kitten

Different people have very different attitudes to sex, especially sex with strangers... I have a friend (yes, really! strange but true) who had very religious parents and who went to a religious school. As he grew up he was brainwashed to believe that all sex (including heterosexual) was disgusting and dirty, so should only be tolerated in marriage and only then when it was intended to try to conceive. Now, many years after he left home, he knows intellectually that sex isn't dirty and disgusting, but deep-down, subconsciously and emotionally he can't shake off the feeling that it certainly isn't 'nice'. Of course, he still has a sex drive but because of the ingrained attitudes, his most satisfying sex is only with strangers. After all, if he really likes and respects someone, how could he do something dirty and disgusting with them? Kit

You're not allowed to change system-level application folders unless you're logged in as an admin user. Kit

I'm not sure what 'folder in an application' means as opposed to just an ordinary folder but... Go to the folder in Finder, single click on it and get info (either by menu or Cmd-I) - does it say the folder is locked? If so, just untick the locked box. If it isn't locked then maybe the folder belongs to another user and you don't have permission to get in. You may be able to get around that if you log in as an admin user. Kit

This is probably one of the wisest things I've read anywhere. To these wise words I would add: enjoy what you have rather than lamenting what you don't have. Kit

There is a discussion on this: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/23802-discussion-vote-up-and-down-in-forums/

A most entertaining and amusing read! Perhaps it will win a prize for the most double-entendres in a short short story? It would be great if the space station be big enough for our Members of Parliament as well as your Congress! Thanks, CJ!

Most of us use generalisations (I use them probably more than I ought to) and they can often be useful, but they are fraught with dangers. Some people have an aversion to generalisations because, when applied to people, they can amount to stereotyping. Those who have suffered as a result of being stereotyped may have a very negative response to such generalisations. Also, I'm not getting at you, but just trying to explain why you may get negative reactions to you statements about 'tendencies'... Perhaps part of the problem lies in the inaccurate use of words such tendency, which can often vary in meaning. Thus people may misinterpret what you mean. Saying a group of people have a tendency to be or to do X is not quite the same as saying one tends find behaviour X more commonly in a particular group. Maybe it would be more accurate and less controversial to say that members of a particular group are more like to show behaviour X. Perhaps another part of the problem is that before making generalisations you should be sure that they are in fact true, preferable with some real statistics. Even if they are true in your personal experience, it doesn't mean they are true overall and on a global level. So unless you are sure that the generalisation is globally true, and have some sort of numbers as evidence of that, it is best to try to defuse possible negative reactions by prefixing such assertions with something like 'in my experience...' Assuming that the generalisation is indeed true, another question to ask is whether it is actually useful or merely stereoptyping. i.e. if, as you say, you don't intend the generalisation to mean that ALL members of a group ALWAYS have some quality X, then the generalisation isn't going to be much use when dealing with individuals as you won't know before meeting them if that particular individual conforms to the stereotype. Perhaps it might have some use if you are dealing with the group as a whole, but most of us deal with individuals more often than we deal with large representative groups. Another thing to bear in mind when saying that members of a particular group are more likely to show behaviour X is that you need to be sure that group is clearly defined and that it is clear what other groups you are comparing it with. So, to take your example and trying to express it more accurately: " (In my experience) Christians are more likely to have negative feelings towards homosexuals" Is the group 'Christians' homogeneous? Catholics, Evangelicals, Anglicans are not necessarily all the same and may be very different from people who self-identify as Christian but who never go to church except for weddings and funerals. Having defined your group 'Christian' and then saying that members of that group are "more likely to have negative feelings towards homosexuals" you need to have the comparison for "more likely". More likely than Buddhists, Athiests, Agnostics, Muslims, Jews? Even if you defined your original group and the group(s) to which it is being compared, then took care to check the accuracy of the generalisation and/or gave the caveat that it was merely your personal observation, you would still find some people would react negatively to your generalisation. This may be because their experiences and conclusions are different from yours, or it may be that they are members of that group and don't want it to be assumed that the stereotype applies to them. Thus, my conclusion is that even if you are accurate and think your generaliusation is of practical use, you must expect that negative reactions will be possible or even likely. Kit

You should have a third option in your poll - Neither. Kissing with mouth closed is an embarrassing waste of time and kissing with mouth open is a disgusting sampling of another person's saliva and oral germs. Is it not true that the human mouth contains more germs than the anus? Kit

