centexhairysub

Okay, I was sitting in church this morning, trying to tune out the visiting preacher who was a little to fire and brimestone for me; when a very depressing thought occured to me... I have been just as guilty in the past as some have been recently about getting so worked up about a person or situation in the CAP series that all common sense just left me... For me it was when Gathan, in the reality of the story admitted that he had basically raped the first guy and first girl he was with. I got to thinking and I reacted as strongly to that situation or maybe even more so than some of the people are to Will's behaviour. Mea Culpa times three... I think it is a mark of just how talented Mark's writing is that we can become so invested with the story and those that populate it that our passions overcome the better angels of our nature. I really do want to apologize to anyone I have recently annoyed with my rants about getting so involved in a work of fiction that they were losing sight of reality. I have been just as guilty as everyone else just under different circumstances. I guess we all have certain issues that can push our buttons; Will's behaviour doesn't do it for me, but the idea of rape being treated fairly casually did for me....

All I am going to say about the first part of your reply is that you seem to be doing the same thing you accuse me of; anyone that disagrees with your belief that Will and his behaviour shows a lack of maturity and is wrong, is wrong in their belief. I have already stated more than once that Will has several issues and if he was REAL would need to be in therapy to help him deal with them. I am not enabling his behaviour but I do believe there are some very understandable reasons behind it. Now to the part of your post that is above... Of course there is consequences to promiscuity not only for adolescents but for adults as well; I have already stated that if Will was a patient, I would be trying to find out why he feels the need to sleep with so many others. Mark has given use the issues behind Will's behaviour; the problem is that you don't believe they offer any justification for his behaviour while I do. Your statements seem to indicate that you find sex without some type of emtional involvement cheaping to the human spirit. This maybe true for you, after all, everyone sets their own belief system and comfort levels; it just isn't true for everyone. You seem to want to discuss everything in absolutes when in reality there are so few absolutes. The study that you are referring to did not take into consideration a differential between straight/bisexual/gay men in their methodology. My experience both personal and professional is that gay and bisexual men usually have significantly higher numbers of sexual partners than straight or questioning men do. Since the study you are referring to averaged the responses from straight/bisexual/gay men together and around 92 to 94 percent of the respondents were straight and have smaller average number of partners, then yes the study is flawed when referring to a gay youth. Yes, I actually conducted a study on this doing my dissertation and although the study was localized to the area of the college I was attending the conclusions bore my reasoning out. I also believe that most studies of this type are inherently flawed in that individuals are rarely completely honest with all of their answer all the questions especially those that they believe have a negative impact on how they or society would view their answers. You can assure everyone involved as often as you want that know one will know how any paticular person answers but they never fully believe it. People want to feel good about themselves and will delude themselves even when they don't have to. My professional and personal experience is that for a gay youth in Will's age range 11 sexual partners would not be extrodinary. It would not be average by any means but not completely out of reason. Even for adolescents sometimes sex is just a physical act, this is neither all good or bad just the reality of the situation. Of course, I personally do believe that sex is better and more meaningful with an emotional or other connection to your partner but even though I believe that, I don't have that connection with each person I have sex with. Even in real life, sometimes sex is just sex; it is a physical release and nothing more. This is a fictionalized account of one family and those in their orbit. In my opinion, it is brilliantly rendered but you can't take everything about it so serious....

I am starting to have severe withdrawal symptoms from missing Granger. This may become a real medical issue soon. Please tell me, we are close to a new chapter???

