The strangers who have babies together

A fascinating look by the BBC at "platonic parenting".

In 2014, Charly Bourne, a then 43-year-old nurse living with his husband in Philadelphia in the US, started to think seriously about having kids. At first, he considered adoption. But after hearing about ‘platonic parenting’ from a colleague, he decided to set up a profile on Modamily, a website that helps connect people who want to start a family. As traditional notions of family get redefined, people like Charly are choosing to raise children as platonic partners.

See the video here.

Over the last few decades, the constraining straitjackets of gender identity have been progressively loosened.  First came the pill, then came easier divorce, then gay rights, then gay marriage.  Step-by-step the old identities and relationships, which seemed immutable, have shifted and changed.

In my writings, I have bisexual men who love both their women and their men, and at some point, I'm going to have to think how they will parent children, and how it will all work.  But all I know is that things will be different.  Just how, I don't know.  I have talked about this broad topic before, here and here.  And in ElvenSword, DemonThrong and AngelFire, I specifically created a society where these relationships are more complicated and subtler than the heterosexual marriage that the ChrisTaliban insist is the only way.

Drives

We humans have lots of drives and needs: shelter, food, warmth, among others.  But for the most part, in Western countries, these needs are satisfied, and we are left with our unsatisfied needs/drives: love, companionship, and sex.   Oddly enough, though Western capitalism feeds and clothes and warms us, providing (again, for the most part) for our physical needs, it's not very good at filling our emotional needs.

 We are lonely and alone.  We are, most of us, atomistic nothings in giant cities, so big we can never know them fully, so populous we can never get to know everybody.  24% of households have just one person in them.   No wonder so many people have pets!

Suicide in Oz killed 2,272 people in 2011.  And that's those acknowledged as suicide.  Many "single vehicle" accidents, especially in the bush, are disguised suicides.  Interestingly, only 1,277 ppl died in motor vehicle accidents in 2011, only half the official toll from suicide. Drug-related deaths totalled 1388.  Some of these are surely slow-burning suicides.  Note, as an aside, how many resources are deployed to combat road deaths and how few to stop the more numerous suicides and drug deaths.

Ironically, the biggest killer by far is the different forms of heart disease: 26,613 in 2011.  Another 32, 525 die from strokes, prostate cancer, dementia etc, all of which are primarily environment-related.  The excessive prosperity of our system leads to overeating and especially overeating easily prepared and readily available food ("junk food").   Two thirds of Ozzies are obese, double the ratio of 20 years ago.

Just to put it all into perspective, only a little over 200 people a years are murdered.

Our civilisation, then, overfeeds us.  And it's killing us.

How much eating is "comfort food"?

A huge amount of mine is, I know.  We hunger for love and affection; for sexual love, not random encounters; for meaning.  And meaning comes from loving and being loved.

Yet, in a way, the need for sex and the need for love are sometimes opposed.  A man may dearly love his current partner, yet lust after others.  If he satisfies that lust he may destroy the relationship with the person he really loves.  But the need for sex, for "hotness" is very powerful.  We humans like sex, we want more of it, at some deep level within us it fulfills our needs.  But we also deeply want to be loved and to love.

Our culture struggles with these often irreconcilable needs.  We deplore it when famous or wealthy or powerful men break their marriage vows.  Yet so many keep on doing it.  Why?



What we need is less food, less consumption, and more friendship, love and sex.

[ Some previous thoughts on all this:

Our Cheatin' Hearts
Normal Plus
Friends
Friends and Enemas ]



Sources:

All deaths
Road deaths
Drug deaths
Obesity in Australia
Sex at Dawn

29 Years

Today is our wedding anniversary.  Twenty-nine years ago today my lady and I got married -- though we had in truth long before made our commitment to each other.  I am so glad I found her.  She has been a comfort and joy to me all these years, a true partner, and I do not know how I would keep going without her. 

It's been a long time, yet the years seem to have gone by so quickly.  We have been through so many bad times together, so many horrible things have happened, yet my memories are of the good times we had together, of the joys of sharing your life with someone you love.

And that is why I am so resolutely in favour of the right to gay marriage.  Everybody should have the right to share their lives with someone they love, whether they're straight, gay, or just happy. 

Here's to you, my love.  No one can know just how much I love you, and how much you mean to me.