Learning from each other's knowing

Should make a special mention of the super cool Nasty Girls who did blog against disablism but whose contribution I only discovered this morning. Read The Cyber Sapphic Café at the Edge of the Universe

Catching up with blogs, I read Sage’s thoughts on the sexual abstinence posters at her daughter’s prospective middle-school, which triggered a memory. Thankfully, abstinence is an argument rarely heard in the UK; out of all the people I know, from all the generations and denominations, there has been just one couple who waited until their arrangement was legally binding. However, we did get a chap come into school from one of the Christian youth organisations – I want to say it was the YMCA but I don’t think it was.

Now this chap was okay, but started with the usual cringe-worthy appeal to be treated like a mate as opposed to a figure of authority, and we obligingly walked all over him. He was a young man but balding and said we could call him whatever we liked, joking that we could even call him Slaphead if we so chose. Ha ha, we said and addressed him Slapper from there on in.

As a demonstration, he took two pieces of paper and glued them together. We then had to attempt to separate the two pieces of paper. Which was, of course, quite impossible; one or both of the pieces of paper would tear, leaving bits of itself stuck to the other.

This chap explained that this is why he felt that it was best not to have sex before marriage. Like the paper, once you make a meaningful connection with someone, one cannot simply make a clean break without having sustained some damage.

A certain limerick came immediately to mind;

A pleasant young couple named Kelly,
Now walk around belly to belly.
Because once, in their haste
They used library paste
Instead of petroleum jelly.

I did like the analogy though and I still do. However, it occurred to me even at the time that I may have lots of little tiny tears and scraps of other pieces of paper on me but I didn’t have sex with any of the people who they belong to. More's the pity.