What is Sexual Activity (was Quibble)
Rick Knight (rknight@platinum.com)
Mon, 18 Aug 97 10:02:04 CST
Sarrah Marr wrote in response to Tony Hollick's rant:
To most people, and most dictionaries, 'sexual' means 'of or
concerning sex'. And sex does not mean making babies. I find it hard
to agree that heterosexual people having penetrative intercourse
without a condom are engaging in sexual activity, whilst those having
penetrative sex with a condom are not. "Making babies" is a subset of
sex, not vice-versa.
Rick Knight responds:
A practical and sober response Sarah. I'm of the mind that in this
particular instance, any other attempts to reason in this arena would
be like beating one's head against a brick wall <G>.
I asked my partner about this whole teacher-lover-mother situation
with Mary Kay whoever. He was actively pursued by a father figure man
when he was 13 and they had an affair. It went on for the summer. It
ended up being a big public court mess of course when the parents
found out. The guy was in his late 20s and had used guilt and other
adult-honed forms of manipulation to make his boy-lover more mailable.
Regardless of the information-richness of our society, the exceptions
we may deem appropriate or inappropriate in the realm of love/sex,
this woman was the boy's teacher, she was entrusted in a relationship
of propriety. The boy would only naturally follow his impulses (like
boys his age will whether it's an unrequited crush or having one's
first hump or blow job in some private stolen moment). I regard the
teacher (as does my partner) as an emotional child. She has
sacrificed a great deal because of a howling error in judgment. While
there may be volumes of extenuating circumstances Mr. Hollick can
dredge up to garner sympathy for the woman, fact of the matter is
doing what she did in our culture is no more appropriate than when
Ethiopian immigrants try to continue the tradition of female
"circumcision" in this country and think it's not a crime. We as a
culture have deemed it so.
Until such time where children are somehow imbued with experience,
wisdom and discernment, they are not appropriate sexual partners for
adults. The chasm is too wide (although considering the lame-brained
folly of Mary Kay, maybe they were closer, emotional maturity-wise,
than one may think! <G>).
Rick