*Yabby, I can't for the life of me understand why Runner won't answer your' very serious question?*

Suze, most likely because he doesen't want to tell us what he was
doing between the sheets, when nobody was watching :)

*they would never have sex in any other position than the traditional missionary position*

Well personally I think that oral sex is really handy, as its too
far for the sperms to swim :)

Yes, well that was too much info Yabby,
and you will now be damned to hell for even thinking of that!

I should have said: "She could have had a normal family life surrounded in secure love and children".

Hi Suze,
"I honestly don't believe that it is mainly a 'female thing' to feel some guilt after sex,"
Arguably true in the present tense, but a few decades ago? When a teenage girl came home and tearfully announced she was pregnant there was shock and horror. For a teenage boy, from the father at least it was just as likely to be "that's my boy!" or "my boy's a man!"
For thousands of years, promiscuous boys have been regarded as 'studs', as if spreading their seed was an heroic thing.
Promiscuous women were (and still are, by many) called 'sluts'.
This dichotomy exists I think for the largely biological reasons I have already mentioned, and has been 'worked into' religions through the application of cultural taboos.

There was some interesting discussion about labels on Q&A last night.

Michael Cunningham spoke about how the homosexual lobby had run with the word Queer, doing so took the power away from the word to be used by others as an insult.

What followed was a discussion about the use of the word slut. Especially Slutwalk's (http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/brisbane-sluts-take-to-the-streets-20110511-1ei34.html).

Gail Dines was very much against the idea (anti-porn campagner who want's the discussion to be about men not women), Leslie Cannold was very much in favour of the approach.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/vodcast.htm Episode 15 for those interested.

R0bert

Actually, suzieonline may have a point about the ingrained indoctrination.

I’ve been thinking a bit more about the fact that those who described themselves as “agnostics” scored a little higher than atheists. In my experience, most people who describe themselves as “agnostics” (unaware that agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive) fit one or more of the following descriptions and we see examples of these here on OLO:

1. Those who are still stuck in the 1950’s McCarthyist way of thinking and erroneously believe that atheism is synonymous with communism;

2. Atheists on the far-Right who aren't comfortable contradicting so many of those who share their political views;

3. Those who are slowly awakening from their childhood indoctrination and are still confused about what they really believe and/or fearful of the potential consequences if it turns out that the god they were taught to never question the existence of, really does exist.

Those who fit the third description possibly account for most of the difference between atheists and agnostics.

I could imagine that some of those who described themselves as “atheists” would still have little twinges of guilt long after they lose the belief entirely, because although that was never the case for me (in fact, I made up for lost time after ditching the mental shackles of religion), to me, words like “atheist”, “secular” and “evolution” still sound very ugly - “evil” almost - and I put this down to the ideas ingrained into my mind from my own indoctrination.

And yes, to any Christians reading: I'm aware that most of you believe that that's the Holy Spirit talking to me, but until you can demonstrate the existence of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to go with the more rational explanation, thank you.