Actualitycat's Curious Adventure

Scamp

2007-09-24T20:06:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite pictures of the little brother who died this day last year 2006. Although things are more resolved this year, we still hurt and we still miss him. When I go home tonight there will be no little white tipped paw reaching to pull the door open. Just a partner and the television. I am glad that he is no longer struggling but I still miss him.

And So it continues; THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA

2007-08-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from:

THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA: PREFACE ON DOCTORS

BERNARD SHAW (1909)

It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity. That any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you, should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity. But that is precisely what we have done. And the more appalling the mutilation, the more the mutilator is paid. He who corrects the ingrowing toe-nail receives a few shillings: he who cuts your inside out receives hundreds of guineas, except when he does it to a poor person for practice……….

………..Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached its goal. What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say "I know" instead of "I am learning” and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for scepticism and activity...……

………...Lest this should seem too rhetorical a conclusion for our professional men of science, who are mostly trained not to believe anything unless it is worded in the jargon of those writers who, because they never really understand what they are trying to say, cannot find familiar words for it, and are therefore compelled to invent a new language of nonsense for every book they write, let me sum up my conclusions as dryly as is consistent with accurate thought and live conviction.

1. Nothing is more dangerous than a poor doctor: not even a poor employer or a poor landlord.

2. Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.

3. Remember that an illness is a misdemeanor; and treat the doctor as an accessory unless he notifies every case to the Public Health authority.

4. Treat every death as a possible and under our present system a probable murder, by making it the subject of a reasonably conducted inquest; and execute the doctor, if necessary, as a doctor, by striking him off the register.

5. Make up your mind how many doctors the community needs to keep it well. Do not register more or less than this number; and let registration constitute the doctor a civil servant with a dignified living wage paid out of public funds.

6. Municipalize Harley Street.

7. Treat the private operator exactly as you would treat a private executioner.

8. Treat persons who profess to be able to cure disease as you treat fortune tellers.

9. Keep the public carefully informed, by special statistics and announcements of individual cases, of all illnesses of doctors or in their families.

10. Make it compulsory for a doctor using a brass plate to have inscribed on it, in addition to the letters indicating his qualifications, the words "Remember that I too am mortal."

11. In legislation and social organization, proceed on the principle that invalids, meaning persons who cannot keep themselves alive by their own activities, cannot, beyond reason, expect to be kept alive by the activity of others. There is a point at which the most energetic policeman or doctor, when called upon to deal with an apparently drowned person, gives up artificial respiration, although it is never possible to declare with certainty, at any point short of decomposition, that another five minutes of the exercise would not effect resuscitation. The theory that every individual alive is of infinite value is legislatively impracticable. No doubt the higher the life we secure to the individual by wise social organization, the greater his value is to the community, and the more pains we shall take to pull him through any temporary danger or disablement. But the man who costs more than he is worth is doomed by sound hygiene as inexorably as by sound economics.

12. Do not try to live for ever. You will not succeed.

13. Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; and do not outlive yourself.

14. Take the utmost care to get well born and well brought up. This means that your mother must have a good doctor. Be careful to go to a school where there is what they call a school clinic, where your nutrition and teeth and eyesight and other matters of importance to you will be attended to. Be particularly careful to have all this done at the expense of the nation, as otherwise it will not be done at all, the chances being about forty to one against your being able to pay for it directly yourself, even if you know how to set about it. Otherwise you will be what most people are at present: an unsound citizen of an unsound nation, without sense enough to be ashamed or unhappy about it.

2007-04-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

THE ALONE MAN

2007-03-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hello …

After a long absence I am again going to write to you all. Even though I am feline I watch your history as humans with interest – and sometimes amazement!

On my nightly travels I often see men and women sloping around the streets. They seem to be like me, hunting. What I cannot understand is what they can be hunting for! So I have watched and thought. I even tried to make friends – winding my body around their legs, hoping for them to bend down and stroke me – to make contact with another living creature. But they seem unable or unwilling. Their eyes are blank until something, or someone, strikes their interest. Then, I am afraid.

So I talk with my human friends. And they do not want to talk with me. Perhaps because this is something they fear as much as they are attracted to. This is the Darkness. This is Seduction. Those who walk on this path are feared & in fear, genderless, powerless, separate, the Enforcer, ordinary, standing in the dark, alienated, sexless - but wielding the harsh reality of potential violence. They are the Beast within us, beyond us and in Mind. Frozen time in a moment - extra-normality. Fear in a glance - a bitter pill with a sweet taste. Glancing back I see his job is done and she is gone with the others - and his job is done. He is where he wants - alone.

He walks. The darkness is around him as he passes through the street of life. He feels feared and yet he is in fear of something nameless. He, or is it she, sees himself as without gender and without sex. He is ordinary, small with a balding head and a slight growth of hair shadowing his chin. He stops, stands in the dark, smelling the air. He feels a presence that alienates him. Someone looks out of a window and seeing him shivers as they shut the drapes. But he does not notice them.

He feels powerless in the experience of this presence, this feeling that threatens to overcome him - to enter him, freezing his soul. He feels arousal at its might even while he struggles to preserve his integrity.

The Beast is within and time is frozen in a moment of extra-normality. He becomes aware of his skin, sleek and soft against his clothing. Fear inhabits a small corner of his mind but on his tongue - the Beast's tongue - it tastes like blood. A bitter cordial with a sweet taste.

In a moment his job is done and she is gone with the others. Glancing back, the Beast senses me and turns slowly to examine the space where I might be. As it turns, the flesh slips away into the smoke of the cold air reaching the warmth. There is a strange sweetness filling the air.

I am invisible, but yet it is aware of me as I watch, repulsed by the shiny pearl of bone and the straw-red muscle. For moments we are joined in an unholy marriage of Watcher and Watched.

But as he starts to move I see that he is only a man with a balding head and stubble on his chin. And I am alone.....

moggi, 2000

2007-03-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

March 2007

A picture that does justice to the feeling if not to the actual flowers!

Two Old Men & a Cat

2007-03-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

With apologies - many of the posts have been taken from seernnadivad.org and so they may be difficult to read as the format changes have been akward. Moggi will, in time, correct this. Until then see this as part of the journey. moggi, March 2007

Then there is the comment on the item below. September 2001 we were all reeling from 9/11 and from the information that we all thought was accurate. Since then we have submitted to the Patriot Act and Iraq has submitted to life in a war. It seems so sad that we all do not know what we do not know. So sad that the two old men that I wrote about so long ago are still staring at the ever moving horizon created by the wind whispering over a sand dune.
http://www.actualitycat.net/inforeq.htm

FOCUS

2007-03-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Think of these things, whence you came, where you are going, and to whom you must account. -- Benjamin Franklin

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

moggi, 9.21.2001

Although I have seen a lot of violence, and although I have seen terrorism first hand (IRA bombings) nothing prepares one for this violence. One man is capable of seeing this act as a justifiable event in a Holy War. It says something about his capacity to see himself, his followers and the human beings he killed, as living breathing people with families, lives and love.

The best we can do is respond from our humanity and continue as we would if this had not happened. Sharing our sadness and offering some relief from the shock by doing what comes naturally. I think that we owe our children the truth - but we owe them the ability to let them feel safe, with some understanding that this is not the way the world should be.

I refer to ' carrying on as if nothing has happened' only in the sense that this man, Bin Laden, has to understand that the pursuit of justice is hard and will continue - that many lives have been wrecked - and that our spirit is to grieve but also to limit the impact he can have on our way of life.

I am not a pacifist but I am not a supporter of the death penalty for any reason. However, as we seem unable to curb this man's influence, and, as he persists in grooming his wealth to attack people; I am clear that he should be tried in a criminal court in his absence. If found guilty, then sentence will be carried out, and in the pursuit of finding him, nations who harbor him will find the policing of NATO and the US military very un-giving.

Regretfully, I think that if normal authorities cannot get to him by law, and Kabul will not give him up, then there are others who may be able to kidnap him to bring him to justice - or failing that, they may get close enough to kill. But he will not be stopped otherwise.

In all eventualities we must be prepared to undergo our own revolution if we are to stop terrorism whenever it occurs. This is a revolution not of political theory or dogma but a revolution in awareness. This may mean that we have to curtail our Fourth and First Amendment rights under the Constitution of the United States. It may mean that we have less privacy. But, with awareness, this may be the price we have to pay to save democracy and to lessen fear.

I am fearful that we have been unable to curtail terrorist activities so far. I am fearful of bin Laden in that we have know for decades that this man is fighting a new kind of Holy War. He believes that the United States has used economic power as weapon to fight against Islam. This enables him to fight us outside the fundamental principles laid down in the Koran. I am also aware that we do not seem to be able to freeze his source of power - his money. The intelligence services dealing with terrorism seem unable to deal with him. And I am also suspicious that maybe certain countries and certain authorities may rather we did not limit him.
I am afraid -

I think of Bokassa, Sadam, Idi Amin ; all of whom were never brought under the Rule of Law - all of whom were never made accountable for the atrocities they perpetrated. Only the Serbian leader has been subject to justice - and this is because he was repudiated by his own people and government. Kabul does not intend to do that. I remember Nairobi , Dar es Salaam , Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Congo - numerous times when our security was threatened.

I am also concerned that if we start a war with the countries that harbor him we are doing something very bad in that the populations are both innocent and unaware. They also live in extreme poverty which will only get worse if we are aggressive towards their governments. In Pakistan the Islamic community is split in allegiance …. And they have nuclear capabilities. Between us and those capabilities is a thin line of military government.
And I am afraid.

So, with incredible regret, I am forced into thinking that it may be better to kill him than live with him. And I hate having this thought with me. Because I value life and because I do not think assassination is justified. Nor do I think it is always effective. Good men and women die, and have died, because of bad men like Bin Laden being able to impose a reality on religious zealots.

I am contradictory because I no longer trust governments to take care of this. I do not trust that it will be taken care of - and this man has pledged himself to a Holy War and his actions are valid within that context. That his followers believe themselves to be fighting a war of spirituality and values – dying in that war is to join God, Allah, for eternity.

I have to accept my immorality because I doubt whether anything else can work. And I do not want to be part of an American "Holy War" against American Islam. ... Or ANY war against Islam. It is the person not the Faith.

I am angry, hurt and tired. When the planes sliced through the buildings it feels like they took part of reality away with them. That the offices and the people that inhabited them became as if they no longer exist.... maybe we will never know all who were lost - only the names of the survivors, the dead that are found, and those who are recollected by the companies who employed them.

But there are probably several thousand who will only be discovered to be MIA in the months to come....
(And yes, I meant Missing In Action)

I have a lump in my chest of cold, hard emotion. I am not sentimental; I just feel this sense of outrage with the CIA and with Bin Laden for this happening. And it must be dealt with - and he must be stopped. The lump in my chest is not going away real soon.

I hope this makes it clearer why I think that, as individuals, we have to go on as if nothing has happened. Because that is all we can do - and that is what Bin Laden thinks we will not do. He has tried to avenge the 70,000 Lebanese that died during the conflict with Israel. I do not want vengeance - I want justice ... for them and for me, and my adopted homeland.

Soon I will feel less sad. I think it has just hit me that life will never be quite the same again.

There are no chemical weapons, there are no biological weapons – that we know of – that are an actual immediate threat. We are physically safe for now. Bin Laden has done what he has worked for the last five years to accomplish. But we will never be quite as complacent or as honorable - the dirty little skirmishes of the Middle East have crossed our airways into our sky and things will never be quite the same.

We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. - Benjamin Franklin

The North Atlantic Treaty

Washington D.C. - 4 April 1949

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization
of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area.
They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security. They therefore agree to this North Atlantic Treaty :

Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security (1).

May the powers that can, keep us all safe.

moggi, 9.21.2001

"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did." – Benjamin Franklin [letter to his father, 1738]

2007-03-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

2007-03-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

September 11th 2001

'Courage!'

SPIRITUAL MOTIVATION

We are asked to consider " why we get up in the morning .....what motivates us in our relationships ... from what source does the strength come to allow the Other their own individuated integrity ............"

Personal strength (if that is what it is to be called) comes from the human relationship between the self and the world. Fragmented , inadequate as it may be; it is the only true spiritual base we have. Thus the encounters we have, both good and bad, add to our understanding and wonder of both self and of the Other. By Other I refer to the distinct , unique, transcendent person who faces us in daily life. That person, in their capacity to change enriches - gifts - with their world. Thus I am responsive to them and not to selfish needs.

By the gifting they invest with the responsibility to not do violence to them and to be responsible for the sharing in the encounter. Only within this respect can the "I" hope to touch, to dialogue. It is the Other who teaches "me". They tell me what they desire.

