It’s About Making Babies!

LisaQ at 20-Forty.com intends to “Put the ‘O’ back in Romance“.

We are now Pure Romance consultants here to serve all of your sexual needs! Well, okay maybe not all of them!

Except – when you read about the modern invention, courtly love or romance, you find it has nothing to do with procreation, with sex, or with orgasms. Romance is about social position, about manipulating people to want what you want. Marketing and entrapment and humiliation and abuse have all been integral parts of the history of romance.

Casanova – sexual predator or romantic? Any emotional attachment his “encounter” partners formed were doomed to quickly expire.

Victoria’s Secret cares no more about how faithful, how honest, how comforting your guy is than Playboy or Playgirl or Hustler.

Sex adventures benefit from adult toys and role playing and sometimes even help couples overcome problems or achieve a better understanding of each other. Competitions for the “biggest ‘O’” or the biggest breast or longest legs or whatever are not about love, and not about relationships, are not about affection. They are sex adventures. And sex adventures, like video games or gossip or any other activity that becomes an obsession or addiction, can risk health, well being, and relationships as they become self-fulfilling niches in people’s lives.

Romance is often tied to affection and relationships. Also sex. But the extravagances of romance don’t replace actual emotional attachment, and aren’t needed if the attachment is there. Likewise sex. Many relationships flourish without engaging in sexual congress. The presence of sex, or the quality or frequency, don’t improve most relationship -

- unless the relationship is formed to make a family. A family forms for procreation and to provide a home for the family members. Even without children or the expectation of children, society expects a family to be an essentially sexual relationship with expectations of affection. Americans come from a wide diversity of cultures and backgrounds, so the rituals and expectations of family vary according to circumstance and backgrounds. Romance is *not* necessary in the family, and, like picking a partner skilled in winning new bed partners, may increase risk to the relationship. Love and affection enrich a family, if they are visible or present all too seldomly.

Sex in a relationship is wonderful – when you see it as intimacy, a chance to please and comfort your partner, and to revel in your partner’s skills and attention. Too much focus on romance for the sake of romance, or on sex for the sake of having great sex or more sex – leaves out the partner, and you risk losing respect, communication, trust, and affection.

There is no big “O” in romance. Any value in either is whether they bring you closer to your partner, and there are safer and more effective ways to accomplish that.

Enjoy!

LisaQ asks at 20-Forty.com, “Should You Call Or Text?”

Think about this a moment. Think in terms of communication “bandwidth”.

With texting you have a single strand – the keys, the screen. With a pattern, a word choice you can *intuit* emotions, background – whether this is a group effort on the other end and everything is being recorded for “OverheardInNewYork.com”.

With a call, you get a bit of background noise – clicks from the Cubans or FBI turning their recorders on, people eavesdropping or giving advice. You get tone of voice, the pattern of pauses – a sense of where the caller’s interest lies, a sense of whether this is a slick booty call or an honest communication of the heart.

With face to face time, you have the display of a commitment in effort and time – they found where you were, and took the time and effort to come to the time and place. You get their clothing selection, their body language, even an exchange of the hormones on your breaths, the eye contact – to help you be assured of the truthfulness and respect and trust and fears behind their words.

With texting you might as well be falling-down drunk, for all the information that you *don’t* have available.

Then there is the electronic side. Texting is similar to video games – busy fingers, imposing your will on the machine – and complete disregard for whatever the recipient is up to.

Plus, a text is a “small” investment in time or effort. “Just a minute” exchanges that distract from whatever you should have been doing. In a movie? So what if your cell phone acts like a flashlight, imposing light pollution on those setting near you for several rows and seats. Because it is often a conversation, your texting-partner often gets annoyed or offended at a late reply. All in all, texting *encourages* being rude to your texting partner, interrupting and continuing a conversation that should have happened at another time. Texting *encourages* being rude to people you should be communicating with, distracts you from meetings and conversations and events you are either responsible for participating in, have paid to attend, or from communicating with friends and family face-to-face.

When rural phones were first installed, back when phones were on party lines, you rang one time for one neighbor, and three times for another. To get to another line you called the operator to connect you to their line. And old-time horse-and-buggy social rules applied – no visiting or calling during supper. People would refuse to answer the phone from 5PM to 7 pm or so – that was family time. Today I see hurried families dart into Taco Bell for a “family night out”, and Mom is on her cell phone and Junior and Missy are texting. And Dad just feels lonely. Or some other combination. The point is – you *lose* time with those around you when you “withdraw” for a portable communication device. And texting is more distracting than cell phones – at least with a cell phone you are more likely to watch what is around you. You may not be driving a freight train in California – but how much “lost” friends and family time can you afford?