Different Cultural Perspectives - an example

I had an intersting conversation yesterday. One of my colleagues is a devout Christian, a minister in fact, and she was talking to a young Asian woman about sex and marriage and living together.

Anyway, she was busy trying to convince this young woman that she should not have sex before marriage. In turn this young woman was saying she wanted to live with her boyfriend to see what he was really like and that she didn't want to get married at all, ever. Too, she was talking about wanting children, and how really a man would just be a means to that end and she wouldn't be worried to sling him out at a later date. Pluse there would not be the same costs as if a divorce was involved...


I was very amused by the dynamic of this conversation.

For a start, there was an assumption prevailing that this girl's father would be deeply disapproving of her ideas on the subject because she is from an Asian family. There we go with a bit of subliminal racism, for a start (on my part as well as from my Christian colleague)...

Then there was the assumption that 'living together' was a euphemism for having sex as well as being a description of an accomodation arrangement.

Then there was the young woman's (generational culture) belief that sex is no big deal and her being completely flummoxed by the idea that sex or children outside of marriage was to be frowned upon.

Then there was the voice of experience coming from myself and my colleague that living with someone is far different from being married to them. And the young woman being even more assertive that living together is better then, because that whole slouhghing off of the niceties thing won't be there.

Too, the topic of my having had several boyfriends 'on the go' all at once came up, and there was the young Asian woman being totally stunned by the idea that there was not an issue for me there of 'having to be lots of different ways with them' - an idea I found quite intriguing, that she would 'be' a particular way with one boyfriend and another way with another boyfriend. She was flummoxed when I said 'well no, I was just myself with all of them and that worked fine'.

Of course it's not entirely true that I was always 'just myself' with each of my partners... I was myself, plus a slant to whatever BDSM dynamic existed between us. With my present partner I am 'just myself' most of the time, but I have to conceed that probably we each of us adjust the emphasis when we are with someone we care about. For example, I am a lot more tolerant and understanding with my partner than I tend to be with strangers, if nothing else. I make the effort to see things from his perspective and to be sensitive to his needs. Of course all that is a guessing game really, and inevitably things can go awry, but fortunately we also have good communication, so we tidy our speech up to make sure clarity prevails. I guess I started learning the importance of that through my experience of being poly.

I'm damn lucky having such a terrific bloke as my boyfriend :-)