.........Certainly, women today are more candid about their preference
for other women. Although this “preference” has been
noted for millenniums, it was thought by shootists to be simply
a coming together of two unhappy wives for mutual solace.
Instead, there seems to have been a strong sexual element
all along. But then a pair of egg-layers will have more in common
(including a common genetic programming for nurturing)
than they will ever have with a shootist, who wants to
move on the second he’s done his planting--no nurturing for
him, no warm, mature, caring relationship. He isn’t built
for it. His teats may have a perky charm but they are not connected
to a dairy. He can fake a caring relationship, of course,
but at great cost to his own nature, not to mention battered
wife and abused little ones. The fact that couples may live together
harmoniously for decades is indeed a fact, but such
relationships are demonstrations not of sexuality but of
human comity--I dare not use the word “love,” because the 91 percent who habitually he do so about love.
Unfortunately, the propaganda to conform is unrelenting.
In a charming fable of a movie, Moonstruck, a middle-aged
woman discovers that her husband is having an affair with
another woman. As the wife is a loving, caring, warm, mature
person in love with her husband, why on earth would he
stray from her ancient body, which is ever-ready to receive his
even greater wreck of a biped? Why do men chase women?
Why do they want more than one woman? She askse veryone
in sight and no one can think of an answer until she herself
does: Men fear death, she says--something that, apparently,
women never do. Confronted with this profound insight, the
husband stops seeing the other woman. Whether or not he
loses the fear of death is unclear. This is really loony. It is true
that sex/death are complementary: No sex, no birth for the
unlucky nonamoeba; once born, death-that’s our ticket.
Meanwhile, fire at will.

And the last little bit.
Now we can go back to being romantic about it all.
"...When people were few and the environment was hostile, it
is understandable that we should have put together a Book
about a Skygod that we had created in our own image--a
breathtaking bit of solipsism, but why not? The notion is
comforting, and there were no Book reviewers at the time of
publication, while later ones, if they wrote bad Book reviews,
were regularly condemned to death by natural lawyers employing
earthly hitmen, as Salman Rushdie can testify. Then
our Skygod told us to multiply in a world that he had put together
just for us, with dominion over every living thing.
Hence the solemn wrecking of a planet that, in time, will do
to us what we have done to it.
Meanwhile, “the heterosexual dictatorship,” to use Isherwood’s
irritable phrase, goes on its merry way, adding unwanted
children to a dusty planet while persecuting the virtuous
nonbreeders. Actually, the percentage of the population that
is deeply enthusiastic about other-sex is probably not much
larger than those exclusively devoted to same-sex--something
like 10 percent in either case. The remaining 80 percent does
this, does that, does nothing; settles into an acceptable if dull
social role where the husband dreams of Barbara Bush while
pounding the old wife, who lies there, eyes shut, dreaming of
Barbara too. Yes, the whole thing is a perfect mess, but my
conscience is clear, I have just done something more rare than
people suspect-stated the obvious."

Dear Sqeers,

Thank You for your Gore Vidal montage.
He's such a clever man - but a bit too
cynical about love and marriage.
Though who can blame him with divorce
skyrocketing.

Opening ourselves to love makes us vulnerable
to loss. Many people, particularly if they lost
someone close in their early lives, protect
themselves from this pain by keeping love, and lovers,
at a safe distance. Unfortunately they miss out,
and so does everyone around them. As sex and marital
therapist David Schnarch says: "Loving is not for the
weak, nor for those who have to be carefully kept,
nor for the faint of heart..."

You, dear Squeers, are lucky!
You seem to have it all - you've found what you
need to nurture your soul, to give life meaning.
You've found your significant other...

Well thank you, Foxy, for those nice thoughts. Gore vidal does push a rather bleak line. I think he does this for effect; human delusion is such that the brains often have to be bludgeoned with a large (rhetorical) hammer to have any sense knocked into them. I thought the essay was topical in the thread, especially after the Pied Piper's persiflage. Anyway, 'twas nice to see a thread that promised a bit of charm.
I am very lucky I s'pose, but like humanity in general, I suspect, I still manage a few grumbles about my lot--nature of the beast!
:-))