Sister Concerned About Brother, Mother

Just in time for Thanksgiving comes this Dear Abby column.

DESPERATE SIS IN ILLINOIS wrote:

I'm concerned about my 37-year-old brother, "Ricky," who still lives at home with our mother.

You know, it is one thing if you leave home after high school or college and then have to move back in temporarily for some reason, or if your parent or parent(s) need to move in with you after you have established your own place. But never leaving is usually a problem. I know someone who is on track to be in this situation – should his mother still be alive when he is 37.

Ricky is good-looking, never married and has never really had a girlfriend.

This is presented as though either Ricky has some sort of socialization problem or his mother is preventing him from forming relationships with others. Since he never left home, it really doesn't matter if he is good looking. What woman with any choice is going to choose a man who has never left home? Now, what could be going on is that Ricky may going out and fornicating without getting into relationships. Think "booty call." Perhaps he likes the financial security he has with his living arrangements, and he gets his physical release with no strings attached. It is entirely possible, especially if he is good-looking.

Our father passed away four years ago, and since then our mother has become dependent on Ricky for everything.

Is she really, or is she just emotionally needy? I can believe she is actually dependent on him if her husband always did everything for her and she married before ever establishing herself as an individual in the first place. That's one reason people should not marry too young.

Neither one has any friends outside the family.

Usually not a good sign.

I try to get my brother to come out and meet people and have some fun, but he generally declines.

Maybe he feels overshadowed by you, or maybe he isn't in to your crowd.

If he does agree to come, Mother comes with him.

Maybe he wants to get her out, too. But yeah, it would be good if he could go places without her. And maybe he does. Like, say late at night.

They almost act like a married couple.

Yeah, well, there’s the rub, so to speak. As I said before, Ricky may be a player. Heck, he could be a closeted (at least to you) homosexual. Or he could have little or no interest in sex (there are a small minority of men out there like that), or not interested in relationships/marriage. There's even the possibility that Ricky and Mother are more like a married couple than you'd want to ever think about. As bizarre as that sounds, that isn't unheard of, not even in a Dear Abby column. And if we’re a society that says "love" is the determining factor in making a relationship right or not, then who is to say that would be wrong? It's not like your mother is going to have more children, after all.

Dear Abby responded:

Start by having a frank talk with your brother and asking him if he likes living his life this way. There has to be a reason why a good-looking, 37-year-old man has never had a girlfriend. Maybe he doesn't want one.

I’m glad she offers that possibility.

After that, it's time to have a chat with your mother. I don't know how old she is, but one would think that she might like to "play" with people her own age.

How about asking her what she is doing to prepare her son to be independent? After all, chances are he's going to outlive her.

If she doesn't, then MYOB.

Now there's some good advice.

Going Down Until the End

I'm going to graphically discuss issues surrounding particular sex acts. If that is a problem for you, skip this entry.

I'm a married man and if I get all hot and bothered, I can fulfill my desires in a godly way, so for me it isn’t a problem to discuss this. But if it will be a problem for you to read, then move on. Lovemaking is a normal and healthy part of holy matrimony, and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to write frankly about aspects of that here.

You have been warned...


I read something written by a woman who claimed that most men didn't care or couldn't tell the difference where they ejaculated – mouth, hand, vagina, etc. It was part of a thread topic discussing fellatio and how it should be finished. She was apparently basing this on things men had written, since she is not a man and couldn't possibly know what it feels like to receive fellatio.

I can tell the difference. I find it hard to believe that most men can’t, even if they say they can't. Notice that men often say things to keep the peace. Regardless, she went on to write that men don’t have to put up with the equivalent in dealing with a sticky substance emitted from their wife. True. But women don't have to put up with monthly mood swings, either, or "Not now, I’m on my period." Yes, there are differences between men and women.

Women have probably used her statement - or similar statements from other people giving advice - to avoid or restrict fellatio.

And that’s okay. People shouldn’t do what they don’t want to do, right? I mean, her husband can decide he doesn't want to take out the trash, or lift that piece of furniture, or take her out to that nice restaurant, or any number of other things. But is that any way to love each other? Never doing anything unless it is your idea and what you are eager to do?

You may be reading this and thinking, "Oh, how trivial!" Well, perhaps for some. For others it isn't. The more restrictions and inhibitions placed on marital lovemaking, the more we miss out on some experience with our spouse.

I hope I'm not surprising you, but most guys enjoy receiving fellatio immensely, and a good percentage of those men enjoy ejaculating during fellatio, and a good percentage of those enjoy it if she consumes the ejaculate. Obviously, you don’t really have to swallow. You can easily fake it without him realizing (jumping up and running to the bathroom isn’t fooling anyone). Use your imagination here or look it up online.

When a man ejaculates, it is usually a moment of supersensitivity. I have felt the difference between it happening in fellatio and having the fellatio end just before. No, it doesn't feel the same in her hand, or waving in the air. The difference in feeling is huge for me. The swallowing aspect is mostly psychological, to be sure – as I suspect it is when a woman says she enjoys the feel of his ejaculation inside her in intercourse. But swallowing isn't a necessary part of completing fellatio with ejaculation. It is just the least messy, and like I said, psychologically stimulating for some men.

