According to this report in The Sunday Age this morning ( http://the.age.com.au/victoria/sperm-drought-drives-call-to-lift-imports-20110219-1b0f3.html) there is a shortage of “sperm donors” in Australia. I hadn’t noticed, but I have the solution.
1. Get married.
2. Donate sperm to your wife in love in the good ol’ fashioned way.
3. Have baby.
I propose that
1) We replace the absentee monarch of Australia (who is also the Monarch of Great Britain) with an elected Australian monarchy.
2) The elected monarch exactly replaces the current monarch in the current constition.
3) The elected monarch has exactly the same powers, duties and responsibilities as those of the current absentee monarch. All the monarch's functions are carried out by his/her personal representatives (as is currently the case): federally by the Governor General, and in the states by the State Governors.
4) The Governor General and the Governors continue to be selected and appointed as they currently are, that is, by the premier with the approval of the monarch.
5) The monarch is elected to sovereignty over Australia for life, but his/her sovereignty is strictly non-hereditary.
6) The elective body is the "college of electors" comprised of the state governors and federal governor general.
7) The election of the monarch must be a unanimous decision on the part of the college of electors.
Well, if only it was that simple DAvid. Some of these people are married but infertile and some are single women who have given up trying to meet Mr. Approximately Right and had decided to have a baby before they are too old. I don’t agree with donor sperm but some people are obssessed with having the notion of having a child and I suppose unless one is childless and grief stricken that they don’t have kids, one can’t understand the measures people will take to achieve their goal.
I take it you want to get the ball rolling on point one?
Are you proposing to me Gareth? YIKES!!
Bit worried there Catherine, I thought he was proposing to David! Double YIKES!
after all these years and you still don’t know me Tony??
Gareth, I do believe DAvid has experience running a singles goup so he may be able to fix you up with a lovely LUtheran lady
I am not sure if I should blush in eagerness of meeting a German hottie or be in shame that the Catholic ladies are not up to task..
I see David has listed Melbourne Single Catholics under his list of links
http://www.meetup.com/melbourne-single-catholics under his list of links, so there you go Gareth
Thanks Catherine, if I manage to drop in by, I am the one that people sometimes mistake for Richard Gere in his heyday.
Well, rumour has it that Richard Gere is gay, so I don’t know whether you want to compare yourself to him LOL
you listen to some weird rumours.
Well I was worried that David thought he had the solution to the donor sperm problem but now it appears we have to find a nice woman for Gareth.
Ummmm…, this is the first time I am speechless on a Catholic blogspot or discussion board.
I actually meant was David going to get the ball rolling and aid all the poor Catholic singles (who let’s face it, aren’t exactly faced with ‘talent’ each Sunday) out there to find a ‘mate’, but if you read something into that I didn’t see in the comments, then I will try to be broad-minded about it and be open to possibilities….. :’)
My church all the ‘talented” younger women are married and reproducing about one to 1.5 years after nuptials. Must be Baptist thing. Though there are still eligible young women -and I suppose young men-around the Church. You could send them to my church GARETH and then they could covert and attend the large catholic church around the corner. Not the UCA which is nearby
question what is a most common Baptist name up until the 70s’ for girls?
Heather. Just from meeting quite a few Baptists,i notice that many of the women,my age -55 and above ,and those over 40 seem to have proliferation of the name “Heather”.
I’m afraid it takes me some time to get through the various articles or to form reactions to some of them. So my comment is a little late. I appreciate the thread of levity in this one, but only to a degree. The reason is a little along the lines of Catherine’s first post reply. It is harder than people think – or pretend – for many to find and enter relationships of any sexual kind, let alone those that promise enduring goods like another’s lifelong devotion, and the security conducive to having children with comparatively less anxiety. Part of the problem – but only part – is the visual saturation on media of the “ken and Barbie” models of perfection we are all supposed to aspire to, emulate or be. Another part is just normal shyness, awkwardness or social anxiety. The greater inequity in and increasing inadequacy of lower to lower-middle wages, the non-full employment, the urban concentrations, the unaffordability of rents and housing all conspire to keep more and more younger people at home, non-independent, and cramped where relationships are concerned.
So, people can joke about solving sperm problems by urging marriage, but it is an academic exercise for many and also, considering that a few posts back there were lots of criticisms of divorces and reminders that marriage was hard, serious and permanent, a somewhat revealingly frivolous encouragement for folks to dampen their urges by rapid marriage.
It demonstrates, to a certain extent, to my mind at least, the inconsistencies we are all bound to get entangled with when we attempt to pontificate about human relationships and the institution of marriage. (That it is an institution, man-made, not necessarily a natural state, is also a debate).
I’m going to assert the following: (1) it is scary, nerve-wracking, especially for a young person, trying to deal with the attraction he/she feels for another for the very first time; (2) some sexual exploration is inevitable if two people are finding their way into intimacy of relationship and companionship; (3) such sexual exploration is itself very emotionally loaded but is often helpful for two people ensuring they are comfortable with the physical aspect of their relationship; (4) for many people, sex is too elusive, strange and serious to joke about comfortably if they have never known sexual intimacy; (5) it can be very insensitive to joke about sex, marriage and relationship in the earshot of people who yearn for all three but don’t know how to break the barriers of people’s indifference, media put-down and the patronising restrictions of the “insiders” all around them.
Does one have a son, or daughter? Does one want them to have a happy, fulfilled, stable relationship (perhaps unlike one’s own imperfect history?) Naturally. But one can’t force things or wave magic wands. I’d like each of my children to find and enjoy a perfecting, happy, life-lasting emotionally-fulfilling relationship. That’s step one. If it happens in and with a marriage and children, that will be a bonus, for all the advantages it brings. But I don’t want it the other way round, i.e. I don’t want them to have a marriage and children, and regard a happy relationship as a bonus. That is what is wrong with much, if not all, of the discourse on these matters. I’m sorry, but I can’t joke very much about marriage or the project of finding and entering into companion relationships.
It is ok Stephen K, one doesn’t expect you to joke very much about marriage-. As you point out marriage is an institution, and arguably it is not natural for two people to commit to spending their lives together till death do they part. Let’s face it, some people do change dramatically over the years. Sometimes one person undergoes drastic changes in their beliefs and values yet the their partner remains fundamentally unchanged and this would place a great strain on the relationship. Stressful events happen during marriages such as: serious physical or mental illness, the death of a child etc and the marriage may never recover from them. Sometimes one partner loses all interest in having sex and their spouse is left frustrated and resentful.
Who would be rushing out to get married and procreate with the divorce rate as high it is? Furthermore as you get older it gets more difficult to find someone who is free to marry as many people are divorced and the vast majority don’t have annulments.Really it is no wonder single women are resorting to donor sperm.As you say it is all very well to urge people to marry, but marry who? and how are they going to meet them?
Yes, Catherine, all you say makes perfect sense. And I hope I didn’t come across too serious! I was just feeling very conscious of the difficulties people can have in finding intimate companionship and wanted to make that point.
Well, Stephen K are your children practising catholics?
I think practising catholics who strictly abide by all the rules have about buckley’s chance of getting married in 2011.
Thanks for putting not so good betting odds on the chance of me getting hitched Catherine.
Gareth, I think the odds suck for everyone.
It was Groucho Marx who said-“Marriage is a great institution.
Who wants to live in an institution?”
Well are we talking a psychiatric institution or a penal institution? Actually marriage is a life sentence, so perhaps we could consider it a penal institution :)