Oh, I guess you probably have reliable birth control in Paradise, make it less of a problem.

I have never heard the expression 'birth control' but I have never heard of people getting pregnant on accident and that's horrifying. Also how could you get pregmant outside marriage, I don't think there are any other ways...

Species difference, she concludes. Convenient. Why wouldn't it be possible without getting married, though? I mean, I can't imagine most people would choose to, but the mechanics are the same regardless.

If you have the kind of sex that can result in children you are married. 

What?

That is, like, what the definition of getting married is. 

Uh, okay, where I'm from marriage is having a big party and signing your name in a book beside your spouse's and living together. Here if you have intercourse with someone that's all it takes to be considered married?

Yeah. Usually people announce their intentions and throw a party, but if you didn't you'd still be married. 

Weird. What if you just don't tell anyone?

We can see it. When someone's married. I've attended a few wedding parties where you could tell the instant you looked at the bride and groom that they hadn't waited for the party. 

...How?

Dunno, you just can?

I don't think most people start thinking differently after they get married or anything, she says, bemused.

We do. You get a much stronger osanwe bond and can sense each others' emotions and can sense if the other is in danger and there are other benefits that people seem to dissolve into giggles whenever they tell me but I think it's got to be something about a feedback loop from experiencing each others' emotions during sex. 

Okay I was not expecting there to be an actual metaphysical thing.

What's marriage where you're from?

You sign your names together in a book and you live together and everyone knows you're partners and you raise kids together.

We have the latter three things. 

But that's all it is for us, is the social stuff like that.

Well. Consider yourself warned, though it's not as if anyone would have tried to marry you without talking about it. 

I'm still really glad I found out before I had to talk to conservative people.

I think the reason kissing's off limits is they worry kids will kiss and get carried away and then marry without thinking about it. 

She considers the events of the previous day. Fair point, she acknowledges, especially if they're too conservative for anything other than abstinence-only sex ed. You can get carried away without going all the way.

People do that. But you're really really not supposed to. 

Just in case the do get carried too far, I'm guessing. She wouldn't be choosing to say this bit if she were talking normally, probably, but she has phenomenal self-control when she chooses to use it, which is why she has yet to be arrested for assault, and is pretty damn confident that she could put a screeching halt to proceedings if they went far enough and looked to be headed past the border.