Okay, Will was ejaculating on stage at a gay club; but this was about two weeks after being kidnapped and raped and as a therapist, I can just about promise he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and should have been in therapy and not vacationing in Rome. Whether he realized what he was doing or not, Will was trying to take back control of his life and sexuality. Do I think it was completely healthy, no, but was it a sign of immaturity, no. His parents, especially Brad and Robbie, shoiuld have realized you don't just get over something like what happened in Paris and send him on to Rome on holiday. I seem to recall Brad having sex in the dunes on the beach with I believe Lark, maybe it wasn't in a crowded club but it was in public. OMG, on a school trip, a 14 year old had the chance to do drugs and drink and hell, he did both... Call Ripley's; Will was part of a group that did both, while I don't condone the behaviour, once again, this isn't a sign of immaturity but ritualized behaviour that the vast majority of teens go through and survive. Plus, Will had the presence of mind to analyze the situation and realize he would not get in as much trouble as Ryan and acted to protect him, really how childish of him. All throughout Be Rad, Brad partakes of drugs and alcohol. Need we rehash the mushrooms at the planetarium? And now we look at the destruction of his parents belongings; Will never really got any help to cope with what happened in Paris and then his parents leave him with a completely unacceptable individual that they obviously didn't do enough checking up on... This individual instead of working to help Will, physically attacks him and puts him in a sexual situation that just brings up all the issues in Paris back. Once again, do I think it was handled correctly by Will; no, but at this point he was suffering a real breakdown and their was no family there to help him. Brad ran away with Robbie because Robbie's mother wanted him to get therapy and cure the gay away, do I think this works, no... That being said, Brad reacted like a spoilt brat and instead of trying to work things out ran away because he wasn't getting what he wanted. In addition, Brad ran away from several other situations in Be Rad, whenever he didn't seem to get what he wanted. Unlike Will, who at least makes some attempt to face the situation and stand up for himself, Brad just runs away from the situation and divides his family and friends. Brad physically beat up his little brother enough to rupture his testicle and put him in the hospital for outing him and Robbie; this after Brad purposely outed another guy and tried to ruin his life because he was afraid he might out him, oh yes, that is a sign of great maturity. I don't really even paticularly like Will. As I previously stated he is not even in my faves for his generation or those close to him; the issue I have is that some people seem to really hate Will. Most of Will's behaviour issues can be traced to outside sources, not the least being kidnapped and raped, and yes what happened in Paris was rape. From a clinical standpoint, Will's behaviour would not be viewed as immaturity but derived from outside sources of origin. From a clinical standpoint, Brad's behaviour would be viewed as more immature or even regressive than Will's is in this story. P.S. I forgot to get into the number of sex partners. Including the rapist in Paris, I can count eleven without going back and re-reading anything. This maybe slightly off but I don't think by much. From a purely statistical standpoint this is above average for a 14 year old male. That might change though if you look at physically mature gay 14 year old males. Maybe sex at an early age is just more prevelant in Texas now and in the past than it is in California or other areas because several people have expressed suprise at the number and variety of partners Will has had. The ones that would concern me, other than the forced encounter, are those more than three or four years older than him. I guess it will brand me as a slut, but I grew up in rural Texas and was Will's age in 1980; I had already exceeded the count that I have for Will by several as had most of the kids around my same age. Maybe it was just a more sexualized time, but I really don't think so; maybe we were all just bored because there was nothing else to do, but I don't think so; I think everyone matures sexually at a different rate and there can be several factors that contribute to this. On a professional level, I would be concerned about the number and be looking for reasons behind it and I do think there are several. That being said, the number of partners one has doesn't indicate a paticular level of maturity or lack thereof.

