Are You Meeting with Acephobia? Do People Say You Must Be Asexual? Unemotional?

(Reposted, edited, in my main blog: https://reiisi.blogspot.com/2022/02/are-you-meeting-acephobia-do-people-say.html. )

(This is for people that get questioned over their lack of interest in sex.)

Don't ever believe that you don't have human emotions. Whoever tells you that is either lying for their own power or gain, or trying to use metalanguage you don't use to say something else. 

You can hope for their sake it's the latter, but that's not your problem. Just don't believe them.

The whole social conversation about sex is so skewed that you really can't tell what people are trying to say any more. People claim to be gay or lesbian or even bi-sexual, and yet they claim not to be practicing -- not sexually active. Other people claim to be defending the rights of the homosexually inclined, but they themselves are practicing bi-sexual. 

Machiavelli and de Sade were not the first, nor were they the last, to assign for more, and less, meaning to sex and gender than can be justified.

It can be sort of understandable sometimes. For too many people, the hormonal flux is the only thing they've experienced that makes them feel good about either themselves or life. Maybe nobody ever hugged them except to try to force them to feel better. Or maybe words of praise were always attached to conditions. Or some other such. So many ways we pervert natural affection.So many ways we pervert love.

Anyway, human emotion has lots of colors. 

(And the rainbow flag is now being used to mute those, even.)

If LGBQTetc. Is Real, Everyone is LGBQTetc.

(This is another rant that doesn't really work on several levels.) 

[JMR202412171406: On the other hand, it seems to work better than not talking about it.]

I have no right to deny anyone the right to choose their own labels. Nor, really, do i want to.

But when you choose your labels for yourself, be aware that you do not need to limit yourself to the labels society offers.

About twenty-two years ago, I read some in a blog by a guy who was the maintainer of a certain program that was considered by some to be essential in working with the SGML family mark-up languages. Or maybe it was XML. I don't remember the name of the program now, nor do I remember the name of the developer. Neither seem to come up in web searches any more. 

I guess the web is just too big now. (I can't even find my own blogs by simple web search on my name any more.)

He identified as gay, and had several posts that defended his identification and, as he thought, the existence of the gay community. 

In one particular post, he posited that there was no such thing as a true lesbian. The short version of his theory was that, at any particular time, one of the partners would be taking the role of butch. Gay males, on the other hand, would have no similar requirement.

I thought, at the time, of taking screen shots of the post, but I figured no one would believe I hadn't created them in the GIMP (i. e. Photoshopped them), anyway.

I rather fancy that he realized what he was saying, and took the post down.

At the risk of drawing the ire of all sorts of people, as near as I can tell, this is the substance underlying LGBQTetc.: identification based on mistaken concepts of sex, gender, and the nature of human relationships.

When I was in elementary school, somewhere around 4th or 5th grade, there was a group of budding jocks in the locker who would show each other what they had in their shorts and tease each other about it. They generally tried to get the rest of the guys to join in, teasing, or even bullying those who would not with crude comments about the supposed size or shape being the cause of their reticence.

I was tall enough and heavy enough that they mostly left me out of it, although some of the alpha-wannabees would complain that I didn't join in the fun.

What kind of is never said about this is that it is fun -- in a sense. Showing and seeing stimulates certain brain activities, which respond in blood rush to the gonads, which is perceived as pleasant, and cyclically reinforcing. Mix into that the sense of camaraderie when being part of a group engaged in edge behavior, and you get addictions. 

The alpha wannabees were the ones who would then seek out the most vulnerable of the other boys after school and badger them for sexual favors.

That's one of the lenses that I still view the whole question through.

Anyone who lets their own self-image get tangled up in the way they react to various hormones is going to get turned on by seeing flesh, whether of the same gender or the opposite gender.

You do filter your reactions by your subconscious perceptions of what is acceptable and desirable.

But turn-on is turn-on.

If turn-on is the purpose of relationships, we are all lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender. The only question is whether we are in the closet or not.

There is a side question of physical expression of gender. 

