Letters to the Editor

• As for your real points

  [Read the article: For his sake, fake it like you mean it!]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Yes, i'm starting to feel a little silly too. You write "Who said anyone was to be forced to chose between one thing and another?" And the answer is, how else would you interpret "men are ALSO free to NOT be reduced to a single part of their bodies nor over-value that trivial bodily spasm and so be free, FREE, I tell you, to go on and focus on career and the getting of power and money and..."

  you're saying "If (you're not reduced to one body part, etc.), only then (you are free to pursue other things)." Or do you have another interpretation for the words "and so"?

  I'm not saying 'they' don't think about it quite often...I'm saying that 'they' (the ambitious ones?) tend to assign less centrality to the act than, say, many women who seem programmed by 'society' to. The notion of women 'demoting' sex, in this light, would not CREATE an imbalance between the genders...it would REDRESS it.

  I completely disagree with you. I don't think women assign enough centrality to sex, at least nearly as much as men. And that's not necessarily bad, or calling men horny pigs, i just think that our society actually programs women to assign less value to sex than men. Plus, how many men do you know who have sex, but as Weldon urges, don't bother having an orgasm? I don't know any. Men are very much into sex and the pleasure that comes from it, whereas Weldon and some pop culture encourages women to use sex as a means, rather than a fun end in itself.

  considering the mass-media image of women as technologically-enhanced objects of desire who worry about their looks, dream of a wedding night from the onset of pubescence and obsess over issues of reproduction until after menopause, I'd say that as things stand, the societal notion of 'woman' is more vagina-centric than the one of man is phallocentric; isn't the mass-media image of 'man' still more about will and/or intellect than any particular protuberance on his body?

  I think the societal notion of women (At least in our society, and even then, it's hard to generalize) is feminine-centric, and what is feminine is very narrow. It's not sex-centric, it's not about sexual pleasure, it's about marriage and babies and looking sexy, but it's not actual sex or sexuality. Which is maybe why Weldon doesn't really care about that part of being a woman -- orgasm. As for men, it really depends on what we're looking at -- i think they are portrayed as much more sexual than women. Men have sex, men sow their oats, men have fun, men have orgasms. Women are not portrayed this way. One of my best friends told me yesterday that she's never reached orgasm while masturbating, and had an orgasm only once in her life. How many men do you know who can say that?!

  Even many of the 'feminists' among you seem to think of sex as some kind of sacrament for a woman, whereas for many men it's just 'fun'.

  I don't think that's a feminist idea -- it's a puritan idea, that wants to divide up what is permitted sexually by gender (i.e. men have fun, they sleep around, but for women, it has to "mean something" and "be special").

  PS Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle -- believe it or not, some of us actually know what it is and can even explain it. It's not a very difficult concept. :)

  Permalink Thursday, September 7, 2006 05:41 PM

• Proust and/or Quake

  [Read the article: For his sake, fake it like you mean it!]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  anon,

  you're right, i have very warm feelings for both. those Madeleines in the tea, and the gory gory gore -- both very warm :)

  Permalink Thursday, September 7, 2006 05:43 PM