For our younger members

Not that I know of. Y'know he was supposed to play James Bond? He turned it down to do the Prisoner, so they went with Connery instead.

No, crash, it was different. I admit that my perspective is a bit different than for most people since I'm gay, but even on that score sex was easier back then. Homosexuality was not the hot topic it is today. I had sex with girls a number of times, mostly to deflect attention from what I really wanted to do. What seems amazing to me today is the number of guys I had sex with - guys who grew up, got married, had kids and apparently never had gay sex again. Because homosexuality was not much talked about, guys who were predominately straight didn't worry so much that "doing it" with a guy might mean they were gay. To some (but not so many, of course) guys it was another way to get off. Just as I was able to get some enjoyment from sex with girls even though that wasn't what I really wanted, those boys were able to get some enjoyment from gay sex even though it wasn't what they really wanted. Sex was considered fun, and privately at least most kids didn't worry about what it all meant.

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Yeah, to me that was a win win situation.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Just so ya know, holmes, I didn't mean to say that sex is all that difficult to find today, only that it's different. It doesn't have the same free quality to it. It always has to mean something today when it didn't back then.To put it another way, the AIDS crisis has turned us all into drama queens of a sort.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

holmes writes:

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I actually disagree about the 60-70's being sex-obsessed, but rather sexually open which required some fighting of cultural norms on expression. In other words they were getting more honest and explicit in their discussions.

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I agree with your first sentence, although I'd substitute "ignoring" for "fighting". I disagree with the second sentence; we weren't being more honest or explicit. In fact, we weren't discussing it much at all, we we're just doing it. The discussions I hear among teens today are far more explicit than they were in my day, but I doubt these kids are getting it on as much as we did.

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Today we (as a world) are much more sex-obsessed.

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That's absolutely true. We spend much more time thinking about sex, probably because we are presented with the idea more explicitly and perhaps more often than we were then.

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All you have to do is change Carter to Bush, and we're in the same boat now as then...

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Not exactly. Perhaps if, in response to the Iran hostage crisis, Carter had invaded Syria, there might be some comparison, but as things stand I don't see it.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

Everybody who was young??You are right, that's why the past always looks sweeter.

I definitely agree with the sentiments here, although I must tell you as a guy that swings both ways it is more difficult to find hetero sex now than it was then. Indeed the scaling back of straight sex venues has been filled by gay sex venues.But as you have noted, it is not exactly the same free quality. Heteros get both lack of availability and drama... its more victorian that the actual victorian age.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I think I made a mistake in not clarifying that I was talking about society and not just the youth of society. Public expression of sexuality was being fought for at the time, in media (like porn mags and sexual research) and in daily life (especially gays).There was a shift away from hypocrisy in sexual expression to simply explore it without pretense to the moral baggage originally restricting it. Well it depends where you are I guess. I sometimes hear about isolated cases of kids that are into some wild group sex arrangements. But I would agree that in general the kids back then just did it, and today kids loooooove to talk about it and look like they are doing it and say all these really openminded things, but when pegged down as to what they really want it is just to talk about it... their real lives are more conservative than in the fifties. I don't think this is true. In any case I don't think about it more now than I did then. But when it is referred to it is much more negative now and consistently something one is supposed to feel ashamed about if it strays from a norm.Howard Stern is a great example. While showing strippers and talking about strippers and porn stars, wow real openminded guy, he consistently talks to them in condescending tones and suggests they could be doing something better with their lives."Family Values" is the watchword today and what everyone must fulfill, and so wild sex or just experimentation must be the skeleton in the closet. I meant in general, not in specific. One may note that Carter did try an invasion. While it was not of a different country it was also a spectacular failure. Carter was also the first openly evangelical Xian in the White House. He was the one that opened the door to what we see today.As much as I like Carter post presidency, which is a lot, not much good came of his actual presidency.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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What I said was that it was an amazing time. That is akin to the Chinese Blessing "May you live in interesting times"

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There is an interesting story behind this. Chinese Scholars have never heard of this expression, the first they knew of it was when americans started parroting it to them. The first recorded usage seems to be a 1950s sci-fi story.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 12-18-2004 07:16 AMThis message has been edited by Charles Knight, 12-18-2004 07:16 AMThis message has been edited by Charles Knight, 12-18-2004 07:18 AM

Speak for yourselves - kids are shagging away like rabbits in the UK - AIDS? what's that?(no wonder STDs are reaching record levels).

I think the people wanted to tighten up morality again after the seventies, but were prevented by the constitutional laws. So now this strange situation exists for years of people wanting to be conservative, but living in a society full of commercial sex.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

holmes compares Carter to Bush:

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I meant in general, not in specific. One may note that Carter did try an invasion. While it was not of a different country it was also a spectacular failure. Carter was also the first openly evangelical Xian in the White House. He was the one that opened the door to what we see today.

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I know what you meant, and I should have said so. But I would say that the comparison works only on specifics, not in general. Yes, Carter was a Christian, but his was an entirely different type of Christianity. It was more accepting, less rigid and did not pursue laws to impose its values on non-believers. Comparing his Christianity to Bush's is rather like comparing jar's faith to buzsaw's.

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As much as I like Carter post presidency, which is a lot, not much good came of his actual presidency.

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I agree that he could have been a better president, but perhaps he was just too good a man for that job. His administration was not without worthwhile accomplishments, though. I think he did the right thing regarding the Panama Canal, and even with all of his foreign policy failures one must admire his role in making peace between Egypt and Israel.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

Just to keep it short... Not sure about panama, do agree about Israel. That still adds up to not much in four years.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I totally admit my main reference is to the US. I am unsure what it was like for kids growing up at that time in England. I have not seen any stats that support this idea and my experience of English people (including young adults) have been quite the opposite. There are a ton of them coming to Amsterdam all the time because they say things are so sexually conservative in England... and then turn around an act shocked by what goes on here.They kind of have a reputation as sticks in the mud, and that does seem to be the case. Most of them come through making fun of everything and I saw one guy try and take a poke at a nearly naked guy who happens to do an acrobatic routine in the street (just for taking off his pants). They'll even make fun of prostitutes right in front of their windows.The Irish and Scottish seem to be a bit more openminded, or maybe that's just because they are more drunk. Heheheh. This has no connection to the amount of sex going on, not even the amount of promiscuous sex going on. STDs are only transmitted when those involved do not take precautions when having sex and it is a sign of not caring about one's health... not randiness.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

From what I know of young Brits (the English specifically) the behaviour you describe on their trips to Amsterdam is more due to the fact they are uncultured, badly educated drunken louts than any kind of sexual conservatism back home. This PDF file from the British National health Service shows we have a teenage pregnancy rate five times that of the Netherlands, three times that of France and twice that of Germany. Similarly this BBC report quotes a WHO survey of 35 European and North American countries which ranks England second in terms of 15 year olds having sex. Greenland came top - I wonder if that is a reflection of the lack of alternative entertainment...

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