Single Childless and Dead

My newspaper reports that the "largest segment of the population" is from households single and childless. The LA Times says it's quoting figures just released from the 2000 census. (Today, five years later, that figure must be even greater.)

If that's true, then there can be no mystery about the woman picketing GW in Texas is/was the dead soldier's mother, not his wife. There's a shortage of soldiers. My goodness, how about that? Volunteers? Anyone? Come on, men and women wanted. Women today can fly jets into battle. The thrill! Dead men at the press of a button. I served in Korea. I'm damned if I can remember if, at night, on guard duty (even though I was a scrub nurse, MOS 1835 at the 25th Station Hospital, Taegu, Korea) alone, my rifle, my "weapon" was loaded? Bothers me. At Camp Pickett, VA (now vanished I believe) I was on guard duty at the PX, at night, and my weapon was not loaded. See? Soldiering is easy.

It used to be that for every soldier on the front line, there were five other soldiers in support. But of course in the present wars there virtually is no 'front line.'

So, I guess, the majority of bloggers, and chat people, and message board Members, are single and childless. A very popular Blogger, right here in AOL City, mentioned she had a "Mister-in-the wings" and was astonished, I believe, and just possibly slightly annoyed, that she got so many emails of enquiry (or surprise) about a date with this guy that only resulted in both falling asleep in front of the TV. All my posts, therefore, about sex have been a huge waste of time. I imagined I was writing for and being read by married people with children. ALL, I believe, the kind people men and women (mostly women) who have left a comment are virtually all married with children. I don't know how to talk to single, childless people from the majority of households in America. Boo hoo!

Apparently my most successful entry was mine on Father's Day posted in June 2005. I have no proof, but I suspect and even hope, my estranged daughter, now in her 30s, telephoned me after about 15 years of silence, partly in response to my Father's Day entry. The call was completely out of the blue. The single most dramatic moment in the conversation was when she said, with some ardor, that she wished she was married.

For those wanting to get married let me please recommend the superb book On The Way To The Wedding by Linda Schierse Leonard. Here's a free tip: sex in marriage is infinitely more powerful than that resulting from a date in front of the TV.

Barry

 

 

 

 

Boyhood

(In repeated corrections and rereading of this entry I realize that in my zeal to be honest, and revelatory, I may have inadvertently given the impression I think it's okay to be openly critical of one's own children. I do not. Earnestly and every day we attempt to fully convey to the three children how much we love them. Yet, between us we find it expedient to admit to ourselves and each other how difficult parental responsibility can be. Mister Rogers, for example, very likely never had to be Mister Rogers 24 hours a day. Hope you can understand.) 

Little boys are fiends, everybody knows that, right? To be socially correct, these days, I suppose I should give equal time and say little girls can be monsters too? After all, Cookie Monster is for the amusement of parents of little boys and girls as well as to sort of 'give permissions,' to be naturally greedy, to little boys as well as to little girls. Well, I don't have a little girl so in the mischievous department, and the self-maiming department, I can only speak of little boys. My littlest boy's mother complains, "You never give me girl."

My boy, the youngest, three, has bang marks all over his head, and a scar still visible through his right eyebrow. What am I supposed to do, tie him down all day and all night? The second floor windows, of course, must always be tightly shut, even on the hottest of summer days. He'd have flown to the garden below many times but for that caution. He treats the bunk bed he shares with his older brother as if it were a piece of gym equipment. Since he was two, or younger, he could scramble down at the sound of my approach so fast the squeaking of the bed, and the rustle of his gymnastics caused me to run to the bedroom ready to catch him before he hit the floor, which, miraculously he never has done. To my knowledge he's never hurt himself in the 'gym' only on more prosaic pieces of furniture, and large toys such as metal Tonka Trucks.