No two people are alike, and it would be really difficult to specify what is "full sexual differentiation". 

Large breasts do not a woman make. Breast size does not indicate ability to lactate. Penis size does not correlate with sperm count. Etc.

So the term sexual differentiation has (probably rightly) become deprecated. (Yeah, I used to use it, too.)

Some men will not be able to produce a high enough count of viable sperm count to induce conception. 

Some women do not produce egg cells, or will produce egg cells that are not viable. 

This does not make them less than others. It's just one more way to be different.

Nature makes a variety of people for many reasons. 

(For those who believe in God or such, by the evidence we have before us, God makes us all different.)

One person will be good at raising wheat. One will be good at raising oats. One will be good at adding numbers. One will be good at manipulating abstract symbols.

Even within a "specialty" there will be specialties.

With all the different things people are good at, the necessary jobs and the important jobs are much more likely to get done. 

Put in the negative, if we were all the same, we would all have to live thousands of years to be sure there would be enough people with enough skills to handle every necessary job, because we would all have to pick up every specialized skill. 

... because we would all have to learn everything before we could learn anything -- before we could live.

One thing that cannot be forgotten is that specialization changes over time. Someone who is pretty good at raising grain may change paths and learn how to raise cattle or manipulate abstract symbols instead of just continuing to get better at raising grain. 

Sexual function is similar. So is sexual attraction. Both change. That is, I've seen plenty of blog posts by people who at one point identified as gay or lesbian, but later decided they were bi or even ace. 

Variety is good. Since we are all different, there is a greater chance for each individual to find someone, compatible or otherwise, with whom they can maintain a relationship, perhaps for the purpose of raising a family, perhaps just for the purpose of having companionship.

(It is a gross evil to box people up in stereotypes, and we, as a society, as a world, have been doing that since millennia before Machiavelli and de Sade.)

We separate children as boys and girls at birth for reasons that are and are not reasonable.

But when we find it difficult to assign gender, instead of just letting the assignment wait -- or, what may be better, just deciding we as a society don't need to assign gender -- we have doctors who believe they can "correct" nature's "mistakes". 

At very minimum, we should be much slower in our attempts to correct nature.

If we, as a society, were not so insistent on enforcing a binary classification between male and female from birth, rainbow and gay could go back to just being about art and about enjoying being alive.

Thoughts on Homosexuality

[This is a rant from back in 2018 that I was never able to finish properly. Some things about it just don't work on several levels.]

http://guerillamormonism.blogspot.jp/2018/01/getting-different-answers-to-prayer.html

Now, there are people who believe that there is such a thing as homosexuality. I personally believe the whole thing is a misunderstanding of sexuality.

Some people pray and believe that God is telling them that they are homosexual. I could guess at all sorts of reasons, but I know that at least some of my guesses will be wrong for any particular person.

One thing I could guess at concerns all the teenage jokes about sexuality. Come on. Teenagers have no idea what sexuality is. If the popular kids at school tease a less popular kid about his or her sexuality, they are almost guaranteed to be wrong. But that assertion doesn't help everyone. I don't know that it will even help anyone except me. I know it helped me.

Another guess I could make concerns the question of whether people have some inalienable right to find a passionate romance. Or whether a "rich, nuanced sex life" is even something to be desired.

The first big love of my life would have been miserable married to me. When I realized that, I bowed out of her life.

If I had married the second big love of my life, I would now be miserable. When I was trying to recover from that breakup, a bishop who had gone through a similar breakup advised told me that he thought maybe he was happier with someone who had not initially ignited the passion in him.

And I eventually settled for a relationship which I had to work at from the outset.

I can't even fathom, now, giving any weight at all to sexual attraction, unless it is within an already existing marriage relationship. Nor can I fathom an attraction within marriage that is not the product of the two partners' efforts to be each other's friend at all levels of intimacy they dare or deem wise. And I can't fathom thinking that the product of such efforts should ever be considered not enough sexual attraction. I know that even the physical relationship is not all about sex.

There are more important things.

