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Oct 25, 2010 at 2:56 pm
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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
*David Foster Wallace loved footnotes....
Please break up with each other.
And what's DTMFA - ooooooooooooohhhhhhh. Just figured it out, NM.
She sure wrote a whole lot to say a whole little. Yakkityyakkityyakkityyakkityyakkity....
Much more concise:
"I bought a vibe and my bf's little brother found out and told his parents, which upsets me because, naturally, my bf and my sex life is private. My bf is accusing me of being dishonest with his parents because I don't tell them about our sex life. What do you suggest?"
#1 was great.
So maybe they need to have a it's-a-big-deal-to-me-even-if-it-isn't-to-you conversation. Maybe he'll wake up and realize that his are not the only set of criteria.
If he doesn't, well, there's always DTMFA.
"Mom and Dad, I know I normally would tell you everything, but my girlfriend isn't comfortable with how much I've been sharing, so I'm going to keep the details of our physical relationship between her and me."
Ta-da!
dump him.
but another word to the wise.
premarital sex is risky.
diseases.
pregnancy?
would you really want to carry/have weenie boys baby and inherit the parents as 'in-laws'?
sure you could pay a doctor (someone Sworn to Do No Harm!...) to kill the little bastard, and that would really teach the bitch of a mother 'in-law' to mind her own beezwax but the little bastard is also your child and that seems a little 'cutting off your nose...'
anyway,
word:
premarital sex is unwise.
wise up.
FTFY.
ALPP, you'll be doing your boyfriend a favor. He has no notion of the huge personal boundary issues he's violating, and he won't have any idea of their immensity until he gets dumped for it. Before the dumping, he'll be making every rationalization to justify not changing. After the dumping, he'll realize that the issues that seemed so minor resulted in him not getting laid, and he'll be motivated on his own to change.
His next girlfriend will thank you for it.
Of course, that's my immature knee-jerk reaction, which shouldn't be encouraged.
What parent wants to know these things about their ADULT son?!
Maybe the parents get off living vicariously through their son's sex life?
28
Not according to the CDC.
Which says the best way to protect from STDs and premarital pregnancy is abstinence.
Do you enlightened Liberals believe in Science or not?
but steal some liquor from his parent's house first, they deserve it.
That said, if he won't come around and respect her desire in this, and it *really* bothers her, DTMF.
I assume you're on board with all of that? Because your concern is rooted in teh science, right?
I don't understand the anger some folks seem to be directing towards the boyfriend. Would you feel the same if he was sharing things with his best bud?
I'm going to assume he's talking about his private moments and feelings with her (and not anything specifically about her alone), and he's entirely entitled to share that with whomever he wants. You know, it's part of his life too?
I know my husband shares some details about our sex life with his best friend. I don't demand he keeps his mouth shut. He's talking about his life and his experience of it. Are people that insecure about themselves?
Two - if this was my daughter (and mine is 16 so it could possibly happen in the not too distant future) - I would tell her to RUN away from this guy as fast as possible. A guy that will tell his MOTHER that his girlfriend bought a vibrator is someone with no personal boundaries and who will never cut the apron strings. Eighteen and unmarried is the perfect time to develop an allergy to the type.
Abstinence (perfect usage)
Pill/Condom/IUD (perfect usage)
Pill/Condom/IUD (normal usage)
other contraceptives
withdrawal method
really hoping you don't get STIs or babies
Abstinence (normal usage)
But DTMFA is still the correct response.
Yes, I have seen this sort of thing. Why do you ask?
(Guys, haven't you had that experience? A mixed group of men and women out, and one woman will say, "oh, my bf/husband ...." and then go on to reveal something immensely personal and he has to sit there with a shocked look or fixed rictus of pretend amusement on his face?)
Re post 49: "wring" is spelt with a W, seeker.
Let me spell it out for you, slick. Whether it is or isn't important is irrelevant. What is important is their right to privacy and not have nosy little cunts like you, the little brother and the mother pawing through their private life, determining what shreds of dignity they might, might be permitted to retain.
