Before you read any further, ask yourself this question. Can a White Elderly American male say anything generic about sex? To be quite clear, can I say anything relevant for women and men of color? Can I say anything about sex that will resonate with women and men of other cultures like China, Indonesia, the Mid-East, or Indigenous peoples over the vast globe? Will my thoughts on sex have any meaning for GLBTQ people? Can I speak words of wisdom that will have any importance for those of Generation X, Y and Z?
When a writer starts talking about a subject, they start from a viewpoint that is uniquely their own. It can be no other way. That is what makes writing so interesting and variable. No two people will see life exactly the same way or tell exactly the same story. Martin Luther said, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” A writer must have grit or ice in their veins to attempt to say anything at all. No matter where I stand, someone will say, “You are a heretic.”
Let this tome be my heresy about sex. Bury me with a stake through my heart if you do not like what I have to say. I don’t have much more time to say it anyway. Those who are offended can write their own scribbles to debunk my thoughts and theories. To paraphrase Old Abe, the world will little remember nor long care about my ideas here. It would be nothing but cowardice to forego one’s opinions because they might be misunderstood. Nevertheless, I pray as the song goes “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be TOOO misunderstood.”
Sex is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It has an appeal that goes beyond the aesthetic. Sex is both an individual and group activity that entails five key elements. The physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial elements frame the actual conduct or act of sex. My emotions, my physical abilities, my mental state, my spiritual beliefs and even my financial capacity will determine the breath and depth of my sexual activities. But there is a great deal more that governs how sex is controlled in any society.
Sex can be seen as a vast continent. The continent is divided into two major regions. There is the Region of Permissions and the Region of Prohibitions. Each of these regions has three seasons. There is some overlap between each season but also some significant differences.
One season is cultural. This season brings influences to sex based on traditions and beliefs about what sex should be like, who we should have sex with and how sex may be performed. There is the political season. This season establishes the legality of sex. Who may have sex, where they may have sex and when they may have sex. Finally, there is the religious season. This season defines who may have sex but further informs a purpose for sex. Sex within the religious sphere is generally assumed to be permissible when associated with procreation.
Sex may take place between a man and a woman, between multiple men and one woman, between multiple women and one man, between multiple men and multiple women, between a man and a man or between a woman and a woman and any other multiple combinations thereof.
Some of you are already thinking that this description has gone too far. The reality of sexual practices throughout the world would astound most individuals. There are those who believe that some sex is right, and some sex is wrong. If there is a right and wrong when it comes to sex, the question is not easily answered. The seasons of sex, the regions of sex and the individual capabilities all noted above will determine what is considered right and wrong sex.
In the following blogs, I will discuss my views on sex pursuant to the following areas:
- The Region of Permissions and the Region of Prohibitions
- The Season of Religion
- The Season of Politics
- The Season of Culture
- The physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial elements affecting sex.
Who am I to talk about sex? What qualifications give me the right to discuss the multitudinous varieties of sex in the world? An old White guy who has been married twice. A man who has had several but not really that many sex partners. I read that Wilt Chamberlain had been to bed with over 20,000 women. A man who when he was younger did not understand women very well and probably still does not. A man of limited variety when it comes to cultural and ethnic relationships with women. A straight guy who has had no interest in gay relationships. These are my obvious limitations. I suspect I have others that I am unaware of.
On the other hand, I read widely. I think a great deal about things and what constitutes right and wrong. I have been to 34 countries. I am old enough to have seen many things that work and many things that do not work. I have had friends from many cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I am not unduly influenced by religious, cultural, or even some legal restrictions governing sex. As for the legal aspects, I believe in the protection of young children from pedophiles and other exploiters. However, I have long believed in the right of people to choose their sex partners regardless of ethnic background.
The anti-miscegenation laws that were passed by some states were racist laws that enforced racial segregation for marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. I abhor such infringements on the individual rights of people based on racist xenophobic and bigoted concepts of what is right and wrong.