I wonder if his aggression comes from wanting and needing to keep up with his several-years-older, two brothers? Recently when both brothers went off to school, leaving him alone, the youngest's personality, and his caution, blossomed. Gee, pretty soon we might even have a conversation. Yesterday we walked around the block sort of chatting the whole time. I figure if I can exhaust him he'll injure himself less often, so our walks will get longer and longer. It's not easy being the youngest.  I was the oldest, and shame on me, I thought the two younger were a pain, an irrelevance to be ignored if at all possible.

Then there's the 'Gimme,' 'Buy me' mania. I've lied and lied about all the things I'll buy him and give him just to shut him up. He's only three, so he mercifully forgets the huge long lists of things I've promised to give and get him. Toy police cars and toy put-em-together-yourself trucks are his favorite. But what am I to make of it when he has a two-by-four, used as a battering ram, a pile driver, crunch savagely into those toys so as to get them apart and to see what's inside? Grin and bear it? I've weakened and asked the idiotic, "Why do you like to break things?" The temper in my voice makes me ashamed even while I'm saying the ridiculous words. I know the answer to my own question only too well, 'Because it's fun, man!'

Hmmm, "You never give me girl" she says with a pretend pout. Shoot, let's give it another shot.

Barry

 

 

 

Infidelity and Double Murder

I visited Betty Broderick for the first time at the prison near San Diego awaiting trial for shooting to death as they slept, her former husband, and his new wife, a 'Betty' look alike.

Actually, I know from talking to Betty the second time, long after her conviction, and sentencing to 25 years in prison (a degree of leniency was granted, I believe, on the grounds that her husband had virtually tortured and humiliated her over a long period, a defense which might have earned no prison time if not for the murder of the new wife) the actual timing of the murders. She shot the new wife first, killing her instantly.  As the husband got out of bed and headed for the phone, wounded, Betty fired again, she said, not to kill him, but to stop him from reaching the phone. It was then, says Betty, he uttered the immortal words, "Okay okay, you got me, you got me." Bang, bang. I mention this only because Betty believed that, not necessarily because I do. I believe the line, but not the motivation for continuing to shoot. I have no opinion otherwise. My interest is primarily about the destruction of a family with small children when the initial 'crime' was the husband's gross infidelity and torment of his loyal wife who greatly assisted in putting him through not only Medical School, but Law School too. After their divorce, when she left abusive language on his answering machine, he "fined" her by deducting money from her alimony. He made millions from Medical malpractice law suits. I realize that a book, written by a LA Times woman writer, and two TV movies were made about the murders, and readers here may recall the details. But it was a long time ago, and I do have some direct contact with the author of the book (she is now dead) and with Betty.

Those murders have come back to me from the accident that my wife and I, and Michael, went to Langers restaurant near MacArthur Park near downtown LA yesterday, bringing back memories of  the LA Times woman writer I rendezvoused with at that restaurant. The writer accused me of having a personal interest in Betty, and that lots of men were like me, she said, and some even proposed. She recounted this platitude accusingly, without apparently making any distinction between male lust and female lust, or male benevolence and female benevolence. In her book there isn't a shred of sympathy for Betty! Ha! The writer is right, perhaps, that Betty took my interest seriously: when I saw her the second time, at a different California women's prison out in the desert, long after, she was very excited and said she felt as if she was on a date. Good Lord, who could fault her for such simple, easy to understand emotions? I had no interest at all in capitalizing on my knowing her, I had no book to write, at least not then, and I greatly enjoyed writing to her often. My doing so was actually somewhat spurred by California government-paid-for public service announcements pleading with the public to visit prisoners. The government's motive? To help prevent recidivism.  She was not much of a correspondent by temperament, but not from disinclination. Even then, after her life was a wreck, she was sunny, pleasant, forthcoming, open, appreciative. The husband must have been nuts! When I first layed eyes on her, when she was behind bars, I felt she made involuntary motions as if she'd kill me if she had a weapon. The kindest thing I could say about him is that maybe America turned him into an avaricious, grossly insensitive clod. If I could go back in time I'd try to quiz Betty by subtle indirection and ask if her husband was semi  impotent. Often money replaces sex. Blaming the partner, in this case the wife, the man seeks another woman with, he imagines, more oomph, someone who'll really turn him on. Of course such a man desperately needs to understand how to turn himself on, with fantasies if needed, and quit the blame game. Today, if I was permitted just one question to ask Betty, I'd ask her if her husband ever made non-verbal sounds while making love. Of course I can't try to see her again: I'm now married.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