These are my own answers. They were not always, but they are now, and I don't believe they are wrong, even though I know they won't work for everyone.

Correcting Gender

[This is a rant from 2017 that I was never able to properly start, much less finish. It's another rant that doesn't work at several levels.]

I have a friend who received gender correction surgery.

It's unreasonable of me to wish I could have talked with her about it first, but I wish I could have.

If you are considering gender correction surgery, for yourself or someone you have the legal authority to make such a decision for, I'd like to tell you my arguments.

If you are not, this rant is not for you. You would do well not to read it. Please don't read if just for your prurience.

First, there is no such thing as "gay" or lesbian. Not ultimately. There is intersex, but that isn't what the argument of gay/lesbian usually is.

That is, in almost every case I am aware of, the question of homosexuality quickly becomes an excuse for sexual promiscuity, generally of the bisexual kind.

Almost every case.

What does exist, then?

There are two issues here -- physical gender configuration and sexual orientation.

Physical gender configuration outside the twin bell curves around the binary human gender norms exist. There's no arguing with that.

We, as a society, inherit some terrible cultural baggage on this point. We accept all too many artificial norms as if normal were somehow equivalent to ideal.

Social norms almost always stray from any ideal, anyway.

And, if that's not bad enough, if true perfection exists, human ideals never match it. We'd do better to talk about parfection than perfection.

So many times in our shared cultural heritage in every nation, in every culture, we have viewed variation as flaw and destroyed true talent -- wasted the true gift.

We were lucky that Einstein, for example, found a way around the social impediments he faced. We are not always so lucky, and, we, as a race and as individuals, would be far better off to just accept those who don't match our artificial norms.

It is true that pushing ourselves to do better than we have is important. But pushing others to meet our ideas of narmel is not at all the same thing as pushing ourselves to be/do better. It's usually quite the opposite.

Normal. Narmel.

Normal is an illusion.

This is true of gender configuration, too.

Maybe you are not convinced, but I want to let you know I think society has no right to demand anyone change to fit society's norms, especially when it will effect your health. Ask questions first. Be sure that the change you want is not just giving into peer/social pressure to meet some arbitrary narm. Be wise.

Progenesis ch01 -- Hot!

[Yet another beginning of a novel that didn't go anywhere, from back in 2016 or 2017.]

TMX001 looked apprehensively at the apparition in front of him.

Her skin glowed softly in the dark. His eyes traced her features and curves, eyes, lips, arms, breasts, hips, legs, everything quite visible in the glow, in spite of the limited light.

He got out his geiger counter and directed its transponder window towards her. The counter ticked steadily, maybe three events per second. "Not good, but not so bad, I guess." He brought the transponder closer, and at about an inch from her abdomen the rate rose or so. "Sixty-five, plus or minus. Roughly a low C in ancient earth-human notations."

"Lower."

"What?"

"That's where I took most of it." She spread her legs, and he brought the transponder below her thighs. The frequency increased to a low buzz which echoed hollowly in the empty dark.

"Three hundred thirty events per second. You are so hot."

"Thanks. For checking." TFY000 blinked.

"Were you able to keep from breathing it?" he asked as he got out a clean rag and wiped her face, especially around her eyes and nose, so she wouldn't have to use her contaminated hands.

"Mostly."

"Let's see what we can do to cool you down." He got out gas masks for both of them, helping her put hers on first.

After they had their masks in place, he dug the filtered vacuum cleaner out of his kit and let it suck the dust from her skin. The glow faded as the dust disappeared into the vacuum nozzle. He let the vacuum run for a minute or more, to clear the nozzle as much as possible.

"How much damage do you think I've taken?"

"Who knows until we analyze the dust in the vacuum cleaner? But we need to put you in a detox bath."

He led the way to the airlock, where both were subjected to further blowing and vacuuming, and then after removing their masks, to more cleaning and a shower. Standing before the lock detectors and turning around, TMX001 was cleared for entry, but TFY000 was not. A compartment at the side of the lock opened, and TFY000 entered the detoxification bath. She fully submerged herself, working the oil over her face and head, then, after the timer rang, she raised her head above the surface of the oil and started working it over the rest of her body.