Really enjoyed the latest chapter of Paternity, I was glad that the Senator won re-election. I thought there was quite a few great father/son moments during Wade's visit home. I do think that the Senator and Elizabeth are about to have some really intense changes in their dynamic. I can't see a divorce coming yet but there is going to be big changes; of course since he just won again, the Senator would have six years to get the voters use to a divorced candidate. I think that the Senator is going to start taking Wade's side more directly and this is going to bring the conflict more out into the open. It really seems to me that Elizabeth has way more to lose than anyone else involved; SEC, FTC, FEC, and maybe even criminal charges if everything she has done just recently came out. I really don't understand her endgame with Wade; does she really need his money for something or is it all about control??? I do think that Wade will let JP know what Sean told him. I don't think that Wade really wants to be in the middle of a Crampton civil war but he will feel the need to let JP at least know what is going on; this may have been Will's plan all along. Brad has just never been one of my favorite people in the series. I have always found his need to be Top Dog slightly annoying. Several people here seem to believe that age is the great determining factor for maturity and as usual I disagree. I think that Will is already more mature at 14 than Brad was at 17, although this is not a huge leap. But in some ways, I think Will is already more mature than Brad is at his current age in the story as well. Do I think that Will is fully emotionallly and mentally mature, hell no... But I don't think that the fact he is 14 and from a privileged background makes him any less mature than some working class rednecks are at 40 years of age, I am surrounded by lots of those guys. I wasn't but I have known people that at 14/15/16 were much more mature and together than their parents were at twice the age or more. I just don't believe that age is the great maturing factor than some people seem to view it as, experience has a much bigger role to play at least in my opinion. Will is not my favorite person in the series, of those close to his generation Wade, Matt, and even JJ are more interesting to me. That being said, the animosity that Will seems to generate among some of the readers is just astounding to me. I swear, Will could be working on an experiment in marine biology and stumble across something to cure cancer and some people on here would find fault with how long it took him to cure cancer... Sure Will can be a snarky little brat at times but I know 40 year olds that can be the same way; I have to wonder what people are reading into Will from their own lives that make him such a target of animosity???

Both the CAP and Bridgemont series have brought me hours of enjoyment and helped me look at the world in a little different way. I can't say enough about Mark's talent and giving of his time and energy. A special thanks to all those others that have helped him along they way... I am sure he thanks you all but thanks from us as well...

There was a Greek god of Sluts??? Yes, I did know Poseidon's other attributes but JP is a superb horseman and earthquakes come from deep in the earth and strike suddenly and unexpectedly and both of these sort of fit JP as well.... Poseidon was always seen as more deliberate and less emotional than most of the other gods and this just fits JP better than Zeus, who was always driven by his emotions. Okay, a question here... Do you think Brad would really react worse to being challenged by Claire rather than JP??? I would have thought that Brad would have reacted worse to another male challenging him rather than Claire... I have to admit, I have never been nor had any desire to be an Alpha male so maybe I don't get this. It just seems that most Alpha males I have known have more of an issue with being challenged by another male rather than a woman. I know that Claire is the younger sister but she has always been able to exert a certain quite influence over Brad and Ace as well. Wouldn't Claire's challenge be easier to take than JP or another male??? I would really like some feedback on this....

Claire was always the one that brought Brad and Ace in line quicker than anyone else. I do think in the end it will be her with support from JP that get Brad to understand the situation. I never really saw JP as a Zeus type personality. He always struck me as more a Poseidon, still waters often run the deepest. I also don't think JJ is anything like MaryEllen. JJ spent a long time in the background just being happy go lucky while his brothers had the spotlight. Now, he has the spotlight but his brothers aren't around to present a buffer against outsiders so he has developed this I'm rich and fabulous persona to protect himself from the outsiders but is finding it harder to turn the persona on and off around family. This along with feeling overshadowed by his physically mature but younger brother as he starts puberty is causing most of JJ's issues in my opinion. I think the happy go lucky kid is still there, just buried under the bitchy outlayer of protection... methodwriter85 used the Blair Warner analogy and I think this is spot on, the waspish rich girl with the heart of gold....

Okay, I don't know who Bonnie is, I only know the one guy in the DA's office in San Diego County and he works in the special operations division??? So I am not even really sure what type of cases he works but I do know that before he worked there he worked in another jurisdiction dealing with sex crimes. He is either really out of the office or just not taking my calls now over my Star Wars comment but I did go back to the professor. He says firstly he can't believe anyone is getting this worked up over online fiction, but I said it was just the best.... He says the assualt is nothing, just the one case of child porn production and distribution would be more than enough to get Jeanine's parental rights terminated. He did say they would have to go to trial and convict her but under the scenario I outlined that didn't seem to be much of a stretch. He said the fact that Brad knew about the incident and did nothing could also open him up to charges as well depending on the situtation. The prof did say he hadn't been in a jury trial in years but has appeared quite regularly in appelate or supreme court cases on both the state and federal level in the last eight years so doesn't feel he is completely out of touch with the profession...