Infidelity

How do adults in relationships feel about infidelity? Curiously, with all the respect in the world for the experts, on this subject I have almost no interest in the views on the subject from people who are not actually, presently, in a relationship: there has to be something at stake! Pretty much of a taboo subject? Oh, if that's so it'll be more fun to talk about, and maybe a rare truth can be unearthed.  One thing's for sure: a great deal of pain and suffering are assocciated with infidelity.

I have no knowledge of infidelity outside of heterosexual relationships. I've read that homosexual relationships are indubitably associated with infidelity; in practice that view is often behind voters choice against laws permitting same sex marriages. (I mean didn't Ellen degenerous split almost on the eve of 'announcing' her 'marriage'? If so, she sure hurt the movement.)

So, I will speculate out loud about conventional couples who live dangerously and opt to cheat.

I've cheated, but not today, not yesterday and not tomorrow either. Does dwelling on the subject constitute an infidelity, or can that be part of the act of rejecting the urge, temptaion, compulsion, whatever?  I'll write, here, on that subject.

Barry

 

 

 

Advertising

The Hobby AOL message boards have been made bigger to accommodate bigger advertising space with more animation. So far the smaller, Professional Writer's boards remain small with few animated advertisements. Some of those windows contain no advertising. This window I'm writing on has no advertising. Yet.

The moment it has advertising it's either pay me, or I'm oughtta here. I hope you feel the same way.

Bloggers: please email me sites where one can have an advertising-free space. Thanks very much. I want to be prepared for the inevitable blow. You know, there's no containing greed in America.

Barry

 

 

Intermission

I've suffered a failure of nerve. I'll get back to my topic of influences that can shape our sex lives, that oh so important part of our lives - unless of course we're sworn to celibacy - after I've succeeded in shutting out the noise in reaction from message boards.

Every day that goes by without my having written an entry, when I've therefore not kept my word with myself, I feel a shudder of revulsion. Now I must not blame anyone, just keep my word, something that's imperative for happiness, I am so completely convinced.

Maybe with this new circumstance, a series of entries on the same subject, I can profitably repeat something I posted here before. Twenty years ago (huh? so long?) I took a seminar, under the auspicies of the est Training, called About Sex. It was a popular offering. But you know what? It was not as popular as About Money. Ha ha ha ha.  Only in America, ha! I made an attempt at a joke here on this journal that I wasn't suprised that About Money was so enormously popular back then in Santa Barbara. Werner Erhard & Associates kept voluminous statistics. That organization, as mentioned before, still exists, but under new management called Landmark Education. Instead of being called The est Training, it's now called The Forum.

Here's an example of a clever piece of theatrics employed in the seminar, About Sex. We were shown full length photos in rapid succession flashed on a screen, of naked women, and separately men, of every age, type, race, weight, height and demeanor. Not just hundreds of shots, some filmed, some photos, but tens of thousands. The overload gave one the notion that sex isn't only about bodies. In fact, it's not really about bodies at all. A benefit: if my wife mentions being overweight I say, without having at all to lie, I like that. If she thinks she's too thin I say, and mean it, that I like that. Everyone knows, don't they? the brain is where it's at. Not that bodies aren't magical, they are.

If I were to mount a seminar on the subject of sex I think I might include for viewing the French, Oscar Nominated Documentary Winged Migration. Although birds migrate for food, they also migrate for reproduction. The love portrayed among the birds is enthralling to observe. I can easily imagine that the new documentary solely about Penguins is equally moving. If birds can do it with love, how come people have so much trouble?

