What's an honest man to do, really?

Yikes.

By the way, forgot to follow up on "all heterosexual sex is rape." I thought it was MacKinnon or Dworkin, looks like it was Dworkin:

Quote:

But she has written that the sex act itself may be unalterably degrading because it involves penetration: "There is no analog anywhere among subordinated groups of people to this experience of being made for intercourse: for penetration, entry, occupation. There is no analog in occupied countries or in dominated races...or in the atrocities that have marked the twentieth century from Auschwitz to the Gulag" (Intercourse, chapter 7). By and large, intercourse "means remaining the victim, forever annihilating all self-respectUnambiguous heterosexual behavior is the worst betrayal of our common humanity" (Woman Hating, 184).

Uh-huh.

Dlowan, I also get flack from both sides. This example probably encapsulates things -- I was in a Woman's Studies class voluntarily, but I spent most of my time raising my hand and being contrary. Looking back on it, from a teacher's rather than a student's perspective, I see that there was an aspect of just getting an interesting discussion going. And this was certainly interesting. Chairs were not thrown a la Jerry Springer, but it was close. Shocked

Reading the above made me think of a recent article in the NYT about rape in the Congo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/09/international/africa/09CONG.html

So there may be some interesting points there about women's greater physical vulnerability, etc.

But the rest is... well, you know. Smile

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Just got back, and YOW ...what great responses! :-D
I'll try to catch up a bit at a time.

ehBeth wrote:

and meeting nice people? I met a very nice young man today. Well, I've met him before, he created my first (and today, my second) tattoo. If I weren't, well, you know, attached, and 20 years older ...

Just imagine if the newspapers were full of statements like this!
How much easier would it be for people to stay positive, and go for the good stuff?

Complaining about violence and date-rape and all the bull-chuck is no good at all if we don't have at LEAST as much talk about love, sweetness and what should happen. Visualize success! Make that a strong part of our society.

We need the good examples to be loud and clear,
because most people just don't know, and it sets us off in the right direction!

sozobe wrote:

I post on a parenting board, where we are having a rather heated discussion about teaching abstinence. I think it's a crock of bull hooey, and am trying to be somewhat tactful but am having a hard time. What I'm really getting annoyed about is the whole thing of "our poor daughters are going to be taken advantage of by bad evil men", and the corollary (is it a corollary?) that women don't have casual sex, women don't have an itch that needs to be scratched, women just want this exalted, pure, spiritual sex with the one man who is their lifetime partner.

HAH! ...

I couldn't agree with you more! The sooner people stop trying to conform to an idea,
the sooner they can find their own unique desires, and really support their own life.
Creating such good/evil myths to live by warps everything into a living lie. I'd much
rather people abstain when they choose to, and celebrate their nature when they choose to.

Personally I think an orgasm is a stunningly beautiful thing, that shouts a person's
soul clear across the sky.

It's far bigger than any concept of male or female, and it takes a clear, healthy
situation to make it so expansive. Marriage has less to do with it than love -- for ones
self, ones partner, and the entire world. The state of Lovingness can only come
from within, when there is no conforming to anything outside of ones own nature.

How else can a woman be a woman, or any person fully themselves?

----------
Then again, my opinion doesn't really fit the norm. Who is norm?

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I always thought norm was the guy sitting at the bar in Cheers...

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CodeBorg, with all the thoughts you have posted here, I thought I might post this great song from 'Hedwig'....I posted this elsewhere, but I like it so much I am posting again in a new thread:

THE ORIGIN OF LOVE

When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love

And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.

The origin of love

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

Song written by Stephen Trask

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Max, I'll have to buy norm a beer, and see if I'm within the standard deviation.
But expecting someone to be average is just mean! I'll have to do my own numbers I guess.

Cool song, Cav! I like it. :-)

Sofia wrote:

I asked CB if it was satisfactory for him.

Then, after reading his initial post again, I became curious as to what would define CB's ideal intimate relationship. It seems, from his post, that mutual exclusivity is not a goal.

Possesiveness, personal property, jealousy...
Expectations, personal limitations, requirements.

