Re: Stick the spoon in one's pie

However...

Food serves social purposes. Go to any school cafeteria: the table you sit at is a Very Important matter. All that talk about "families no longer eat dinner together" probably sounds to you like an old-fashioned fundie social conservative tirade - it is so, but there is a larger point in that: that families used to have dinner together and profit from it to share time together in an easy, relaxed fashion, where everyone was present and everyone could and would talk and share stuff. Call me old-fashioned fundie social conservative all you want (I am it, generally speaking), but when you have families that never learn to communicate together you have family members that will be alienated from the community that was supposed to be their first socialisation environment and that should be a backbone in which to rely.

I for one can tolerate to eat alone. But it just doesn't feel right.

And part of that sharing also involves the sharing and passing on of cultural customs - including dishes and tendencies in cuisine that are purely cultural and some of which might not be ideal healthwise. Yes, you are right (I disagree with Hen Wen on this and have for a time) that further than filling rigurous nutritional guidelines everything else is vanity - but vanity itself is a feature of human life and part of what socialisation implies for children. Clothing comes as an obvious example. If you are not either freezing or increasing your risk of skin cancer, clothing is utterly superfluous and vain - but most people, and I can bet that includes you with a reasonable chance of winning, still clothe their children because that is part of their social integration. The same happens for eating: vanity is itself a purpose and your denial of that to your kids is likely to be very nutritious but illadapting socially.

Which leads me to the other and original point: that sex isn't extraordinary as a human activity. Sex is not only about procreation, not even only about getting off. It is also, partly, about social bonding - about learning about other people, and relate to them. Sex is as much about being nice to the rest of people who are not yourself as it is about "oh, I came". And yes, you can live with only so much sex as "oh I came" requires - but it will be socially regressive to you and everyone who is a victim of you.