On a more commonplace level I, moggi, have no 'belief system' in that I do not believe that there is a higher being to which I belong. I am a mere cat - but, Like Jesus I exist to make the encounter on this earth the best I can. Like a stone scudding across the surface of a pond I am responsible for the ripples that spread out in infinite numbers and radius touching the ripples from other pebbles as they brush the water's surface. When that particular pebble , `me', finally loses energy and needs to `die' then it will sink to the silt at the bottom of the water. There it will decompose, lose identity, or maybe even transmutate into life-giving earth. But it is no longer `me'.

What is `hope'? Perhaps all that hope is, is an acceptance to change. That "this too shall pass" which allows the person to accept their finitude and yet rejoice in the understanding that pain is both limited and limitless - but never merely "the same".

We are not static , inanimate, beings, subject to the whims of other winds or forces. We have the power to direct ourselves, the imperative to be in relationship with our fellows.

And, thus, being responsive to them and not to our own selfish needs - we are free to choose the good, to 'be' as we truly want...... and, being truly free, I come upon myself as Stranger, as other!

This is my faith - Other, in finite, creaturely, form.

moggi, 1990

Any views expressed are individual and personal to the writer or writers. No money has been exchanged or favors given for any content on this site or page.

HOME

2007-03-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

Winter Trees 2006

2007-03-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

Brief Encounter

2007-03-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

2007-03-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

Inspiration
from Shaun Hoyt

I had had troubling dreams. Nothing really frightening. Nothing that made me wake with a start in a cold sweat. No. These were dreams of my past. Dreams of all the mistakes I had made over the years, or really the past five years. It felt like I really hadn't started living until after the divorce. In my marriage I was just existing. When you live, you make mistakes. You have regrets. I had made many mistakes in my short little life and I have even more regrets. In my dreams I heard the people I loved and respected judge me from those secret mistakes. I felt their eyes watching me, not trusting me, making me feel like the hypocrite I am. In these dreams I relived the persecution that never happened. The alienation that never was. They all discovered my deepest secrets that they have always known, but never spoke of.

I woke feeling uneasy.

“Get up,” I told my self aloud. “Get out of bed, you have to go to work.”

I closed my eyes and tried to think of an excuse not to go. I felt a little more depressed and laughed when I realized that I had nothing better to do and no place better to go.

I looked at the clock. The red numbers glowed bright making my head hurt. The clock red six thirty with the little red dot in the corner telling me its in the PM. Without looking I knew the sun was setting. I knew that when I went outside the fading light would be replaced by headlights and street lamps. Nothing would seem real. Everything would seem artificial under the florescent lights. I would live in a dream that I could never wake up from.

I spent too much time in the shower and had to hurry through shaving. I had cut myself twice. Blood flowed from six little cuts. One red line from each blade of my razor. I put on my shirt and tie and pressed slacks. I wiped the blood from my face on a bright yellow towel that my ex-wife was so proud of when we bought them a lifetime ago. I hoped the blood wouldn't drip on my shirt on the drive to work. I went through my equipment checklist. Handcuff? Check. Radio? Check. OC-10? Check. Black jacket with “Security” embroidered on the back and fake badge on the front? Check. Feeling of total anonymity? Check.

When I finally climbed up into my battered pickup, the dirt from th windshield was thick and made be drive in a perpetual fog. I glanced at the rear view mirror. I saw my own eyes in the reflection and only my eyes. I didn't see behind me. I saw through me. I saw what I really was. I saw in my own eyes the nothing that I never wanted to be. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to push my fist through the windshield and feel the blood flow down my arm. I wanted to marvel at the jagged bits of glass that would pierce my knuckles. I wanted the pain to wash away my loneliness. I wanted blood. I wanted to break. Instead I started my truck's engine and quietly drove to work.

It was a relatively slow night for a casino. When I say slow I mean busy by other casinos standards. When I say casino I don't work in a real casino. Not the flashy Vegas casino with the show girls and Elvis impersonator and a Wayne Newton around every corner. No I don't work there. I work in a Native Casino. We have cocktail waitresses and special wanna-be-Vegas shows, but we're not Vegas. We're a Tribal Casino, the generic casino. Its kinda like masturbation, good enough for now but no comparison to the real thing.

I hear a voice in my ear. Muffled and distorted I hear the voice say, “Adam Three, could you respond to pit five for a P.R.”

P.R. doesn't mean public relations like we've been taught. It means Patron Removal, which means I got to kick someone out. I quicken my stride as I head to pit five. Tuesdays in here suck. It eleven o'clock and there's only about a hundred people in here, hundred and fifty tops. It sounds like a lot until you make them spread out inside a building the size of a football field. I walk past the our “valued” customers. At this time of night they all look pale. Like they haven't seen the light of day in years. When the neon lights reflect off their faces they look dead. Casino Zombies no expressions on their blank faces, just a vacant stares at a slot machine.

I get to pit five and talk to the Casino Manager. He points at a man playing blackjack and says, “The bald guy there on BJ-15 needs to go. He keeps keeps calling Suzie a 'bitch'...yeah he needs to go.” The casino manager talks with a thick Jersey accent which makes me wonder if the old stories about the mob and casino are all true.

I walk up and place my hand on the guy I'm supposed to remove's back. The guy looks like what Friar Tuck would look like if he got dressed up to go golfing. Polo shirt and kacky shorts dropping hundred dollar chips that he stole from the collection plate or Prince John's pantry. I see him motion for a hit on when he has sixteen showing and the dealer has five. He busts. “You fucking cunt” he spits as he looks down. I see the froth from his mouth drop into his lap.

In a half whisper, half order I say my standard speech that works for these situations, “Hello, my name is (insert my name here) I'm with the security department. I'm afraid its time to call it a night. I need you to pick up your chips and cash them in. I'll explain everything when we get outside.” I keep my voice firm but polite. Mean but nice. It's like second nature now. By the time I realized that I've started talking I'm already half way through. Friar Tuck turns to me and glares and demands, “Why? I ain't done nothing wrong. This fucking bitch,” he points to the dealer, “is loosing. Whenever I start winning you kick me out.”

I assure him this was not the case and move my hand with the palm up in the “welcome to the exit” motion towards the cashier. Friar Tuck grunts and mumbles, calls the dealer a bitch on more time and heads towards the door. “I don't need cash out, I want to hear what you have to say you sonuvabitch.”

As he walks Friar Tuck's got his arms above his head, like an ex con at gunpoint. “These assholes are kicking me out cuz I'm winning.” He's not drunk he's just a jackass.

When we get outside I start to talk about how the casino treats everyone with respect and we expect the same, but he waves me off. “I don't give a shit what you say, Asshole, wheres the fucking Valet?” who was standing right beside him. Friar Tuck moves across Valet's driveway still screaming at me. Still calling me all the names I've heard a thousand times before. When you've done my job as long as I have; getting called a dirty name doesn't seem to faze you. You just keep an ear out for something original so you can laugh about it with your friends.

Half listening at the steady stream of insults I glance out into the night. There, silhouetted in the darkness, I see the shape of a woman walking towards me. I could tell, even though I couldn't see her features that she was beautiful. Each step she took was strong. Each stride was powerful. It seemed as if she knew how attractive she was but that it didn't matter. Like no one's opinion mattered, save her own unbreakable confidence. She's walking alone and it somehow seemed odd that a woman that attractive was walking alone.

I gaged the woman's pace and teared myself away from the beautiful walking silhouette. It seemed such a pity that I had to then look at Friar Tuck, still yelling at me with his vulgar suggestions about me and my mother.

Without looking I knew that the silhouette was getting close. Smirking at myself I opened the door for her, hoping to appear the gentleman in my pressed suit and tie. I looked over at my silhouette just as she took her first step into the light. The florescent lights from above made a sharp line separating the dark from the light. The light traveled up her dark bluejeans and black blouse leaving her face hidden in the dark to be revealed like a dust cloth covering an ancient painting. When the cloth finally dropped away I heard nothing but her. I heard each step she took. Her black boots would strike against the pavement like a thunderclap in my ears. I heard the the wind rustle her blouse. Her breath flowed through her leaving a faint smell of violets. I looked down in embarrassment. Afraid to look upon the goddess walking towards me. On their own volition my eye move upward. Drinking deep the sounds and images of the woman before me. It was her face that captivated me. Her light brown hair in such exotic contrast to her dark skin. A slight smirk crossed her full and moistened lips. Her eyes were so dark that I saw my soul in them and saw that I could be more than I was. She walked though the opened door looking up at me. I couldn't look away from her eyes but knew I should. I stared deep into her dark knowing eyes. I was embarrassed, but I didn't care. The only thing that mattered was the woman in front of me. The only thing that mattered was the chance to look at her and not look away. “Having fun?” she asked as she past. My mind empty, words lost, I looked into her eyes I tried to muster up the courage to say something, anything that would make her stay. I missed my chance. She walked away.

As I watched her walk away my chest began to burn. My lungs ached. From the moment she stepped into the light I had not taken a breath. I couldn't take a breath. Then she was gone and I breathed. The image of her rushed back into my mind so clear that I had to remind myself to breath. Silence was the only sound. The seconds stretched out to minutes and time stood still. I stared off into the nothingness of where she had been and wondered if she had been a dream. If she was, i decided, I'd never want to wake. Then the sounds of the world came crashing back to life. “I'll never come back to this fucking casino again you can go fuck yourself asshole!” Friar Tuck yelled as he entered his car. He drove away squealing the tires on his '83 Honda Civic as he left.

Depressed from the glorious image I had seen; I did my job dispassionate. Each moment that passed I wanted to go in search of her. Breath, I reminded myself. I found her in the bar. Her eyes followed me as I paced. I tried look at her but not look at her. I had to concentrate to breath. The neon didn't seem so bright. Breath. I passed her wanting to talk but I had no breath. Breath. I watched her walk out the door an hour later. She went out alone and with the same confidence as when she first stepped through that door. I wished I could be by her side, just once just of a moment I wished I could know what it would be like to walk beside a silhouette and be no longer shrouded in the dark. I remind myself to breath and she was gone.

Shaun Hoyt

2007-03-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

Simple things are best ~

The Cycle of Life:

Although I am an atheist I do believe that if there were a god that we should not blame him for the situations that we, ourselves, create. God, as a supreme energy, would want to give us complete free will - that is the existential issue that we all face. When I talk about a ' no-choice ' being a choice I mean that we commit sins of omission as well as commission.

Our faith in that energy for good and for wisdom is compromised by our fear and our sense that we deserve better. We blame god for things that we are unable to let be. We do not trust ourselves to be open to change and possibility and so we do not hear 'god' when he asks us to forgive. The life of Christ as described in the Gospels asks us to turn away from the Old Testament thinking of ' might being right ', or that retributive righteous anger. It asks for us to forgive even while we exercise the caution that comes from not forgetting.

The Old Testament thinking is what binds and constipates us. We see it in the fundamentalists of all religions. But especially in the Judeo Christians and Islamic leaders who are presently arguing in the Middle East. We pray for our anger to be paid for in the 'blood' of others. We want someone to pay for doing us wrong.

And of course they can't - nothing can replace those three years of energy leaking out of your family. Nothing can get that energy back. But if we allow for forgiveness then it is not us making the judgment against others - but we are, like Jesus Christ, allowing for others to see the value and freedom that ' the good ' can bring. And it takes so little effort too --- all we have to do is answer to ourselves about what we want ..... really, truly want.

I don't believe that the devil turns us away from accepting or acting in the good. But I do believe that our fear makes us afraid to act and to accept and work forgiveness. I feel that your anger at Mark became confused with an anger at your faith for not protecting you. But maybe that same anger inhibited you from seeing the situation developing - and in allowing yourself to trust yourself in forgiveness of Mark .... as you see, feel and experience him on a daily basis.

The anger cloaks like the fog you used to talk about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A newborn child cannot see anything beyond their mother. So they interpret the world through the mother's skin, eyes, ears and mood. Almost in the same way as they did in the womb.

The last quarter of the second year the child is starting to individuate. As they learn sounds they begin to interact with the world on their own. As they move farther afield they pick up their own responses and their own experiences. The beginnings of a self referral system which is consolidated in the child by looking back at the parent for affirmation and validation. First sign of trouble and they expect mother/father to take care of it.

This process continues until the child is around six years. At this point we see the first lie - the child is taking control of their reality and making it theirs by articulating something that is from their thought not the parents. We also see the beginnings of the first love affair - the beginnings of genuine libido. The child will ' fall in love ' with the opposite gender parent.
This process reaches a peak at 9years when the child feels that they are the center of the Universe, that everything belongs to them and they experience jealousy, seeing all adult relationships and conversation as a betrayal of their primary partner.

