Public Sex, Marrying Within the Family, and Dry Wells

My mother knows that I am sleeping with my boyfriend. She has told us that we cannot have sex at our house. We can't go to his house either because his grandmother won't let a girl up into his bedroom. This leaves public places as the only choice, which my mother says is fine with her.

I am however, worried about getting caught. I am aware that it is against the law, but this is the only chance we get. What would happen if we were caught by or reported to the police? Could we be charged with indecent behavior at such young ages (15 and 16)?

I have no idea what the law would do to two children who are caught ... well, ahem...caught. In Dear Mrs. Web's day you both would have been shipped off to bleak training schools to wear ghastly uniforms, eat saltpeter, and learn a useful trade.

Dear Mrs. Web has always believed that one has sex only when one has a ring, a marriage certificate and of course, the means to pay for a bedroom.

If your mother is advocating that you, her young daughter, have sex in the bushes, you have many more problems than finding a place to rut.

It sounds like you have not been taught about what sex really means and the commitments and responsibilities that go along with it. Your have not learned to respect your body and to treasure and protect it. You have not learned about how committed love turns sex into lovemaking and allows you to truly bond with your beloved. How sad! Dear Mrs. Web would certainly discuss these matters with your mother, in depth, in detail and vigorously.

I am involved with my sister's ex-husband. We are in love and have bought a house together. How can our relationship be accepted by our families? I am worried about hurting my sister's feelings. We found out that it is legal to marry each other here. He has asked and I want to. I guess what I've been looking for is someone's blessing.

My sister left the marriage and I cannot help that things worked out this way. Is there any way I can overcome our family issues?

I don’t think there is a way around your sister’s feelings. I cannot imagine how you could make this better with your sister. Some do say that time heals all wounds. Dear Mrs Web is doubtful that this one will fix.

There are just some places you just don't go. Marrying the former spouses of family members is a place to avoid at all costs. That is too big and shatters family safety and loyalty. Those things are important, even for the family members who are messing up their lives. It is not prudent, normal, or wise to place this in the middle of your family.

Essentially, what you say here is that you want what you want. There is nothing more that I can add.

My 55 year old sister has stopped speaking to my mother and me for almost 3 years now. She was a high-powered MBA who developed an immune-deficiency diseases. She no longer works

She has always been difficult and we were never close. I sent her husband flowers once after he had surgery. Since she was not speaking to me at the time, my mother told me about the surgery. My sister totally freaked out and said I was trying to show her up.

I have tried to convey my love and caring to my sister. My sister accused me of causing all her problems in life. Throughout our lives I have had little contact with her except at holidays. She was successful, talented, intelligent, and popular, went to a fantastic college....

I have a contented and smaller life with 4 sons and a sweet husband. I was a teacher and I loved my work. I have never been affluent or extremely popular. How can I have ever affected her life? I never have asked her for anything. She, on the other hand, was always mean to me even as a child. We know she was seeing a psychologist and told us the psychologist told her to break ties with us.

She stopped speaking to our recently widowed 80 year old mother right after she lost her husband. My mother is old and want to have a decent relationship with my sister. She has sent my sister cards and gifts and they have been all returned, not accepted. My mother is a wonderful, caring woman. For my mother's sake I would like my sister to connect with us. Any suggestions?

Why are you trying to tie strings with this emotionally toxic woman? She is a dry well and you sit there demanding water.

If your mother hasn’t figured out that she has a toxic and unavailable daughter - she is just not seeing reality - as sad as the truth is for her. I am not trying to minimize your mother's heartbreak over her angry and blaming daughter. Instead, I am trying to break through the unrealistic expectations.

How to Hug a Porcupine is a book that teaches people to detach from the toxic people in their lives. It is on my website bookshelf. Read it and live a better life. A life that sees reality and does not demand the impossible.

Thus your behavior can be moral without being chaste, even by the dictionary definition you post. Chaste is one sense in which the word is used, but there are many others.Moreover, meaning 6 is on its way to being archaic-- most dictionaries mark archaic definitions, something seems to be wrong with yours.

You used moral as an adjective in you post. Since pre marital sex is widely considered wrong conduct, which one were you referring to?

1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.

2. expressing or conveying truths or counsel as to right conduct, as a speaker or a literary work; moralizing: a moral novel.

3. founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom: moral obligations.

4. capable of conforming to the rules of right conduct: a moral being.

5. conforming to the rules of right conduct (opposed to immoral): a moral man.

6. virtuous in sexual matters; chaste.

