Are you serious?

I was messing around with the F buttons on my computer in mozilla.
F1 – opens help
F2 – It\’s a mystery?
F3 – Pops up a find toolbar thing
F4 – Another mystery
F5 – Navigates away from this page apparently
F6 – Highlights the URL toolbar
F7 – Turns Caret browsing on and off apparently…don\’t know what that is, but that\’s what the popup said
F8 – Who knows
F9 – Another Mystery
F10 – Selects File
F11 – Takes off the start menu and the top part of the window
F12 – Who knows.

Alright and here\’s something interesting…not really appropriate for younger eyes.

The Oneida Community, was a utopian commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. The community believed that since Christ had already returned in the year 70 AD it was possible for them to bring about Christ\’s millenial kingdom themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this lifetime (a belief called Perfectionism).

The Oneida Community practiced Communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions), Complex Marriage, Male Continence, Mutual Criticism and Ascending Fellowship. There were smaller communities in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Putney, Vermont; and Cambridge, Vermont. The community\’s original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852 and 306 by 1878.
With the exception of the Wallingford community, which remained in
operation until devastated by a tornado in 1878, all the rest of the
branches were closed in 1854. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1880,
and eventually became the silverware giant Oneida Limited.

 

Complex marriage

In theory, every male was married to every female. In practice, this
meant that most adults had continuous sexual access to a partner.
Community members were not to have an exclusive sexual or romantic
relationship with each other, but were to keep in constant circulation.
To help prevent a \”special love\” from forming, each Community member
had his or her own bedroom. This extended even to couples who came to
the Community already married. A married couple entering the Community
was not required or even encouraged to legally dissolve their union,
but rather to extend the borders of it to the rest of the Community in
complex marriage. The average female Community member had three sexual
encounters, or \”interviews\”, a week.

Post-menopausal women were encouraged to introduce teenage males to
sex, providing both with legitimate partners that rarely resulted in
pregnancies. Furthermore, these women became religious role models for
the young men. Noyes often used his own judgment in determining the
partnerships which would form and would often encourage relationships
between the non-devout and the devout in the community, in the hopes
that the attitudes and behaviors of the devout would influence the
non-devout.

Male continence

Males were encouraged to avoid orgasms during intercourse with their partners, as a sign of grace. (Compare with Tantric sex.)
This meant that many sexual acts did not cause impregnation of the
female partner. This practice was based on the idea that \”wasting\” a
man\’s semen
was bad, and that difficult pregnancies for women should be avoided.
(Noyes\’ wife had lost four of five children during her pregnancies.)
The Oneida Community had a low fecundity rate, although there are around 40 unplanned pregnancies documented during the early years of the Oneida Community.

Male Continence is based on the male\’s muscular ability to control
his ejaculation during sexual coitus. Young boys just entering puberty
were only allowed to participate in sexual acts with women who were
past the child bearing age until they had proved their fully mastered
ability to control ejaculation. Many women of the community found male
continence to lead to the furtherment of their sexual enjoyment, as
sexual encounters often could last for more than one hour.

There were rumors at the time claiming that controlling the man\’s
\’seed\’ could be detrimental to the male\’s health and lead to
infertility, but these claims were later disproved.

The joint-stock corporation is still in existence as of 2006 and is a major producer of cutlery under the brand name Oneida Limited OTCBB: ONEI. In September 2004
Oneida Limited announced that it would cease all manufacturing
operations in the beginning of 2005 (ending a 124 year tradition), but
continue as a marketer for products made overseas. The company has
slowly been selling off its manufacturing facilities. Most recently,
the distribution center in Sherrill, NY was closed. Administrative
offices remain in the Oneida area.

Doesn\’t that just make you want to buy silverwear.  Or never buy it again.  Either one.

\”Where\’s a tall person when I need one?\” – Me