{Angelic Innocence [continued]}[16th August 1988]

[Redbook5:300-301][19880816:2045b]{Angelic Innocence [continued]}[16th August 1988]

19880816.2045

[continued]

I am an old hand at sex – perhaps I had better rephrase that: I am experienced at biological reproduction, having been more than once involved in both the beginning and the end of the physiological process. Reproduction from beginning to end is an enjoyable,* addictive and thoroughly messy process, and I love it. If we had someone else to look after the babies – if I was able to be polygamous, say, and could afford a large house and lifestyle – I should probably go on fathering children very happily until old age put a stop in [sic] it. And I should, I think, if the present is any guide to the hypothetical, love all my children** to bits, the boys no less than the girls, and each one with a particular love responsive to his or her own particular quality. And my daughters, as they passed through that transient Angelic state in the few years before pubescence, I should doubtless worship and scold, and worry myself sick in their adolescence, and give them away emotionally on their marriages, and then love all my grandchildren as dearly….

Boys, I think, in late pre-pubescence also share some of that Angelic quality; but I believe it to be generally more dynamic, more focussed and willed, and thus perhaps slightly less graceful and free. Even at this age, the different biological and social roles of the sexes cast a shadow before them. Many would disagree with me, of course; and the division of opinion would not be by gender.

*[not, of course, having been obliged personally to give birth]

**& my wives!

[continues]

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