"What happened?"

"I was ambushed."

"TFY003?" He was asking the obvious, but it was equally obviously hard for him to understand.

"Yes."

"We aren't supposed to do this kind of thing. It's against our programming."

Chiriso and Kefumi watched their robots on the monitors.

"Why is it so hard to get the interactions between the emotional functions and the motivation functions right?" Kefumi asked.

Chiriso shrugged.

"Can't we just build them so they reproduce asexually?"

"The problem of pride remains, as long as they need to share genetic information to keep the redundancy up."


TFY003 and TMX000 were visible on separate monitors, waiting in standby mode where they had


The scientists who created these  robots, the last of a human-like race, as they attempt to produce a replacement race and decide to de-gender the robots, making them all hermaphrodite.

Sex Is Not For Fun

There is this social undercurrent that you may get from "authorities" that sex is UNCLEAN, or FORBIDDEN, or DANGEROUS!

Then there is this social undercurrent that sex is FUN!

Wait.

That's no longer an undercurrent.

Sex sells. 

It's a cheap way to shore up your sagging sales performance rating or sagging locker-room reputation, or, well, any sagging image problem.

So everybody and their dog is selling it.

Except.

It's not cheap.
And it doesn't really shore up anything.

UNCLEAN, FORBIDDEN, DANGEROUS, FUN, it's all the same -- lies by partial truth.

Sex is fun! For a moment.

It releases those endorphins in the brain, and those endorphins are what recreational drugs and rock-n-roll and romance novels and fast cars and so forth are all about.

But when used as a drug, it's just like the rest of the list. When you are done, it lets you down.

Now, it doesn't let you down if you are doing it for the right reasons. Using it as a safe drug is not a right reason, and it isn't safe, no matter what the people who like the easy sell tell you.

What's the right reason to have sex with someone? Well, it's a lot easier to talk about a bunch of the wrong reasons, and I'm in rant mode, so I'll talk about those first.

Sex is dangerous! They tell you we have conquered syphilis, scabies, and herpes, and then they'll say herpes and scabies really aren't that bad anyway, and "we" are going to conquer HIV/AIDS real soon now, ...

Even if all of that talk about conquering all the sexually transmitted diseases were for real, there is still the problem of the heat of the moment.

In the middle of the endorphin rush, you tend to do stupid things.

So sex is dangerous. That's why you should keep it within marriage. Then it's not so dangerous. (It's still dangerous enough to be an adventure, though.)

Sex is forbidden!

Well, yeah. Random sex really is forbidden to anyone who understands the dangers. And doing things just because they are forbidden has always been a bit brain-dead, anyway.

Now, there is a class of philosophy that forbids sex except for making children, and even wants to forbid it then. Test-tube babies, and man-made drugs to get the endorphin rush.

(It ain't going to work. Sure, we can use the test-tube to help sometimes, and it's important to understand endorphins, but the whole idea of the endorphin rush is to help us overcome all the mechanicalities that we tend to pile on ourselves, whether we call them "the law of Moses" or "rational behavior" or "tradition!" or whatever. Well, not the whole idea, but one major part of it.

Sex is unclean.

Whether solitary masturbation or between properly married partners or in large group orgy, it's unclean.

This isn't just about micro-organisms and dirt. When you have sex, you share some intangibles, too, emotional things and intellectual things and spiritual things and social things and economic things. But no one seems to want to talk about those, because sex sells!


Now it can be clean, and sacred, if still a bit stinky (funky?), between partners properly married to each other and consenting to it.

But it's still not perfectly safe and clean within marriage. That is, even between properly married, consenting spouses, sex leaves things behind that, if not taken care of, just get messier. In the best of cases, it's hard to have sex without leaving body fluids on the sheets or underwear or various places where they can get sticky and smelly and moldy and make people sick and, hey, you know this is not clean.