At puberty the child begins to separate off from the parents and family. Little by little the adolescent begins to take their own decisions based on the knowledge bank that has been internalized over the years and experiences. More risks are taken. Love affairs begin to take place with people outside of the family --- first with a love object, then with an older brother/sister and finally with someone their own age .... at this time the person is 17/18 and should be able to individuate further by ' leaving home' and creating their own families ( work, school, friends, roommates, love, marriage, children etc ). The original family unit now becomes the family of origin and an extension of their main, created family.

At 21-25 there is another hormonal change. Often, if the person has had depression , panic attacks, or any other issue when they were around 15-17, then they will see a reoccurrence at this point. This is the last of the throes of adolescence. A realization that they are adult, that some hopes may not be realized and a hunger to acquire the external marks of success - degree, job, career, house, marriage, kids etc.

This process of breaking away is accomplished by such natural ways of distancing, rejection of the binding ties that cause anxiety and guilt, and, dysfunctionally, through various means, including substance abuse, geographic separation, overworking, or periodic silences between individuals in a relationship. "Ultimate forms of distance are cutoff, divorce, or suicide" (Gilbert, 1992, p. 55). The other common patterns are: marital conflict, spouse dysfunction, and child dysfunction. Conflict in the marital relationship often is used in order to create emotional distance from the spouse (Kerr, 1981).

One unintended, positive by-product of such conflict, however, is that it can protect the children from becoming the focus of parental anxiety. Anxiety can also be reduced by one spouse consistently capitulating to the demands of the other. Over time, and with heightened anxiety, such compromise will eventually impair one spouse's ability to function, manifested in physical illness, emotional illness, or some other acting-out behavior. In a similar manner, anxiety could be manifested in symptom development in a child. Furthermore, depending on the family's pattern of functioning and the level of anxiety, all three of these nuclear family processes could be present in one family system.

Skowron & Friedlander (1998), defined differentiation as "the ability to distinguish thoughts from feelings and to choose between being guided by one's intellect or one's emotions" (p. 235). Differentiation describes the measure or ratio of individual energy tied in relationships. At lower levels of differentiation, a greater percentage of energy is bound in relationships. With higher the levels of differentiation, a greater percentage of energy is reserved to direct one's own functioning (Kerr & Bowen, 1988). Differentiation refers to one's ability to adhere to one's own inner convictions, regardless of others' support, while also refraining from pressuring others to change their beliefs and actions (Kerr, 1981).

Bowen developed an illustrative model, called "the scale of differentiation", to convey the idea that individual differentiation exists on a continuum, from 0 to 100. One hundred was seen as theoretically attainable, but realistically impossible. However, he also cautioned that this scale should not be equated with psychiatric diagnoses, since symptoms can occur in both higher differentiated and lower differentiated people. The difference is that more differentiated individuals will have a quicker recovery, and shorter course, whereas less differentiated individuals are less adaptable under stress and thus experience more emotional and physical symptoms (Skowron & Friedlander, 1998).

Differentiation should not be confused with selfishness, since a selfish attitude may define self boundaries, but fails to respect the boundaries of others (Kerr, 1981).

Casino Life

2007-03-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

Shaun Hoyt

The cigarette fog makes this world a hallucination

Sounds of electronic bells ring through the air

Smells of alcohol strong on their breath

They drink to forget they were forgotten

They talk to forget they’re alone

Confident in my world of no ambition

I walk through the oceans of lost souls

The smell of their seat seeps into my clothes

I react to their suffering with distant attachment

I pretend to pretend to care

They move and swear with brutal grace

I walk through them and past them

Feeling their anger

Feeling their sorrow and joy and love and hatred

A hundred different cultures trapped in this one

There is no honor in this place of sin

I want to leave but have no desire

We are here because we have always been

Trapped in a pool of contentment

All are lost who enter here.

2007-03-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

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A Foreword, August 27^th 2003:

Post 9/11 we are attempting to come to terms with our violence and the terror that lies within each of us. From the dis-enfranchised man who guns down the people he works with, and with whom he may have shared breakfast the day before, to the thirteen year old girl who finds a boyfriend on the Internet – we are all drifting in reaction.

This was an attempt at the end of the 1980’s to examine the phenomenology of the social sexualization of the family. This was still a time of expansion – a time that we thought could not end.

Well, it has! As I write the Green River Killer may be co-operating with the Task Force from his cell to preserve his life – his breathing existence in this world. Another life, was taken in vengeance, as he sat breathing in another prison cell. Both committed acts that were labeled “sex crimes”. So what is this “sex” that caused these men to act in such a base way? How did they get there? How do we get from here? ~ And where do we go?

What is this “life” that these men fight for .........

There will be an “afterword” – later ………………

Finally, I want to thank the people I have talked with over the past thirteen years who have gifted me with their "pictures" and in whom I see infinity and transcendence. Of these I would like to thank Louise Bollman who was the first. Her life here is ended but I still see her pictures as clearly as she intended them.

Thank you!

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Introduction: 1989 The question why?

Contemporary-cultural changes are reflected in the way society socializes its youth and the effects of industrialization and urbanization have impacted both hemispheres. The young African who moves into the town feels an outsider when he visits his parents in the village. Daily in the United States, children face issues at school which are only understood by their parents at second-hand via television, radio, or newspapers.

In this century there has been an attempt to "desexualize" the libido. This may be seen as a desire to create a community of civilized super-humans without the confusing myths of human ego (i.e. religion, magic, sexual desire etc). It may also be a way in which we can understand the ‘sex crime'

Has this resulted in a new notion of the mind-body split? Does society become an uneasy co-operative of individuals rather than a community of integrated and authentically fallible humans? Will domination of Reason and Economy (Mind) over the more unpredictable feeling Flesh (Body) create a world of institutionalized schizophrenia and paranoia?

I feel that this is nowhere more evident than in the family. The increased desire for libertarian individualism, the rugged pioneer spirit, has led Io social isolation, fear, and authoritarian control issues. The sexual revolution with the following swing back into Puritanism, aggravated by the pandemics in sexually transmitted diseases, has created a rigid set of external controls (enforced and framed by the anonymous "they") which ignore the human person's existential experience of sexuality, intimacy, fellowship, and family. Freedom is no longer situated in community but confined in abstract absolutes which have lost sight of real historical context ~ A symbolic posturing without an originating experience.

This means for the person, myself, that the libido is not allowed to be a source of creative energy harnessed by the demands and paradoxes of the community within which I exist. Rather, it is an object of suspicion. The libido becomes the repository of all that is most ugly, dirty and misunderstood. This is the evil place where lurk the demons

of genital desire. The demons are publicized by the media because after all "sex is hot . . . it sizzles". But for many individuals their personal sexual lives are fraught with anxiety and questioning. I begin with Becker (1973) quoting Rank:

In essence sexuality is a collective phenomenon which the individual at all stages of civilization wants to individualize, that is control. This explains all (!) sexual conflicts in the individual from masturbation to the most varied perversions and perversities, above all the keeping secret of everything sexual by individuals as an expression of, a personal tendency to individualize as much as possible the collective element in it ( p.230).

Although Becker used this in connection with perversion as a form of sexual expression, it can be seen as an attempt to prevent individuality being suppressed within the demands of “Species standardization." This has implications for sexuality in general. The expression of an individual's sexuality is a protest against same-ness and an attempt to prevent absorption into a "body", whether that body is family, marriage or parent. The person is driven in existence by the desire to perpetuate himself or herself. One of the fundamental ways is through reproduction or, to put in a more robust way, fecundity with its implication of fruitfulness. However, in the concrete, this can only be a standardized species form limited by the realities of genetics.

The second form of self-perpetuation can be considered as existential because it involves a far more personal aspect; that of the self. Bodily procreation leaves- behind a recreation in flesh but the spiritual succession, the inner self, cannot be guaranteed.

The human need to transcend, to lift oneself from the finite flesh which decays and dies, forces the invention of other ‘immortalizing’.

The parent, in limiting the child, is doing more than exercising the role of guardianship. They are also attempting to impress their intimate inner selves upon their child, the product of love and self-love. The child in their questioning of parental mores, especially surrounding the energetic libido, is straining against this recreation. The young person seeks to establish their own identity and embark upon their own life project of immortality not that of their parent.

Lacan (1977) adds his own interpretation of the way a child may build their individual schema of their origins and direction. Through the fantasy of the primal scene, the parents in sexual encounter, the child grasps the origin of himself or herself. In the seduction and castration fantasies they begin to understand sexual drive and gender difference. The anal fantasy presents the notion of a baby being evacuated from the mother like a stool. Thus the child builds a symbolic world in their reaching for understanding the dynamics of existence.

Again, in the history of the family one understands the experiential education in sexual relations and intimacy which was intrinsic to the family dynamic. Children were not told but experienced the various rites of passage necessary for the individual in community. Sexuality was exercised in a spiritual context not a vacuum of manufactured erotic needs. Sexuality was expressed and situated as part of community, family responsibility and sensibility. It was part of a tradition that formed alliances on which the survival and development of the species depended. Perhaps this is the why, since the Industrial Revolution, families have become frightened of sexuality and have gone to such great lengths in modern times to avoid dealing with the paradox of body and spirit being one. In this context liberalization can only be an imposition upon taboos not a refraining and growth of concrete tradition.

How, and Why have we done this to ourselves?

The Human Family and Existential Sexuality:

It is necessary to clarify what I mean by sexuality to avoid confusion. In my view the major problem in writing about this subject is that the word has been confined to genital activity rather than the wider concept of relationship, interaction or dialogue that is expressed in the "language" of sexuality. The work of Rollo May (1969) elucidates this:

Sex can be defined fairly adequately in physiological terms as consisting of the building up of bodily tensions and their release. Eros, in contrast, is the experiencing of the personal intentions and meaning of the act. Whereas sex is a rhythm of stimulus and response, Eros is a state of being. (p.71).

Some of the earliest sexual experiences of a child come within the community of the family. Paradoxically this context is also the one in which many of the negative messages surrounding sexuality are experienced. Anthropology tells us that sexuality is an aspect of human existence limited by fear, taboo, awe, ritual and even magic. However few societies are as prohibitive as our own.

A study by Whiting and Child (1954) ranked societies according to their degree of permissiveness. With issues of masturbation, heterosexual play and modesty middle-class America (middle-class activity being the most liberal of the class spectrum in the U.S.) consistently ranked as the least permissive of all contemporary societies surveyed.

In my own personal experience of living in the United Kingdom, Central Africa and the United States, I have found the sexual mores of America the most confusing. In many cases children are taught about guns before relationship. Is this meant to imply that defense and attack is more important than transcendence and love? Is this bourn out by the child who, in “playing with a gun” maims or kills his or her friend – and he or she has used a parent’s sidearm?

The three aspects of sexuality; play, nudity and masturbation, represent the earliest sexual experiences that a child may have within family. The attitudes learned by the child have an important influence on the adult and on the adult's relationship within his or her own created family. Within the concept of created family, I include not only marriage and children, but also the family at work, the family of friends and the community family.

Family, in all its manifestations, is the fundamental from which society builds and develops.

In the past, family learning has often become societal norm. Commentators from the media and from academia have speculated upon the cause of the high degree of violence, mental illness and sexual dysfunction in society (Ollendo,rf, 1966: Prescott, 1975). It is generally accepted that it is the learned Prohibitions of childhood, and the subsequent repressions, that encourage this kind of "acting out".

In April 1988 a group of New York teenagers went out for a night of "wilding" in Central Park. After several small incidents the pack found a twenty eight year old female investment banker jogging alone. The police record states that they chased her down beat her for a half hour with a rock and a metal pipe before raping her. They left her bleeding and in a coma, to be found three hours later. The term "wilding" fills us with fear. It defines and obscures the transformation of normal everyday teenagers into a bloodthirsty pack of wolves seeking and hunting their prey for sport. This is our nightmare of the werewolf come into reality. The six youths indicted for rape, and later convicted by two juries, were from stable, working families. Their crimes were not motivated by the comprehensible needs of drugs racial conflict, or economics. One boy helped the elderly in his neighborhood and another was a born again Christian who encouraged his mother into joining his church. Yet these normal young men were said to have became animals of slaughter.

According to the police detective's conversation with a suspect they also seem to suffer from no remorse: "It was something to do" (Time Magazine, May 8 1988).

