Sigh. You're really going to make us spell it out, huh? Well, perhaps one must, these days. But I must admit, I long for the time when the words "middle of the road" didn't require a lengthy explanation.

Whenever I mention that I have worshipped Aphrodite, I find myself confronted with a series of questions of a particular sort, shall we say. Here, I'd like to confront a few expectations I've found that people will have about what will be going on at an event we hold, by answering a few questions that have been asked in the past.

You've already seen, or at least been given the chance to see, some basic ground rules for behavior in our group, in both a sexual and non-sexual sense. But, before one gets the idea that we're no more permissive than a Baptist prayer group, let's point out that there are things that we accept that they clearly would not. Some of which are mentioned in this next article, written last year (1998).

Some might say that the freedoms offered in that article below are ones that somebody would have to be far wilder than them to ever want to exercise. They might go on to ask if the loss of that kind of liberty is the only issue we have, here.

Far from it. Far more modest and customary freedoms have effectively been trampled underfoot and we need to talk about it, for real, for once, without trying to one up each other by adopting a tougher- or more-sensitive-than-thou attitude. We address that issue in this article.

To answer a few questions, now ...

1. "Aphrodite, huh? So you're all skyclad, and your priestess is a prostitute, right?"



2. "The option that I'll probably choose ...? Which is it, friend? Are you going to be clothed or aren't you?"
   
   

   (The rationality of certain taboos)

3. "For all your talk of freeing yourself from the arbitrary constraints of tradition, aren't you holding onto them for yourself, my textile addicted friend?"



4. "OK, I'm unclear on this. Are you going to do the free spirit thing or aren't you? And how far are you going to go?"
   
   

   (Aesthetic honesty and sexual morality)

5. "But there are people who enjoy seeing that sort of thing. Think about the love scenes in movies, live sex shows in some of the seedier areas, and so on. Doesn't the inhibition seem to have been overcome in those cases?"



6. "Are you so much better? You seem ready to view women as objects...."



7. "Is the only difference between what you allow when you're the host, and what a member of the Christian coalition would allow, going to be whether or not clothing is required?"



8. "OK, anything else off limits?"



9. "Let's get back to the original subject. You still haven't precisely defined what the limits are ..."



10. "Let's grant, that this would be rude.
    
    But just because someone is engaged in some sort of sexual activity in public, does that mean that he is being sexually forward with those around him?"



11. "Let's get back to the subject. Basically, you're going to hold a big drunken orgy with lots of prostitutes, right?"



12. "Why are you so focused on questions like these?"

Let's return to "Discussing Sex".