Personally, I don't think the 'why' is of any practical significance to the way I would deal with it, though it may be of some academic interest. You can't protect yourself or others completely, but after you experience it for the first time you can reduce the chance of further such episodes by taking a severe and unrelenting vengeance. Just as bullies can't deal with being bullied, cruel people usually don't cope well when they are made to suffer. Make sure that you hurt them many times more than they hurt you and let them know that you are prepared to go to any lengths to make them pay dearly for any hurt they cause to you or to those you care about. That way the perpetrator will hopefully be so scared of further reprisals that they will be driven away or at least they won't be inclined to risk hurting you or those close to you in future. Basically, it's a little like weapons of mass destruction; once the bad guys know you have them and that you are prepared to use them then they won't start a war. Kit

There is one thing that I don't think has yet been specifically stated, though it has been alluded to in regard to the situation depending on the seriousness of the offence: some things are just totally, absolutely unforgivable. This is not just because I would have an inability to forgive but also because I don't believe that some things should ever be forgiven. Forgiving someone who accidentally steps on my toe is so effortless that it happens without thought. Forgiving someone who murdered a person I love would be impossible for me, and I'd never even consider wanting to forgive them. Between those two extreme examples are things that may or may not be unforgivable, depending on circumstances. For example, if someone told a deliberate lie about me then the whether or not I could forgive them, and whether or not I felt they deserved forgiveness, would depend on the particular lie and the consequences it had. Another example in this 'depends' area would be breach of trust by a friend; it would depend on the seriousness of the breach and the consequences it had. Also between the two extreme examples, there are offences that I could only consider forgiving after the offender has been severely and adequately punished and then shown genuine regret. Thankfully, in my life the serious unforgivable offences have been perpetrated against me only very rarely. Kit

It depends on what exactly you mean by forgiveness and the relative seriousness of the offence.. If you mean losing your anger and/or any desire for vengeance then it is a process. It can't be controlled (ie switched on or off) but it can be influenced by various things such as how genuine the apology is, your relationship with the offender and your own abaility to achieve and maintain emotional equanimity. Losing one's anger and/or desire for vengeance is a good thing because those emotions have bad effects on oneself as well as others. If, however, by forgiveness you mean returning to the state the relationship was before the offence then I don't think it is either possible or desirable, especially when you have been seriously hurt. Even when you are no longer angry at the offender, the fact remains that he/she has hurt you and may do so again. Therefore you need to treat that person with more caution in future and things can never go back exactly to the way they were. If you are burned by fire, you don't feel anger toward the fire and have no desire for vengeance, but in future you would be wise to treat fire with more caution. For myself, in most cases I find it relatively easy to forgive (as in setting aside anger and revenge) but almost impossible to forget that I've been injured, and so my attitude to the offender will never be the same as it was before the offence. Kit

In that case, IMO you are far too trusting. All government is evil. It may be a necessary evil, but it's still evil. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So the more power we allow a government to have, the more corrupt it will be. Knowledge is power. From a governmental POV information about individuals is power. So the more information they have about us, the more power they have, and the more corrupt they will be. Kit

And if you'd found no evidence of cheating? Would you have carried on looking? Would you have still mistrusted him? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Regardless of 'right' or 'wrong', IMO the fact you'd distrusted him so much that you went behind his back, hacked into his emails, etc, shows the relationship was over. If he'd not been cheating and you did that then he'd not only be 'right' to dump you but would be very wise to do so. Are you confusing the concepts of 'hiding' and 'privacy' (see my post above)? If he doesn't want you watching him in the toilet, do you think he's hiding something? Do you think that it's okay for governments to monitor all your mail and phone calls, to know where you are at all times, to know all your purchases, to keep records of who you meet? They, too, use the argument that if you've nothing to hide then you should not care if they monitor everything that you do. So hopefully you feel it would be wrong to do it without his knowledge? KIt

As others have said, every couple/relationship is different. They each have to set the boundaries with which they are comfortable. Asking why someone wants particular boundaries is like asking them why they like some foods and not others, why they don't like going to parties, why they like reading gay fiction, etc. It's just how they are and there should be no need to justify it. There is a difference between privacy and secrets. For example, I insist on privacy when I use the toilet, but this does not mean I'm trying to keep it secret. Another example is if my best friend confided in me some important and/or embarrassing secret - it would be wrong to give that secret to others, even my SO, without first asking my best friend if that would be okay. Yet another example: if my work (legal, medical, military, etc) involved confidential information then by going throgh my emails without asking my SO might breach that confidentiality. If I had a SO and he wanted to read my emails, then all he would need to do is ask and I'd be happy to show them to him. However, if he went through my emails without asking, I'd be very annoyed. Because (apart from any other considerations) the fact that he didn't just ask would indicate to me that he doesn't trust me and that he thinks I would be hiding something if he did ask. By showing that he didn't trust me he would be causing damaging our relationship. Kit

I presume that the missing apostrophe is accidental...