[QUOTE] mups says... You went to the wrong school[/QUOTE] Me too - no girls at all :-(
My brother, who already speaks half a dozen languages, has been taking Arabic lessons for five years. He's good enough to get by in Syria, and Libya, where almost no-one speaks English. When I was preparing to come here he sent me a book and said that I'd pick it up really rapidly once I got here. He was wrong. Because I'm thick, principally.
<vaguely remembered MP sketch> And what's wrong with a kiss? <vrMPs> There are certainly some who while they know where it is don't know how to get the best out of it. That isn't my current experience though. The men I date now (who tend to be in their 20's or 30's) have had experience and past girlfriends confident enough to point them in the right direction and articulate what does and does not turn them on. But my point was aimed at teenage boys. I know it must be a strain to think back that far but did you truly have the woman's pleasure in mind during your first fumblings? Or was it just grab her tit and rub up her leg? Thinking back to those years from my perspective it was a bit fumbling and finding out what worked, trial and error with an edge of 'should I really be doing this? It was a gradual exploration, trying to find out what all the hints and allusions had been about. And that is a huge difference between then and now - the openness around sex. The current casual use of sex across the media, mainly to sell, gives a very confusing message for teens and pre teens - I thought my puberty with a lack of openness about sexual matters other than the basic biological facts was bad - I think I'd prefer that to the pressured, sexually charged atmosphere that kids are meant to find their way through today.
Ben Blaney says... I've been trying to learn Maltese for about 30 years, it's a bastardised version of Arabic with French, Greek, Turkish and Italian influences, amongst a host of others. I wish my parents had taught me how to speak it from birth.
Lady Nina wrote I would dispute that the atmosphere is any more sexually charged now than in the past. Quite the opposite in fact. I was lucky enough to be around in the 60's when the pill first hit the streets. It was utter mayhem, the women went crazy. I see nothing today which suggests that modern male yoof is under anything like the pressure to perform that me and my mates were all them years ago. You should try asking your mother/grandmother what she got up to back then.
steve auvache says... It was just as good/bad in the mid 70s when I first became sexually active. Promiscuity was normal behaviour amongst my peers, both male and female.
My first sexual experience, at the age of 13, iirc, was with a 15 year old girl, and I had absolutely *no* idea what I was doing. Zero. Nada. Yeah. When I was 16 I started going out with a girl who was about my age, and we sort of found out how things worked together. Looking back on it, I think this was probably quite lucky for me. It's really a double-edged sword, isn't it? On the one hand, openess about sexuality ought to mostly be a good thing, but, as you say, the media and marketing pressure is such that if you're not having *great* sex, *every* night, then there's something wrong with you.
Well, that's not true, tho no doubt there are brighter chaps. There are two key points about learning languages, ime: 1. The older you get, the harder it is. Kids brains are wired for it, and by the time you hit puberty, the ability to automatically assimilate language has already gone. And, as you get older, it just becomes harder work. When I did a evening course in Italian a few years back, the inverse relationship between age and ability was fairly obvious. 2. Some people are just "good at languages". I guess once you've learned a couple, you see the knack that makes them work. At the above evening class, a mate who spoke reasonable French and a bit of Sapnish came along. He's not "cleverer" than me, but he picked it up much quicker.
It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the Bit of a bugger in an all-male school, though. There'll be a rush for the doors when the straws are being drawn. -- Dave GS 850 x2 / SE 6a SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3 FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10
My experience is quite the opposite. Most girls that me and my friends new didn't put out until you'd been "going out" at least 6 months.
I speak half a dozen languages (including ones I'm learning) and Arabic is the hardest thing I've ever done.