"I don't understand the anger some folks seem to be directing towards the boyfriend. Would you feel the same if he was sharing things with his best bud?"
If she specifically asked him not to, and he completely ignored her wishes? Absolutely.
Hey, ALPP, the vibrator can also come in handy when the boy is in the room with you. It's not a replacement for him, it's a supplement.
Also, your boyfriend's parents are odd and you're totally right, dear. All his parents really have a right to know is that you're having sex and that you're being safe about it. Nothing else. Honestly, if it were my boyfriend, I'd tell him that unless he keeps it private (It's not lying to his parents if he just doesn't tell them; lying would be telling them false information. He's 20, I should hope that he's capable of telling his parents to back off about something that isn't any of their business), he's not going to get laid. >.>
"All his parents really have a right to know is ... Nothing. ... He's 20."
There, fixed that for you.
My brother once chastised me for answering a niece's question about "What is a virgin?". He thought I should've sent her to her parents, which is complete hogwash because we should take the opportunity to set a good, not-fearing-sex example when we can. ALLP/AALP whatever had the opportunity to *educate* about living life -- what does Dan call it all the time? "sex positively". Instead, she hid it under a blanket of shame.
Sorry "sex positive" =/= "no privacy". The notion that you're somehow sex-negative if you don't want to say anything you don't want to about your private life, that privacy and personal dignity is a "blanket of shame" is utter, utter, utter crap.
Some people have claimed that all 20y.o. males are clueless. Maybe in one way or another, but not in the way that makes them share their sex lives with Mommy amd Daddy.
Experience/common sense tells me this relationship wouldn't have lasted beyond the first semester anyway, if even that long.
Am I the only one puzzled as to why the LW didn't specify the age of the little brother? Are we talking 17? 13? 7?
Also, am I the only one baffled as to the assumption that there's a familial right to go along with a sibling's friends? They're the brother's friends, not the little brother's or mom's.
There was also another option for the BF: "Sorry, mom, can't take Little Brother with us because we're going to a sex toy store and they don't allow people under 18." That way he wouldn't need to specify that they're going to get a vibrator for ALPP. Actually, #67's suggestions were much better. Of course they shouldn't HAVE to say anything in the first place, and the whole situation is a little fucked. I mean, why would anyone have an EXPECTATION that BF take his little brother with him when going out with his girlfriend, and therefore need to give a reason as to why not (I can see that they might take him out sometimes, but certainly not every time)? The telling the parents everything is a bit strange, but THIS is the big red flag for me:
"The problem was that his younger brother seemed to want to go with us, and we didn't specify where we were going or why we weren't including him. This upset my boyfriend's mother..."
Is Mom one of those people who looks for attention by making everyone around one feel guilty? I'd sit BF down for a talk, lay down the line, and DTMFA if he doesn't think there's a problem or he's not willing to change his behavior immediately. Or maybe just DTMFA anyway as he clearly has some manipulative-mother issues (but you SHOULD tell him why).
Of course, I also don't see why "I'm going to buy a vibrator" needs to be a big deal (or a group outing), but given that it IS, I don't think ALPP is being unreasonable.
"It's none of your business" is true.
So, when you go into the courtroom, and the judge says "I now pronounce you man and wife," do you get some kind of innoculation that covers all three of those? Because I'm really stoked about being disease-free. Marriage is a lot more awesome than I thought!
When I was younger I had a neighborhood friend whose mother made her drag her little sister (4 years younger) along all the time. Almost everyone in our "group" had younger sibling, myself and a guy friend had sibling the same age as her sister, and we would include them quiet frequently into activities by our own accord, but sometimes we just wanted to hang out with the older kids, our you know just with our friends, especially when we turned 13/14 and the talk started to drift to members of the opposite sex and eventually we started kissing each other.
