...is my new *hero.*

I had no idea Eric Schaeffer got bent out of shape by a guest on Conan O'Brien's show. And I had no idea that Conan the Librarian actually married an ex of Schaeffer's. Was that just a guess or do you know that for a fact?

Conan's show is a free-for-all. If he couldn't handle being there, given the circumstances, he should have been a gentlemen and bowed out with a rain check.

!! humorous aside -- I much enjoyed the words you put into my mouth in those behemoth posts...but, please, no one should think that nailing my writing cadence is the same as embracing the sheer power and energy of my stallion-like embrace of Source energy !!

Oprah, in her understandable distaste for raw masculinity, approaches sucky-duckiness in her assaults on the truth. Yes, men get busted for beating on women more than the reverse. But the reverse does happen. And it is also true that women who date beaters do so for specific reasons. It's not just the man who needs treatment...the women have some deep-seated need to be traumatized just as the men do. Both need their innards put on display for some compassionate healing and not this punitive back and forth that gets everyone nowhere.

So...to sum up...men who beat women -- bad. Women who date men who beat them -- bad. Women who feel victimized/setup by men -- correct. Men who feel victimized/set up by women -- correct. There is a better solution than the "gotcha" bullshit people have been using here.

Yes, I liked the movie, "Gladiator." Not as a lifestyle, but as a movie depicting men with honor and how they might have behaved in those awful times. Liquid courage.

The other gladiator movies -- the Victor Mature b&w's and the Ben Hur stuff, less so -- but the modern gladiators like Segal (Above the Law was his only decent contribution to date, with the one about the twins from Jamaica a close second) and the Lethal Weapon movies (The first was the masterpiece and the rest were not as good...except for, possibly, Rene Russo's addition in the third movie) also good. Charles Bronson's stuff, too. Sick? Yep. But lovely little sources of adrenalin.

Already did some man-work with some gestaldt thrown in. I weigh 40 pounds less than I do now and I pushed six guys (three on each hand) on their asses. I was pretty pissed off. And at my grandmother, of all people. Hmmm.

It shifted stuff around in the attic, which destabilized my personality. Then I made the mistaken/heroic choice of moving to Texas right after that work was technically complete. Geezus H those were harsh times. But I did run across a therapist who was a Viet Nam vet and who knew how to work through PTSD...he didn't do it perfectly, of course, and there were some missteps along the way, but five years after that I had a feeling of wholeness unlike ever before. So I know I was on the right track. Stuff clicked in and healed up in some remarkable ways.

To sum up: women -- scarier than you'd think, pay close attention to what they DO and not what they say; girls -- dangerous and to be handled with great caution; men -- easier to trust, more straightforward, give them the benefit of the doubt. Sexuality: very straight. Don't even get near me with that thing or that hairy back. Yuk.

Eric Schaeffer -- I guess I don't get him, yet. I think I see a fellow traveller in the midst of this awakening to the whole misogyny thing...and I've been through the ringer with it, so I know how difficult it is in the present "gotcha" social environment to deal with it constructively. We need more men who are willing to come forward and deal with these damaged women who are perpetuating the problem and passing the "sin" forward through sublimated anger and childhood abuse/neglect. You really can't get there until you offload a huge chunk of the shame yourself and put things where they belong in your own head.

I made a conscious choice to AVOID parenthood because, on my honor, I swore to my mother (who may or may not have been entirely "together" mentally and emotionally) that I would never treat a woman as she was treated. I did that at age four and it took me about 34 years to get close to where I am today. It was a long-ass journey up the face of an El-Capitan style mountain, but the view has been incredible.

So quit throwing rocks at people climbing up the face, gang. If you think it's so damn easy, try being a pioneer, yourself, in areas where people would rather jump motorcycles across huge distances, or engage in extraordinary daredevilry, than face up to. The scariest creature on the face of the Earth is your own subconscious mind and the content that's in it.

And, again, this is coming from a place where my mother could do no wrong and I'll kill you for saying otherwise, to a more balanced -- and I think, human -- perspective of this ain't a simple black and white, us versus them, type of issue. Both genders are contributing equally to this problem and we can expect that both are going to be VIOLENTLY upset when we touch upon the sore spot beneath which all the trouble lies.

Bonus Round: It's got to become OKAY and understood that both genders get to have a period where everything about the opposite sex is unnerving and untrustworthy. This "gotcha" bullshit is counterproductive and leaves both parties/genders at a net loss.

And the first male I catch using these issues as mating weapons will get hit with a tongue of fire from me. It's as bad, if not worse, than pre-emptive war. It should be a crime.