My Dear Hard Drive

I was looking for an online community for people who don’t want to have children. This was because I generally feel a bit… Well out of my place surrounded with women of my age who are either having children or desperately trying to have children. I search through blogging sites and come across 10 blogs by blogging moms who rule.

I don’t hate kids or anything, just that since I don’t have one, I have none in my near family and my closest experience of kids is having been one, I really don’t feel that connection with moms - unless we have something else to talk about of course. But often, kids take so much of your time that you just can’t focus on anything else, and in all reality, why would you want to?

So I went looking for those communities and was surprised not to find any other than No Kidding, which didn’t seem to have a working online community and was really full on about the no kids stuff. I don’t want to talk about “childfree issues” I just want to talk to people who’s lives aren’t wrapped around a 1 inch little finger.

So my solution is to create a community, I know how to do it technically, but the community creation is a whole other matter, isn’t it? So first I will tell you guys that it exists and can be found here. Sure, it’s barely alive yet, but should you find the idea interesting, you could register on the forum to receive updates - I will be sure to notify you when there’s enough people not having to talk to yourself the whole time…

Feed from the forum:
Childfree
Live information from Childfree

Do you like kids?
Ok, we don´t want to have children of our own, but do we like kids in general? For example, are you godparents?

To me kids are ok, I don´t mind being in a same room with babies or children. But I´m glad that I´m not their mother 


Re: How does your family and friends fell about YNHK?
Me and my husband had told her that we don´t want to have kids, but my mother just don´t believe us... She assumes that my husband would like to have kids...

When will she believe it?
Re: How does your family and friends fell about YNHK?
How clear have you been about the fact it's your choice not to have children? Are they still assuming that you want some someday, but haven't yet tried? Did you tell her that you have discussed the topic and have in fact decided th...
Re: What are the funniest / silliest pieces of advice you've been given?
Oh that's a tricky one... Adalia's mother-in-law is suggesting Adalia and her husband should become a foster parents for abused/neglected children. It sounds like she really doesn't get the grasp of the idea of someone not wanting children. :D
Re: What are the funniest / silliest pieces of advice you've been given?
My mother-in-law has given up the hope that I get pregnant soon, so she has suggested us to adopt a child. And my father-in-law told us last week that we should give home to children, whose own parents can´t/ dont want to take care of (huostaanotettu i...

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When I moved my blog from .net/blog to just .net, the SezWho plugin stopped working. SezWho is a plugin that promotes commenting on your blog, by allowing visitors to rate each others answers which will be collected to an universal profile. You can also follow your conversations, or another members conversations, through SezWho. I contacted the support the day before yesterday when I felt up to it, and got very personal help for my problem.

People often complain about customer service especially on free services like SezWho, but I have to say that was up there with the best paid services I’ve used. I didn’t have to wait for long to get an answer, then I got help by email and was offered help through Skype but they solved the problem before I saw that message. Very cool. And in the end they were happy to have gotten some debugging experience.

Thanks SezWho, sezI. (Apparently there are some people from SezWho in the pic there.)

If you are setting up or running a forum, one of the most important things with creating a relaxed atmosphere is to select the right emotioncs for your boards. That may sound funny, but on every forum I’ve ever run, I have had a set of carefully selected emoticons, and people LOVE them. On one board, they came such a part of the community, that I felt compelled to give them a week off from work. (This was to rearrange them really, but I informed people that they have been working so hard that I’m giving them a week off.) The response was hilarious. People didn’t want to see them go, but understood their need for rest and requested post cards from their holiday resort. (And indeed got a photo with all those emoticons in front of an European church.)

When ever I’m a member of a discussion board that only allows the basic set of yellow faces, I feel kind of depressed. It tells me that this board is SERIOUS, and the guy running it doesn’t really care about the members. The set of emoticons that are available on a board, also tell me about the sense of humour on the board, and topics that area allowed. (You can get rather naughty little emoticons if you look for them!) There is a wonderful world of emoticons out there, let me tell you! They make you laughThey make you cry.. and when you’re feeling low, they give you a hug.