In 1975, I received my B.S. degree in Health Education. I also received a license to teach this subject in grades 1 to 12. What I did not realize at the time was the resistance to teaching Health Education in most schools. Many parents and even schools associated Health Education with Sex Education. In 1975, Sex Education was a highly contentious subject. Twenty years later in 1994 Joycelyn Elders was forced to retire from her post as U.S. Surgeon General after she said that masturbation “is part of human sexuality and perhaps should be taught.”
Sex is both the most popular subject in the world and the most taboo subject. We will look at some of these issues when we discuss permissions and prohibitions in my next blog. Today there are more sex education classes taught then when I received my degree forty-five years ago, but the subject is still something educators must tread lightly on. A recent article in the New York Times discusses a progressive educator who resigned her position due to parent criticism concerning her teachings. “A Private-School Sex Educator Defends Her Methods.”
“Twenty-eight states require that abstinence be stressed in sex education classes, and six states require that only negative information be provided on homosexuality, according to the Guttmacher Institute.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/style/sex-educator-methods-defense.html
Here I sit in the middle of one of the so-called most advanced countries in the world, and we have roughly one half of our nation that thinks abstinence is the key to sex education. As an educator who continues to be a teacher in high schools in Arizona, I can only shake my head in disbelief. We live in perhaps the most highly sexualized nation in the world and yet we act as though our children will practice abstinence until they are married. One could not think of a more bizarre case of denial.
“Many Indian schools provide no sex education, leaving it to parents to talk to their children about sex and relationships. But often they are unsure what to say, sex coach Pallavi Barnwal tells the BBC’s Megha Mohan.” — ‘Indians don’t talk about sex – so I help them’
Americans are not alone in denial when it comes to sex. As far as I can see, sex has what could be called mysterious parameters in every country that I have been to and many that I have only read or heard about second hand. What is it about sex that makes it so popular and yet also so taboo? The psychologist Wilhelm Reich had one theory which I will discuss later but it is one among many competing theories.
Next Blog: The Region of Permissions and the Region of Prohibitions
I have met people who say, “I never eat Mexican food.” They say this as though it were some badge of honor. I want to ask what type of Mexican food do they not eat? Does their exclusion of Mexican food extend to deserts like fried ice cream or drinks like Tequila or is it simply tacos and burritos that they do not eat? I have met people who say, “I never eat fish.” I usually ask them why and I often hear the reply “they taste too fishy.” I want to ask them if they ever eat meat that tastes too meaty, but instead I usually ask them if their antipathy extends to crustaceans, mollusks, and cephalopods. I can see the disapproval in my spouse’s eyes when I pursue this line of questioning.
After exploring the vast variety of Mexican foods, I discovered that the tasty and hearty Menudo soup is chock full of tripe. Many Latinos as well as Gringos in the Southwest will not eat Menudo. Several years ago, after I started dating Karen, I was introduced to Lutefisk. At first I found the texture somewhat off putting. Over time, by adding butter or cream sauce I discovered the joy of eating Lutefisk around the holidays. It is a Scandinavian tradition in homes much like Menudo is in Mexican homes. Paradoxically, many Scandinavians loath Lutefisk. The derivation of such foods leads many to disavow them. I confess to the same attitude towards an Italian dish known as Pasta a Fagioli which my mother loved to make. I left home swearing to never eat any again.
Some of these low-cost and nutritious peasant foods have become quite popular now as people look back to their early roots. An example of such a food dish is the Italian Pasta e Fagioli which I mentioned earlier. This is a dish comprised of beans and macaroni. Beans and macaroni form a “whole protein” which means you get all the amino acids you need without having to eat meat. A protein is considered “complete” when it has the nine essential amino acids in somewhat equal amounts. Almost every country in the world has some staple food items that provide whole protein. In poorer cultures, livestock was valued for its ability to help farm crops and produce milk. In places like India, livestock was made sacred as a way to prevent killing a valuable resource. Cows were more valuable alive than they were dead.
