Like many other aspects of my life, my skin and hair colour, my IQ how rich my parents were, I got to choose none of them. What I have done is “play the hand I have been dealt” and make the most of it."-Col there's been no advantage to me for years now based upon the social class of my family, in fact it has no effect on my prospects at all. Are you resentful your father didn't have more money in the bank, send you to a private school or live in a better neighborhood?

"She doesnt envy the youth of today at all. Todays youth have been stripped of hope. Unreasonable living costs that have been driven up beyond the means to pay for them over decades and governments who dont give a fig."--Bear you really make sense. If you're different you stand to be condemned to the servant classes rather than the career classes and that's that.

The sooner our previous generation loses its grip on power in business and government through natural attrition, it will be better for the community. Having said that though, I have friends whose family adore them, similar background, except that the families do not have considerable resources like mine do. Maybe poorer folks appreciate their kids more, after all sometimes its all they've got really. Nothing to compete with a luxury European car, the gold american express, a fast-growing profitable business or a dress-circle home.

I was a good teenager, did well at school and never really ran amok or used any drugs. All that was to come later. My citizenship rights I know are somewhat less than others in the community. I cannot receive in our "public health" system the necessary medical treatment I require I'd have to pay for it. Why? Politics, pennypinching and just sheer disregard for people's needs.

To Col Rouge (the one who stated: "I figure, Fiona, your efforts to deny reality and the right of other people to employ those they see fit".... Well I don't recall expressing so much as a word on the subject of the rights of people to employ whoever they see fit, nor am I now. This is known as a "straw argument". AKA a waste of time. Anyone can 'win' a straw argument Col. For example try this:

"Col, your efforts to deny reality with your insistence that the sky over the Dandenongs is always olive green, is patently untrue when you consider the evidence of the blue skies over the area".

See, I win! How utterly pointless.

The Trannie “Col there's been no advantage to me for years now based upon the social class of my family”

I would suggest, you are in no position to assess how much an advantage your family’s “social position” might have made.

Have you ever wondered how much "harder" the path you have chosen to walk would have been if you came from – say Elizabeth SA?
One might even speculate, a harsher upbringing with less “indulgence” might have pushed you in an entirely different “direction”.

I love my parents and resent nothing in my upbringing, I cherish the fact that what I have done has been the fruit of my own labour and due, in no part to props and crutches afforded by social advantage or position.

As for “If you're different you stand to be condemned” –

See herein lies the shallowness of your claims –

REALITY – the world is comprised of billions of INDIVIDUALS –

I would guess you actually resent that your family’s standards regarding “social acceptability” conflicts with your “socially unacceptable sexuality”.

In this you display yourself as self-pitying and dull.

If you were genuinely “different” and had some redeemable qualities, you would not give a hoot about being supposedly “socially disadvantaged”, you would simply “play the hand you decided to keep” and those driven by “social acceptance” could “go to hell in a hand basket”.

Whilst I do not walk the path you have chosen, do not assume me to be some conventional prude with “vanilla” taste (I am far from being so).
I just have never ever cared how some people might label me, I know I have friends who love me and I am prepared and able to maintain a public and professional “persona” which advances and advantages me.

It is not hard to do – but does require more “imagination” than simply being “camp”.

Fiona – the last two words of your last post describe all you have written thus far (and possibly, the extent of your entire existence).

And it is not a rhetoric question but of a practical interest, Col Rouge, for me and too many others.

OH well col thats how it is. You know my family's in Adelaide actually, they live in Burnside-Norwood corridor and he's got his factory over your way. Your argument lacks substance as it claims that I have benefitted to this day from my upbringing [when in fact there is no evidence of benefit]. I'll think of your claim that I'm advantaged when I'm waiting in a public hospital for a procedure when they're getting things done in the private wing of the nationally renowned Flinders Medical Centre or a little private hospital. Its really an advantage and an easy life huh like my that of my friend who rented in his area and travel to Woodville Park at night and an advantage when I visit there and had to stay in other accommodations not the home. When I took the bus from Dequetteville Tce to their place I was greeted but they would not let me in at their home. Anyway I spent a night out in the Hindley St area. I did end up enjoying myself.

Col, one of the differences between you and me is that I would never say that all you say (or all that you are) is "utterly pointless".... however much that may seem to be so.

The events in Germany in the 1930s and 40s began with individuals expressing their disrespect, their contempt of other people's beliefs and ultimately their dismissal of the humanity of others. That kind is not renowned for their insight (either self-awareness or empathy), nor for rational and reasoned debate - the huff-and-puff and preoccupation with self-importance being the most important thing.