Letters to the Editor
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Nailed it.
Ms. Harding’s deconstruction of the utterances of certain status- and attention-driven females is satisfyingly accurate, useful and all the more effectively made via the tree house analogy (which reminded me of the brilliance of the Calvin and Hobbes strips).
It is all about patriarchal power, status, access to them, and the unhealthy symbioses (ironically enough, power and status leveraged through a form of prostitution) some females resort to. And this dysfunction, as astutely observed, exacerbated by current fears triggered by a female actually aspiring to the position of top crime boss . . . . er, “President”.
Let’s hope we see more in Broadsheet from Ms. Harding.
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Would the reverse hold?
I wonder what "Dr" Laura would say about the wife, who has a husband too busy with his job to have a sex life or be emotional available or too pre-occupied to say some thing nice to his wife, if that wife decided to destroy her career, his reputation and their marriage because she sought the attention of some young hunk who paid attention to her sexually and as a woman?
Would "Dr" Laura suggest that when women stray it is most likely due to the men not making the women important and desirable and loved?
I think not. She would just say the woman was a slut.
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Woe betide me...
for ever agreeing with Dr Laura, even marginally. It appears from the reports that Spitzer was looking not just for sex and ego stroking, he was looking for dangerous sex--kinky sex. How many wives would be horrified if their husband expressed a preference for tying her up, being spanked, or an@l sex?
LOTS.
So, color me not terribly surprised. Silda's fault? I wouldn't go that far, but, a man who wants adventurous sex will eventually find it.
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Do ya think....
...that Dr. Laura also thinks women should get naked, wrap themselves up in Saran Wrap, and greet hubby at the door like that when he returns home from work?
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What a dinosaur
We were watching Larry King on CNN when he was doing his hookers and johns show the other night and he advised that Dr Laura would be on. I quickly went to another channel because I knew she would say something stupid and ridiculous.
Women's rights just passed this one by.
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HOOKERS AND JOHNS SHOW
The TV just happened to be on during Larry King's hookers and johns show, and what I heard drew me into the room to see if what I was hearing was real. I thought it was the weirdest show I'd ever seen, not realizing that the next night's show would be even weirder.
The whole thing keeps reminding me of the lyrics from a song in the musical The King and I:
[KING]
A woman is a female who is human,
Designed for pleasing man, the human male.
A human male is pleased by many women,
And all the rest you hear is fairy tale.
[ANNA]
Then tell me how this fairy tale began, sir.
You cannot call it just a poet's trick
Explain to me why many men are faithful
And true to one wife only.
[KING]
THEY ARE SICK!
A girl must be like a blossom
With honey for just one man.
A man must be like honey bee
And gather all he can.
To fly from blossom to blossom
A honey bee must be free,
But blossom must not ever fly
From bee to bee to bee.
Nothing has changed, folks. The more powerful the man, the more he needs to have his ego stroked. Some men do it in extra-marital affairs, brief sexual liaisons, and even with paid partners.
Stop blaming the wife. She's just the blossom who must not ever fly. I've seen many a political wife in my long years of life who have been humiliated by their ego-driven husbands.
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Doppelganger, You Missed The Point
Sure some men - and women - cheat because they're not getting what they want/need/are entitled to in a marriage.
Sure it is *possible* that's what was going on with the Spitzers.
But we don't know. Nobody who really knows has said anything about what was actually going on between the Spitzers.
That lack of facts doesn't stop not-a-doctor-but-insists-on-being-called-one Schlessinger from saying it *must* have been Silda's fault. Not "might have been" or "could have been".
That's the problem.
I'm sorry for your personal situation. But how would you feel if someone who knew nothing of what actually went on said it was all your fault?
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@privateice
according to those far more in the know about professional sex-for-hire, "dangerous sex" is usually a code word for sex -vaginal and/or anal intercourse- without protection.
That said, if a wife (or a husband) is unwilling to engage in their spouse's fetishes, it doesn't give them permission to purchase sex elsewhere, on the grounds of failure to perform marital duties. What if, instead of spanking (as you suppose), or unprotected anal intercourse (as I propose), Spitzer's fetish had been threesomes? If Silda Spitzer had nixed that, would Dr. Laura still be saying she "failed" her husband?
My own speculation (without knowing any more about the Spitzer marriage than any other Salonista, and without projecting my own experiences a la Parson Jim and doppleganger) Eliot Spitzer's patronage had nothing to do with how generous or withholding Silda Spitzer was in their bedroom. (Plenty of spouses say they had no idea their SO was having an affair, because the marital sex was great!) I suspect this had more to do with power: Eliot Spitzer literally getting off on his own sense of cleverness, entitlement, sexual prowess, whatever.
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Dr. Laura knows from homewrecking
How many of her husbands did she steal from other women? She and Sally Quinn (another homewrecker who wrote a similarly nasty anti-Silda piece the other day: http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/15/shut-yer-piehole-homewrecker/) should get together sometime, eh?
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Did Dr. Laura berate Vitter's or Craig's wives?
A quick says "No, she didn't."
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This is funny
A post on women bashing and this entry is "red starred":
News flash for Dr. Laura. Guys will always try or at least want to have sex with younger, hotter, sluttier versions of whoever they are married to or dating. You can be married to a Saint who cooks, cleans, and loves sex four times a week. But your always going to be looking (maybe not doing and hope to god not paying) at something else.
Men are dogs. I know I am one. Women at aren't the problem, men aren't the problem. The real problem is a system of morals, imposed by people like Dr. Laura, that is contradictory to our biological needs and wants.
A woman berating women is crazy but a man slurring men is, well, "refreshing."
And if you agree with the idea that men are dogs, then is it so outlandish to say that they need their egos stroked by at least one person -- their wife? I know nothing of the Spitzer marriage, and I know enough about Dr. Laura to know she's a nut. But a lot of men, particularly high achievers, probably do need their mate to make them feel like an alpha male -- out of biology, not out of some evil possession. What's more, many women want to view their husbands this way. It seems to have been an attribute of evolution that has persisted. Women make men feel special and men need that, so they partner (our pairing, unlike birds, does not seem to be as biologically determinate as it is a social reaction to more subtle biology).
It makes sense: in a complex society, not all men can be alpha males, so having someone close to them make them feel like they are, at least to one person, strengthens a bond. Men who don't cheat can be one of two things: a rare, strong person who is so able to impose social morals on their biology that they don't cheat, or someone who is a woman's champion, and doesn't want to return to just being a regular guy. So Dr. Laura might be on to something, even if her motives and intellectual balance may be called into question.