My idea of a marriage contract is that two whole and independent people are included in each other's life. (Hopelessly optimistic, I know!)

But I mean it ... If my partner admires a nice man walking by, I want to know and celebrate such a good thing! If she's sleeping around on me, I want to hear all about it, what she loves and likes, thinks and experiences. How is it for her, really?

I do have a very difficult time if I feel left out, but that jealousy only indicates that I'm missing something. If I'm getting all my needs met, I hope and pray my partner will sleep around ... exactly as much as she would like to.

It's difficult. Emotions need to be faced and sorted out. Not everyone cares to do that, but I think the rewards are tremendous! When I know my feelings that clearly and well, then there's even more of me to share when I talk with her, and our bond becomes even greater. Difficulties are to be embraced, not avoided! That's precisely where strength and respect comes from.

Most people just don't have the time.

Also, it's incredibly hard to find someone who is emotionally available and honest. Independent, strong women are just plain hard to come by, and they often have to put up with so much bull-hooey, they get hopeless too. But, real women live. Real women howl. Know any Klingon Xena's who can snap a man's neck with her thighs, and then write poetry about the Remains Of The Day? Ah well... six billion forms of passion, six billion chances to love!

maxsdadeo wrote:

I feel your pain and angst, I too have pondered the questions you raise, and was confronted with two choices, seek out, without thought to time, distance, or expense the answers to these timeless conundrums.

Or get married.

I chose the latter, and that has made all the difference.

I've read over a hundred posts you've written and I know how much you put up with (re: politics and religion). That's why I quite respect your encouragement and sympathy... thank you!

All too often these days, marriage *is* the road less travelled! When I find that choice I'll probably take it, if it's not overgrown and hidden by our collective weeds.

Meanwhile, I drink to Norm! :-D (heh)
Never a barstool carried a mightier statistical weight!

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CodeBorg wrote:

It's difficult. Emotions need to be faced and sorted out. Not everyone cares to do that, but I think the rewards are tremendous! When I know my feelings that clearly and well, then there's even more of me to share when I talk with her, and our bond becomes even greater. Difficulties are to be embraced, not avoided! That's precisely where strength and respect comes from.

I think someone who knows this is very well on their way to finding the person they need in their life.

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I dunno, Code, what you write rings of years ago to me. Somehow I doubt you really have lived the life you write of and if you have, I think your questions might be other than those posed here. I am seeing a construct here, and don't know you well enough to guess the whys.

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re: Sex with your own family

cicerone imposter wrote:

I think it's more basic than what all of you are talking about. It's animal instinct. Sex is a "natural" act for all animals. If it were not so, most animals would have become extinct. There are other animals in the "animal kingdom" that seeks socialization. That is also natural. Humans need to hold and be held. It provides us with comfort, and satisfies our sexual urges. What fascinates me most is that in the history of Egypt, the phoarohs married their own family members and had sex with them. That was an accepted norm, but most cultures have rules against such intercoarse, because it creates psychological problems in the children. Just another opinion. c.i.

May I jump in here and point out something that may just be common in my town? Ok, this is Arkansas and we get the sister/mother/brother/father jokes all the time. But putting that aside, as a student of local history I have found that many of the wealthy families here have intermarried through the years, no doubt in an effort to keep the family money in the family. I'm not talking brothers and sisters, but cousins and 2nd cousins and the like. It is an unspoken joke here that several of the oldest richest families here produce generation after generation of children with mild to moderate birth defects because of so many genes from the same small gene pool. Actually I have found this intermarriage thing in many old families across the country while studying their histories, but have no way of knowing if their 21st Century relatives are also experiencing a rash of birth defects.......sorry for the length of this mildly interesting story. To sum up, maybe King Tut married into the family to preserve hard earned cash...

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:-D Still catching up ...

sozobe wrote:

Oh, I agree with that, Acquiunk. I got in a huge fight in a Woman's Studies class because I thought the statement "All heterosexual sex is rape" was a bunch of, well, bull hooey. I really really dislike the victim mentality and think it is counterproductive.

I'm all over that! Sozobe and Sofia are SHARP!