Regadless of my previous post, I agree with Daddydavek; I don't think that emancipation is Will's endgame. He is going to use this to shake up Brad and try to get him back on track. I think Will feels that Brad has left him with no other option but to involved the family and outsiders in this dispute to get Brad to see the seriousness of his mistake...

Okay, I am going to deal with this part first... I talked to my friend in DA's office in San Diego County again and a guy I know that teaches at UT of Austin School of Law; he use to teach at Stanford Law but left about three years ago... They both said that under both state and federal statutes what Jeanine did was aid in the production of and distribution of child porn. They said you can't argue that you produced and distributed child porn for the benefit of the child, unless you are truly psychotic. Secondly, Jeanine has a history of physical abuse of Will that can be documented by the police in Norway and maybe others. Thirdly, if you want to get as convaluted as your argument, they said a prosecutor could argue that Jeanine took Will across international borders to facilitate the production of child porn and could then be charged with human trafficking for the reason of child porn; the fact that Micheal has pictures of JJ from California and then Will and JJ in Norway with another underage male shows it is international in scope. Now, they both said the last deal would be hard to prove but it could at least be charged. No, what my friend said and I verified today was that unless you can prove that Lark knew an underage Will was watching him, you could not successfully charge him for any crime... Both the DA and the Professor here in Texas want to know if you are an attorney or just a layman reading something online and trying to decipher it. The DA says he is not getting into a pissing contest with someone he doesn't know about a fictional story but you are wrong. He says that emancipation would be easy for Will to get from Jeanine because her parental rights could easily be terminated but as I stated in my earlier post it would be much harder to get from Brad and there would be questions of why another familty member wouldn't act as guardian. The Professor says that without going back and getting all the information presented in this scenario he would not argue but he did say that emancipation in California is possible for a minor without parental consent. He says that if a judge decides that the behaviour of the parent is so ergregious that they can terminate parental rights and emancipate the minor, he says that Jeanine's behaviour clearly already fits this standard....

Okay, I have talked to two people one that works in the District Attorney's office in San Diego County and the other is a private attorney in California and both say that while it is hard to get emancipated if one or both parents object; it isn't impossible espeically if you can show cause for neglect or abuse. They both said like anything in civil court the burden is not as high as criminal court on proving neglect or abuse either. I called both of them after this was posted today and asked because it seemed a little out of left field for me but they both said it was quite possible. Now, the private attorney is a corporate lawyer so he admits this isn't his field but he said he handled a case right out of law school in the 90's were a 15 year old got emancipation from his parents in LA County and the guy in the District Attorneys office said he had seen in several times in cases of sexual abuse or abuse. I gave both of them the rundown on Jeanine arranging for Micheal to take the pictures and send them to a third party and they both agreed that in California that would easily met the standards needed to bypass parental consent at least for Jeanine. They did say that the situation with Brad was a little more murky but still might be doable as well. My friend in the District Attorneys office did indicate that I really should stop getting so involved in online fiction stories but I told him to get over himself and stop collecting Star Wars collectibles... They did both agree that the courts would question why Will would not just attempt to get another family member named as guardian instead of emancipation. I told them to stop being so technical this was fiction, that I had just wanted to know if it was possible and the answer from both of them was yes... They both said the key was the fact that Jeanine had someone take pornographic pictures of her own child and then had them distributed. They said in California this would met the requirements for charges of child pornography being filed... I really don't know that I agree with Will taking this type of measure; I have become even more disenchanted with Brad than before, I never have paticularly liked him. That being said, there appears to be several options that Will could explore before taking such an extreme measure. I am equally puzzled by JJ's apparent desire to sweep this under the rug. I understand him just wanting this even to be over but it seems he would be more concerned about the possibility that Micheal might have other pictures of him somewhere else and they might pop up at a later date... I can always tell that it is a great chapter when so many people get so riled up and passionate about what is going on... Keep up the great work Mark...

