “boy” or something.
V, this is the first time I’m responding to your posts. Please in future, can you please paragraph your statements by hitting the ‘return’ key, like this.
Firstly I disagree with your ‘weird ability’. I’d say its more of a disability. How do you know for example that the couple didn’t just have a fight. Family members don’t necessarily greet each other with the kind of ‘love’ one experiences during the honeymoon period, yet their love is often very strong. How can you possibily judge the true depth of love between two people when all you have for your basis is the current mood? (for example, my oma and opa often had arguments, which one could take as a sign for a poor relationships… or you could take it as a sign of independence. They were married for 80 years and had 9 children… my parents are the same…fight sometimes, but the depth of their love is unimaginable for most people). All you get is a glimpse… a snapshot of a relationship. The most bitter fights you’ll ever see are between people who love each other. Nobody else would care to fight so much. But more than likely they’ll be in each others arms again…and isn’t makeup sex the best ever?
The basis of marriage is not sexual fidelity yet fidelity is a requirement for both parties in all healthy relationships. Your view that sexual attraction can ‘come and go’ as being a basis for not getting married is fairly shallow. Firstly, all the girls I’ve met in my life (bar the drunken excursions) that I’ve been attracted to, I’ve still been attracted to later in life. Your view against marriage because sexual attractions change is simply a reflection on how shallow you are. Isn’t there more to marriage that immediate sexual attaction? For me, physical attraction probably counts towards 33%. Basically either I’m attracted physically or not. The rest is all about the mind.
As for your plan of raising children with men who are not their real father, I can’t see the problem with that except that when you are 50, who will be dating you…? What ‘father figure’ will be bringing up your children if your basis for a relationships is physical attraction? Unless of course you believe that children don’t need a father figure, but thats a whole different argument.
In terms of your view that the ‘steady male figures for children should come from your male realtionships that don’t have a sexual component: male relatives and male friends’, how do you expect this to ever work? What ‘steady male figure’ will be in your life to be a ‘father’ to a child that they didn’t bring forth? Its just not programmed in us genetically. I think you’ll find that successful examples of this are in the absolute minority.
I think that the utopia you seek will always remain within your mind because it goes against human nature.
Other than those comments… peace 
…and its never a bad thing to contemplate an alternative to what most people do. I see it has a highly desirably quality! Just don’t get too constrained by it, and learn to take criticism as being an attack your viewpoint, not as an attack on yourself!
V: Love is dynamic. My grandparents were together for 60+ years. They loved each other deeply. I’m sure they had periods where they didn’t so much. It is sticking through those shit periods that allows for a relationship to build/ grow/ and mature. My man and I have had times when I wanted to kick him to the curb. But he makes me very happy. So I’m glad I did not.
But I disagree with those who say fidelity is needed for a healthy relationship. Some couples can be happily open.
And I do agree that adoption is a way better choice than procreation.
such, i’m glad you are in a relationship that makes you happy. imagine a relationship that didn’t make you happy but which you didn’t want to get out of because you didn’t want to send the children with their father every other weekend or whatever. of course the relationship didn’t start out that way. so i gambled and i lost. i pay the price willingly because my life is better with my children with me everyday. when my children are independent, i’ll start the next phase of my life. in case i don’t make it to the next phase for whatever reason, i try to enjoy myself as much as i can in the present. i count the blessings i have and focus on the good. PS i’ve been married for 13 years, so i know about dynamics. love won’t always grow just because you stay together. it won’t always grow even if you try to make it work.
[quote=“SuchAFob”]
And I do agree that adoption is a way better choice than procreation.[/quote]
Waiting lists for adopting children are often very long. Shouldn’t they be left to people who are physically unable to have children?
Is the reasoning behind your choice based on the stress it puts the female body?
No, I think the “reasoning” behind V’s warped ideas about human love and sexuality are due to long years of failed relationships and bitterness. It’s beyond obvious that’s what’s going on here. I feel sorry for such people.
[quote=“Tyc00n”][quote=“SuchAFob”]
And I do agree that adoption is a way better choice than procreation.[/quote]
Waiting lists for adopting children are often very long. Shouldn’t they be left to people who are physically unable to have children?
Is the reasoning behind your choice based on the stress it puts the female body?[/quote]
Waiting list for adopting newborns are very long. But there are plenty of children who aren’t newborns who need families.
No. Childbirth below the age of 30 decreases a woman’s chance of breast cancer by 50%. The strain on the body isn’t always all that bad. I just think it is a touch selfish to procreate in an overcrowded world with so many children in need of a home.
Yes, according to statistics pointing to a low incidence of divorce and domestic violence, and anecdotal evidence about cheating, v’s view of love and sexuality is really warped. however, she does not reject the need for romantic love and sex, she just legally decouples it from raising children.
i’m happy to see that you are not bitter quentin. i hope that your experiences prove everything i’ve lived through to be wrong. and of course there are happy marriages out there- i’m sure you see a lot of them in your own exended family. i hope you and everybody else who chooses marriage and children win the gamble- for you and your children’s sake.