May be society is experiencing an existential vacuum which is being filled by anarchistic messages from the drug and heavy metal music culture. Old style family values are not sturdy enough for children to experience compassion and morality as viable behaviors. Adults, in search of identity, become orientated towards possession as a tangible expression of who they are. Stable working parents are forced to protect their identity by protecting the material "things" that surround them. Individual meaning 'comes not from who we are but from what we own. The need to learn about weapons before relationship could be to protect or win what we own, especially if that possession includes another person. Within the context of possession the concept of compassion is not cost-effective, there is no tangible reward. Even spirituality may be devalued into a religiosity - a search for "belonging", ownership by a project bigger than ourselves and which offers immortality through salvation not transcendent authentic individuality.

Popular culture brings into this vacuum the image of brutality without consequences. Even the video games enjoyed by children pay points for killing the most people. The male child is encouraged to see sexuality and violence as inextricably mixed. In a society where violence, power and possession are evident in every advertisement and with every purchase, personal histories become suffused with the same values and brutality. Given this, a young person's peer group often becomes his or her family. Wilding is an expression of identity. Individually the person is powerless and meaningless. In a group there is safety and 'belonging". Within this "family" there may be a kind of parent, a leader, who can be both-nurturing and masterful. The family has the power to validate and embolden behavior. The identification with the family allows the individual relative freedom from accountability except within the family group. Behaviors are experienced and tested in the group that are unthinkable for the individual alone.

The way in which the three prohibitions of masturbation, child sex play and nudity, are handled within the family is often used as a barometer of sexual repression. This is because not only do they relate to children but also because there are convincing arguments that the fears and prohibitions about these behaviors have no rational basis. Most commentators agree that in trying to suppress the exploration, the dangers are worse than permitting this activity.-

One can only speculate on the sexual socialization in the families of those boys who went "wilding". Raymond Santana (aged 14yrs) was described by the director of his school as "one of our nicest kids". The father of Steve Lopez (aged 15yrs) enforced curfews on him and his younger brothers. According to fellow co-defendants it was Lopez who said, "Let's rape her" and silenced her screams with blows with a brick. Antron McCray's parents cannot believe what their child has done. All of the boys come from decent, stable families and it seems incomprehensible that they might have committed such a violent and sexual crime.

There has been no shortage of advice to parents urging the tolerance of masturbation, play and nudity, as well as the acting out behaviors of youth reaching for individual autonomy. However negative attitudes have been tenacious. In one study (Finkelhor, 1980) for example, 57% of college students said that their mothers disapproved of masturbation and nearly three quarters thought that their parents disapproved of sex-play. When it is appreciated that the parents were raising their children in the supposedly liberalizing sixties then one has a sense of how tenacious these negative attitudes are.

Though the figures indicate that there is still conservatism amongst sexual mores there is an indication of a slow liberalization. Only 13% of the same sample population of college students thought masturbation bad as compared t-a 52% of their parents. Attitudes in reference to sex play amongst children were less liberal. About a third of the students participating in the study felt qualms about this activity. (Finkelhor, 1980)

Because sexual socialization and mores are not often subject to discussion within the family, liberalization is slow. The attitudes of the parents become the attitudes of the children. It seems likely that the families involved in the Central Park incident follow the same pattern as all families. The mores and values of the parents are taken for granted and never examined for relevance or validation in today's cultural context. More importantly, contemporary values of the world outside the home are superimposed on traditions that have been stripped of meaning by economic and social history.

Research into the sexual socialization in families has confined itself largely to matters of sex information and repression. These are the two most obvious areas of communication but they cannot be considered the only ones. In recent years there has been much more interest in the language of physical affection as being more influential. Inattention to an area of interest can be as important as attention. Avoiding discussion on certain subjects that may be uncomfortable sends clear messages to a child that some things are shameful about his or her body and sexual expression. We are only just allowing for the importance of non-verbal communication between child and parent. The touch, a shrug, or even a smile, become more important when they are the only cues in a vacuum left by an avoidance of discussion.

An important non-verbal message is physical affection between parents and children. Some theorists argue that this is the-cornerstone of later sexuality. It is reasonable to agree with those that describe these "interpersonal situations" as the beginnings of the self-system, and the child's relationship with the world. (Sullivan 1963, Pp. 110 -134) Children who have been held, cuddled, stroked and physically loved in the safety of the family learn to dialog with their own bodies, and to have positive feelings about-themselves. This trustful exchange will allow a more open approach to intimate physical exchanges with other people.

it is easy for parents to be physically loving with small children. Parents have a harder time as the children grow and acquire more adult physical characteristics. The adult can often be disconcerted by the feelings aroused by these adult evocations seen in the developing child. The physical withdrawal by the parents is often not anticipated by the child and is almost never discussed. They may realize that this is due to their emerging sexuality and thus place a negative evaluation on this sexual potential. The emerging sexual consciousness becomes the thing that alienated the child from the loving safe and trustworthy parent.

Kissing and hugging is the normal behavior in most middle-class American families. With one- exception these activities continue until around the age of twelve years. The exception is the experience of boys who are inhibited by societal norms in their physical relationship with their fathers, The majority of boys hug and kiss their mothers and girls can hug and kiss both parents. But only half the boys can hug and barely a third-kiss their fathers. (Finkelhor, 1980)

It is a commonly held belief that fathers become physically estranged from their daughters during adolescence. In the same survey the statistics do not confirm that fathers become nervous around their daughters emerging sexuality. But it is only the father-son dyad that becomes strained with the age of the boy.

The act of lip kissing has several different meanings within families. It has both an affectional component (a special kind of love and trust) and a sexual component. Often it is a good barometer of the level of sexual anxiety in a family. Families fearful of sexual meanings would be unlikely to allow this type of expression. Lip-kissing has a special ambiguous place in the repertory of culturally permitted forms of affection between relatives.

Physical affection between siblings is much more restrained than that between parents and children. (Finkelhor, -1980-). Only about half of all brothers and sisters hug each other by the age of twelve years. The principles of behavior seen in the parent child relationship are.also operating on a smaller scale between brothers and sisters. Again, the physical affection between brothers is severely curtailed.

It is noteworthy that the American male is denied physical intimacy from the age of twelve and that this may be interpreted as "homosexual anxiety". All physical relationships become value ridden but for the male this may represent an inhibition of the desirable exploration of the sexual self within the safe confines of family.

The male child may be influenced by the surrounding cultural cues. The erosion of taboos beginning in the Sixties has been aided by the availability of a wide range of erotic material. In the business of pornography there is the need for new and exciting frontiers to promote sales, and open up new markets. The medium has not been tardy in exploiting the theme of sex with children. In every magazine there can be found advertisements extolling the saleable qualities of youth alongside the desirability of a virile (and violent), macho image. If the child has not been allowed to explore his or her physicality then natural curiosity will educate via this type of material.

The idea of sexuality is confusing to a child. There is a sense of a secret life that adults participate in, which is not readily accessible. The subject itself is discussed infrequently and when discussion takes place, it is with all the ritual of taboo. Unlike family life in the 1800's there is not now the concrete model of open family life to experience from.

Sexuality is as basic as appetite. Watching someone put something in his or her mouth and then chewing, the child can understand this by relating it to his or her own experience. With sexual behaviors there is not the same facility of identification. Even small incidents can become highly charged with meaning. A small boy is allowed to see his mother in a bikini but not in her lingerie. This may be the first encounter with the paradox of sexuality. The complicated tangle of meanings may prove a challenge to the child's cognitive abilities.

The first admitted exposure to this world of secret meanings is rarely to do with explicit sexual matters such as intercourse. It is more likely that these concerns become important during the dance of adolescence. The younger child learns of sexuality through the management of his or her own body and that of others. The child learns what is appropriate and gratifying often through exploration and experimentation. If this is repressed then the child may perceive that physical intimacy, even with one's own body, is a highly charged and dangerous area of activity.

Within the family rules governing sexual expression and physicality can often adversely influence the adult the child will become. For example, children and parents can see each other naked until around the age of five years, after this time the doors remain closed. Even when situations arise which disrupt the rules most families uphold the complex choreography of appropriate behavior even in times of great stress. Jules Henry (1965) in his descriptions of family interactions regularly observes that family habits and communications remain fixed even in situations of extreme change. The same choreography may be passed down from generation to generation with little adaptation if there is not an interruption in the pattern. In the Rosenberg family (Henry 1965, pp 121-187) the mother continues to live in the tradition of the "Old World schtetl". The woman of the house is the mother of the whole family, including the father. Mrs. Rosenberg, true to her tradition, hides her disappointment in her husband as father to the children, and participates in the sham that he is deserving of respect. In doing so she can never escape the drudgery of her life and can only remain disappointed in her sons' inability to realize her dreams. Adults learn to deny the existence of their flesh and separate body from soul. Mrs. Rosenberg's soul is deep within her children but her body is confined to a daily grind. In relationship with the beloved it may prove difficult to reconcile the two again. She cannot hope to realize herself through her children because it is impossible to exist as them.

Interestingly enough, conversations between parents and children about sexuality is almost as embarrassing as nudity. Discussion of sexual experiences raise possibility of sexual imagery and the other's interpretation of how it is expressed. The telling of a dirty joke is an unambiguous expression of the child's interest in sexuality. Nudity is less threatening in that the sexual meaning is ambiguous. Presently, families seem more organized to avoid the explicit recognition of the sexual aspects of its members. Although there is sex education in many of our schools and much "open" (if abstract) discussion in the media, parents still refuse to recognize their children as persons with a sexuality. Boys are punished for masturbating rather than encouraged to understand the private nature of the act. The message is a resounding "No!" when it should be "Perhaps, where or when appropriate".

I should- mention at this point of the special role of mothers. Amongst siblings opposite sex interactions is more embarrassing than between members of the same sex. This trend is also evident in the father's discomfort with his daughter. This generalized opposite sex prohibition indicates a probable barrier between mothers and sons. But mothers appear to hold a special place in the family interaction. In her work on mothers and daughters, Friday (1977) attributes this to the asexual or antisexual role adopted by mothers. In this culture sexuality and motherhood have contradictory prescriptions. Before motherhood women delight in being physically, even sexually attractive, after the birth of children women become less concerned with this and de-emphasize sexual imagery. The question might be whether this mothering role can be seen as the fulfillment of womanhood with sexual imagery as merely a ritualistic preamble.

For whatever reasons, the result is an exemption -.from some of the sexual prohibitions which limit other family members. Fathers are not exempted and have to conform to-the same sex-related interactions which exist in the world outside the family. The sexuality of fathers is both a threat and a force for change in the family. The threat to daughters has already been described. Nudity of a girl in front of her father is the most embarrassing sexual interaction in the family. The threat to boys is within the context of the "homosexual anxiety" articulated earlier. Sons are not allowed physical affection with their fathers because of the sexual connotations. Sexual taboos are generally more obvious in the relationship a child has with the father than with the mother.

The privileged position that a mother has in the family can be a source of profound confusion to the child. Jacques Lacan(1977) tells us that the child begins by accepting the self given from the other, or mother. Harry Stack Sullivan (1953) also illustrates this by observation of the development of an awareness of self in children. It is the mother's role in this symbiotic relationship to separate the child from his or her excreta and this forms a substantial part of the experience of tenderness which contributes to the baby's personification of the good mother who is able to relate and give identity to the child.

The father must break this symbiosis and rescue the child from the imaginary world where there is danger in re-absorption by the mother. Father is the bearer of Death, rupturing the coziness of the “womb" and shattering the mirror that the mother holds up to the child. As Lacan indicates that for the person true subjectivity arises in the sexual field then, I am led in the direction of regarding this tension in the family to be a sexual one.

The role of mother is exempt from some of the prohibitions surrounding the interaction in other family relationships. She provides a unique "mirroring" role in the development of the child. The relationship between the parents, as well as the appropriate way in which the symbiosis between child and mother is broken and the "world" drawn into the child's experience is crucial. The danger lies not only in distortion of this process but in ignorance and avoidance of it.

What the history of the family shows is that in the past parents appreciated this role and were intimately involved in the development of the child through young adulthood, with an awareness of the intrinsic nature of sexuality.

A History: “If I was trying to get there, I wouldn't start from here!”
In writing this section I am greatly indebted to J. D'Emilio and E. B. Freedman 's fascinating study Intimate Matters: A history of Sexuality in America. My intention is to show how Americans arrived at their understanding and definition of sexual norms. In doing so I will also show how contemporary society, released from the exigencies of economics, has avoided dealing with the- new contextual circumstances. The economic pressures that determined behavior prior to the Industrial Revolution have largely disappeared to be replaced by the imperatives of power. Interactions that developed from sexuality in community are now manipulated by institutions or organizational bodies which are co-operative in nature and commercial in purpose.

