Should We Expect Same Moral Standards?

In my opinion there is no "universal moral" code. In other words let the buyer beware.

Yeah - you did.

Jeesh Oryx - I suggest you read Lord David Cecil's definitive lecture on Bronte's novel. I did when I was 16 and 20 and 28.

By the way I am really enjoying this!

Which doesn't mean that Catholics never get divorced.

It's a legitimate question. Does this sort of counseling have an affect on the divorce rate? Obviously any such question has to take into account other factors in order to answer it correctly.

Got a link to it?

People who are Catholic get divorced.

Catholics never get divorced.

Its a subtle difference.

rule of thumb, the person that feels cheated on is the one that gets to define cheating, as it's their trust being violated.

that said openness and honesty about expectations and actions goes a long way to making sure no one feels this way.

I say lets all get together and have a huge orgy! It's just a game after all. Might as well have fun in a game and not let any real life rules bog you down! Thats my view and I am sticking to it!

I just say I'm in SL for general friendliness and fun and I'm not looking for any ties.

Dnali seriously considers re-reading Bronte. I read Hemmingway at 12, what does that mean about me?

It means you have good taste in literature. Now read Mark Twain and Melville. Both will do you good.

Jig, with all that reading, you deserve to go out and have all the fun you can get! Maybe you are not so much amoral as needing to stretch your wings. And you may get into relationships with the best of intentions and not realize that they are just too limiting for you.

We change as people even within a relationship and its not always to realize this until one has seduced the boy next door and gone whoops..Fred ain't gonna like this. Its part of learning who you are and what you need. Don't really know your personal circs but it might work to let people know that you are exploring and that you need to room to check things out and grow. Later you might want something entirely different. The key as Victorria and others have said is just being upfront about it to people as soon as you know what you need and want.

Oh heavens no...lol..I'm far too lazy and my spare time goes to my own creative projects. I'm more interested in reading the book of Dnali and her sub who does the keyboard drudgery. And learning how to have good personal relationships in this imperfect world.

But I do love a book club...sounds like you could start a good one.

Dnali that is really sweet reply and very thoughtful. To be fair to you I should inform you that I read much coz I left school when I was young and my mum (in desperation) hired a tutor who was Oxford English graduate. Since very young I have a job which gives me ample time to read between "moments" when I work. I think we also tend to forget as SL users that ALL of us are literate - we write our conversations so I suspect that for many of us reading is a natural pleasure whether it is off a computer or in a book. But that may be start of another thread - are we all writing the largest novel or play in the world?

Same here. I've got a partner, who is my RL spouse. Virtual relationships just aren't my sort of thing, otherwise. I can make friends, but it can't/won't go beyond that. I'm just too private, I guess.

I'm of the mindset that as long as everyone involved is consenting, knowledgeable, and at or above the 'adult' age, it's simply none of my business.

Sure there is. Murder, theft, assault are universally considered immoral.

The problem is that the word "moral" also gets used to refer to a set of standards around sex and marriage that are by no means universal. Furthermore, some applications of standard to a particular situations are so common that the application gets elevated, incorrectly, to being universal when it's really just context specific.

Fortunately, people here seem to understand that the appropriateness of sex outside a relationship depends upon the particular rules of that relationship, and not some non-existent set of universal rules for relationships.

I suspect that people who post in forums alot are really writer types.l

I remeber Wuthering Heights on a list of books we had to choose in High School. I had seen the film on late night TV si I gave it a try. I read maybe the first 2 chapters in between yawns, put it down and picked up Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. In College WH was an assigned book one semester so in buckled down, and fought my way through it.
Yes she had a vivid somewhat twisted imagination, just like Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Steven King.To me it's just a pulpy, gothic horror novel, which I am not a fan of. I find Heinlein or Philip K Dick more thought provoking.

To the topic at hand , I do recall one book I read as a child that talked about not judging others......

Wuthering Heights .. pulpy?

Seeing any Bronte and Mary Shelley compared to Steven King is quite a shocker too.

OK maybe pulpy was a bit much.Then I would have had to allude to Harold Robbins.We'll just leave it at the point that I don't like Gothic Literature. *I like cold beer, remember?*

Are you using the term "Catholics" to mean "Observant Catholics". Or "Catholics, under Catholic law, ...?" Otherwise the terms "People who are Catholic" and "Catholics" are synonymous to me. I might phrase it as "they're considered divorced under secular law, but from the Catholic perspective, they're still married."

In any event, the question about whether or not the premarital counseling required by the Catholic church has an affect on the percentage of marriages that survive is a good question. Even if the parties involved simply separate and live apart, abstaining from all sex, the marriage would be considered a failure.

And, of course, this issue is tangential to the main question, about whether it's worth counseling people getting into SL relationships.

I have had several online relationships in my time (since 1992). In the sad aftermath of one, i was advised by the person in question that I "expect too much".

Its true. I expect the same standards of behaviour from my partner that i expect in myself. I know this is probably stupid; confirmed several times by events.

However, i can't seem to change, either the standards i expect in myself or the expectations i have for my partner.

The thing is, people are what they are, not what we want them to be. Its just hard. and it hurts when you realise that people think of you like a playstation... something they can pick up and put down at will, and wont complain when it gets neglected for something more interesting or some new accessory.

The hardest thing about it for me is that my hope never dies that i will find someone who treats me as i treat them. Hope is the killer. While you keep hoping, you will keep getting hurt until you find someone who is honest and true.

I just got married a week ago in SL to someone i have known a long time online (though only recently in SL) and my hope springs again.

imogen

That's a better way of saying it. I think what she meant was that under Catholic canon law, you cannot be divorced, only annulled.



I doubt it. Virtually all Catholic couples are now required to go through this "Pre-Cana" process, and as far as I know, the "divorce rate" (that is the % who are civilly divorced, regardless of Catholic canon law) is not markedly lower for Catholics than it is for other groups. I remember my own Pre-Cana counseling primarily for the heated debate that my ex-husband and I got into with the poor priest about the church's position on "artificial" contraception more than anything else -- an uninspiring peformance by that priest, I'm afraid.



I don't see how that makes sense. People will enter into relationships. Counseling comes later once the relationship has begun to become more "serious" for the parties. I do think, however, that it is a simple matter of respect for the other person to have the "this is what I want from this relationship" talk as early as possible in the relationship so that as much potential pain and disruption can be avoided later on.

Yes but you can never give up that hope, Imogen. Not everyone treats others like vehicles for their own enjoyment, although I regret that I agree that this is all too common in online relationships. Keep your standards, they will serve you well in the long run.