A listener from the Netherlands tells us about his experience of love.

"My life only spans the last three decades of this century. I am a beginning opera singer from the Netherlands, working on the first small foundations of a career. When I was seventeen I started wondering why all the other boys had girlfriends all the time and I didn't even want to. Slowly, I realised that my love for the opposite sere would never come: I came to the conclusion that I am gay. It was a disturbing time, but no more than that. And thanks to my parents it soon turned into an utterly normal period of self-acceptance, as I believe every adolescent goes through, regardless of his or her sexual preference.

The reason I write this to you is that I think this easy acceptance would not have been possible in preceding centuries, or even in the earlier decades of this century. The last registered cases in Holland of men being castrated in order to "cure" them from liking their own sere are just after World War II. I have read several books about young men being sent out the parental door after having come "out of the closet" and never having been let in again. In my tours with an international choir I met several people who were shocked to see me being at ease with my sexual identity and I learned to be more careful about being open as soon as I crossed the borders of my country.

Of course I know there are only a few countries in the world where being gay is no longer an issue, and even in Holland there are places and areas where it still is a taboo, but I hope this is the beginning of a trend and I certainly feel it is important to have people realize what homosexuality is. A lot of the misunderstanding comes from fear, and vice versa.

Coming September I will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of my relationship with my first and only boyfriend. Part of the celebration will be us making use of a newly introduced law in Holland, which makes it possible for gay couples to get married".

Susanne Bray from USA Alabama tells the story of when her mother met a handsome American soldier in England during Second World War and left to begin a new life in America.

"My mother was Rosalie Olga Pankhurst,born 1925 in Oxford England. All of my relatives are still in that area. Mother was a headstrong willful young woman who passed those traits on to me. Yes, she was a feminine descendant of Emmeline,Sylvia, Adela, and Christabel. My mother met a handsome American military soldier in Biscester during WWII and married him to escape an abusive father who had a difficult time controlling his daughter who would bloody well do what she wished.

At 19 years old she was ready to escape to a Tara-like plantation in the South in the States. She became pregnant immediately and prepared to leave her beloved England, her village, her large family, and the families businesses. Her father had refused to attend his daughters wedding, much less see his only grand daughter. Rosalies sister, Joy , loved and care for the baby Susanne and hand knitted a jacket and cap for her trip on the Queen Mary to Ellis Island.

At two years old Susanne and her mother prepared to begin the long voyage to America alone. Hundreds of war brides with babies filled the decks with prams, nappies, and laughter tinged with tears. The luxury ship was transformed into a shuttle for thousands English women and children to begin all new again. The ship menu included porridge, gruel, kippered herring, and all sorts of unheard of foods.

The arrival at Ellis Island was welcomed at long last; so many children had become ill. When my mother put my knitted cap and jacket on and crossed the long ramp, the wind blew the little cap off into the ocean causing my mother to begin crying. After being processed as having a family in Alabama, we took the long train ride to Birmingham. Daddy met us and took us to not the Tara Plantation, but a chicken farm in Pratt City outside of Birmingham. My Mother was horrified and entered a depression that lasted most of the rest of her life in varying degrees. There was no indoor water closet as she was accustomed, there was ! the dreaded outhouse and she had to carry me through the chicken yard to get to it. To this day, the stench of both remains in my neurons. Poor Mother! Everything was foreign-- peas eaten on a knife, no High Anglican Church, oppressive humid summer heat, poor country grammar, sweat on people, and no tea time. Mother set about insuring that her first daughter would be as English as possible and insisted with success that I would learn to use a knife and fork at two years old. When in public, I felt like an oddity with my foreign manners and reserved behavior. I learned to speak volumes with a look, to eat only English food, to avoid "common" traits, to stand against all odds if it is right to do, to exemplify courage and be proud of my heritage. Needless to say, this caused me grief in my 54 years in Alabama - but that's another story"

Shantanu Dutta has written from Delhi giving us her thoughts on the sexual revolution in India:

I write as an Indian and obviously an Asian living in a country supposedly living by "Asian values " even if we did not coin the term. I am 39 years old , which means that I am neither too young and neither yet too old. I can still connect to both sides of the generational side. In what ways has India changed at all in terms of its attitude to sex at all ? Probably not at all. All that was cloistered has now come in to the open and has the freedom to do so. Freedom, that is the word. In the last 50 years, India did not merely get its political freedom but also a loosening from social protocol and norms that ostrich like kept people with their heads buried in the sand.