In 1650 a young man of Springfield distressed his community by "chafing his yard to provoke lust" outside the church meetinghouse during the Sabbath sermon. In 1661 the same Samuel Terry was fined when his young wife of five months was delivered of her baby. In 1673 Terry and eight other men were fined for indulging in "immodest and beastly" play. Despite his history of sexual offenses Samuel Terry went on to serve as town constable. Later still, the court remanded to his care another man's child. Although showing the colonial attitude towards sexuality to be ascetic, prudish and antisexual, this history also speaks to the complexity of the "puritanical" attitude of colonial America.

Early American communities paid close attention to the sexual behaviors of individuals. This was not with intent to -totally repress sexual expression but to channel it into what was its proper setting and purpose, as a duty and joy in marriage and for the procreation of children. Economics and religious beliefs of the time directed that the organizing principle in sexual relations was reproduction. Colonial Law in Now England supported this by forbidding "solitary living” in order to encourage strong family formation and thus the development and colonization of the New World.

American youth at this time learned about sexuality from two primary sources; observation within the family and direct instruction from parents and- church. The limited medical literature available from Europe and reprinted in America supported the expectation that sexuality within marriage, and aimed at reproduction, would be part of an adult's life. Even so, the laws against bestiality and the recorded prosecutions indicate that-sexual observation and experimentation with animals was widespread in colonial America, as in other agricultural societies.

The small size of colonial homes allowed children to observe sexual activity from a very early age. Most families, especially during the cold winter months, shared the same room for sleeping. The common practice of sharing beds exposed young people to the activity of adult sexuality. In my own recollection from the United Kingdom of the 1960's it was still not unusual for siblings to share the same bed in working class families and for that to encourage sex play between children.

Early American children learned that sexual behavior should be limited to marriage. Social censure was imposed on women who had sexual relations illicitly, and upon men who were ignorant or tolerant of their wives' infidelity. Churchmen invoked the Bible as authority against extramarital and non-procreative acts. Puritan clergy clearly felt that sexuality was unclean but necessary and warned against unhealthy premarital sex or masturbation.

These ideas reflected traditional gender distinctions about proper sexual behavior. Young women were warned against exhibiting "sensual lusts, wantonness and Rudeness in Look, Word or Gesture". New England ministers even warned against the influence of womanly vanity in case men should be enticed to sin. Men, as rational beings, were exhorted to resist temptation last their carnal desires should lead them from God's sight and love.

There were many other influences including the Quakers, Anglicans and Roman Catholics, who with the secular advice and the model of adults, also influenced the young. While most adults agreed on the ideals of marital, reproductive sex, the more moderate authorities placed less emphasis on sexual control. John Adams, an Anglican, acknowledged to his children that he was "of an amorous disposition" and many other adults were responsive to the more liberal sexual climate of their European cousins.

The contemporary manual for reproductive lore was Aristotle's Masterpiece (first published in London in 1684). This work repeated the early modern English beliefs that sexual pleasure for both males and females was desirable and necessary for conception. The work offered no advice on contraception, rather the emphasis was on the successful production of children. Couples were reminded that successful sexual intercourse depended on feelings of fondness during the act not sadness and thus underscored the association of pleasure and procreation.

Young people who accepted the primacy of marital sexuality could begin to express their sexual desires in the transitional ritual of courtship. Parents, while not arranging marriages in Colonial America, exerted a large influence on the choice of partner. A young man might actively court his bride to be, but he proposed marriage to her parents. Within the confines of parental approval, the formal courtship took place without chaperon though often in public view. In New England young people courted at community events or at the young woman's home. Family interactions played a large part in the introduction and process of courtship. Emphasis was placed on the compatibility of the two people not on notions of romantic love.

Even with the restrictions placed on courtship, couples still tried to explore their sexual desires by circumventing community surveillance. Summer brought abundant opportunities for a couple to slip away to be on their own, but Winter called for greater ingenuity. Some communities with a Dutch, or Welsh heritage had greater opportunity for intimacy through the tradition of “bundling".

Couples were allowed to spend the night together so long as they remained fully clothed, or (in some cases) kept a "bundling board" between them. Often a betrothal promise and subsequent penance excused the exuberance of youth. As long as sexual energies were directed towards procreation and marriage the authorities might be forgiving. Married couples were encouraged to engage in intercourse as a conjugal duty. So important was marital sex that in some States a bride might be able to leave her marriage if she could prove her husband impotent. Sexual complaints from husband's and wives appear in divorce cases in eighteenth century New England. Dissatisfaction was expressed not about physical disappointment but from a belief that the other had stepped outside the bounds of the respectable, marital reproductive sexual system. The importance of maintaining marriage despite conflicts is illustrated by the case of Stephen Temple's wife who went to court to force her husband to stop exploiting their fourteen year old child. Once he had promised to reform a reconciliation was effected .

At this time each member of the community had responsibility for upholding the morality of the whole. Thus the attitude towards sexuality was intrusive. It was then the responsibility of family and neighbors to regulate life in this area as in others. A New England father who allowed his son to live with an unmarried woman was charged as an “accessory to fornication".

Acts that defied the norm of reproductive sexuality carried the death penalty in many states. Sodomy, in its narrowest definition, required legal proof of penetration including two witnesses. It referred to "unnatural" or non-procreative acts between two men, a man and an animal, or between a man and a woman. Sexual relations between women, although not within this legal definition of sodomy, were also considered "against nature".

It is from within this confining view of sexuality and family that the modern day taboos and rituals are developed. The necessity to colonize North America in such a way as to ensure economic stability for the children, encouraged a focus on proper family life where sexual expression had a dramatic social and economic role. Natural increase, rather than immigration, accounted for the remarkable growth rate of the population doubling itself every generation.

This value system continued until the 1920's. Males and females moved in separate spheres, daughters remaining at home with their mothers and adolescent boys moving into the public world of work which their fathers inhabited. But young people associated with each other in public settings which brought families together in community. Couples could court each other but always within reach of parental supervision. Sex was still intensely private and meant to be within the context of marriage.

The liberalizing influence of the First World War encouraged (even forced) women to enter the world of work and men. Women filled the economic vacuum of a labor force depleted of men who had gone to Europe to fight. Increasing economic independence led to less parental supervision over pre-marital behavior at the same time that work and increased leisure time allowed the unmarried person to meet other young people away from home.

The Industrial Revolution of the 1800's had automated many functions previously executed by men. There was no longer the economic necessity for rapid population growth. Thus the emphasis on sexuality being exclusively part of the reproductive process declined. Erotic images beckoned enticingly from billboards, newspaper advertisements and through the moving pictures. A popular film of the decade called Flaming Youth attracted audiences with the following description of what might be experienced by the audience: "neckers, petters, white kisses, red kisses, pleasure mad daughters, sensation-craving mothers."

The issues of the 1920's; freedom of middle-class youth, agitation over birth control, the commercial manipulation of the erotic, suggest the direction of American values. Sexual expression was moving beyond the confines of marriage although parents still lived within the ethos of the world of their Founding Fathers, even though there was a greater degree of leisure and a larger disposable income, Americans still had to be sold the ethos of consumption. It was perhaps this more than anything else that changed the way people see their world, and caused the confusion that exists to this day.

As an example of these changes, a new conception of womanhood was created by the mighty army of advertising. Femininity came to depend on the capacity to allure, not to conceive. Service to family became redundant as work began to be seen as a means to an end. Premium was placed on enjoyment and happiness, presented by the media as satiation of yet unformed desires. A whole industry developed solely in the pursuit of idealized, abstract beauty. Sales in the cosmetic industry in the United States grew from $17million in 1914 to $141 million in 1925 (D'Emilio and Freedman, 1988). Males were not immune from the advertiser's seductive talents. Veiled nudes and inviting poses spread through the culture images designed to stimulate erotic fantasies; and sell products! Much of commerce seemed to have as its project the constant sexual arousal of the American population.

Changes in literary standards also altered the view of family and sexual relationship. Novels of the period attempted to used street language to describe body parts and sexual acts. Homosexuality became an open issue as did extramarital affaires, premarital sex and the emptiness of modern relationships. Many authors were forced to alter text to satisfy the censors, including the elegant and witty Noel Coward. Cole Porter parodied this in the 1934 song from his hit musical Anything Goes:

"Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose . . . .
Anything goes"

Despite efforts by both courts and executive bodies the demand for and accessibility of erotically explicit material seemed to increase steadily.

The liberalizing influence of the second World War, with the availability of pornography, encouraged the sexual objectification of women's bodies. With this objectification there came a further erosion of traditional standards and desires. The ideal and idolized object of carnal desire did not look like the typical American housewife and mother. Nor did she resemble the tired office or factory worker. This, too, increased sexual tension as both men and women strove for unattainable perfection in bodily form and in their relations with one another.

Sex appeared as a force outside the decent controls of the past. It encouraged social chaos by challenging the integrity of the family. Sexuality became abstracted from the context of relationship and liaison in community. It became a force of "Personal enjoyment, a biological necessity" and Love was presented as a passion "that cannot be restrained only surrendered to" ( D'Emilio and Freedman, P.284). Already there was the sense of belonging to a wind that sweeps away individuality and allows the avoidance of personal responsibility.

The rest is within my personal living history. By 1970 the issue of pornographic material had become prolific and those responsible searched for new regions of the erotic. Within this plethora of carnal stimulation the merely erotic became lost in ever more bizarre and exploitive images. Sexually explicit material involving children is available in every major city of the western world signifying the trend of possession Immortality is seen as an issue of control over the future even if this means the rape and destruction of children who are the future.

In the 18th Century, interactions based on sex resulted in a system of alliance. Family and kinship ties guaranteed the transmission of names and the division of wealth and possessions. From the Industrial Revolution onwards a new system was imposed on the old. The deployment of "alliance" had defined a system of rules concerning the illicit and the permitted. A system bound to "sexuality" depends on the contingents of power. This power concerns itself with the world of sensation, impressions, and pleasures primarily of the flesh. As described above, the economy that is based on a sexual dynamic is concerned with the production or satisfaction of insatiable needs titillated by industrial giants. The body is object, capable of exploitation. It is a thing that can be completely understood using the tools of science and thus a causa sui. The world based on sexuality denied of spirituality is an empty world-of power for its own sake.

Sexuality remains historically rooted in family although the economics of reproduction are now redundant. Family is not now to be understood as an economic, political, or social structure that restrains sexuality. This may be where our present crisis lies. Family should be the anchor of sexuality. It should be the situation in which sexuality is defined -and structured whilst allowing the economics of- pleasure and the world of power to be experimented with in safety. The family is now the most active site of sexuality. In society the various members of the family with any power (parents) have become the agents of a deployment of sexuality, aided and sometimes confused by the advice of experts such as psychiatrists, anthropologists or other social scientists.

The breakdown of the old familial system meant that individuals sought a way out of their confusion by accepting all the influences exerted upon them. The modern preoccupation with the confession of sexual inadequacy and role confusion represents an imposition of value from without not a growth movement from within the family. All sexuality becomes invested with the concept of incest and thus has to be stricken from the family as one of the most ancient taboos.

One has only to look in any newspaper on any day, in any town, to understand that we are in a period of the repression of sex whereas we should be engaged in the “production" of sexuality. “Sex" is the meaningless manipulation of object-persons in the pursuit of insatiable needs. "Sexuality" is desire, not ignorant of the flesh, but reaching out to the beloved other through and beyond it. In sexuality we are prepared to be vulnerable to receive gifts in celebration not as of right. We are humbled by these gifts and seek to give to the other. In doing so we lay aside our fear of the death of our selves in the all-powerful and infinite alterity of the other.

Pictures at an exhibition:

The following three pictures of the lives of people with whom I have worked, illustrate how sexuality, as an expression of a state of being, impacts the way people respond to the world they find themselves in. Only one person, Peter, is specifically concerned with a sexual issue. Yet, the other two have also been affected by their ”sexual" interaction with another family member.

In John's case I perceived that his mother had protected and nurtured him to the point where he is now inhibited in his relationship with his wife. This is a clear example of the symbiotic relationship between mother and child that is described by Lacan (1977). With John there was no interruption by the symbolic Father bringing the world and the real to the son. John grew up both loving and hating his mother to distraction. Because he has not been forced to let her go, he continues to be drawn into her. Like a butterfly on display in a case, John is pinned to the wall of life illuminated by the glare of others, in particular his mother. In his struggle to be free he fights his wife as a metaphor-of his adoring and indulgent mother; indulgent, because she feeds into John's system of avoiding responsibility for himself by dependency on others.

