Recent Roll-Up

[jbailey]

We're all doing well. Life's just insanely busy. Will try to post more than 140 character snippets to Facebook more often. =)

Random things from today...

In the playground...

Leif exploring a rope bridge:

From Public Leif Photos

Leif having less fear than auzure_skies would like:

From Public Leif Photos

In the news...

Overall, 37 per cent of teens in the survey said they were sexually active, but some didn't know how to define "sex."

"Very surprising to us was that many kids were unsure about whether they had had sex or not," said one of the study's authors, Sarah Flicker, a professor of environmental studies at York University.

(CBC)

Go figure, most people I know can't come up with a definition of sex that isn't penis-meets-vagina intercourse - and those are people who've been to Opus, UU churches, taken OWL and all ought to know better.

My favourite definition is still from Cheers, when they were talking about "When is it sex?" Norm replies: "When the first breast appears."

Comments

[diluvienne.livejournal.com]

I love your definition! :-)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Is that the one you're going with? How about boy-on-boy? Or most of the rest of the world, where breasts appear at the park and in other definitely non-sexual contexts (breastfeeding happens in public here, although in good old North America, it's still a bit contentious, for whatever reason)?

I personally find it rather non-trivial defining these kinds of things ("relationships" too, not to mention the general vagueness of that work, since I have some kind of relationship with my banker, say)... I've heard something like "when something you wouldn't want your girlfriend to do with someone else", but I find that one to be no good for me. :-P

[jbailey.livejournal.com]

For boy-on-boy, if you've gotten to the point where breasts are appearing you're probably having sex. =)

But yes, this is a North American definition. Breastfeeding is an excluded category since that's what they're *for* (Much like my reaction to someone telling me that breast milk isn't vegan. Grr.)

Perhaps in Europe it should be "When you reach something you might consider shaving" =)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Well, I've been shirt-less with women I was interested in, and I wouldn't have considered it as having sex. There were too many people on-looking at that beach, I'm kind of shy. I'd consider shaving my beard (well, on occasion!), as well. ;-)

But in all seriousness, finding a good, general definition is still mostly eluding me. I can usually come up with rules that, when you reach that, you're definitely having sex, but they don't necessarily have 100% coverage. Things like "intense" making out can be subjective, and so on.

Relationships are especially elusive. The best I've come up with is "people I'd notify before having sex with someone else", knowing that it relies on a not-so-well-defined definition of having sex, and that it doesn't work for the general population (which seems to have sex with other people without notifying their partners on a frighteningly common basis, overall).

Bleh.