Guess what happened? We stopped hanging out with her. It wasn't because we didn't like her, and it must have been painful for her to be excluded, but as teens all we knew is that we wanted some time away from her sister who we felt was too young to see/hear what we were doing. To this day all the rest of us have remained real close, because we shared so much of our formative years together, that and making out in a closet.
All this to say their mother was so concerned that neither of them be left out of anything, that they ended up not being included in anything.
That's some nice judging there. So, comfort in privacy = insecurity?
It's fine for couples to have their boundaries. I get that a relationship is about two (or more) people; sometimes they have overlapping desires, and other times, they don't, so there's compromise.
If my best friend (or any friend) told me her partner was uncomfortable with sharing about their sex life, I'd drop the topic. There's plenty of other stuff in the world to talk about.
Lunch with a colleague, talking shop. Couple was divorcing, colleague was representing the wife. Apparently husband completely stopped sleeping with wife, and that after a long period when he wouldn't do anything but vanilla sex. What happened? In couples counseling [done far too late to work] he admitted that he stopped doing fun stuff because she told her friends everything and he got tired of (a) his sexual quirks and desires being conversation fodder behind his back and (b) it wasn't always behind his back because there'd be an occasional hint/wink from one of the friends [i.e., they'd be talking about their time in high school and a friend would joke, "well, X, we know that you can get a schoolgirl whenever you want!" You get the picture]. And he stopped doing vanilla stuff because it got boring when all the fun stuff was forbidden.
My colleague did some serious eyerolls at her client's reaction to this, the one she gave at counseling and the one that she still held a year later as the divorce progressed: "but they're my friends!".
Studies show that when abstinence is part of sex education STDs and pregnancies go down.
Dan posted about it months ago.
Try to keep up.
Oral sex is a great way to get STDs, with or without open sores.
One in five (that's 20%) homosexuals have AIDS.
Homosexuals have AIDS 44X as much as normal Americans.
And according to Dan, anal sex is not part of lot's of homosexuals' routine.
That's a lot of AIDS and oral...
And HPV can be contracted from bodily fluids in contact with any area of the body.
Would you believe 80% of sexually active women will get it?
And, yeah, Science totally rocks.
According to the CDC the best way to avoid STDs is abstinence before marriage followed by monogamy.
If you know better perhaps you should enlighten them....
getting some? AIDS?
help yourself, sport.
80's making an assumption with *this* letter -- they could have had their adventure relatively peacefully -- but the specific experience she's describing *is* annoying. Having a sense of humour is one thing, but often that kind of attitude comes off as phobic overcompensation.
Message to the boyfriend. You're 20 for god's sake. You are (supposedly) an adult. Your parents stopped having a right to know everything you were doing when you (supposedly) became responsible for your own self. Grow a pair, you idiot. Or does your mama keep yours in her purse?
Message to the Letter Writer: Your boyfriend just chose his parents over your express wishes to the contrary. You can expect this to continue for the rest of your life. DTMFA. Frankly he needs being dumped over this as a life lesson. You might tell him you'll consider getting back together with him once he cuts the apron strings. But don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
(Pragmatically, you two are heading in different directions anyway. It's not worth fighting to fix. But you'll be doing his next girlfriend a favor by letting him know that a violation of this sort carries consequences.)
See how the wife likes being publicly mortified.
Sounds to me like the LW is pulling this "personal, dirty secrets" stuff out of her ass. She probably had a talk with her boyfriend, and he told her that he doesn't like to lie to his parents so he answers their questions truthfully. Nowhere in the letter is there any evidence that the parents have EVER asked, nor he ever told, any details about their sex life. I also generally answer my parents questions truthfully, and truthfully, they have never, not even once, asked any questions about my sex life.
Instead of not sharing info with his mom, he should have just lied to his girlfriend. If she didn't know the mom knew about the vibrator, then there'd be no problem.
Just because YOUR parents don't ask doesn't mean HIS parents don't ask.
Violation of privacy is a violation, full stop. Telling the parents and then lying to her about it is a far worse breach of trust than just being dumb enough to have no boundaries.