Debra also identifies with her mother. She sees her mother as the main source of Debra's inability to connect in an opposite sex relationship. Mother has defined Debra as a "non-sexual" but "sexually dirty" being. This paradox is articulated by Debra herself in the page taken from her diary:

You fucking dyky bitch
You cunt bitch
You fucking cunt
You fucking cunt dyky bitch
Cunt dyke
You worthless

Words associated with sex are used in the manner of violence. The sense is ,one of a distorted view of relationship between Debra and her sexuality. Perhaps there is some significance that, in the recent past at least, masturbation was described in hushed tones as "self-abuse."

I am also aware that she could as well have directed this at her mother as at herself.

Finally there is the more overtly sexual experience of Peter and his step-father. Again, I see the confusion between sex, sexuality, power and control. Sex, genital organization, is used to control and exploit Peter. He is also told that he communicated a responsiveness to his stepfather which absolved the latter (in his own mind) of any responsibility. A more existential understanding of sexuality might have allowed Peter to work through his abuse at an earlier age, thus allowing him access to mature-caring relationships that were not sexually exploitive.

John: A Question of Identity

John is a twenty five year old married man who works for a large industrial corporation as a bench machinist. His wife is a legal secretary and the couple have no children. They have been married for three years. John and his wife are buying their own house and own two cars and a boat. John's hobby is to race model cars and about $100 of his income goes on this every ten days. His desire is to build the fastest and most rugged model in the North West.

John described his problem as "depression." On his first visit he talked of standing in the shower thinking until the water ran cold. His attendance record at work was poor and he had already received two reprimands. John's marriage was suffering in- that he felt himself to be unconnected to his wife. She, in turn, complained of the money he spent and her fear of his losing his job.

Their arguments ranged from the nagging, sniping, to the violently vitriolic. On one occasion John rushed from the house and attempted to-drive away in his "muscle car" (a custom-engined Thunderbird). She stopped him by stealing the car keys from the ignition. His exasperated response was to smash the windshield with his fist and storm off into the night.

John described his father as a mild-mannered laborer. Mother is a housewife and mother of three boys. Since her husband's death she has been occupied with various “volunteer" positions where she is known as an organizer. Mother still exercises a great deal of what she calls "care" on her sons. I had personal experience of this when she telephoned to try to arrange an appointment for herself so that she might discuss John's "laziness." According to John's description, she would also call him each morning to see if he was up and ready for work. When I met her as part of family therapy, she described how she had performed a similar function for her husband everyday of their marriage.

During the couple's sessions, it emerged that mother and daughter-in-law were in alliance. John had dated his wife when they were in High School. Upon his graduation, he joined the Army and for two years they, did not see one another. On his return to Seattle, mother arranged for the girl to be available socially for John and the couple drifted into marriage when he was twenty-two years old.

Rather than analyze John's issues any more it is better to let his words and pictures speak for themselves. It should be clear that for John his identity was bound up with that of his mother and his wife. As he reflected on the dynamic he experienced, John became more adept at choosing for himself, and his impotent rages subsided.

Debra: In search of uniqueness.

Debra is a twenty three year old unmarried woman who acts and feels herself to be sixteen. The youngest of four children, she has lived with her- alcoholic mother all he life. Debra is the only child of her mother's last marriage and there is a space of eighteen years between her and the next youngest daughter.

Debra's father lives out of state and she has not seen him in a year. Mother and father divorced when Debra was tan years old. As Debra grew up she was told that "You're just like your father" by both mother and older siblings. Because her memories of him were hazy she made efforts during adolescence to acquire all that she could of the pictures, letters and anecdotes which referred to him

Debra's main issue was that of feeling "not really here". She expressed that felt "discounted" by her mother and ignored by the rest of her family. Debra described how, on seeing the film Amityville Horror, she felt herself possessed of a dark and evil force that, like her mother, “squeezes me into smaller and smaller spaces". She related how her mother took over closet space in Debra's room, then stored boxes there and finally cleared Debra's workspace to set up her own sewing machine.

Debra's own words illustrate her feelings. My sense is of a person who feels herself being squeezed, absorbed and possessed by something or someone stronger than herself without the benefit of an authentic autonomous self to fight back.

Peter: A Betrayal.

These are Peter's own words.

On his stepfather:

“ . . . . . for months I thought about it and thought about it and talked to a couple of friends, and, you know, then I finally decided well they weren't really memories — it never happened. You know, it was just my imagination. And then I didn't think about it for a bout a year until my step-father, you know, confessed to me that he had done that."

. . . . . .because . . . I mean, because I really loved him and I really wanted him to love me. And he did . . . . And he did for a while, and then he started having this sexual relationship with me, you know, and I, you know, I think, I mean, I think at the time it didn't seem , I mean it didn't seem unnatural to me at all. I mean he told me and I don't know how I mean, I don't remember it clearly, he told me I responded, I was very responsive to him physically and sexually. And, ummm, that after it happened the first time I would almost initiate it again, you know, but I mean I was doing that because that was the only way he had probably ever expressed his affection towards me and I felt so lucky to get just that . . . . .

On Peter's mother:

(Interviewer asks Peter "But when you were ten, who did you think was wrong?")

" Me,because my mother always used to tell me, I mean it was always this big issue that our relationship was awful. And she would always tell me, you know, well you have to understand he had a rough childhood, he's a recovered alcoholic, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, and you're very intelligent and sensitive, and you know you have as much responsibility in this relationship as he does, and you have to make an effort - all this crap - and I got into that for years. You know, and I was feeling like somehow it was my fault. And now I know that it isn't. I mean . I was a helpless child ... and had I been able I would have left the situation. And I did - I used to sleepwalk, and I would walk right out of the front door. They finally had to put a look on my door ...........”

“........ for a long time I hated her as a teenager. And then I got over that. And I decided I really did love her. And I always doubted .. I remember when I was a kid I went this stage, almost for about a year, where I was convinced that my mother ... that some awful , wicked woman had come in and like-, killed my mother and taken her place ...... And my mother, I was never sure whether she really loved me. I wasn't sure about that until I got older. You know, and now I know so loves me tremendously and that she, I know she feels awful about what's happened, even though she doesn't know everything , and ... but sometimes I even wonder if she sexually abused me. I mean, I don't think she did , but there is this awful sexual tension between us ... ... and so we talk a lot about sexuality but not so much anymore since I found out about my stepfather, cause I get too uncomfortable. And every time we're watching a movie , together or something, you know, and something about sex comes on, you know, my heart just starts pounding, and I get really nervous and uptight."

��?

Authentic Existential Existence or mere Survival?

We may speak with loose confidence of our ability to study families because we all assume we know what they are. My first study came as a child when I became painfully aware that when I described my own family it bore no resemblance t-o that of other people's experience. My own journey of survival has led me to perceive that psychopathology is not just in "me" or in "you" but emerges in the space between me and you because of our relationship. So it is with families. The weight of the past is powerful within a family and while we are not totally confined within it, our freedom is contextual. This means that we can choose to merely survive our history in family or to strive to get beyond that experience and become authentic and individual; "undoing the warping of your past" (Sullivan, 1953).

The relationship between the child and the parents can be parasitic or symbiotic. If it is parasitic then the child may become impaired or inhibited. As the experiences of Debra, Peter and John show. the adult is unable to understand or live in intimate relationship with his or her world. If a good symbiosis is formed and worked through then the pathology resolves itself developmentally into a mature relationship where one is, first as a child and then as an adult, able to be separate but related to the subject of one's love.

The family of origin is the rehearsal for the created family. The individual person may actualize to shape his or her own world but this life-project can only be experienced in the context of relationship. The person cannot live authentically in isolation but needs to be in reference to others. The first "being in relationship to others" is the child in relationship with family.

This is not to say that an imperfect family is totally destructive of the emerging self. Destructive caregivers (as articulated in the case studies create defensive victims. However, imperfect caregivers are useful in modeling an imperfect world where difficulties can be worked and overcome.

The new-born child sees the world in terms of partial objects, any notion of object constancy comes at age six to nine months. Thus, during the first six months-of life the baby sees two separate mothers and two separate fathers and they are unable to bring the demonic and the divine together into a whole. Parents are seen as partial objects. The child views himself or herself in the same way . That is, they are split into the good "me" and the bad “me". The child will try to evoke the "good mother" by using whatever behavior is necessary and this is part of the mirroring process that Lacan describes.

The life-project is to accommodate the good and the bad into a general constancy, in our own selves, in others and our relationship to those others. Perhaps the first existential question for the child once a 'whole mother" is experienced , is what to do with that mother who rejects. The mother is idealized as perfect, a demigoddess full of unconditional love and totally trustworthy. The child experiences himself or herself as helpless and dependent. The parent who presents as perfect forces the child to experience his or her own self as imperfect, flawed, and cognitively confused. In this dilemma the emerging person can only survive because they reject himself or herself, and any real sense of self-consciousness. This is Peter's experience-of being responsible for the relationship between himself and his stepfather and mother.

When the child experiences the loss of the "divine mother" they may remain stuck in a pattern of searching for that mythical person. If, however, the relationship is broken up naturally by the interference of the symbolic father, then the child engages in the choreography of the imperfect and the perfect. The interjection of forgiveness is into this polarized dance resolves and unites. The child understands himself or herself, parents, and family as ambiguous. The perfect and imperfect intertwined in a healthy paradox. This relational dialectic will continue throughout, life as the rich pattern of authentic relationship unfolds.

To take an extreme position, if the child does not experience this integration then the cognitive dissonance will always remain unresolved. This integration needs to take place on several levels: the family, the community, and the individual self. Authenticity emerges from this struggle between perfect and imperfect, good and bad, sense and nonsense, Life and Death, and finally the finitude and infinity of one's own existence. Survival is almost always present but authentic existence remains elusive.

My own personal reflection on the family conundrum is that as the traditional alliance system developed incorporating the politics of sexuality, society failed to be cognizant of the change. Thus parents try to revitalize the mores and values handed down through generations in a context that has changed. Children, and parents as past children, do not perceive the world as stable. Yet, parents continue to behave as if it is.

The Central Park crimes mark the collision of two worlds that exist in tense proximity. Of the six boys indicted for the raps, four live in Schomberg Plaza, which provides low-cost housing for 600 families. The family lives of these boys indicate that they should have lived through the ethical inheritance of their parents and resolved the conflicts. Yet this is not the case.

Young men from good family hunted the Park like beasts.

The top rent paid in Schomberg Plaza was around $900 a month in 1989. Its twin thirty-five storey towers stand at the northeast corner of Central Park, in East Harlem. Young professionals a few blocks distant rented small one-bedroom apartments for more than $1,500 a month and condominiums sold for around $1 million each. To these Upper Eastsider’s, Harlem looms as a fearsome and strange land. To the residents of Harlem, the Upper East Side is a forbidden city where they are only welcome as servants.

The internal life world-of the family is in conflict as is the family and the world outside.

"What to do ... What to do,-,.."- (Saturday Night Live) .

One of the things to do is to acknowledge where we are at, understanding the revealed meaning of sexuality and relationship in family rather than clinging to past idealized experience.

Phenomenology teaches us to look for what is, rather than what we hope to find. Our very existence depends on our ability to recognize the real rather than invent empty myths. The project has been a preliminary, and personally reflective, study which mirrors the issues in its imperfections. I have not attempted to provide conclusions because supposed "expert advice" is in plentiful supply elsewhere. I do feel profoundly and passionately that true reconciliation lies in our accommodation of this world of conflict and paradox rather than imposition from myths of the past or created theories from the unknown future.

REFERENCES:

Becker, E. (1973) The Denial of Death.
New York : Free Press.

Brown, N.O. (1985) Life Against Death
Middlertown, Cn :Wesleyan U.Press.

D'Emilio, J. and Freedman, E.B. (1988). Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. Harper and Row, New York.

Finkelhor, D. (1980) The Sexual Climate of Families. Paper presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, Dallas, November 1980.

Foucault, M. (1980) The History of Sexuality Vol 1.
New York: Vintage Books.

Foucault, M. (1986). The Use of Pleasure. The History of Sexuality Vol 2.
New York: Vintage Books.

Henry, J. (1973). Pathways to Madness.
New York: Vintage Books.

Koestenbaum, P. (1974) Existential Sexuality.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Lacan, J. (1977) Ecrits: A Selection.
New York: Norton.

Levinas, E. (1961/1969) Totality and Infinity.
Pittsburgh: Duquesne U.

Lingis, A. (1985) Libido:.The French Existential Theories.
Bloomington: Indiana U. Press.

Sullivan, Harry Stack (1953) The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry
New York: Norton.

Weinrich, J.D. (1987) Sexual landscapes.
New York: Schribners.

Yalom, 1. D. (1980) Existential Psychotherapy.
New York: Basic Books.