Babies? Babies are messy, too, but we don't complain about them because it's obvious they have to be messy to grow up. And we were babies once, no matter how hard we pretend we were never that uncool.

(Well, there have been, and still are, some who say children should be seen and not heard. And mean that they don't want to be bothered. This is another bad sort of philosophy.)

But the fact that babies are wonderful in spite of being messy does not mean that we should ignore the possibility of making babies when we do the sex thing. Maybe it's not a danger like getting sick, but bringing a baby into this world without even the promise of support is something we should avoid when possible. And if the burden naturally falls on the mother, it should be obvious that the father should be willing to commit to shouldering his part. And there we are back to marriage.

Oh. Pregnancy definitely can have adverse effects on health, in spite of all the wonderful medical stuff we have in our "modern" world. And all the wonderful modern contraceptives don't always prevent it happening.

Because of those endorphins, many people want to pretend that sex should be free and easy without marriage.

But you can get that endorphin rush in lots of ways besides sex. Interacting with people gives us lots of opportunities to be nice to others, and being nice to them makes them feel good (even though they may pretend they don't like to feel good), and it also makes us feel good.

Mutual appreciation is not mutual masturbation no matter how many cynics say it is. Masturbation requires getting one's hands on the sex organ, whether literally or metaphorically. And there are plenty of ways to make each other feel good without getting into sex.

Anyway, the mutual agreement of support and exclusion made in marriage may not be perfectly iron-clad, but it's a whole lot better than the assumption that your partner-of-the-moment has probably come from some other messy tryst without bothering to clean up and is probably going to leave you without bothering to help you clean up, too.

Random sex is extremely messy. And it's so unnecessary.

So how can sex be a good thing?

Clearly, it's primarily a good thing between people who are married to each other, when they are both agreed to it.

That's when it can be fun and not let you down. That's when it can be an adventure without (usually) killing you. (Yeah, childbirth is still dangerous, but spouses are supposed to help each other, okay?) That's when being forbidden really means, yes, you can -- with this one person with whom you have made the mutual commitments of marriage. That's when it is sacred, and not unclean.

Just because sex is not for fun doesn't mean it can't be fun. With your properly married spouse.

Backup JMR201604261650: Economics 101, a Novel, ch_31a -- Reality

[This is a backup. The current version is at http://joel-rees-about-sex.blogspot.com/2016/04/economics-101-novel-ch31a-reality.html and I assume youll prefer to read that. 
(I recognized pretty quickly that Karel had left some important things unsaid, and you'll find those things on that page, not here.)]

(The story starts here: http://free-is-not-free.blogspot.jp/2016/03/economics-101-novel-ch00.html.

The previous chapter is here: http://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/04/economics-101-novel-ch30-fear-at-night.html  If you missed that, there will be some discontinuity here, so you'll probably want to go back and read it.)

This chapter contains sexually explicit material. Nothing to get too excited about, Bobbie and Karel aren't having sex or anything like that, but I don't want people who aren't interested in reading their discussion of important sexual matters stumbling on it by accident. You may prefer to read the modest version, instead.

The modest version of the chapter is here: http://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/04/economics-101-novel-ch31-reality.html.

---

Karel leaned forward as if in pain, hands forming fists over his knees, suppressing a groan. He didn't seem quite able to talk, seemed to be holding his breath.

"What's wrong?" Bobbie was not sure what to do. She moved closer to him and massaged his back, and felt his body shudder. Then she remembered some of her experiences as a nurse, and the light came on in her mind.

"Oh, dear. That was not nice of me, was it?"

"Ah, ... " Her words, and maybe her hand on his back, too, seemed to have a calming influence, and the fear and confusion in Karel's face faded and he started to breathe again. "No, it's okay." He took another breath. "Two more weeks. Then you can kiss me when I'm asleep all you want." He winced, and breathed deeply once more and groaned softly and shivered, rocking back and forth, holding his legs below his knees. 

"Are you gonna be OK?"

"Uhm, yeah, I think so. Gonna have to wash my underwear, though."

