How come I can't reply to some of those posts down there? They have little lock icons on them. I wanted to reply to Sara's comment on those darn masturbators. Surely you all would like to know more on that topic, no?

We're all ears, so to speak.

I meant "discuss," not "know"! Did I say know? I didn't mean to suggest I was about to impart any knowledge!

Anyway, I was just musing about whether there is any world religion or major teaching that doesn't see masturbation as a bad thing. I mean, even in Revealed, Bob says how Andy was bummed that the TM movement discourages it. Why, for goodness sake? Why does masturbation get such a bad rap? Is it rap or rep? Like short for reputation? Anyway, I don't see what's so wrong about it. In fact, I see benefits! And I would even argue that it is a form of meditation.




I've heard other countries, like some Europeans, don't have the same hang-ups as we do. I had a friend in high school from Germany and her mother would send her the teen magazines from home and they had advice that teens would be better spending that energy getting to know themselves before they decide to, you know, play with others. But still, is there or has there been a religious or philosophical movement that didn't condemn masturbation? It's just so silly that it has such a stigma.

I read that Mark Twain essay on masturbation once. For such a wordsmith, I thought his essay was pretty lame.

Hi,

You talking about the thread with the discussions of KKK, child molesters, holocaust victims, gay-bashing... and masturbators and Kansans, and so many other wonderful members of society to talk about? Okay, I 'fess up, I did lock that thread, hoping that someone would start a new topic to continue along in hopefully a much lighter vein. Strange how a topic thread that started out with a movie recommendation can veer so sharply away!

I actually also thought that was the thread that went off about Michael Moore again, too... I was wrong... but I find myself hoping that most of what needed to be said about Michael Moore has been said well enough already!

Lulu, I did not mean to interfere with your philosophizing and your thought process... so please continue on as you will. I enjoy it greatly. I feel as though I ought to be sipping tea and eating crumpets as I read your entries... as I do whenever I watch PBS or listen to the opera, sophisticated stuff that doesn't go well with my usual chili and crackers. With my pinky raised on my tea-holding hand, even.

You said know.

Perhaps the TM movement discourages it so people will put all their energy into meditating the TM way, heehee. Anyway, it always seems to be about power.

Paxil causes "Side Effects" and it makes it very to spank the monkey. So I rarely do it because its almost like work.
I choose malt-liquor to sex anyday. I never read anything in the bible saying it was wrong to masturbate. Mormons think its demonic. They also think its wrong to use a Ouija board and say its from Satan which it is not there's good spirts and bad ones.

yer so full of it, W

Oh, good point. I think that an anti-depressant that takes away my sex drive would in itself be totally depressing!

On another note, on the disturbing ubiquity of medication... I was reading a Times travel article about Francis Ford Coppola's eco-tourism resorts in Belize. Good for the economy, right, to foster tourism in order to preserve rainforests, rather than cutting them all down to graze cattle. Plus give wealthy westerners a taste of adventure bathed in luxury. Gag. I have mixed feelings, because this article just reeked to me of blind neocolonialism. Well, the woman who wrote the article mentions that on the drive from one resort to another, while she's lounging in the back of the jeep watching the scenery pass by (jungle, mud huts, shoeless children, how quaint and exotic), she starts to feel nauseus from the bumpy ride. So she pops a xanax! She says so right in the middle of this article, this review of Coppola's resorts! Well, needless to say, she enjoys the ride with greater ease post-xanax. She even describes in articulate and languid terms the sense of detachment that falls over her. I couldn't believe it. I wonder how much nausea was from the bumpy ride, or the coming face-to-face with poverty and reality.

Alprazolam is great. Alot of drugs have sexual side effects but I never noticed one with that. Even Nyquil and Tussin have them.

I had very vivid dreams last night of reuniting with a friend who is dead. This makes me pensive because I have a very practical side that says not to believe in things one can't prove. Not that I require proof, it's just that I'm wary of fooling myself. I don't want to accept something uncritically. Yet I'd so like to believe she was really ok and talking to me.

I wish we had more choices for those message board smilies, the ones that show on the board page. Sometimes none of them really fit.

There are alot of psychics who say our loved ones visit us in our dreams to let us know they're okay or to give us messages, and I like to think it's true. When I was in 9th grade I had a friend who died in a car accident. For a few years after her death I had a recurring dream that I was meeting her in the middle of a bridge that spanned way above the clouds. I don't know what it meant or what her message was other than to let me know she was okay and that there was a life beyond death.

I talked to someone on a ouija board once that was a weird spirt. This is what are called demons. I asked it if it was Evil and it said yes. Then I asked it if it wanted to be evil and it said "no".
It also said it wanted our children. and I said why? and it replied "because you killed ours" I still dont understand it but it scared me away from the thing for awhile.

I was listening to a morning radio show the other day where they were talking about String Theory and how one of the predictions of String Theory is that space-time has ten dimensions. We're only able to perceive the three dimensions of space and one of time, so there very well may be things out there that exist that we're not aware of. It's possible that we're all connected on some other dimension that does not differentiate between the living and non-living, the way we do in this one. Anyway, I believe.