Spring

2007-03-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

MARCH 2007

Spring is coming. Despite the upset of Government Daylight Saving Time we are still muddling through. Missing our furry friends still - wanting to have someone in my life that is not to do with this world of money, Iraq, Haliburton and bills. But there are still other foor footed felines that talk. But the are not Scamp and they do not live with us. Sadness because Sylvester has also left us. Even though he did not live with us he was a welcome addition to the the family. His owner sent this picture.

The daffodils have arrived and the tulips are on the way. The gardens are blossoming. It is almost Spring. The Pineapple Express has brought warm rain to these shores which is strange and somehow unsettling. But, at last, I am able to pick up on some more normal tasks. Actualitycat survives .......

Memories

2007-03-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

Memories: Sylvester on an office visit
and Scamp at home

2007-03-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

Boy

December, 2000

"You lookin' at me? You're not the boss of me ...... F--ck you, bitch!'

My brother is just like me. My mom says so - and she should know. My Dad is just like him. The men in my family know how to kick butt. Just so you know not to mess with me.

My brother lives with his girlfriend. She's a c--t and she's probably cheating on him. But he'll show her who's the real boss. Just like my Dad. They'll come over for New Year and my brother and Dad and me will watch the Big Game. My Dad burps beer. It's cool.

School sucks. Most of the time I just get there and sit until recess flicking sh-t at the girls. Then I get outside and take off. We go to the Laundromat and ask for money. Sometimes we put a hammer in the drier and have fun watching people going crazy as it makes a noise. Then we wait for the guy who empties the money out. He's good for the price of some weed. It's fun - sometimes, if it's the old guy, he nearly craps himself!

Whatever ......

Sometimes I take from Mom's purse. She gets pissed and then tells Dad. He just laughs or gets mad at her.

Whatever ......

If someone else's parents come and complain about me my mom will take a belt to me. She doesn't put up with anything. I think that if she hits me it's better than talking --- she doesn't listen anyway. And a belt doesn't take as long !

What's right from wrong? - Man, you're dumb. Wrong is when Mom gets mad and right is when she doesn't know. Stealing? OK, so long as I don't get caught. That's what counts - don't get caught.

My brother left school when he was 17. Didn't do him any harm - he's got a truck, lives with this chick, smokes weed and has money. I think he'll start his own business one day ...... I dunno, anything he wants to that makes lots of money. That's what counts.

Happy? What's happy? I feel good when I smoke weed. I feel good if the other kids think I'm cool. I feel good if I don't have to pay for shit. I don't need school to make money - there are lots of ways. School is just a waste of time and it's for the nerds. I could get a job now and live on my own.

Whatever .....

I cry - sometimes when mom gets mad at me .... sometimes I wake up at night and it feels strange. But I'm OK.

Just so's I don't get caught. That's what counts. Just so as no one finds out. ........

Whatever .............

An Old Man Remembers .....

2007-03-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

"First of all, I introduce myself .....Forgive me, my English is not so good. I am 70yrs old and I live in a small villa in a town in Oregon. One street, one bridge, a gas station, four churches and six bars . You know the place. My children have all gone now.. they call, but we don't see them so much. My wife is an American. I married her in 1948 when she was nineteen years. She is also a German, you understand this is necessary to me.

They tell me you want to talk about Extremes, you want to talk about the camps! Well, I ask YOU a question ...What about Order? When I was a young man at gymnasium we knew what it was like have discipline. It gave us strength we knew who we were and where we were going. But although my father came from the Junker class, and was a liberal ( he read the Frankfurter Zeitung every day, and subscribed to the critical magazines like Simplicissimus and Jugend). it was difficult for me to see that the world was very fair to my Fatherland. We had fought a long hard war, many of my family had died and the same was true of all our neighbors. Yet we were paying for everyone else! They call it Reparations. For what? All it meant was that my father was bankrupt because no one had money to buy the goods from his little factory. We lived off his pension and what my mother could earn dressmaking. She, a woman who had held a salon each week for the musicians and people with breeding in the town.

What made it worse was that the more we paid, the worse it got. If Hitler hadn't come we'd still be paying. And, down the street if you turned off the main road to my school, I could walk past the Jewish shops and businesses. So much money ... so much time to stare at us Gymnasium buys. I know, I know, they said they fought in the war; that they were German but they still had their secret signs and ways.. and money. They had a stranglehold on the economy ‑ the Jews and the Communists ‑ and many Jews were Communist too. That's a fact even now.

So when I heard the rumors of a new leader I naturally wanted to know everything about him. By this time I was in the local Institute of technology. I could not afford to go to University (they were full of Jews and agitating Communists who could find the money easily). Inflation was growing wilder every day, every minute. My mother used to take a shopping bag full of money out with her. She knew that if she stood in line for Wurst, by the time it was her turn the price had tripled. I went one bicycle tour in Schwarzwald in September 1923 and milk was less expensive than in my own home town -- only 250,000 marks a pint! Ach, those Jews.

Does any one think of Crystal Night nowadays? Well that was when the Jews found out that they weren't Germans, and that they couldn't buy respectability. We showed them.... But it was‑economics not race that was at issue. We, the Fatherland needed their wealth, their hoarded capital. We needed to break up that cartel of economic power. And they were happy to give it. They were always happy to line up, to obey anything so long as they could conform to What they thought we wanted. And we gave you bleeding hearts a chance .. we tried in the League of Nations to let you take the Jews. Give them a homeland, we begged you. If Chamberlain and Asquith were so concerned about the Jews why didn't the British take them?

The idea of concentration camps wasn't ours, although we perfected it. No. it was the British in the Boer War in South Africa who started them ‑ your precious Churchill was there. It is a natural answer to a natural problem. When a group of people get above their natural capabilities, step outside their place in the Order of life, then what better to do? Not only that but it provides a source of cheap and reliable labor, scientifically controlled. Why, when Speer needed secure reliable labor for the secret V‑2 project, then Himmler offered the obvious answer; the concentration camp prisoners.

But I am talking too much, and off the point. You want to know how I could work in the camps? Well ... it is not so easy, but it was our duty. Those people were not like most of you. We had been told that in the newspapers and in the picture houses. But we also knew it. They were like selfish children eager to please , at least the Jews were. They belonged with the other degenerates like the homosexuals and the gypsies, the insane and the congenital defectives; they even belonged with the subhuman Slavs. You could see it in the way they sniveled and told tales on one another. They'd do anything for that extra bit of food. They were not like us. And, remember, we SS knew that we were fighting a war. Not just a War on the frontline fighting with the Wehrmach, we were fighting the real War - for purity. We had no doubts about the outcome of the fighting and we were the group entrusted with the creation of the New Order. The work in the concentration camps was training, preparation, experimentation for our larger task. No society can live without order, it is the backbone of strong government. Like discipline it is vital for survival as a nation as a culture, as a species. One learns to obey orders because that is the natural way of things. You know about Plato and his ideas of Guardians, well our Guardians were people like Himmler, Goering, the Fuhrer. We trusted them .. they knew what was best. They wouldn't let us down, we wouldn't go back to the old days when milk cost 250,000 Deutschmarks a pint, and the Jew walked around in a fur coat. So even if we thought something was wrong it was better to obey orders and forget, to mind one's own business, even if some of them had fair hair and blue eyes and seemed just like me. I just did my job

Don't blame us. It was the Americans who let Mengele go. Those of us who had something to trade escaped trial, some of us (like me) just ran away and found a new home through helpful comrades in South America. Many of us just went home and burned our papers. Clearly you young people sympathize with our ideals because you accept the election of one of our comrades as President of Austria, you thought of him before the publicity as an international statesman. I, for one, am glad to see the old values come back,

Make no mistake you'd all obey orders too - if you thought it right, if it meant your survival or participation in something vital. Look at your prisons, look at Vietnam, look at the invasion of Libya and look at the Milgrim experiments ( In those people were prepared to shock with high voltage electricity as part of a University experiment)

Enough! Do you want to know what I think? Apartheid is too soft, that's why it will fail. It tries to philosophize by talking about 'separate development'. They've allowed the black man to get above his natural place in the order of things and above his potentialities. Even they know that!

sept.1989

And - you see - it happened! ... Yes? An old man's fears have been realized. But now, we have the new president - how you say - George 'Dubya' Bush? I think we have the better times here. Yes?

February 2001

1961

2007-03-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

1961

2007-03-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

My name is Kimberly.

I'm 16 years old. I've had sex a total of three times. I had the AIDS test because I got HPV. I had precancerous cells - they saw them on my PAP smear at my yearly. My Mom knows about the PAP smear but she doesn't know about the other things.

I haven't told my boyfriend. I think it was his older brother who did it to me. I had sex with him when he graduated from our High School. He's at Basic training now. The team went State and I was a cheerleader. So .....

I know what you're thinking - But Cheer has the skill, strength and endurance of a sport and it's growing every day. We've been on ESPN, too. We went to watch ASU last quarter.

But, I wasn't the only one! No Shit - at least four did it with him.

It's Summer now and I'm working so I can go to Vancouver before school starts. Will this effect me being a cheerleader next year?

That was last year .... 2006.

2007: I got to go on my trip - dumped the boyfriend first so I wouldn't have to be 'responsible'. But in the Fall I started getting sick. I think because I was still keeping my weight down and 'coz I partIED in August. I had a lot of fun. Music, people, guys ~ I didn't do anything because I didn't want to talk about ..... you know ......

They let me try out for cheer - but coach said he was worried that I didn't have the strength to do the jumps. I worked out and tried for track - but my attendance has got so bad that I am failing ASL and history. So that's finished that. I won't get to compete at the meet on March 31st. I won't get to do anything.

I just feel so tired - i take so many pills. I vomit, nothing tastes good and my parents feel that I should drop out of school and go into a TRY place until I 'recover'. I've heard that you can manage this .... so why hasn't that happened for me?

Why? Am I going to die?

Am I dying? Tell me ......

2007-03-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

JIMs is my story -

Got tested and was HIV+. I knew it was bound to happen one day. Everything else was fine. I took the results to my doctor and then we looked at my viral load and decided that as I was real healthy I didn't need to go on anything.

Lots of the guys are HIV+. It is almost like we are all the same now, and there really isn't much too worry about. I eat healthy and work out at the gym. I'm careful with drugs too - and I'm not an alki! I get my teeth seen regularly, watch my weight and I won't have sex when I don't feel comfortable with the situation. If the guy I'm with is negative, or hasn't been tested, then of course I use a rubber. I'm not that stupid!

But ..... No-one said it WASN'T OK to bareback, especially since I'm a top and I would always pull out .... y'know "Cum outside!" ... which is really rich coz I'm a smoker and in this city we can't smoke inside! Well, I got on-line with this guy in a chat room. We agreed to meet at the Church on Wellesley, bar with great sound system. Ultra-cool vibe .....

Great evening.

We are getting hot and heavy and he asks me why I'm getting out a condom. So I tell him and he laughs. "No one does that anymore - haven't you heard - it's manageable and I'm positive anyway"

So I kinda felt foolish. Uncool.

Surprising how many other guys I know are also doing this. So why am I being paranoid if this is OK?

Went to Club XXXL five weeks ago. Lots of crystal, lots of cocktails and lots of sex. I didn't have time to think about anything - and it was HIV+ only. I know that because my best friend Rob told me so - that's why I went. Great 'evening' ..... 'night' ...... 'day'...... Open season on everything and everyone - Fuckin' A+!

Took me the next two days to recover.

Went to the doc two weeks ago - and just back from there today. My viral load had gone from undetectable to something (50,000??) and my T-cell count was 300. So I thought, no worries, I'll start the antivirals.

That was a shock, the runs, sweating, shaking, can't sleep, can't eat and my mouth feels like a parrot's cage. I felt worse on the medication than I did before. I had the anal warts removed the day after I went to my doc. Might as well get healthy all at one time.

Today the doc took blood again. Told me not to worry - but the look on his face .... And he asked me to take it easy on myself. Cut back on the cocktails, stop smoking and maybe even try an anti-depressant. Me, Mr. Party-Party himself!!! Must admit I feel bad and I don't seem to want to get out of bed.

Doc has asked me to go back in ten days. If the meds haven't kicked in by then we'll try something else.

I thought it was OK to fuck without a rubber if we were all HIV+. Barebacking is fine if you are careful. No real risk. No one said anything after I got tested the first time.

But when I told Rob about how I felt - he got off the phone real quick. And I left him another message and an email - hasn't got back with me. I thought about going out again tonight but I don't look that good. Gotta keep up my reputation! LOL!

I've just seen I have this weird rash ..... in patches, even a little on my face.

Oh, well ...... weird thought .......

Am I dying? Tell me ......