I have to think Ms. Dworkin (or whoever originated the quote) has never initiated
a rousing and loving celebration of life! Like the folks who insist "men just want sex",
you get what you give, receive what you offer, and share whatever you initiate.
Being a victim is nothing but an attitude and nobody deserves to be that helpless.

Slappy Doo Hoo wrote:

... Personally, I would never spend that much money
on a woman who wasn't sleeping with me! That's not being a gentleman,
that's being a sucker supplicating the woman for nothing. ...

This assumes the evening is a tool for getting sex or marriage. In
that case, I would be a sucker! :-D Big time! But mostly, I was
interested to get to know these women, and see what kinds of things
we could share. No agenda. No specific job to interview them for.

I can't change other people to fit my dreams, and pushing
people into some role just makes any relationship go sour.
My only interest is to see who a person is, however they are.
AFTERwards, if they turn out to be gf/wife material then whatever.

Also, if someone shows interest in me too, then I'll reveal myself,
but most folks are not that responsible. If I'm not actually welcome
then I prefer to stay invisible.

But everyone has their own way. During our date at the sex clubs,
I wondered "Are people going to think I'm a wussy man, catering
to and being used by these women?" It could easily look like that
because the physical actions are identical. I had to face that ridicule,
and decide whether to cave in to the "wuss" factor, or have a nice
evening on my terms regardless.

It's sad that many people might call me a wuss and never think
another thought beyond the label. I'm glad to go along with it if
it'll help them cling to their foundation, or just feel better.
Whatever! Their trip is only going to trip them up.

Mostly, I have to break out in a huge smile and laugh about the
whole thing! When common questions come up in such a different
situation, it's really ironic. It's just odd!

I kinda think most people wouldn't have spent the money.
That's part of why I did.

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I still am thinking as to what I have to say code..

I still havent got past WOW

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Gautam, I understand completely. I've been rendered speechless (or is that "typeless") since my first post on this thread.

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I have not exactly been speechless and I question the factualness of some of Codeborg's account, it sounds a bit like romantic fiction, but I am fascinated by some of the responses. Increasingly we seem to be a society and culture in which individuals make their own reality and codes of conduct, and romantic fiction is has good as any other, as long as it links us in some way to others and the real (phenomenal) world.

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I can't tell if people are speechless out of embarassment, humor,
amazement, horror, frustration, ridicule, or inspiration.
I have absolutely no idea how people will react, but I'm very curious!

You don't have to believe me, the same way no one has to defend themself.
I'm just trying to share a small piece of my life, and it was
only a date. Bigger things have happened to everyone I'm sure.

Fact is, sometimes I go a year or two between conversations with people.
Although I deal with dozens of people professionally, and around town
with volunteer work, classes, and chit-chat mingling, I'd still like
to have someone be there.
That's why I'm curious about what has worked for others.

Most men *are* islands. Most people never get a chance to say how they
feel or what they experience. On any given day, there is no one I can
call or write to, just to say what's going on and how I am.

Some years, I end up hiring a part-time employee just to do that. Just
to hang out, have some tea and talk. I've tried thousands of people
and hundreds of clubs, activities and dating ideas, and nothing else
has worked so far!

People are usually more interested in what work I can perform, what role
I can fill, or they're emotionally shut down, or far too busy to sit and
spend time together. We live in such a busy, frantic society.

I'm sure there are more grounded people somewhere. Sometimes I give
up and go find beauty and support from nature, beyond the little boxes of
human society, and sometimes I get in there and keep looking.
With or without people, it's all good!

Are good relationships just random?
Where have you found open people and nice friends?

----------
I've placed ads that say "$15/hour, 10-20 hours/week". I'll see if I can
get some to scan online for you. I also have a few notebooks filled
with my employee's hand writing... maybe that will help.
There's also a letter I wrote the two women from that date.
Gimme a couple days to find it in my boxes.

Hey, if nobody believes my life exists, then where does that leave me?

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I personally give CB the benefit of the doubt. Why not? What harm is there in that. CodeBorg, am I correct in my memory that you posted some time ago that you were a Cancer with Libra rising? Let me know...