When the AIDS pandemic began to hit India about a decade or so ago, the results surprised. The highest numbers of people who were detected HIV+ outside metropolitan Bombay happened to be from rural South India , always considered to be a bastion of conservatism and and tradition. I work for a Non-Governmental Organisation (Ngo) and part of my work deals with public health issues includes dealing with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and I am always surprised by the numbers of traditional healers who seem to specialize in this field. From fancy neon lit tents to dingy tents, from sexologists to faith healers to outright quacks, we have them all, catering to all tastes and budgets. What has changed is the expression of sex and sexuality. No more purdahs and cloisters for the twenty first century!

The MTV generation has chosen to bare not only their bodies but also their souls, and what till the previous generation was only private is now becoming increasingly public. That is all the change there is. As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Pamela Prentice from New Zealand wrote to us telling her story of her own deeply troubled and personal relationship with her husband.

"It seems to me now that I started off well enough. My family were very poor and we had many problems but we were a caring family and were taught to look out for each other. Since my marriage at the age of 18 years my life has been lacking in that sort of caring and I miss it. I'm 54 now and I'm worn out.

My husband was an alcoholic, though I didn't know it then. But above the alcoholism he was an abuser. Drunk or sober, and remorselessly, he sought to control and destroy my life.

From day one the put-downs started and the control. He was the one to say yay or nay to everything. I wasn't allowed to make my own decisions.

He was able to control me by threats like telling my father that I had sex before marriage - he would tell my father that I was "bad". In fact he did start telling tales to my father and in this way I was eventually isolated from my family. They thought he was lovely and I was not so good. I felt betrayed, worthless and neglected. He was a clever man and subtle. He destroyed their faith in me. My faith in myself was also being undermined. I was supposed to be perfect, have the perfect kids, home, garden and an executive job earning a big income. I was supposed to bring status and prestige to the family. In other words, to do everything that he should have been doing for himself.

The focus was on me constantly and the demands and pressures upon me became impossible. He got more and more angry and I received more and more punishment. Mostly this was by verbal abuse, threats, the 'silent' treatment, sexual abuse, financial deprivation and negative body language. I felt like a leper in my own home. I was trapped and frightened.

Things got much worse after I had a little boy with severe multiple disabilities. My husband blamed me for my son being that way, but not openly. He pretended to be forbearing but I knew he hated me for what I had done. We had two little girls as well, lovely, lovely girls, but my husband never forgave me for not having healthy sons.

I felt sorry for my husband. I loved him and I cared about his struggle with the drink. I gave him everything I could - caring, respect, loyalty and understanding. I stood by him. But his hostility grew. My husband had always tried to undermine my sanity and this abuse was stepped up. My mother had mental illness and it was repeatedly implied that I was 'just like my mother'.

He was always winding me up to make me angry or upset, especially when visitors were coming or we were going out. Then he would create the impression that I was always this way, he helped me as much as he could, but he couldn't take much more! In reality it was me holding things together. He would tell me that if I tried to leave him, he would burn the house down and take the kiddies off me. He always said he would take the kiddies off me. I dismissed such comments because I knew my children loved me - but he worked on it.

One night I said "I love you" to him as we were all having a happy relaxed time at home. He became silent and brooding, then grabbing me by the arm he forced me out into the passage and accused me of using "bedroom language" in front of the kiddies. He called me a f ... ing whore and warned me never to do it again. He composed himself before returning to the kiddies, but I was left a shaking, crying mess, huddled on the floor. I was unable to tell my girls, or anyone else what had happened. I felt dirty and ashamed.

In ways similar to this I was further undermined and isolated and greatly feared losing my daughters. By now I was not only abused, but deprived of the security, kindness, emotional support which people need. He never bashed me up, but I wished he would so that people could see the damage and the pain. He bought a silencer for his gun and used to sit and polish the gun at night. I spent hideous nights propped up in bed afraid to sleep in case he killed me, yet dreading the morning when I would endure his anger again. I had to get support.

One morning I went to the Women's Refuge at 5.00 am to escape sexual demands. I couldn't stay though, as I was afraid he would harm my girls. I went to the police, but they said that they couldn't do anything until he hurt someone. I tried to talk to his family but they wouldn't believe me. I was inside a nightmare. I didn't know if I was mad or sane.

Ten years ago I finally got away after two previous attempts to break his hold on me. But my girls faith in me was destroyed. My husband got at our son-in-law who began to throw all the old accusations at me that I'd always had from my husband. My children tended to believe their father's lies and they were reinforced by my son-in-law. My life was devastated and I was a nervous wreck, with no support. My family all set themselves up as experts in what's wrong with me and I was condemned as a failure.

Now I'm broken-hearted, isolated and lonely. I feel totally invalidated as a woman and a mother. I think my girls need me and need to know the truth, but I don't know what to do about it. However, I am not destroyed. I grow stronger all the time, my self-doubt has all gone and self-esteem is growing. My sense of humour, religious faith and reading and writing have kept me going. I think that psychological abuse is the worst kind, so subtle and insidious and powerful".