Dear Paul,

The development and widespread availability of
contraceptives have potentially separated two
quite different functions of sexual relations -
procreation and recreation. And contraception
has had an enormous effect on the family system.

In the days when intercourse was likely to lead to
pregnancy, there was a strong practical incentive
for sex to be restricted to marital partners,
(our society made little provision for the proper
care of children born to unmarried mothers).
There was a stigma at that time -
attached to unmarried mothers.

Once the prospect of pregnancy was removed, many of the
inhabitions against the use of sex for recreation
disappeared.

The nuclear family was founded on the
assumption of monogamous fidelity, but with contraception
- permissiveness
encouraged quite a few people to look outside their marriages
for sexual satisfaction or, if they were unmarried, to
have sexual experiences before marriage.

This experience gave the partners a standard by which to
measure the performance of their spouses - an opportunity
that the partners in a traditional virgin marriage did not
have - and the spouses may have been found wanting.

Therefore changing sexual norms inevitably have had an
effect on the family system based on the previous
assumption that the partners would have an exclusive and
mutually gratifying sexual relationship.

Was it the author of Sex and the Single Girl, who was the editor of Cosmopolitan, who penned in a later book that women over fifty should have a go at sharing the husbands of their female friends, because their options were otherwise limited?

It is unusual for a young woman or young man to be interested in those past a certain age (regardless of age gap) without there being other incentives, such as a short cut to the benefits and lifestyle they desire but choose not to work for.

The same rule applies to homosexuals if the bonking and pairings of celebrities is any guide, and swapping sexual preference is no barrier, apparently.

We shouldn't think in terms of general categories
and use sweeping generalisations about any group.

Of course some people will tend to do that if only
to enable them to make sense of the world by
simplifying its complexity but we do need to remember
there are always individual differences and we should look
at each case on its own merits.

The reality is that
stereotypes have to be checked against reality.
Experiences have proven that individual cases often
contradict the rigid image we may have.

For many cases - there are always "exceptions to the rule."
That goes for older women and younger men and also for
older men and younger women.

One size does not fit all.

Foxy, congratulations, you've just undermined the philosophical basis of multiculturalism in one short post.
Explain in 300 words or less where you went wrong.

Fox,

Astounded that you would be so dismissive of Helen Gurley Brown. She was editor in chief of Cosmopolitan for over thirty years, having made it a success. Her 'Sex and the Single Girl' was highly popular with feminists.

Helen Brown was majorly responsible for opening the door for women to discuss sex and other issues of concern openly and frankly. When she was first interviewed she wasn't allowed to say 'sex' on the electronic media.

That was liberation.

She achieved much more than that dreadful, conceited, self-obsessed apparition Germs Greer who is the over-exposed darling of the ABC. From reading Greer one is quite surprised by her barely concealed superiority and arrogance towards less educated women (enlarge that to all women such is her ego), whom she patronises and scolds. Does Greer actually like women?

Helen Gurley Brown was always classy. She was happily married for fifty years too.

"Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry. She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential 'Cosmo girl.' She will be greatly missed." [Frank Bennack Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation in a statement]

Cosmopolitan did much more for young women than any of the over-paid, middle class educated feminists who have swung from the taxpayer's teat for scores of years in any of the Western democracies and particularly Australia, where the same old tiresome Emily's Listers elbow out any young blood.

otb,

The lady in question apparently promoted
the "fun, fearless, female,"
and a life-style for others that
led to countless personal tragedies
for women having casual sex - leading to unwanted pregnancies
and STDs. Her book has been described by many as -
"one of the most body sharing, insecurity provoking, long-lasting
sexist media products in the last 100 years."
"Sex and The Single Girl."
It was all a façade - but it made millions for her.
She died at the age of 90 a few years ago.
Her hang-ups I couldn't relate to at all.
A bit old-hat for my taste.
The same goes for Germaine Greer (her I can take in only
small doses).

Now Candice Bergman as Murphy Brown -
Yes - more like it.