Alison Cummins wrote fretfully:
>
>So my question is: what does it mean to Barbara to be
>having sex when birth control is not an option and
>children are not part of the immediate plan?
I knew I could count on my list! Definitive answers from the crones (much shorter and more to the point than the question):
1) You’re confusing fiction with reality. You were watching a movie made by a man, in whose view pregnancy was an irrelevant distraction from the important, essential questions of love and identity. So he just ignored it and it never came up in the movie. Besides, it was the man’s job to get the condoms.
2) Barbara was just doing what unsupervised teenaged girls can pretty much be relied on to do in any culture at any time: run off to have sex with somebody unsuitable. There was no grand theory behind her behaviour. She was horny, pregnancy was something she hoped wouldn’t happen to her, and she may have been hoping that some variation of Vatican Roulette would get her by. Besides, it was the man’s job to get the condoms.
3) Sure, condoms were illegal in Canada in 1963 and people were being busted for possession. Pot’s illegal in 2003 and people are being busted for possession. Your point being? … Besides, it was the man’s job to get them.
[originally transmitted by e-mail April 13, 2003]