A few years ago, at the annual Gustavus Adolphus Nobel Conference the subject was on food production. A number of experts claimed that the day will come when we will no longer be able to afford a practice so barbaric and wasteful as to slaughter animals for meat eating. There is an abundance of insects on this earth that could provide an almost endless low-cost supply of protein and minerals to our diets. Most people respond to thoughts about eating insects with something like “I could never eat bugs.” My retort is “well you don’t eat bloody chickens or bloody cows do you?” The insects would be processed, and they would provide a grain that could be used in various ways like we use wheat or corn meal. I get blank stares.
I look around me today and I do not understand the world. I do not understand the decisions that our leaders make. It seems we have a moral disease. The symptoms of this disease are short-term thinking and greed. Arizona is suffering from an unprecedented drought and heat wave. The water levels in both the Central Arizona Project and aquifers are dangerously low. Yet when asked to cut back water usage by 3.8 percent, the golf course owners in Phoenix created an association to oppose such a “drastic” cut. Their counter proposal was for a 1.6 percent cut in water usage. The Governor of Arizona was the keynote speaker for the associations kick off meeting. Am I crazy? Do you believe this? Are golf courses more important than drinking water and water for farm crops?
I remembered from many years ago, a leader at a support group that I belonged to advised me that I should have more humor in my life. I asked him “Do you know any good books about getting more humor in one’s life.” He laughed, “You can’t read about humor, you have to do it.” The thought has often struck me over the years that it is one thing to read about things, it is another thing to do them. Could it be, I am just a writer and not a doer? Was it still possible that I needed more humor in my life. Maybe a clown I am not?
A year ago, (June 2020) almost to the day, I had a sharp pain in my chest. I fell to the floor and passed out. I know that this is not very funny but stay with me and I will get to the funny part. I promise. Karen thought I was having a heart attack and she called 911. They came, attached an IV to my arm and I had my first ever ambulance ride to the emergency clinic in St. Croix Falls. After a blood test, an Ultra Sound, an X-Ray, and a CAT Scan, they decided that I had a Gall Bladder problem. Three hours later, I was sent home with an appointment for the next day back at the hospital to see a doctor.
I saw a Physician Assistant at the clinic. He was polite and thoughtful. He gave me some rudimentary tests. A little prodding and touching here and there. He then advised me to go to the Emergency Department at the St. Croix Medical Center. He said the Frederic Clinic was not equipped to do the more complicated tests that I would need and that I should get these tests done immediately.. He suggested that it might be time to get rid of the unneeded and problematic Gall Bladder. I was quite ready to agree. I had managed to keep my Gall Bladder for almost 75 years. It had a good run, and perhaps it was time for it to retire.
After a short wait, I was brought by wheel chair into another room. I laid down on yet another bed. A new nurse (or was it a technician) came into the room. I assumed that she was going to perform the test. Someone else brought the apparatus for conducting the Ultra Sound into the room and left. The nurse or Ultra-Sound Technician started to poke and prod me with a rod connected to the machine. This increased my burping considerably and went on for longer than I had remembered a year ago. I guess they wanted to be really sure this time that I needed my Gall Bladder removed. I was resigned to this eventuality.
When we get back to normal, two parent families will again reign supreme. Mom will stay home to cook, while dad goes to work. There will be no trans-people. Girls will stick to cheerleading and let the boys play the sports. Contraceptives will be banned, and no one will dream of getting an abortion. Priests and ministers will be male, and gay people will disappear. Everyone in America will go back to being good Christians.
