Letters to the Editor
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@KG
She knew herself well enough to know that sex would destroy the friendship.
I think you are exactly right...the problem is that I have trouble detaching my thinking from my penis, and I would bet that a lot of other men have the same problem.
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Curse these complex emotions!
I think you are exactly right...the problem is that I have trouble detaching my thinking from my penis, and I would bet that a lot of other men have the same problem.
Well, in the heat of the moment its hard to hear anything other than the most immediate message, which is "nope, we're not going to have sex!" It's a bummer, no matter what the meta-message is.
I also am one of those women who comes with strings, in almost every situation. I have a good friend who I find very attractive and flatter myself by thinking that maybe finds me attractive sometimes too, but nothing has ever happened between us because we *both* know that our friendship would come to a miserable end if we moved beyond the occasional shoulder-bump as we walk down the street together. He has his reasons, and I have mine, but there they are and there we are.
It still sucks.
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Correction
"Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall
Love is a task and it never will pall ..."
Walter, I believe the correct lyric is:
"Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall
Love is a pastime that never will pall ..."
Carry on.
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Always so late to the weekend Salon parties
I read through most of this thread because I'm trying to distract myself from a more irritating problem. In the first couple of pages, I learned that I find it kind of gross, rather than satisfying, to see usual Broadsheet haters posting congratulations for TCF. You mean, all we women have to do to get fulsome approval from nasty men is talk about how hard things are for you? If that's all it takes, why have we been struggling for so long to have a nuanced dialogue that allows for mistakes on both sides? "Women are indirect. Men are direct." It's so simple, and so much *nicer* to be patted on the head and told "good girl."
Then I learn that walter_map handles mild disagreements with other men by calling them poodles and other versions of de-balled, feminized creatures. This strategy provides some insight into how narrow a category masculinity is to walter_map. I'll take the broader version of manhood, thanks.
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Wow, so much to say about so many different things being talked about here
I wish I had gotten into this before things started to get somewhat ugly. FWIW, Joe and Bob are some of my favorite male posters on Salon, and being a woman, it does not immediately make them "girly men" because I like them. I'm one of those girls with lot of male friends too and I truly love most men. In fact, Joe is one of those guys that loves sexually free women. I know, it seems an odd statement to make, with the obvious thinking that most men would like this, but as we've seen too many times on these threads, a good bit of men really dislike sexual women, hence all those terms like slut and whore.
So that brings me to what I first wanted to discuss, before I read all of the letters and found more topics. It was this particular ending statement that TCF made at that end with not a whole lot of follow-up, either by her or the letters that has always bothered me about male/female sexual relations: "I also find it hard to blame men for not correctly reading women's indirect resistance; women are often expected to, in the very least, put on a halfhearted performance as the steadfast sexual gatekeeper -- even if it's clear that she ultimately intends to abandon her post for the night. Given that cultural script -- first she resists, then she consents -- how is it any surprise that a guy would misinterpret a woman's subtle suggestions to slow down?"
What has always bothered me throughout my sexual life was this cultural script, and its a script that was written by men throughout history. Why is it the sole job of the woman to be the sexual gatekeeper when she herself often wants the same thing sexually as a man wants? If she follows through and "abandons her post" earlier than expected (and this varies from man to man so you never know what you're dealing other than the most obvious "don't have sex on the first date/encounter") she is henceforth labeled a slut. I know, I know, there are men out there who have gone on to have relationships after instantaneous sex, but they really are few and far between. Even men who have admitted to me that they have successfully dated a woman like that once or twice still say they don't want the woman to give in so easy. Yet they are the ones who still will try and try hoping that she'll be the one to resist sooner or later, as is her "job". And if she doesn't, well, now you're a slut and most likely will not be taken seriously anymore.
So when time after time men complain that women can get laid anytime they want and guys have to really work for it yada yada and I counter it with the obvious "well, you know if you'd just drop the slut concept and date us afterwards you'll get laid more often" they'll just stammer and keep repeating the same crap. Trust me, there are lots of women who don't mind casual sex, some of my best sexual memories were these times of crazy passion, but it always ended up with the guy being distrustful of me because I didn't follow the "good girl" script and then go off and marry a girl who did make them jump through hoops, subsequently complaining about the lack of a good married sex life afterwards. When I try to counter that with the idea if you can hold off for months and months you can't really like sex that much you get some sort of argument about not wanting the mother of your children being easy. So it just goes on and on, fifty years after the supposed american sexual revolution.
My single friends will often have casual sex with someone they're attracted to, but not consider relationship material, and hold off for the guy they really like, doing the prerequisite 3 dates or whatever so that they're seen as the good girl. Its really quite ridiculous, especially when you hear those same guys now dating them talking about how they won't date "sluts" without a clue that the girl they consider "good" has no problem banging randoms if she feels like it. This is not to say that she wouldn't date seriously the guy who she just slept with on the first encounter, its more because she knows guys won't want to date her afterwards which is why you don't have sex with the ones you really like. I know I don't hold it against the guy if I have casual sex with him, so why should he hold it against me?
Honestly guys, just let up on the slut thing already. If you did, you wouldn't have to deal with all these breathless ambiguities of "no, no, we really shouldn't" whispered in your ear and complain about mixed signals. Of course not every girl will automatically jump in the sack with you and usually those nos aren't as ambiguous, but the no-who-really-mean-yes types will do so without all the guilt and confusion that comes along with it. Its a simple concept, really...