7. of, pertaining to, or acting on the mind, feelings, will, or character: moral support.

8. resting upon convincing grounds of probability; virtual: a moral certainty.

"She is a Freeper."

"I understand Dear Mrs Web's mailbox is filled with heartbreaking letters...."

Why all the pretense? You're obviously "Dear Mrs. Web."

An excerpt from Maine Internet News:

Link

If your mother is advocating that you, her young daughter, have sex in the bushes, you have many more problems than finding a place to rut.

I don't think the mother IS advocating it. It's never wise to take a young miscreant at her word. The mother is trying to make clear to the daughter that the tail doesn't wag the dog and that HER HOUSE may not be used for teen sex.

My mother knows that I am sleeping with my boyfriend.

This does not necessarily mean Mom is happy about that.

She has told us that we cannot have sex at our house. We can't go to his house either because his grandmother won't let a girl up into his bedroom.

This little twit thinks Mom should be okay with the idea of her daughter having sex with this and all future boyfriends, since giving permission to one means giving permission to all.

This leaves public places as the only choice, which my mother says is fine with her.

Daughter's resentment speaking up here. The real conversaation probably went something like "WAAAAAAAAAH, Mom, you KNOW I'm having sex already, where are we SUPPOSED to go to do it, out in public places where we could be arrested?" to which Mom might have said "If you're that big of a tramp, go **** in the bushes then where the whole world can see you, it's FINE WITH ME! But don't even think of doing it in MY house."

Since pre marital sex is widely considered wrong conduct

Obviously, I dispute that premarital sex is wrong conduct, and I dispute that it is widely considered wrong conduct.

Lets take the second point first. I think a majority of people under 25 don't even consider oral sex to be sex, much less immoral. And I don't think the notion that sex out of wedlock can be moral is restricted to young people. I would even bet that today a majority of senior citizens don't consider sex between senior citizens neither of whom is married to anybody to be immoral. So I think you are way out of touch with popular opinion.

More importantly, I don't think there is any reason to believe that sex out of wedlock is wrong. I think that an ideal life includes plenty of premarital sex. And I don't consider myself a hedonist, either. I think that people who marry as virgins have far more regrets on their deathbed than people who behave morally. Rules that may have been appropriate before condoms and penicilin and women in the work force are just outdated.

Let me guess: you are a teenager?

Your observations are, themselves, anecdotal, so take them for what they are worth. As to the cuasality, I think that if we are truly intellectually honest with ourselves we can come up with the answers. Part of the problem is that living together "as a test" is pre-programming yourself for failure in that, subconsciously, you are telling (programming) yourself that there is a "backdoor" out of this if things aren't to your liking. This kind of pre-programming makes it difficult later to stick through the problems and challenges that come in marriage. Please notice I didn't say impossible, just difficult. You've already trained yourself that there is a way out rather than going at it with the mindset that "this is it, no matter what, for better or worse, till parted by death".

My wife and I look at our marriage as absolutely final. Period. It's as if when we got married someone put us into this big steel room called marriage and then welded all the exits shut from the outside. We have mentally programmed ourselves that there is no option but to work out our problems. I believe (anecdotal evidence) that this has drastically reduced the number of problems that could have arose in our marriage. They were not problems because they did not have the option of being a problem!

I notice you didn't address the moral aspect either....?

I never cohabited as a test and I don't advocate it. I cohabited because it felt right at the time. I can't imagine feeling strongly enough about somebody to want to marry them and not feeling like I wanted to be around them before or to have sex with them, assuming I had no other commitment. The only reason I can imagine anybody would do that is because one felt a commitment to some rules that God or some other authority laid down, and I think such rules are long outdated, at least in the eyes of the majority of the population, and I think we are better off for that.

I personally view marriage as a commitment and not to be entered into lightly, especially once kids are involved, as I think did all my friends.

Obviously, I dispute that premarital sex is wrong conduct, and I dispute that it is widely considered wrong conduct.

You are probably correct. What I should have said was that it was considered wrong conduct by people who consider themselves to have good moral values. But by your own words in another post ( "IMHO a happy and moral life includes children, which implies settling down by 30 or so,") you do not become moral until you have ceased your premarital activities.

I think a majority of people under 25 don't even consider oral sex to be sex, much less immoral.

First, the under 25ers are more moral than you may think. Most of them belive premarital sex is only right if you are in love.

Second, how can people who have not been taught morals know what morals are? Moral is moral just as blue is blue and just because someone does not think so does not make it a valid argument. You may say that blue is pink but the truth is that it is indeed blue.