Second, what are you going to do about your fears? Fear is an adaptive mechanism. It helps to keep you alive. If you are in the woods and walking down a trail and see a large bear or cougar coming towards you, it is quite healthy to have some degree of fear. But fear alone is not going to save your life. If you are paralyzed with fear you may just be eaten. Fear is an alarm. An alarm sounds to wake us up. The next step is to do something. Doing something is a risky effort with no guarantee of success. Sadly, there are few guaranties in life, but the evidence seems to suggest that doing nothing is worse than doing something. This is where forethought and preparedness come in. One of my favorite quotes is by the Roman philosopher Seneca (died 65 CE) who once said that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Dylan Thomas said, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” I don’t know about the raging part of his poem. I prefer thinking about my life as I get older and not raging. But he makes a good point. It is all too easy to give up on life as we age. We can live in memories of what we used to do, or we can find new activities and new levels to pursue old activities at. For instance, I may not have the stamina to play tennis or racquet ball anymore, but I can still play pickleball or go for a short ride on my bicycle. I used to do six-minute miles in road races. My personal best was 38.48 on a 10K. The race I ran for Frederic Family days this year on June 12, 2021, I averaged 10.14 per mile for a 5k. Quite a bit off of my pace from years ago but I still got my t-shirt. I run for t-shirts these days and not trophies.
The first tale begins with a trip back from Duluth, Minnesota over thirty years ago. Karen and I were returning from a scenic ride up the North Shore to our home in White Bear Lake. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in July. We decided that we were hungry. We were nearing the Cloquet exit on Interstate 35. Not seeing anything near the exit, we decided to pull off the freeway and try to find a place to eat in Cloquet.
The quantity of food when it came was plentiful, but the quality of the food was a big surprise. We have been to many a good Chinese restaurant in Shanghai, Huangshan, Nanjing, Suzhou, and several other Asian cities including American cities with large Chinese populations. The food here was wonderful. It was tasty, spicy, and as good as we have eaten anywhere in the world. We were beyond surprised. I could not believe our good fortune. How could this be? A diamond in the rough where diamonds were not supposed to exist.
She advised me that Mr. Huie (who started the well-respected Chinese Lantern restaurant in Duluth) had decided that Cloquet would be a good place for a small take-out style Chinese restaurant. He placed an ad in a San Francisco paper which found its way to mainland China. Mr. Huie (son of the founder of one of the first Chinese restaurants in Duluth) reviewed a number of applicants who answered his ad. The present cook was selected for the job. Who would believe a genuine Chinese food restaurant in Cloquet Minnesota?
This logic is simply bizarre. It is almost beyond comprehension. A rifle based on a cartridge designed during the Vietnam War is now touted as a “perfect” defense weapon. It sounds like every home should buy one. Americans live in a country where there is no protection from crime according to the NRA and gun manufacturers. The NRA kisses the asses of manufacturers to grab more and more power as they perform like Pied Pipers for their members. “Come along, buy a gun, protect your rights, protect your family and children. Don’t let the criminals make a victim of you.” The NRA is a monster that has metastasized on the fears of Americans. Politicians court the money and votes of NRA members to get re-elected knowing fear is a great motivator. To paraphrase a comment made by the Nazi Hermann Goering:
“The more guns we have the safer we will all be,” scream the gun fanatics. I have neighbors walking around in their yards with guns strapped on their hips. I often see shoppers in some stores sporting revolvers and automatics on their belts. Walmart’s has asked that shoppers do not open carry guns. Do you know why? It is because people get nervous when they see these idiots walking around with pistols on their belts. I worry more about being shot by one of these jerks than I do by some armed robber. In the event of a store robbery, I suspect I might be more likely to be shot by the so called “good guy with a gun.”
I admit that I have always liked guns, knives, rifles, and assorted military hardware. However, I like them in their place. Rifles for hunting when hunting is a sport and not a crap shoot like so much of it is today. Baiting bears with donuts and then shooting them from a tree perch does not seem very sporting to me. I like target shooting. I enjoy shooting some black powder pistols that I own. A friend gave me an old revolutionary style musket which is fun to shoot. I do not shoot at squirrels or birds or rabbits. I use it for target practice. I am not against hunting deer, elk, and other animals for food. Many people in rural areas depend on game animals to supplement their diets in lieu of costly meats at a grocery store.
