''Copulism'' (see WhatIsCopulism) seems like a worthy principle, but the name is more striking than it is helpful. Perhaps we can do better here ... ---- If it includes acts of love outside of sex, then is "copul-" as in "copulate" the correct root? Perhaps "philism" or "amorism"? -- MikeSmith ''Speaking as an Australian, I thought the word had the right roots ;-). Consulting the OED, I see the Latin etymology is ''co'' meaning together, and ''apere'' meaning to link, join, connect, or unite. It is of course better to have too many words of love than too few, but amorism is already a word meaning something a little different, and philism is rather too close to philistine for comfort. Still, I throw the floor open to our many neologists who can surpass my meager talents.'' ''But I like what Another''''''Mike is thinking. We could coin '''enamorism''' ... to enamor being to inspire with love ... it's neologic all right, but maybe too milquetoast?'' ---- ''Proletariat'' comes from the Latin ''proles'', children, as this was the only contribution they were thought to make to the state. Another note is that, in Greek, ''philia'' does not mean romantic love but the sort of love that exists between friends, a form the word does not usually imply - so us having taken ''philia'' to mean ''eros'' has deprived us of a perfectly good term for something we don't have a term for. See RegalVsKalypticSociety. ''Copulism sounds too much like coprophilia or corpulence. Blech'' ''The Benefit of '' '''''Copulism''''' ''is that there are NO references on Google. It really is a neologism and as such, should be TradeMark''''''ed as soon as possible!!!'' Um, yeah, there's a money-spinner. Copulism.com. Print it on tote-bags next to pictures of JohnLennon and you'll clean up. Oh, except you'll get sued by the organization that presently owns bagism.com ... and his widow YokoOno for unauthorized use of his likeness. ---- Better be careful with that business about "including acts of love outside of sex" because the next generation (the one born a second ago) just figger'd out that means sex is forbidden in the land of the copulists. Never trust him or her who ain't horny most of the time. The link between sex and sensuality and kindness is too frail for words. That bodes not well for our new found doctrine. Dwelling on land also bodes not well. Why did they ever do it? Crawl from the seas, that is. Were they afraid of the cold and dark? Hell, so am I, and I live on land. A more thorough requirements analysis was definitely in order back then when those fish gulped pure gas, held it in their gills, releasing little puff after little puff, and digging how yellow the sunshine looked. Did they get their massage before deciding to migrate landward? Always get your massage before you decide to do anything momentous. The problem with land is not just the problem with land; it's the problem with air. Air is not a good lubricant. Neither is sand, but those early land-dwellers weren't sand-dwellers. They were muck-dwellers. Black slishy muck, the kind that lines the banks of the Norowoki river, the kind that makes you think "fart", the kind you can sink up to your knees in before you cut your ankle on a mussel shell. Those pilgrims got fooled, thinking the muck they frolicked in was the main course, topside. If they'd landed in sand, they would have beat a hasty granular retreat back into the dark and cold. Sand, like air, is not a good lubricant. You can no sooner build a society of copulism without lubricants than you can build a model airplane without brain damage. Dolphinism. There, I've spilled the beans. Why invent when you can copy? The dolphins have it licked. Not only is it licked, it's licked by the mother of all tongues. The Salty Mom. The Bigger Blue. The thing that made Columbia sparkle like a gem. Licker of shores. Lapper of lands. I'm talkin about the ocean, fish-brain. That's where we gotta be if we wanna have the capital 'C'. Do it like a dolphin. You may not need another Rolfin'. -- WaldenMathews ''Having swum with 'em, dolphinism I like, but can't own. Dolphins got it easy. We got it tough. Dolphins left the seas too. They wallowed in the muck with us but then evolved into cows. Then into beach-hippoes. Then back into full aquarianism. But this is not our age of aquarius 'cause we went the monkey route. I think, if you want copulism, you got to glory in being human, here, today.'' -- Pete. "We had it tough" is always the prelude for doing more stuff the hard way, Rock. Don't pass up the golden opportunity just because it smells like low tide. We could've gone the dolphin route, but we chose to go the (longer) monkey route because we foresaw the need for fingers. Fingers invented virtual reality, but fingers are also the original virtual reality, as any monkey worth his sea salt will gladly demonstrate. Before you go throwing off more theories about how to make love out of stones, consider that the mockingbird achieves his glory by virtue of its virtual virtuosity. He has a throat full of fingers, so to speak, and thus he escapes the prison of species specificity. We and the mockingbirds are the five star generals of the genera. ''The glory of being human is in being everything that's not human, without being inhuman.'' We're dolphins with fingers, if we so choose. Today, already. -- WaldenMathews ''Not two days old and already a schism. Yep, it's a political doctrine all right. First to empty their veins in a bathtub wins.'' Reportedly, dolphins are even more sex mad than humans ... ''Um, we kind of almost already got a word here. We got two words. Consensual generosity. So ... ConGenialism?'' Nah, that sounds like a birth defect. So far I think I vote for enamorism. Though that sounds like a Marvel superhero ... ------ Candidates: * "Humpification"