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?

Procrastinate? Read Bad Childhood, Good Life

Do you procrastinate?

Authors, does your heroine unconsciously respond to her hero as she did to her father and mother? People often do.

Were her parents constructive and good, and/or annoying, bad, evil? How would she respond in each case, to challenges, now?

My heroine Maggie's parents expect a lot, yet they baby her and embarrass her in front of the hero. But his mother turns into Maggie's staunchest friend and spiritual ally.

When the secondary hero David finds his Messiah, his parents declare, "We have no son."

Later, Maggie deals with a terrible tragedy and loses trust in herself, in love and in God.

How these wounded people finally find love and peace and acceptance with each other is the crux of this sometimes funny story of spiritual warfare set in New Orleans, Pensacola, Israel and Paris.

In her book, Bad Childhood, Good Life Dr. Laura deals with parents on the continuum, as she calls it, of annoying, bad, or evil.

She discusses how parenting can cause perfectionism, and procrastination!--and how those who do these can turn their lives around.

She wants to help people stop wallowing in the pain of the past, making it worse.

She is against confrontation, but advocates people surround themselves with God and loving, healthy people, loving them back, serving them, and counting their blessings!

As my own precious, late little mom always said, we are happiest when serving
others.

So, why do some people habitually put things off?

Fear, maybe, looking for nurturing and reassurance, Dr. Laura says, elaborating.

She doesn't mention ADD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or Clinical Depression which can certainly sap one's energy, as well, as one annoyed reader pointed out.

So, not everyone will agree with all she says.

And since she is Jewish, she doesn't discuss Jesus.

Some authors have suggested imagining Jesus standing there with us during troubling events back in our past, loving us through them, perhaps saying that He can turn this around someday for the good.

And the people in stories can influence and help the reader to heal. Click on Read for Your Life for more about beneficial fiction!