Bill Weintraub

Re: Gaining Intimacy

10-7-2006

Hi Kane and welcome.

Robert Loring speaks of Cymbrogi -- brothers of the heart.

And Fidelity -- true, pure, lifelong Fidelity -- is the Heroic and Alliance ideal.

I know we're living in a promiscuous age -- but that's the ideal.

If that's *your* ideal, my suggestion is to wait.

And to let things happen naturally between you.

Because the phallic expression of your bond will happen -- when it's right for both of you.

In the past, these bonds formed in adolescence -- as they did for Luke and Phillip in Beatific.

Does that happen now?

Sure.

But not in an organized way and more likely to be surreptitious than open.

Speaking of which, I have a post pending -- and guys, I'm sorry, but I have a backlog of posts right now -- from Frances about reviving the agoge.

The agoge guys was the Spartan warrior training system and is best described by Plutarch in his bio of the Spartan culture hero Lycurgus.

Here's a bit to whet your appetite:

Spartan boys were taken from their mothers at age seven and raised in small all-male groups overseen by elders. They were taught

to endure pain and conquer in battle. To this end, as they grew in years, their discipline was proportionately increased; their heads were close-clipped, they were accustomed to go barefoot, and for the most part to play naked.

After they were twelve years old, they were no longer allowed to wear any undergarment; they had one coat to serve them a year; their bodies were hard and dry, with but little acquaintance of baths and unguents; these human indulgences they were allowed only on some particular days in the year. They lodged together in little bands upon beds made of rushes that grew by the banks of the river Eurotas, which they were to break off with their hands without a knife; if it were winter, they mingled some thistle down with their rushes, which it was thought had the property of giving warmth. By the time they were come to this age there was not any of the more hopeful boys who had not a lover to bear him company.

What was the point?

Well, the Britannica (1992) says of the Spartans that "a system of homosexual pair-bonding maintained the normal hoplite bonds at a level of ferocious intensity."

And ferocious intensity is what you're after.

Good luck to you Kane.

I hope you guys have many happy years together.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.

Robert Loring

Re: Gaining Intimacy

10-14-2006

Let it happen naturally Kane. Forcing things only tends to drive people away. When both of you are ready intimacy will happen automatically between you along with frot. Patience is the key. I know in this "instant" society patience is hard to come by but that is what is being called for. Love and intimacy do not happen instantly.