Barry

 

 

Teenage Male Sex

I lost my virginity at age 18, kinda late by today's statistics. Although I lived alone, and had no relatives in America, I was hugely blessed by people who protected me. I delivered the San Francisco Chronicle for a living, and used to save up for a restaurant meal once a week at New Joes: my favorite dish was veal scalopini which cost $2.76 a huge sum for me back then. In that era a new Cadillac convertile cost $5,000; it was hot, for then, at 205 HP. I drooled outside the auto showroom.

My newspaper route manager picked me up in his truck outside every morning of the week and took me, and my papers, to the beginning of my route. Newspapers must have been far thinner, and lighter then than they are today. Today delivery people are men in cars. The route manager treated me with elaborate respect. He almost forcibly took me to my own High School graduation which I intended skipping. Yet, he had a dark side; he transported pornographic films from Las Vegas to San Francisco. He told me that, or I overheard it in his conversations with another, but he'd never have allowed me to see any such film, and at that time I had no interest. I've never found them interesting: the acting is too bad. (I'm an actor.)  However, chagrined to find that I'd gone to a bar where he knew I'd be preyed upon, he arranged for me to visit a prostitute. He kinda acted like he was my father, a father of the old school. I'm still grateful for him. Don't remember his name. Not even his first name.

At that time houses of prostitution were protected by the city of San Francisco. The justification was probably to control the spread of STDs as well as crime. Drugs had not yet become epidemic. The city was curiously benign, tranquil, and had been a huge factor in the US Navy's combat planning in WW2. You may know that The Hornet, a famous aircraft carrier, is still docked in San Francisco Bay.

What I mean to say is that in spite of unusual, or not so unusual, exposures to things sexual beginning at age 3, I arrived an untroubled teenager. My only serious problem was acute loneliness. I assuaged that by going to the movies. Movies must have been very inexpensive in those days because I went all the time. That was the extent of my social life. 

The prostitute the route manager fixed me up with was very gracious and ordinary. I liked the fact that she was ordinary. There was virtually no conversation. The act took place in shaded daylight from windows with translucent blinds. She did no phoney acting, something I appreciated even then. She was the boss and positioned herself on top.

I made so little effort to find a girl friend that I'd probably have missed my HS graduation dance if I hadn't been asked by a girl whose name I can't remember. She was a rebel, and intellectual, and ended up at Radcliffe, living off campus with some guy which was very unusual for that era. She never spoke to me in Cambridge. Maybe the guy was jealous, or more likely she found me far too square.

I remained square. I'm still square. But at least it's by choice, and not from fear. I doubt I understood the spiritual dimensions of sexuality until comparatively late in life. God provides the option of making sexuality spiritual to give couples the strength and endurance to selflessly raise children. But, of course, some gifts are not recognized as such. No doubt I've been guilty of that.

Barry

      

 

 

 

Mail from a friend

As you see even in my e-mail I did not say anything that needed to be censored eventhough I explained it in a more detailed way than in your journal. Recalling your past in your journal and reading your journal, gives me hope that I am not the only one who had to endure many strange things or wondrous things. As I always tell you, keep writing, for I enjoy yourwriting and if you ever get a book on the shelf I like to get it for my personal shelf. Your friend

BEA  

Bea says she posted her Comment on Determinants 2 and I believe her. Someone in authority took it down. Who?   Barry

Big Brother is Watching???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

An AOL Member I know from the Poetry message boards has had a reply to my current AOL Journal taken down. To say that I am upset would be to grossly understate the case. I'm in a fury that will not stop until I get satisfaction.

1. Why didn't AOL tell me that it was taken down? And tell me the reasons it was taken down?

2. Is this revenge for my thinking, so far unexpressed, that AOL Journal's Editor is mind-numbingly childish? In fact, his obtuseness I take as a personal affront.

3. Where, where exactly, can I find in writing AOL's policy regarding AOL Journal Comments and their content? Do you mean to tell me, AOL, you allow uneducated Monitors to make it up as they go along, and to censor whatever they personally object to?!?!  I think, AOL, that is called a whole slew of ugly names.

Barry