"Oh. Sorry about that." She felt awkward, knowing that the apology was, at the same time, both not enough and too much. "Can I do something to help?"

Karel chuckled. "You just did." Then he relaxed and lay on the ground laughing, or maybe sobbing.

And both of them were praying in their hearts for direction from God.

"Now what?"

"Good question."
 
"Ehrm, does this mean, ..."

"Mean, ...?"

"Mean we ..., I don't know what I mean. Do you know what I mean?"

Karel sat back up. "Did you intend to open my valves?"

"Ick. No!"

"Then you have not sinned, my daughter," he said, imitating a father confessor he had seen in a movie. (Mormon bishops are not father confessors, and would generally not use such phrasing. The Mormon approach to confessing is a little different, as you can see.)

"You're joking, and I'm a little scared."

"Well, what did you intend by kissing me?" Karel asked with mock strictness, trying to lighten the mood. Then he grinned.

And Bobbie relaxed, too. "I had a kind of an odd dream, and when I woke up, you were talking in your sleep. So I came around to check on you, and, well, you just looked so sweet and you were mumbling something that sounded like you were saying you love me, and I was feeling a little strange because of the dream," and Bobbie paused for a breath, "and I just acted on impulse."

"I don't think I see anything wrong with that. What was your dream about?"

"Oh. You remember the argument we had with Dan and Kristie in the cafeteria?"

"Dan. Kristie. When they told us how unfair it was of us to be dating other people when we were planning to do the research project together, even though we weren't thinking of ourselves as romantically together?"

"Yeah. That one. When they tried to argue that the unfairness meant we should just give up the research project."

"And then, instead, we both just admitted we guessed we'd been dating them too long. Boy were they upset. Not that I blame them, really. We had been dating them too long. And they started dating each other after that, didn't they."

"Yeah, they did. I got a wedding announcement from them about a month ago."

"You did? Wonder why I didn't."

"It came addressed to me, but it had both our names on it. Sort of. 'Bobbie and Karel Pratt.' I didn't want to show it to you at the time."

Karel burst out laughing, and Bobbie joined him, their laughter echoing across the moonlit island.

When their amusement subsided, Bobbie continued. "It was like that time, but how it might have been if everything that has happened in the last four months, including Wycliffe's kidnapping us, were just a long and detailed, continuing dream we had both had separately, together, to warn us to get married before we came."

"Really? Interesting."

"And I was dreaming it in the omniscient point of view. Pure Harlequin Romance stuff. You come in, dodge their questions, tell me you're having nightmares about being alone with me on an uncharted island. And I know what you mean, but I'm scared to admit it, so I quibble about you finding my company unpleasant. And you come just right out and tell me it's rather the opposite. And I say that, if we are going to be kidnapped, we should do something to avoid the nightmare. And you realize you hadn't mentioned the being kidnapped, so you know I must be having the same dreams as you. And Dan and Kristie have no idea what we are talking about, of course. And they are a little over the top with their attempts to defend their territory. And you and I walk off together to talk about making sure we would not be single."

"Sounds surreal, alright."

"When I woke up, I wasn't sure where I was at first. The dream had left something empty in me, but that emptiness went away as I recognized the stars and smells and sounds of the island at night. Even the hard ground was reassuring, but I suddenly wanted to hear your voice. I listened for you, and I guess I was going to crawl out to make sure you were there anyway, when I heard you talking in your sleep."

"Oh. And then I looked cute in my sleep and ...?"

"and I wanted just a little more reassurance that this is all real."

"Wow. So. You think you're happy here?"

"I don't think I'd be happy if this were taken away from us." Bobbie's face crinkled into a strangely shy smile. "What was your dream?"

"It isn't obvious?"

"Why would it be obvious?"

"Oh, well, we were arguing about something inconsequential, and I kept trying to tell you I love you. I love you, by the way."

"It's nice to hear. I love you, too. What were we arguing about?"

Karel winced and tilted his head as if he wanted to dodge that question. "Do you really want to know?"

"I told you what I dreamed."

"We had some disagreement about getting married. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was about the marriage license."

