So beautiful and seemingly full of glowing light.

I'm not sure I ever mentioned it before, but one of my young hobbies was having aquariums. Always dreamed of a salt water tank, but 50 or 200 bucks for a fish would have made the loss incredibly painful. So I stuck to the usual freshwater kinds.

I never like guppies, but I did have various tetras, as well as a tiger barb who seemed to enjoy nipping off the tails of the other community tank fish until they could no longer swim and died. I eventually had to "take him out" so to speak.

Wanted Oscars, but they were a hassle according to my preteen research.

Black Mollies seemed to be some of the most challenging. I seem to remember them needing a higher water temp and easily seemed to get "Ick" which I was never able to cure no matter what product I used.

My piranha (who eventually become an outlaw) needed acidic water if I remember, but seemed to do well eating those little frozen shrimp and never needed live prey as some books suggested. I think he lived for six years, which I was pretty proud of, being a kid after all.

I was semi successful breeding some Siamese Bettas (they seem to be popular lately). Had all types of Gourami and Angel fish, something called a Kiwi loach, if I remember.. He liked living in a little ceramic hut.

I was big on having live plants, but at some point the algae and massive amount of poop on the bottom became too much of a constant cleaning hassle. So I let all the fish die out naturally. It's the only reason I still don't get a tank today. I'd love to have that salt water one, but meh, too much upkeep.

I remember one of my books said that to kill a fish quickly without much pain, either use a very sharp pair of scissors to cut its head off, or throw it hard against a wall. This was horrifying to me as a kid, and still quite a turnoff. There might be more humane ways on the web somewhere.

As long as he doesn't appear to be laboring or in pain, and nobody else is trying to eat him while he's still alive, I'd leave him be and make sure he gets fed.

What is ethical about mutually desired biological urges is dictated by the place and time and culture you're living in, would be my answer. The greater question I've often toiled with is, what are the ethical considerations when in the present and even near future, what you might do together is seen as wonderful by her, but as she gets older, the rules of her culture start to impose increasingly negative impressions on her about what she used to be positive was a wonderful loving experience? I am certain some girls manage to continue to believe their own experiences, but many more start to question it or even do a complete one-eighty, regardless of whether they decide to tell or not.

It would seem to me that what is real is the actual experience she had, and that the adult was also honestly in love with her as well. Sure, there are things we all do at one age, which we'd never do later in life, but that doesn't (or shouldn't) invalidate the real experience ..and yet it often seems to have that very effect.

Now factor in the given that all societies need to have some generally agreed upon rules in order to function successfully. Where is the line between the supposed necessity of keeping kids in the dark about sex and sexual experiences, and abandoning an entire segment of society who might actually have a positive role to play in the lives of some children? After all, gay people do not appear to serve any sort of biological survival of the species, but they do have roles, and do make good contributions to their societies. It would seem to me that we could be positive contributors as well, if only given the chance. I'm not looking for the "normal" label. I'm just looking for tolerance for something the "object" of my affections seems to often want herself.

Got an answer for me? I'm a but stumped myself. Keep me posted on your guppy:)