Rules that may have been appropriate before condoms and penicilin and women in the work force are just outdated.

Life's truths are valid in any age regardless of feminism or promiscuous sex. If we ignore life's truths we only condemn ourselves to learn them all over again, the hard way.

Let me guess: you are a teenager?

I am 45 and married for 25 years to the same woman. I have 3 grown kids, two girls and one boy. We never forbade our children to have premarital sex because that would only assure that they would. Though my daughters did not remain chaste before marriage they only had sex with their future spouses. (No they did not lie to me.) My son on the other hand is a real horn dog, has not been married and has sex with many partners. Though he uses condoms five of those partners have claimed that he impregnated them. Of those only two turned out to be true. One got an abortion. Because of my son and his sex partner’s immaturity, my wife and I are raising our granddaughter. Don't tell me that premarital sex is moral or that there are no consequences.

But by your own words in another post ( "IMHO a happy and moral life includes children, which implies settling down by 30 or so,") you do not become moral until you have ceased your premarital activities.

I don't know how you derive that. I believe in living morally. I think moral living includes various forms of love and sex other than in wedlock. I happen to believe, however, that one should have children in wedlock, and generally be monogamous in wedlock. This does not in any way imply that I think one should be immoral before wedlock, merely that I think its moral to have sex out of wedlock.

Second, how can people who have not been taught morals know what morals are?

It won't help you to learn from a misinformed teacher. I am trying to lead you to the light.

Life's truths are valid in any age regardless of feminism or promiscuous sex. If we ignore life's truths we only condemn ourselves to learn them all over again, the hard way.

I dispute that. Behavior which may have been forced upon us when pregnancy was unpreventable and syphilis uncurable is not necessarily moral or desirable.

Don't tell me that premarital sex is moral or that there are no consequences.

I honestly don't mean to get personal or to be insulting, so I'll try to phrase this as delicately as I can. Can't you entertain the possibility that the way you raised your kids screwed them up? The most obvious problem is your boy, and not only is he screwed up but he's managed to affect the lives of several others. It also remains to be seen how well adjusted your daughters are, too. It might be that they could have had much more enjoyable, rewarding lives, and it may be that already, or 10 years from now, they wish they'd had other attitudes. It might be that the lot of them would have turned out a lot better if you'd been less uptight. If that's so (and I don't know how we could know for sure short of running the tape again), wouldn't you concede your attitudes are immoral and mine moral?

Don't you guys think one can lead a moral and happy life by, say, having a series of maybe 20-50 consensual affairs starting whenever you start these days and 26...

Good grief, woman...fifty sex partners by age 26? That's, what, one new bedmate every two or three months? You'd be exhausted! (Note: "Sex and the City" is just a TV show, it's not reality.)

Oh, give it a rest. I know women who have had hundreds, sometimes thousands of partners by thirty and then married, raised children and remained totally faithful to their husbands. You sound like you got your beliefs from a 19th century penny dreadful.

So9

I think a majority of people under 25 don't even consider oral sex to be sex, much less immoral. And I don't think the notion that sex out of wedlock can be moral is restricted to young people. I would even bet that today a majority of senior citizens don't consider sex between senior citizens neither of whom is married to anybody to be immoral. So I think you are way out of touch with popular opinion.

Exactly
Did these people all miss the sixties and seventies?
Were you all the guys in the plaid shirts and pocket protectors who couldn't get a date to the senior prom, or their female counterparts?
Are there no Republican Party Reptiles on this site?

So9

The Seventies are over, folks.

Yes they are, among other fine decades, but except for taking a generation out to raise a family, I am not dead. I keep right on bopping along.

You have obviously wasted your entire youths. That is unrecoverable, but there is still time to try to salvage some smattering of happy memories to take to the wheelchair with you.

So9

It won't help you to learn from a misinformed teacher. I am trying to lead you to the light.
And a misinformed teacher you are.
Behavior which may have been forced upon us when pregnancy was unpreventable and syphilis uncurable is not necessarily moral or desirable.
Pregnancy is still not preventable and AIDS and herpes incurable.
I honestly don't mean to get personal or to be insulting
You should have stopped with that sentence. Your presumption that I my uptight attitudes are screwing up my children now and in future scenarios is laughable and my children would think so too.
wouldn't you concede your attitudes are immoral and mine moral?
Your morally superior attitude is very funny considering your point of view. Here is where I refrain from making an innuendo of what type of woman truly moral people see you as being as others have done in this thread.

Are you a religious person? If so are you a UU?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.