I don’t know who might kill you. I don’t know when they might kill you. I don’t know why they might kill you. Best odds are that it will be totally random, and you will never see it coming. You will never know when it will happen. The statistics show that you have a 75 percent chance that if you are murdered it will be by a gun and not by poison or a knife. (
How then have we gone from sanity to insanity? From being able to walk down a street or go to work or school and not worry about some nut case coming in and killing us? When did America go from being a country with “Law and Order” to a country where everyone needs to carry a gun to protect themselves? How have we let the politicians, NRA and gun manufacturers convince everyone that it is not safe to walk outside without a concealed carry permit and a Glock or Smith & Wesson hidden someplace beneath our bullet proof vest?
Like Dion DiMucci’s “The Wanderer,” I spent years wandering from church to church and religion to religion to explore other venues for spirituality. Dion was my favorite pop singer in the sixties. As I write this, he is still alive and performing. One of his most popular hits was a song called “The Wanderer.” The lyrics grabbed every guy I hung out with, and we all dreamed of being macho and tough like the guy in the song.
Aging Capriciously 
Title: Historic Match between Good Guy from the West and Evil Guy from the East
17 Jun 2021 Leave a comment
by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: biden, commentary, Putin, summit
Just for the hell of it, I am going to comment on the historic Biden Putin summit. Everyone else in the world has given their take on this historic moment in US and Russian history, so why not me? I can sound as knowledgeable about Biden and Putin as any of the commentators who have commented on this situation. Think of me as a commentator commenting on the commentators who commented about the historic Biden Putin summit. I should add that if you have not already noticed, just about every commentator commenting on this summit mentioned it as a “historic” summit.
In case you do not know the definition of historic, it has something to do with something that someone might potentially put into a history book or perhaps something that Hollywood will make a movie out of. If I were to make a film out of this historic summit, it would go something like this.
Plot:
Two leaders from hostile countries meet to divide up the world or at least agree on who is screwing things up in the world. The leader from the evil country denies everything while the leader from the great and good and very morale country warns the evil leader of the consequences of not being a better leader. The good leader is in the blue trunks while the evil leader is in the red trunks. The match consists of three one-hour rounds with a ten-minute restroom break between rounds. The breaks are to allow commentators to send their commentaries to their offices.
Cast:
Joe Biden: President of the USA
Vladimir Putin: Evil Dictator from Russia
Sycophants: Both countries brought along dozens of elected officials to witness the match
Commentators: Just about anyone who could buy, forge, or obtain a press pass
Synopsis:
Joe came out of his corner with a quick handshake which threw his opponent for a momentary loss. Commentators scored it 1-0 for Biden. Vladimir recovered quickly and met Joe’s handshake with a bone crushing shake of his own. Joe smiled and they both took their seats. Commentators gave Joe another point since they like him better. The score was now 2-0 for Biden.
Numerous subjects were dealt with in the next three hours. Despite the pre-game name calling by Biden, the opponents settled into a polite routine with no grandstanding or insults. As expected Biden threw a “dissidents jab” at Putin who responded with a “January 6th insurgency jab.” Biden called the comparison ridiculous which most commentators agreed on. Biden scored another point making it 3-0 for Joe.
Joe threw a right cross nailing Vladimir with warnings about any more hacking. Vladimir blocked the punch and denied everything. Commentators were split since Joe did not provide any evidence and Putin seemed so confident that nothing could be pinned on Russian hackers. Call it 1 for Joe and 1 for Putin. The score after round 2 was 4-1 in favor of Biden.
Both leaders came out in round three with Putin clearly shaken up and worried about the bad press he was getting from a less than stellar effort. It was clear that Putin had underestimated Sleepy Joe and had not trained well for this match. Nevertheless, Putin scored early in round three with some nice comments about his opponent that Joe rolled with. Commentators gave Putin a point since Joe should have side stepped these compliments instead of accepting them. Joe was clearly surprised. The final score after round three was 4-2 in favor of Joe.
Post-Game commentary tended to judge the match a win for Biden due to his early domination of the bout and self-confidence. However, many commentators had it as a draw since Putin made no concessions and gave nothing away. There were no major knockdowns and depending on one’s viewpoint nothing was really decided.
Stay tuned for a sequel to this historic match, in which both opponents will meet again for another historic showdown.
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