Julianking93 said:
Now I may be a prude or I may be close minded with an old fashioned way of thinking but am I the only one who is bothered when you hear about people like this?
And she's not the worst I know. Some are in the triple digits and they're not even 30. Some friends I know have friends at that age (19) who are in the hundreds.
I hate to point out something that someone probably already said in these ten pages of thread, but it would take a lot of evidence for me to believe that anyone aside from George Clooney has reached triple digits as far as different lovers goes.
Frankly, there is a lot of lying about sex in modern Western culture. Very few people have as much as they say they do, I would wager, and how much they say it is probably drastically exaggerated. The more insecure the person, the more likely they are to use sex as a justification for what they're like and as an "achievement" to hang in front of other people who fall for the lies, or feel like they're failing to conform.
Males in particular are pressured to get as much sex as they can by a certain age (females are as well, but not "too much" or they're unfairly labelled). It leaves nerds in a ghetto of depression because they don't live up to jock or cool standards. It's little wonder that in a society obsessed with sex, where everyone has to have a certain amount or feel inferior to what is supposedly average (especially when we personally want it anyway), we have things like emo music that continue to express how disappointed young people are with life. Romance literature doesn't help either - everyone's ideals of love are so high that not even the most balanced and interesting partners can live up to them. We've sold love. Literally and metaphorically, from top to bottom. It's a serious problem.
I think that those who say they are going to wait until someone who loves them comes along - especially if they say it without religious influence on their decision - are brave and resisting a lot of social pressure. I'm the same, so I really respect that, Julian.
Casual sex and open relationships are fine if you have the chemical balances to enjoy them. I myself find the whole thing an incredibly painful and excruciating concept, which will in my view only lead to a lack of real fulfilment, jealousy and eventually a lot of social trauma. But it depends on whether we live in our hearts or in our heads. If it's the latter, I'm sure the casual side of things is more appealing. And if those who seek the casual only find people who fit our own category, then good luck to them. It's if they link up with the others that it does damage, because expectation does not meet expectation, and disappointment ensues.
The heart people, to use a mildly pretentious phrase as a summary, meanwhile, seem quite disenfranchised by modern culture. Our style of life is not good enough for the magazines or the social world. No wonder so many of us spend our lives on computers - the physical world (as in, the feelings of the body, our reactions to those around us on that level) can be a very painful thing to be exposed to. But we're not helping ourselves out of it either. Then again, it would require academic-level ideas to really figure out how to bring this type of person back up in happiness, statistically. Certainly, a sensible degree of media regulation might help, but that's only possible if you're not in the US - the Constitution is a double-edged sword.
