Letters to the Editor
Anonymous_Too
Published Letters: 186 Editor's Choice: 2
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Sexual power is no power at all
[Read the article: The Empathy Belly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]women should acknowledge the fact that when they have equal, or anything close to it, money and rights to men COMBINED with all the sexual power that they have always had that women are running the show in daily life for most people whether or not the president is a woman.
First of all, sexual power is temporary, lasting maybe fifteen years, twenty at the outside. Give a lifespan of between 80 and 90 years, that's no power at all.
Second, exercising sexual power involves a process of self-degradation that not all women are interested in engaging in. Sure, I could have waggled my ass to get money, but I preferred to work for it. I wasn't raised to be an ornament. I was raised to use my brain and my hands, so in this case, it's power in negative numbers, coming at a price so high that it's not worth using. It doesn't take long to figure this out, either. All you have to do is listen to how men talk about sexy women to know that what little power they have isn't anything worth bothering with.
Manipulating men into buying things for me is far worse in every possible way than buying things for myself directly. If I can't afford it, I'll go without.
This does not apply, however, to things like food, shelter, clothing and transportation. I need the economic power to be able to obtain those things for myself and, if needed, for children as well, without relying on any ass-waggling or husband-wheedling.
If I have to seduce, beg or nag to get anything done, it's not power. It's humiliation. Also, I'd rather be a doctor than marry a doctor. Marrying a doctor to get access to the perks of the medical profession is essentially prostitution.
No thanks!
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Yup
[Read the article: The Empathy Belly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As long as women insist on denying this basic fact of biology it's going to be very hard to have a meaningful discussion with men about any of this, but maybe women have or soon will accumulate enough power of all kinds that they won't need to worry about what men think about anything.
Worrying about what men think gets you nowhere. Worrying about what anyone thinks gets you nowhere, but worrying about dressing, making-up, primping and simpering to get and keep male attention is the worst waste of time I've ever seen.
Figured that out when I was 20. There are piles of ways to get what I need that don't involve acting like a clown.
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Reading carefully
[Read the article: Katie Roiphe's morning after]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't read the links because it sounded more porn-y than anything else. But pleading and begging for sex is not rape or near-rape. If she's calling that near-rape then it sounds like she's a drama queen.
Here's what Nick Kiddle herself has to say.
From the original journal entry:
The dividing line between enthusiastic enjoyment and the fear that you could very easily get raped and no-one would believe you didn't participate voluntarily can sometimes be as thin as latex. Drunk squaddies are not the easiest people in the world to convince that whether they have a spare condom makes all the difference, actually, no matter how many times they promise not to ejaculate.
From Alas a Blog:
For a while, everything proceeded in a way that satisfied us all. In the darkness, I didn’t realise immediately that one of the men was no longer wearing a condom - whether accidentally or by design I had no way of knowing. I told him to stop, and offered him two options: he could find and put on another condom, or we could abandon the idea of having sex. For myself, I preferred the first option, but it did depend on the availability of another condom.
Neither of these possibilities suited him. He made several suggestions of his own, none of which adequately covered my objection to unprotected sex. I tried to reason with him, but I found that I had to keep my hand over my crotch throughout the conversation to prevent his attempts to penetrate me without wasting time on discussion.
She doesn't change her story at any point, she simply elaborates on it.
She also says:
The fear killed my desire to have sex and I started to put my clothes back on. Luckily, he made no protest; perhaps he was too drunk. I left without incident, and the fear receded once I was away from the danger.
and describes the emotional impact of the incident itself as:
It feels odd to talk about rape in connection with an experience that was more irritating than traumatic,
In other words, she was spooked, but not traumatized, at least not by the incident itself. The fallout enraged her, but she didn't blame the squadies for that. She blamed the attitudes of the people involved in that fallout. At no point does she show any buyer's remorse where the sex is concerned. She shows outrage at society's attitudes toward women who have sex without submitting to male control.
Going back to her original journal entry:
However, one wonderful lad not only had one in his wallet, he was also willing to give it to his mate, who proceeded to render his sacrifice somewhat wasted. I sneaked the wonderful guy home, where we had the unparalleled luxury of a bed and fresh supplies.
She was very interested in sex, just not unsafe sex. Nothing unreasonable about this.
The upshot, as far as Nick was concerned, is this:
If she consents to this but not that and you make her do that, it’s rape. If she consents to any kind of safe sex and you make her have unsafe sex, it’s rape.
I fail to see what about this is controversial.
At no point does she claim to have been raped.
The person posting the links isn't reading them very carefully. That's why it's important to follow the links before dismissing them as "porn-y".