Letters to the Editor
Sandra M
Published Letters: 577 Editor's Choice: 139
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Wanting him to be selfish so SHE won't have to be
[Read the article: If he really loved me, wouldn't he beg me to go with him?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The LW strikes me as a tad immature -- on the one hand she calls him respectful and sweet and caring, and they have a great connection, but on the other hand wants him to beg her to follow him...but if he did so, wouldn't that negate all those wonderful qualities of beign respectful and sweet and caring? Wouldn't asking her to follow him be a selfish demand, putting her in a position to choose him over her daughter, or bring harm to her ex?
Why on earth would he put such a dilemma to a woman he loves? What possible good would it do for him to throw down, declare he can't live without her, and insist she follow him to the ends of the earth, that everything will somehow work out, love will find a way? He knows she has a commitment to her daughter, that she's not free to just up and move...to ask her would be to assume the mantle of selfishness just so she won't have to.
What the LW wants is for him to make this demand so she can feel really loved and cared for, and then regretfully turn him down in order to do the right thing by her daughter and ex. In this scenario she gets to reject him while still feeling all warm and fuzzy about herself, while avoiding any difficult emotional risk-taking herself.
The LW is a grown up woman with a little girl fantasy of being swept off her feet. Her partner is refusing to play the role of prince - he is leaving a difficult decision to her. There is no reason in the world for him to forego his career opportunity while she remains cozily in place with all of her loved dancing attendance upon her like a bunch of trained poodles. Being a parent means making sacrifices. She doesn't want to make a sacrifice. Understandable. But to expect him to stop being the caring, sensitive respectful man he's always been and become some straight-from-the-movies Lord of Love, insisting he cannot, WILL not, dammit, live with out her! is just ridiculous.
Obviously she is not willing to make the move with him - she doesn't want to take her daughter away from her father, nor is she willing to give the father primary custody while she takes this chance at love. So, she should tell her lover she regrets the timing isn't better, that she would have loved to see what the future held in store for them, make him a fantastic going away dinner, make beautiful love, in the morning kiss him goodbye, and then insist on a 6 month moratorium on any communication so that she can move on.
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Missing the point
[Read the article: Topless bodies found in brainless magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tom Ford's megalomania & misogyny are not really the issue here. After all, this edition of VF doesn't differ appreciably from dozens of others that feature nude or mostly nude women passively staring out at the camera with a 'look at me' pout. Remember Gretchen Mol? Yeah - me neither. She went straight from never was to has been; but about 5-6 years back, VF tried to make her an "It" girl by draping her coyly posed nude body in a mink stole and featuring her on the cover. I'm sure it sold lots of issues but it did nothing for GM's career - she sank without a trace.
I don't think that the two actresses on the cover are really thinking this is a career-boosting move. How could they, when looking at the pantheon of great actresses and movie stars, it becomes clear that the ones that don't have to take their clothes off, don't. The actresses on the cover are posing nude because they like the attention; they feed on admiration and envy to prop up their egos. More men would do it if magazines would pay them the way they pay nubile young actresses...but there's no market for that. Erego, we won't be seeing a nude Brad PItt and Paul Bettany lounging on the cover with a clothed Donna Karan nuzzling their ears - there isn't a big enough market for it (outside of the Castro, that is :-) )
There will always be a limitless supply of beautiful women who want to preen in front of a camera. There will always be magazines that want to put these women on the cover. It's not exploitative, it's just human nature crashing into capitalism. I don't particularly love it - sometimes I think that if I have to look at one more naked model or starlet pouting at me from a magazine cover, I'll go crazy -but I don't have to buy the magazine, or buy into any inherent messages (e.g. that I'm not beautiful because I don't look like the airbrushed nude girls on the cover of magazines).
A more interesting analysis of this article would have been to examine why so many women feel such a strong compulsion to provoke "The Gaze"...and why so many more women resent it even as they snap up VF and other mags of that ilk.