2007-03-07T16:59:00.000-08:00

So ~
Today actualitycat has decided to let seernnadivad.org go and put everything onto here. Why? You may ask - you may not realize but it costs money to do all of that - and three actual sites seems a little extravagant. I can move everything here and edit as I want! Also - I get to blog mobile. Oh Joy! you say.

So ~ introducing Martha:

DO YOU KNOW ME?

So this is my story -

I hadn't dated for awhile. Not since I had a herpes outbreak. I remember that day. I suppose you do, don't you. I went to Planned Parenthood, where I get the Pill and they told me that they thought it was Herpes. The nurse asked if I wanted to get tested for everything else while I was at it and, of course, I said Yes. Well, you would, wouldn't you.

She asked if I wanted to get tested for the AIDS virus. I said yes, because I thought it would be better to know and then I would get it all cleared up in one go. She took the blood, asked me if I knew the person that I got Herpes from and I said yes because I thought that I did. I had been dating this one guy and then he and I had had a fight and I had gone home with a friend of mine from work. We kinda fooled around and, well, we ended up having sex. I was on the Pill so I wasn't really worried and he looked OK. Anyway I had known him for years.

The outbreak was a real surprise. I didn't realize until then that they could really hurt. Even sitting down was painful. I didn't say anything to anyone because me and my boyfriend had got back together again. I thought that I would tell him when I got the results and just pretended that I had a UTI so we wouldn't have sex.

Then she called and said the results were back. When I went in she told me that I had Herpes and that a medicine would suppress it. Then she asked me if I had had sex with multiple partners. I burst into tears because I hadn't - just the one time with this guy from work and my boyfriend.

She got quiet and then said she had some serious stuff to tell me - that I had tested HIV+. I didn't understand her at first. Then when I realized what she was saying she said "Don't worry, it's not a Death Sentence now. We have all sorts of interventions if they become necessary". She asked if I had a doctor I could trust and advised me to talk with him about my "options".

You can imagine, I wanted to just get out of there. When I got home I got on line and read that there were options. That I probably did not need medication after I had got rid of the Herpes and that I would have to be careful, but life would pretty much be the same. Just I would have to make sure that my boyfriend wore a condom. And - if I wanted children we'd have to plan that more carefully so that I did not pass it on. I cried a lot that week.

I told my boyfriend that I had Herpes and suggested, like the nurse said, that he get tested. He blew up and accused me of sleeping around. He kept asking me for names. But he went to Public Health and got tested. He had the AIDS test too because he wanted to know. Ten days later he told me he was clean - but he'd already dumped me.

Because the nurse had told me to I asked the other guy to get tested. He came back positive for Herpes - the bad kind - like me, and he said that I must have given it to him. I wanted to know what the other results were but he wouldn't tell me and he threatened to get me fired if I harassed him again. So I didn't dare talk to him.

I pretty much didn't talk to anyone.

For a long time.

Then I started to look at online dating. By this time me and a girlfriend had moved in together. The Herpes wasn't bothering me and I thought there was no harm in some IM or phone sex. If I thought about dating someone I didn't know what I was going to say about the Herpes and the other thing so I thought I would cross that bridge when it came down to actually meeting .

November 2005 I met Chris in a chat room on yahoo. His profile is still there. But if you want to read you can look down below. I haven't put the picture up because you might know him.

So we chatted on line for about two weeks and then at Thanksgiving he asked me to go with him to a friend's house. We had a great time. He was super friendly, and drove me home sober - first time that anyone has ever been sober enough to drive me home.

The we went out again, just the two of us. We started to fool around and I really felt that I could trust him, so I asked if he had a condom. He said yes and we had sex all over his apartment. I felt great. The next time we met he automatically reached for the condom. Cool.

After about six dates like this he asked if I was on the Pill and when I said yes he then said "So there's another reason why you want protection." I felt that he really cared and so I told him all about the Herpes. I still felt strange but I felt kinda better. I'd trusted him and he didn't let me down.

The next time I slept over because it was Friday. When I woke up he had made a tray of coffee and eggs and all that stuff you only read about in Cosmo. The he said "I've got a secret too - I'm POZ." I had never heard that word before but he showed me a website for HIV+ people and told me that he had felt safe enough to tell me from the first time we met. I felt marvelous.

It didn't matter that he was dating other people because I didn't want a serious commitment either. I just wanted to feel good and Chris made me feel more than good. Then he said that he knew that I must be POZ too and that if that was the case then we didn't have to use condoms because we were both the same. We couldn't pass it on because we already had it. Which made sense - especially as he also said that we would take care if I had an outbreak.

It wasn't as if either of us had AIDS.

His doctor had said that he didn't need to take meds because his viral load was undetectable. I had sex that day for the first time in ages without a condom. And I didn't feel bad. Chris took me to see his doctor when he went in that next week. Just to be introduced - just in case I might need someone. It seemed a nice place but probably too expensive for me. I noticed that he paid for his visit by check.

Chris introduced me to his friends and we all hung out at weekends around his hot tub. A little wine, good food, music and some people used drugs. I didn't want to and so I just enjoyed the freedom of everyone being HIV+ and knowing that I wasn't doing any harm. A couple of times we even had a couple of ball players over. We all played with each other. First time for me - I had sex with a girl! I must say I felt weird when I saw Chris with one of the ball players. But then I hadn't been around much.

Then, one day when I was at the gym I noticed that I couldn't catch my breath. I had always had some allergies so I thought it was that and that I'd soon get back to normal. Me and Chris were getting on fine and I loved the fooling around in the hot tub. His friends were such fun. It was the bestest time. I didn't even have an outbreak.

Three months ago - I did have an outbreak. I was raw down there, and then there was the cough. I took the medication and eventually the Herpes went away. When I told Chris about the cough he called his doctor who recommended Dr. Solomon at the Market Clinic. First thing he said was that I had Mycobacterium Avium from the hot tub - hot tub lung. I'd never heard of it but the doctor told me it would be OK. I just needed to take the time to look at taking care of myself. So I went on prednisone while we went on with the testing. Chris was cool until he saw the warts and I tested positive for HPV - you know, the virus that can cause cervical cancer.

So the parties have stopped.

And the cough got worse, my chest is tight, I have diarrhea and I can't relax. Apparently my 'viral load' has shot up and my CD4 count is way down. I'm always sweating and I'm too sick to work. I don't sleep at night and I can't get on the antivirals for HIV until the TB is knocked down. The meds aren't working. I'm just sick.

When did Hot Tub Lung turn into TB? They didn't tell me that - I thought TB was something poor children got in the 1930's. I thought there was no TB now.

Chris said it wouldn't matter - that we were both POZ and that if something happened HIV was manageable. The nurse didn't say anything - they never told me anything. They say that there are 'options'. So if there are options where are they? Why didn't they tell me to go to the doctor when I went to Planned Parenthood? Why did I leave it?

I wrote an email to Chris the day before yesterday. He won't reply. I'm no fun now and he doesn't want to get sick. And I don't want him to get sick ..... I don't want his friends to get sick neither.

I've been so stupid.

Am I dying? Tell me ......

CHRISTOPHER411

GENDER: Male

CURRENT STATUS: single

LOOKING FOR: Friends, Friends with benefits, Action, Casual Dating, Relationship, I really don't know what's happening right now.........I'm just happy to relax and meet like minds!

BODY TYPE: Average, Muscular, Height / Weight proportionate

EYES: Hazel

HEIGHT: 5' 11"

HAIR TYPE: Brown, Black, Grey, Straight, Spiky

AGE: 35

SEEKS: Woman for Dating

Woman for Friendship

EDUCATION: Post Graduate

OCCUPATION: Environmental Attorney

ETHNICITY: European, lived in States since 1980. Father from US

POLITICS/RELIGION: Agnostic, mildly 'pink', socially aware

WANT CHILDREN: No

WANT MARRIAGE: No

HABITS: Non smoker, social drinker, Reading, Sex, omnivore Creating, Working out, Watching movies, Dining out, Communing with nature, Worshipping the beautiful game.

DREAMS: Soccer freak - England 6 ~ Brazil 0

YOU, & ME: Believes that England deserves to win the world cup in 2006
(You must excel at the majority of these requirements) Drama free. Smart. Independent. NOT clingy. Open minded. Fun. Kind hearted, open-minded, sex positive.

LOCATION: WA

2006-11-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

From a correspondent:

I sent him home last night. He said that he wanted to do things on the weekends. Does he not see the shades drawn during the day? I am keeping life out and I certainly don't want to allow it in through the windows. Someone watching my movements even without sound is too much. I have heard this before. The frustration of watching me pour a whiskey and coke at 10:30a.m. This one joins in. The last one would look at me and I immediately knew that I wouldn't just get by with a buzz today. It is Sunday. I told him to leave last night. As I was unzipping my boots, I heard him yell "good night" from the back room. He had too much sing-song in his voice. He should have pissed on my front door like he had done to the other girl. His urine and the "good night" had the same stench. A "fuck you" would have felt better.

I can here the cars pass on the highway in front of my house. I can also hear the buzzing of my dildo Thomas inserted inside my ass. I don't have to give Thomas anything. My orgasm was mine. Dildo's don't sit back in satisfaction and take the credit for getting you off. I don't sit back and take the credit for getting myself off. I just feel.

He said he wanted to do things on weekends. He said he wants to experience life with me. We are driving back from visiting my brother at an inpatient rehab facility. I am wondering what the fuck we need to do on a weekend that is going to top this. I say that I am not one to hike Mt. Rainier if that is what he is thinking. He replies "I hate hiking, that's not what I mean." I am imagining hiking somewhere and feeling like I have to produce some fake delight when I find a rare flower. Is that it? He wants to see me enjoy something? Well fuck. Enjoy me watching my brother enjoy himself without whiskey. Watch my face when is occurs to me that my brother is scared shitless to live life outside of the rehab facility. Watch me push you away when you want something more from me.

2006-11-14T19:21:00.000-08:00

Things got worse ..... and the only thing to do is put one foot in front of the other.
Maybe Scamp's spirit will help.

2006-10-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

It Still Hurts.
Along with everything else that is happening, it still hurts when I go home that there is no little face looking at me through the crack of the door. A little face that had nothing to do with all the bad stuff that is going on - just a little face that said welcome home. It will get better ..... perhaps .....

2006-09-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Sunday, my friend ToolBoy (aka) Scamp left us. He died in the arms of his big brother, purring. Yesterday morning he did not really wake up and this morning his body left home and his things were either given away or put away. No words can express what ActualityCat feels. I have lost a little brother. He was my friend and my companion. He was his big brother's companion - there, interested in all the 'doings'. His curiosity and love will be missed.

2006-09-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

I just heard today that a woman I know had 'sex' with an ex boyfriend without protection. When she found out that he had been dating another woman she flew into a rage, saying "I hate him". When will we learn that it is up to each individual rather than say the 'other' person should have taken precautions.

2006-09-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

This has been a hard day. Not least because it is a very political day.
Despite what anyone might be saying, I feel that all the coverage is primary to help the Republican Party in the November elections. Rhetoric does not save lives or provide funding for flood control. As someone said to me yesterday; " Bush is as much a war president as Neville Chamberlain could have ended up being a WWII prime Minister". I will be glad for this day to have passed.

2006-09-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of my friend at work. We are, in the company of many friends, starting an existential travelog. Who knows where we will go and what we will think about what we see.

CHRISTOPHER411
GENDER:	Male
CURRENT STATUS:	single
LOOKING FOR:	Friends, Friends with benefits, Action, Casual Dating, Relationship, I really don't know what's happening right now.........I'm just happy to relax and meet like minds!
BODY TYPE:	Average, Muscular, Height / Weight proportionate
EYES:	Hazel
HEIGHT:	5' 11"
HAIR TYPE:	Brown, Black, Grey, Straight, Spiky
AGE:	35
SEEKS:	Woman for Dating Woman for Friendship
EDUCATION:	Post Graduate
OCCUPATION:	Environmental Attorney
ETHNICITY:	European, lived in States since 1980. Father from US
POLITICS/RELIGION:	Agnostic, mildly 'pink', socially aware
WANT CHILDREN:	No
WANT MARRIAGE:	No
HABITS:	Non smoker, social drinker, Reading, Sex, omnivore Creating, Working out, Watching movies, Dining out, Communing with nature, Worshipping the beautiful game.
DREAMS:	Soccer freak - England 6 ~ Brazil 0
YOU, & ME:	Believes that England deserves to win the world cup in 2006 (You must excel at the majority of these requirements) Drama free. Smart. Independent. NOT clingy. Open minded. Fun. Kind hearted, open-minded, sex positive.
LOCATION:	WA