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CodeBorg, I understand your feeling of needing to express yourself and not having anyone there. Your lifestyle is so different from mine or anyone else's I know (or know of), that I have a hard time understanding a lot of what you write about your experiences. However, everyone has to live his/her life the way they choose. I'm certainly not criticizing you, if that's what you thought.

I'm curious as to where you live, if you want to tell.

Good luck in all you do!

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I like CodeBorg's life, and it certainly isn't as unbelievable as people may think. If there is anything unusual to most of us, I think it is just CB's spherical outlook on things. Most of us are much more linear, especially when it comes to relationships. I had a friend in university who once did take two women to bed at the same time. He said to me: "I was going down on one of them and I found chewing gum in her pubic hair." I gave the standard "Ewww....that's disgusting." He said: "Well, at least I knew who it came from." Celebration of life. Unfortunately, said friend recently royally screwed over his partner, who is also a longtime friend, when they legally separated. One never knows....for now, I await more stories from the CodeBorg diary of living, or perhaps I am just voyeuristic Smile

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I've read along with facination but am unsure what to say or how to respond. CordBorg's last two questions gave me a slight enterence. "Are good relationships just random?
Where have you found open people and nice friends?"

I think that the initiation of a good relationship is indeed random .The cultivation of that relationship takes time and effort. I sense a tinge of saddness in your search for a meaningful relationship with either a male or female. Your initial posting has led to quite divergent threads of thoughts from sexuality to just open relationships. I am fortunite that I have about 5, or so, close relationships in which I can openly discuss any topic I choose and can share even the most intimate feelings. I think that 6 people is pretty good. On the other hand, I have a lot of nice relationships that are based on more than what I do for a living or what I have accomplished. They are genuine, honest and, open people. But, they hold back what they feel is private or what they feel will alter my opinion of them. That is ok too. I do not put any demand on a relationship other than it be honest and considerate.

Sex, the original noted issue. Sex is fun and with my wife, it is laden with a great deal of emotional communication. In Korea, I, and several pilots, would go to a house in Soual (sorry about the spelling, it escapes me). We would take 3 cartyons of salems with us. We would gime 2 to the moma son (owner of the house) and the third to the gitl we ended up withj. We would all sit on the floor and quietly share tea and engage in pleasant conversation. You would paior up with a lady either beecause you enjoyed her company or because you had been with her before. You would then to to your room. During the two day stay you could sit in these wonderful europeah, high sided bath tubs while the girl softly bathed you, they gave massages and often we would go out to clubs. It was truly a wonderful experience and, beyond that, the sex was fun. I think we would tip the girls $50 or so dollors when we left. So, part of your first post of having a meaningful evening with several ladies is not unique. (The gum incident whold have been). These relationships were meaningful for the moment and so have many others. If I knew you, I would only ask of you what you were prepared to give. I would extend the conversation as far and as deep as you would be willing to let ot go. I would not, however demand that it go in any specific direstion. It strikes me that if you can go a year with out having a meaningful discourse, the issue may well be in the demands you place of those who intend to have a relationshiop with. Could it be that your intention of just "sitting down and spending time together" is more demanding on your part than you may realize? Are you pushing those people away rather than them haveing a problem communicating with you? I have no idea how old your age is. For me, at 57, there is little in life that shocks me and there is little that I am unwilling to openly discuss. If I need to cry, I do it without reservation. If I feel like kissing one of my close friends, I do it. When I close conversations with one of my 6 I close by saying "I love you", they generally respond in kind. But, with most people it's just "It was pleasant to see you again, I had fun."

That's life.

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Typo's come with the territory!

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This has been a fascinating thread, to say the least. I too was struck with CBorg's last 2 questions. I've often wondered at how so many people find partners and live seemingly happily for decades. It's beyond me how that happens. Simply because, I think, I haven't had the experience - or anything even close to it.

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Quote:

Know any Klingon Xena's who can snap a man's neck with her thighs, and then write poetry about the Remains Of The Day?

Plenty, but they usually prefer the work of Fitzgerald or Vonnegut.

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What's an honest man to do, really?

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