In Part 11, Sharlene is glad the Project trainers are willing to become company partners and jump right in to help while she still doubts her role as the leader. Although she has to ‘cheat’ a little to reach the initial goal of her journey of touching, she is thrilled to arrive and wants him to repeat the experience. Later, Angelisa shockingly asks him to help her meet a cultural requirement.
A peek inside:
“Possibly, except that I’m sure some people will try to make others feel more guilty about using Emotique to enjoy a little pleasure.”
Since she’s quite puzzled as to why he would say that, Sharlene asks, “Huh? Why?”
“There are a lot of moralistic type people out there, particularly among the religious, who claim that any intimate pleasure outside of marriage is absolutely wrong, regardless of how little intimate pleasure there is inside of most marriages. I remember a character on a television show who claimed that marriage was a fine estate designed to eradicate any feelings of intimate desire or even interest. The setting and the character who was making the statement made it clear that the script writer intended the statement to be highly sarcastic, yet many people actually believe that.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.”
“Before I ask you to try to explain it, let’s get some food prepared.”
. . .
She returns to the conversation, “It was my understanding that one of the purposes of marriage is to provide an environment for a couple to enjoy intimacy without having all of the worries of experiencing intimacy with a number of strangers.”
“That’s true. And a follow-on is to provide a stable environment in which to raise any children which might result from the couple’s intimacy.”
“That was the other purpose I thought of. What other purpose is there for marriage?”
“Some would claim companionship.”
She hesitates to say what she thinks is so obvious, “One would hope that two people have some sort of companionship before they get married otherwise it would be rather unpleasant. I certainly don’t claim a perfect memory, but I don’t remember hearing of any society or religion which required two people to be married in order to be companions or friends or anything along those lines.”
“I agree.”
“Yet in those societies or religions where there was a practice or ceremony such as marriage, intimacy and any resulting children were restricted to the bounds of marriage.”
“True.”
“So it would seem to me that the purpose of marriage is for intimacy and raising children.”
He nods his head and agrees, “That would seem to be the logical conclusion.”
“So, if a person isn’t interested in intimacy or in having children, why would they bother to get married?”
“Societal expectations, family pressures, financial security, or to escape from a perceived worse situation.”
“Then if one person wants a ‘proper’ environment in which to experience intimacy and the other person wants something else out of marriage . . .” she’s not sure how to finish the sentence.
“It’s a recipe for unhappiness at the least. Even if both people are interested in intimacy to some degree, that can have some very different meanings, especially if one or both people were trying to impress the other person prior to marriage and tried to give them an appearance of something other than who they really were.”
“That’s why you’ve made such a strong point of making sure I understood you were a boring old man.”
He nods his head as he responds, “I didn’t think a relationship could develop between us, but I certainly wasn’t going to have it develop under false pretenses. My lifestyle is that of a boring old man. You’ve given me reason to open up a few areas of my life, but I’m still not the type to wine, dine, and dance you off of your feet like a lot of other women expect. . . .”