Sure, most women do not naturally enjoy the taste and texture of ejaculate. Some don't let on to that, some pretend to like it, and some learn to like it. Do you think the first time we smelled your natural vaginal odor, we thought "Well, that’s just like vanilla"? No way. But I learned to love it – to crave it – because it is a sign of my wife’s pleasure and it is something that is part of her. I enjoy cunnilingus so much I would continue to do it even if my wife were to never give me fellatio ever again. I told her that if she ever decides to kill me, to please do it by smothering me this way.

Not everyone is going to like everything, but if you’re married, why not try working on doing as much as you can to experience as much as you can with your spouse, provided it isn't harmful or immoral? If you're not yet married, consider that sex involves a lot of tastes, smells, and textures – and a lot of trust and often persistence. If you think you may have a problem with those, seek counseling or consider not marrying.

And isn’t that part of the "risk" one undertakes when they marry, especially if they have saved sex for marriage? Your partner may have turn-ons and likes and dislikes and turn-offs that are not entirely compatible with yours. Hopefully, love, commitment, and selflessness will help the couple to come up with solutions that are satisfying to both. You have genitals that fit together, and many ways of pleasing one another.

For those who have not saved sex for marriage, or at least certain sex acts, there should already be some idea of those things. Someone who makes those mistakes should not make another one by taking one or more of those things out of their repertoire once married. If you were physically able to do something before you married, you are physically able to do it once married, and ceasing to do so is a nasty form of "bait and switch".

A man who can’t tell the difference between ejaculating in your mouth, hand, vagina, or wherever would also be unable to tell the difference between ejaculating in your vagina and that of another woman. Does that make both the same? Of course not. It doesn’t make the latter okay, either, but if he isn't getting what he wants from his wife, it makes it more likely.

I do not excuse adultery, but I'm sure some such affairs or flings could have been avoided if the spouse who was cheated on had been willing to accomodate reasonable desires of their spouse.

That's just one guy's perspective. Feel free, as always, to chime in.

Homeless People

I've been hearing an ad on radio saying that nearly half of all homeless people in Los Angeles - or maybe it was southern California or the entire state or nation – are women or children.

This was apparently said to evoke sympathetic feelings and concern in the listener.

The implication, of course, is that it isn't as bad that grown men are homeless. It is far worse that women and children are homeless. I won’t hold my breath waiting for feminists to decry this sexism. Say, speaking of feminists, wasn't abortion supposed to prevent children from being homeless?

Of course, if "nearly half" of homeless people are women or children, that means that there are more homeless men than women and children combined. And how many homeless parents have just one child? In other words, the loss of a home can put one man, and one woman, but several children out on the streets, adding to the numbers. Frankly, I’m surprised that homeless men outnumber the homeless women and children. It just goes to show you that our overall system is less favorable to men. I won’t hold my breath waiting for feminists to shed a tear over this.

Before I go further, I want to note that these statistics usually include people most people don't consider homeless – people living in someone else's home. They could be living in a room, a garage, or sleeping on the couch, or whatever. They have a roof over their heads. Or they are in shelters. Even the "truly" homeless often have shelter of some sort or a vehicle. I've seen places where "homeless" people live in a structure and have (stolen) electricity and access to running water.

To be sure, homelessness is a bad thing - even though there are some homeless people who disagree. When someone is homeless, it means they have to stay on someone else's property, with or without their permission. But to try to get us riled up about it by noting that women are homeless, too, is the wrong way to go about it. Children should have a stable place to live, and if that means taking them away from a parent, then so be it. Women, though, if they're going to have to be taken seriously as equals, have to take the good with the bad.

It is not surprising that men make up the majority of the homeless. If there is a domestic dispute and the police get involved, men are the ones more often forced from the home. There are many more shelters for abused women than abused men. Historically, more men have served as military personnel in war zones and have suffered mental illness in part or in whole because of that experience, and the mentally ill have to be allowed their freedom, including their freedom to be homeless. Our social structure is still set up so that money flows from men to women. Men are more likely than women to go to prison, and end up homeless afterwards. And my guess is that men are more likely to choose to be homeless (yes, there are people who choose that), because women have more of a nesting instinct while men may be more adventurous and more comfortable "living off the land."

A woman who chooses a husband wisely and treats him kindly is unlikely to find herself homeless. Good husband material will earn enough and be conscientious enough to provide for her and any children they have should something happen to him. I would be curious to know how many homeless women 1) waited until marriage to have children, and 2) used to be married to a good man and treated him well. My guess is that those numbers would be extremely low.

No veteran should be homeless unless he or she wants to be. We owe them.

My guess is that teen runaways and orphans become a huge part of the homeless population, and there are things we can do to prevent that.

The solutions mostly involve strong families and private charity. Clearly government hasn't been doing such a good job. Organized, expert charities work best – simply handing cash to a homeless person likely won't change anything.

And we should not forget that men make up the majority of the homeless.