"Have we ever really argued? Oh. Yeah. Never mind. It's easy to forget. That was all?"

"You, uh, said you didn't want to wait, and started taking your clothes off, and I was trying to stop you."

"EW! YUCK!"

"See. Sometimes it's better not to know things."

"Well, maybe not so yuck." Bobbie wondered whether Karel could see her blushing in the moonlight. "Well, if you're going to dream about a woman taking her clothes off, I'd rather it be about me."

"Erm, I'm glad you're not offended."

"Dreams shouldn't be taken literally. Are you blushing? It looks like you're blushing, but I can't really tell in the moonlight."

"Yeah. I'm sure I'm blushing."

"Me, too. Well, should we go wash your underwear?"

"We? Together?"

"Are you forgetting the buddy system?"

"Oh. Well, we could wait for our morning swim."

"Won't it come out cleaner if you wash it now?"

"Probably. I guess we can go for a midnight swim."

And they both stood up and started walking toward the beach, but then Bobbie stopped. "Wait. This isn't going to work very well."

"Oh. Yeah. We aren't married yet. We can't go skinny-dipping together at midnight just yet. Otherwise, why would I have been arguing with you in my dream?"

And they both started laughing again and went back to the tent to change to their swimming suits.

They continued talking as they walked down to the beach, Karel carrying his soiled clothes.

"Will that always happen when I kiss you in your sleep?"

"Oh, no. I've just been, well, sort of practicing my endurance."

Bobbie gave him a quizzical look.

"We've talked before about my reasons for not always having a temple recommend before, ..."

"Yeah. You've tended to interpret the law of chastity as including a ban against masturbation. Your current bishop back home seemed to agree with you, and my bishop seemed to think he should call your bishop and ask why, but, at the time, we were still not admitting we were interested in each other, so he didn't."

---

Back around the 1960s or so, there seemed to be a bit of disagreement among the leadership of the Church on this point. Some people think there still is. For those who might have questions on the subject, I suggest discussion with your nearest bishop. Other than to say we are neither Pharisees nor hedonists, it is not my place to state Church policy on the subject.

---

"Well, I haven't masturbated since a little bit after I broke up with Kristie. Wait. That doesn't sound right."

"I know Kristie, and she is a sweet girl, but she was too physical with you. And I told her so, but she wouldn't listen. It's funny, but I don't think she was that way with Dan, at least not while we were there."

"I always thought that she and Dan had better chemistry. She seemed not to be trying to prove herself all the time the way she was with me."

"Did you go home after your dates with Kristie and get relief?"

"Ouch. That's a personal question. But, no, she wasn't that physical with me, even when we were alone."

"That's nice to know."

"The fluids build up anyway. And they have to be released every now and then."

"And we've talked about this before, and I've offered my opinion as a nurse."

"And some of the leaders of the Church say that the only legitimate way for the release to occur is nocturnal emission."

"Yeah, and we've talked about that, too."

At this point, they had waded into the water up to their waists, and Karel started to wash his underwear and trousers.

"And that was what I interrupted when I kissed you. So it was just a matter of bad timing?"

"Yeah. But if you make a practice of kissing me in my sleep, the fluids are likely to build up faster."

"Of course. I really was not thinking clearly."

"Middle of the night, strange dreams, and this ambiguous situation, it's hard to keep a clear head. For both of us. Okay, Turn around."

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah."

And Karel took off his trunks while Bobbie's back was turned and bathed himself in the salt water.

"So, anyway, you're worried about whether we have ruined our purpose in waiting until we have the marriage license to actually get married physically?"

"Nope. Now I think I understand better why we should wait."

And Karel was finished, and they went back to camp and went back to bed under the stars, with the tent between them.

"Stupid ambiguities."

"Good night Karel. Sweet dreams."

"Good night, Bobbie. And thank you for being you. I can't imagine why we ever thought we would not like each other."


(The link to the next chapter will be here when it's ready.)

(The chapter index is here: http://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.jp/2016/04/economics-101-novel-index.html)