Really enjoyed the new chapter of Paternity posted Saturday. I just love how Matt and Wade play off each other and how their whole relationship works now. I really like that Matt understands Elizabeth well enough to know that there is something more going on than even Wade thought about at the moment that he got warned about the coming disclosure. Elizabeth may have just trained one of her kids a little to well for her own safety... I enjoyed Wade's interaction with JP. They are so much alike in some ways and yet there is a core of cold steel in JP that I am not sure Wade possess or at least has yet... Not saying it is a bad thing, after all, JP does have a body count... Made a point about Claire in a post before the latest chapter got posted and then there was that little discussion between Wade and JP that seemed to bring up what I was talking about... I can see some drama coming down the pike... Great job as always Mark, keep up the great work....

The new chapter is up and the ship is finally underway... I am so excited about this voyage. I am sure that there will be all sorts of adventure and danger along that way for Granger to overcome; that being said, I would not be upset if a certain 1st Lt did not survive the trip... I am so glad to see Gaitling back on board with Granger. I always liked his character but hate to hear about his falling out with Lt Roberts... I have a feeling that Gaitling may come out ahead of Roberts after this voyage... I have been out of pocket so missed a good deal of the discussion this week but Mark took up the slack about the trip from East to West and the possibilities. I was so wanting to point out Brazil was a Portuguese colony... In addition in the 1790's there were large areas of modern day Chile and Argentina that were unoccupied or explored. Even the Straits of Magellan were not as well controlled as previously indicated, the Spainish did have nominal control but not to the point of the exclusion of anyone else having access...

Well, I was out of position and just got around to reading the latest chapter of Paternity... I really enjoyed Will and JJ interaction. I think even with all the fighting that goes on between the two that they have a deeper bond that most of the people around them maybe even themselves realize. I really do think that Will would do almost anything to protect JJ and JJ in the end would do the same for Will, especially from those outside the family. I really do like how Claire adds such a dimension to the stories that she is in, she really acts as a good counterbalance to Brad in certain ways. I really enjoy the stories that she makes an appearance in. I do think the fact that she understood when JP needed to be brought up to speed is another way of showing that she really is JP's actual succesor in her generation regardless if Brad thinks he is or not... I also really like how Will stood his ground with Brad about spending time home with the family, not just him. Everyone understands that Brad has a business to run and other matters to attend to but think about what happened the last time that Brad let his life get out of balance badly...

Ah, good song for a cute moment... Plus reminds us all that JJ was always sort of sweet before he was hit with the skating bug...

Field Marshall, hell... JP is whatever the position is that controls not only the army but navy and air force as well... Maybe that makes him the Emperor of Online Armed Forces...

" Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive ".... Well, you just have to wonder what type of web Granger will be sailing into when he reaches the Far East... Don't you know Maidstone is going to go ballistic when he reaches there and starts running things only to have Granger show up with the authority to order his replacement... I forsee quite a few profitable occurences in Granger's trip to South America... Plus, this is a good way to tie in some scenes that involve Americans that can be used in future stories in this series... Keep up the great work on this series, Mark; it really is the best series online ever...

I so agree with this... I really could handle having JP as the only narrator... In the end, this whole saga is really his life.

Oy Vey, I swear some people are just never happy.... LOL....

Sometime, true life can be just so much more interesting that anything you can possibly make up...

Usually love your selections but just not a Nelly fan here at all.... Can we have some more Heart???

I could take you anywhere Mark...

Well, the new chapter is up and magnificent is the only word that comes to mind... I just love Claire so much... I know at some point someone described Claire as enough to turn a gay man straight and Jack enough to turn a him back again... I think that is happening to me... I really am starting to question Brad's behaviour as much as Jeanine's in all of this... OMG, I just can't wait for the next chapter...

I am voting for Wade; I have come to love Will but I just relate a little more to Wade. Having said that, it really doesn't matter... Your average chapter is so much better than everything else online that it is truly scary....