To help you to get started, I have collected a basic set of smileys for you to use instead of those awful yellow ones. It still comes with Mr. Green though, as there’s nothing better than Mr. Green! (What? You didn’t know he had a name?!)

Download the groovy basic smiley set

As far as I know all these emoticons have been published in the public domain. I have mainly downloaded them at Deviant Art, which has a great section for emoticons!

One word of advice though: Don’t put all the icons into the post form, but set most of them into the pop-up window, as having a lot of them clickable will slow down your forum. Put the most used icons on the form and the rest of them behind the “more” screen. Also when selecting post forum icons, stick with the standard sized icons, that won’t stretch the rows too much, or it’ll look quite messy.

Then wait to see the reactions when you put up more smileys! I quarantee your members will be stoked!

Some time ago, I rewarded a few blogs with the Kick Ass Blogger Award. Now, my broken link checker flagged two blogs out of the 5. Where did Brutally Honest Blonde Go? She got married, did she turn into a liar now?

Unfortunately I found out what happened to Monkey Fables and Tales. The guy who wrote the content found out about the Monkey Man reposting it as his own. I mean wow. I loved the blog and the writing, and now I find that he’s not a kick-ass-blogger, he’s not a blogger at all! How bloody miserable. The good news is, that I now know who did write the posts, most of them anyway. Here’s his blog http://www.wherethehellwasi.com/ Monkey Fables has been the most popular blog on EntreCard all the time I’ve been a member, and this is what we all found out. What a shame, a shame indeed!

There is a lot to be said about sexually transmitted diseases spreading and unwanted pregnancies increasing as a result of the True Love Waits -approach, or otherwise known as abstinence only -sex education. Personally I am even more worried about the emotional and mental health issues that may follow from this type of teaching, especially from the female point of view.

I know we don’t like the idea of our kids having sex. We don’t even like the thought of our parents having sex. In fact, I don’t think any of us really likes to think about anyone they know having sex, so I understand why we would have the need to control our loved ones willingness of having sex. Parents say it’s not good for you, it harms you both physically and emotionally, and that can be true, but instead of teaching the kids how to have safe sex, some of them opt out by teaching that not having sex is the only option.

Now I am not against the idea of abstinence, up to a point. It is good to wait until you are emotionally good and ready, and by “emotionally” I don’t mean being in a loving and caring relationship necessarily, but that you want to have sex and you don’t have moral qualms about what you’re doing and you are strong enough to face the potential problems that could arise from it. And by potential problems I mean people giving you shit about it (even tough I don’t think it’s none of their damned business), sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS but not limited to it) and unwanted pregnancies (that you have to deal with one way or another).

I saw a documentary about the True Love Waits campaign some time ago, and what I saw then, disturbed me a great deal. A teacher was holding up two tooth brushes, one used, one in the neat wrapping and asked which one would the kids use if they had the choice. They, of course, chose the one in wrapping. The teacher went on to explain that just like the toothbrush, you should choose a partner who hasn’t had sex before and you should “keep yourself in wrapping” until you are married. Then they went on to explain all the things that are wrong in using a used toothbrush - you don’t know where it’s been and you can get diseases and it’s vile… All true in the case of a toothbrush, but it maddened me to think that someone would actually think it’s the same thing with people. A toothbrush doesn’t have a heart. They don’t love you. They don’t have emotions, personality or anything to give you except clean teeth. You will throw one out after using it for a month if you do as your dentists tell you to. A human being won’t loose his or her value after it has been “used”. A human being has nothing to do with toothbrushes.

Now lets imagine a sensitive person who actually takes this garbage to heart. Let’s imagine it’s a girl. She has one weak moment and has sex with a boyfriend she loved to bits. It felt good and right in the moment, but after the heat of the moment, the guilt starts creeping in. You are worthless now. Nobody will love you. Your boyfriend lost all respect for you now. DO you think he will “buy the product after having used it?” No way, he’ll find a new product, a new girl and marries her. He wouldn’t marry you! So she believes that and starts acting accordingly. Blames the boyfriend for hating her now, not having respect and looking at other girls. For a while he tries to convince her that he still loves her, he doesn’t want anyone else and he certainly haven’t lost his respect for her. However, he gets tired of convincing her and decides that there will be no future for them at this rate, leaves her “and proves her right”.

