British study: "One-Night Stands are Immoral."

Forty years after The Feminine Mystique hit the racks, most women consider one-night stands immoral!

Those who indulge in casual sex are 'needy' and 'deviant' according to research by psychologists from Sheffield University, England. The study revealed women of all ages believe that sex outside marriage or a committed relationship is wrong. Those who have one-night stands do so out of desperation or drunkenness.

"These findings come in spite of the image of the carefree, liberated 21st century woman protrayed in programmes such as Sex and the City." Click for the article in the London Daily Mail .

(The world must so appreciate our contribution to popular culture, not!)

My 'Sixties heroine, Maggie, meets an art gallery owner in the French Quarter who promises a huge show for her paintings. He will send invitations to big New York dealers, hold an opening bash and launch a great career.

This is her dream, enabling her to stand on her own two feet. Her late husband wanted her home, and her parents babied her. Now is her chance to find herself and the woman she wants to be.

He also promises to introduce her to someone who can help her find answers to her question: Did her dabbling in the occult cause two people in her life to die violent deaths?

He plies her with attention, admires her work, cooks her a steak in his lavish historical French Quarter apartment, gives a gift, offers a little marijuana.

After all, it's the 'Sixties. Everybody's doing it. "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" booms from the stereo.

The villain is charming, sweet, funny. He's been so kind. It would be foolish and unsophisticated to refuse and hurt his sensitive male ego, wouldn't it?

Maggie is young, also funny and sweet, grieving and oh, so needy.

And she grew up in church. But is growing up "in church" enough to provide the strength to keep her out of trouble?

She discovers a lot about herself and God and about her non-relationship her Him--and the need for one. The difference between being on of His creatures and one of His children.

(Oh, yes, see John 1:12, note the word become.)

And she discovers much about the villain as he opens the door to the dark side.

He holds the marijuana cigarette toward her lips. Everybody's doing it. Anybody in her position would. Wouldn't they?