Here's another view of monogamy, and an alternative the essayist calls "the new monogamy," which offers yet one more take on reconciling marriage with the realities of human sexuality.

I'll be on vacation for a week or so...see you all soon.  

Behind The Curtain

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Turns out I’m a very faithful person. 

Don’t believe me?  Let’s do the tired old trick of starting with a dictionary definition, but with some unexpected results. 

NOTE:  This new faithful me is also the new non-monogamous me.  Since my divorce, I&rs/… Read full post »

RavingBits, I’m fascinated by your remarks after reading “Monogamy Lite.”  I’ve chosen to reproduce them here, so I can comment on your comments!  I’m calling this “Part 3.5” in the series, since it wasn’t part of what I had planned to write./… Read full post »

Throughout the early to mid-twentieth century, the former Soviet Union experienced massive crop failures.  One major reason?  “The manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to soc… Read full post »

Happily ever after failed. 

But since it took 31 years, I figured I’d given it the old “college try.”  Actually, college is where my ex-wife and I met.  We were full of middle-class morality.  We’d been raised on Disney movies.  I was Prince Charmi/… Read full post »

How do I love thee? asked the poet.

Today, we’re increasingly asking not just “how,” but “how many others?”  We’re also asking more and more questions about the interplay between sex, romance, attachment and partnering arrangements including marriage, cohab/… Read full post »

Making “life lists” is all the rage, ever since the 2007 film “The Bucket List,” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. OK, so I got a late start.  I’ve been kinda busy.  Here are some ideas for a bucket list, but just ideas.  Ya gotta write yo/… Read full post »

What do you call a mid-day meeting in an Arizona hotel ballroom with Republican Governor Jan Brewer and three hundred of her closest white friends?

A legislative update luncheon for business leaders. 

Otherwise known as the state’s ruling elite.  Forget all t/… Read full post »

Republicans to Gulf Coast: “Eat shit and die.”

Well, not shit exactly – oil.  Which in this case is a lot like shit.  Brown, smelly, sticky.  Something you don’t want in your water, on your food, on your beaches, or piling up to the point where it kills/… Read full post »

Jesse’s family used abusive misinterpretations of the teachings of Christ to condemn him for simply being honest – about being gay.

But Jesse was fortunate to find a “spiritual malpractice and abuse” discussion group sponsored by a progressive Christian denomination. … Read full post »

Jesse taught me how snake-handling really works. 

Some Pentecostal preachers impress the gullible by playing with venomous snakes, with the intent to prove that their faith in God protects them.

But Jesse, a gay friend, told me how his preacher father did what all… Read full post »

Jesse grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home, with a snake-handling preacher for a father. 

That might have worked out alright, as far as these things go, except for one little problem.  Jesse was gay.

Now, Jesse didn’t know he was gay – yet.  That would/… Read full post »

So I write this blog, see?  It’s about how people are getting suckered by other people who are experts at manipulating them, OK?   In my scribbling, I do what I can to help people see “behind the curtain” – a curtain made up of all the things that distract us fr/… Read full post »

You should also brush and floss your teeth after every meal.

You should exercise 30 minutes each day, change the oil in your car every 7,500 miles, and recycle.  And a couple of thousand other things like that.

Granted, if you did all of the… Read full post »

The American right needs enemies.

Throughout our nation’s history, and especially today, conservatives define themselves largely by opposition to those they believe have set out to “destroy our freedoms,” or “destroy America” itself.  Need some quick evid… Read full post »

The immigrants came to “a new world, one for which most were unprepared.”  It was “a mass migration on an epic scale.” With “the modest goal of staying alive,” they “came to America with few material possessions and even fewer marketable skills,” a/… Read full post »

I hate the next-door neighbors.

They’re a family of foreigners with a bunch of ragged kids.  They’re poor, sick all the time, speak with funny accents, and worship God differently than I do.  Yeah, I know they’re “technically” U.S. citizens.  They took… Read full post »

Give me that old time religion! 

I spent some time recently doin’ some book learnin’, using my dictionary and the “Good Book,” and guess what?  Turns out I’m a religious conservative!  Now, I always thought I was one a them durn liberals you hear so mu/… Read full post »

As the old adage goes, those who fail to learn the lessons of ‘sixties Star Trek episodes are condemned to repeat them.

In “A Taste of Armageddon,” (Episode 23 for you hard-core Trekkies or detail freaks), Kirk and Spock end up on a planet to find that it’s… Read full post »

I’m a semi-professional liar.

In the biz, though, we usually call it “magic.”  You know, the “now you see it, now you don’t” kind of thing, with top hats, silk scarves and beautiful assistants in sexy clothes.  It’s all about misdirection. … Read full post »

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” 

Sorry, Professor Marvel.  The Wizard of Oz (1939) was a good movie, but that’s some lousy advice. Yes, I know you turned out to be a nice old guy.  When Dorothy said, “You are a very, very bad man,”… Read full post »