So she will now have to go on as a “used toothbrush” that nobody will want. That is her reality, that is what she has been taught. She is broken by having sex, that is what she believes, when in fact the thing that broke her was her sex ed. She has no respect for herself, so when that guy comes in that will tell her she’s all right, an he will love her regardless, she will take the offer. No matter she’s not really that into him, but he said he’d love her, regardless. She gets married, has a baby and finds out she married an abusive man. She gets beaten up every now and then, then he apologies and says that it is all because you had sex with that man. He thought he would be strong enough to handle that, but jealousy just sweeps over him every now and then, and that is why he lost control… He loves her so, regardless. And she understands him, she deserves no better than getting beaten up on a regular basis. She’s a slut after all.

Okay, let’s move on to the scenario #2, when she does wait until marriage. She’s 18, her hormones are running wild and she can’t wait to have sex. She has a boyfriend, not the man of her dreams by a long shot, but he’s there and he’s willing, like her, to marry before having sex. So they decide to marry, and jump into bed with high hopes. This is it! This is the way God intended! Marital blizz! So they have sex. He’s ecstatic in the morning, and thinks this is so fantastic. He has someone to have sex with for the rest of his life. She is not so excited. It wasn’t nearly as good as she thought. She doesn’t feel more in love with him now that they had sex. The sex wasn’t great at all. She didn’t orgasm, even though she did everything right. He didn’t even notice. She’s too embarrassed to say anything besides, she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. Suddenly she sees years and years of unfulfilled hopes and dreams stretch in front of her to be shared with that man… And she’s probably pregnant by the end of the week, because birth control was never an issue. She struggles ahead for the next 15 years and decides it is time to face the truth and divorce him and find someone she’s really into. With 8 kids it might be a bit of an issue, but still, you have to try.

If there are teens reading this… Let me tell you something. Don’t ever put a value on yourself by the number of people you have slept with. Not if you think it’s cool to have a lot of partners, and not if you think it’s uncool. Put a value on yourself based on your personality. How funny you are. How loving you are. How people enjoy being in your company, how well you take care of your pets, how responsible you are, how talented you are, but never by the number of people you sleep with. You can NEVER be sure that the person you have sex with will stay with you, whether or not you marry him or her, but at the same time, whether or not you have sex with people will not make them loose respect for you or make them not want to marry you. That doesn’t even come into the radar screen! What matters is your respect for yourself, and how you treat people. I can tell you that I’ve had sex with a lot of guys, and only ONE ever treated me with disrespect. He however wasn’t healthy. I learned later on that he had some sort of a mental disorder which made him a little… Well, mental. However, I walked out on him as I deserve no disrespect no matter where it comes from. I am afraid though, that if your school teaches abstinence only from a religious point of view there can be people who try to make you think less of yourself by making remarks about having had sex before marriage, but you should not take those comments into heart. As for people marrying you after having sex with you; I had sex with my husband before we got married, and here he is, still loving me and respecting me, as I do him. And all of the happily married people I know have had sex before marriage. (I don’t really hang out in the circles that believe in abstinence.)

Educate yourself on birth control, there is heaps of information online. Choose the method best suited for you (condom is always a good choice unless you have latex allergy, and if you do there are latex free condoms available). And, never, ever ever let anyone dictate to you who you should or should not sleep with. It is YOUR CHOICE, and yours alone. And never ever disrespect yourself for your choices, because that is the only way anyone will have the grounds of disrespecting you. Read about sex, as much as you can, from as many sources as you can, hell, watch some porn while you’re at it (as long as it’s legal of course). You need to know what it is to know what you’re signing up for or signing out of. You need to be aware of what you like about it and what you don’t like about it, so you’ll be able to inform your partner. Oh, and masturbate. It’s good for you and I promise won’t make your palms hairy.