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This is a highly relevant and compelling look at sexual identity in a culture & society that's struggling not only to be secure its own indentity, but have one of its own in the first place. Many of Ms. Dowd's views and attitudes are off-the-wall, but they are startling in how genuine and heartfelt they are. This is a woman writing with a lot of passion and desire for something that she can't identify immediately, or consistently.
Seriously, who among us doesn't know that feeling? Who among us has spent portions of our life trying to escape the uncomfortable and unknown? And then regretting it later, wishing that we had the courage to admit to our failures, our mistakes, our humiliations and defeats, our unrequited desires?
The conflict exists here: who we are, who we want to be, and who we think we're supposed to be. It starts as a teenager and most of us never get beyond it entirely...including those of us fortunate enough to have found true love.
Men really aren't necessary in an objective sense; men remain necessary only because many women, on some level, rely on them for security, for validation, for satisfaction, for something to round out their identity (essentially being dominated by something outside of themselves--an arbitrary notion of what they're supposed to be, etc). Its unfortunate. And men do the same thing, obviously. Both types of behaviors aren't particularly constructive. Our society is so celebrity-centric that we think that its normal and admirable to put most of our energy into ourselves. Clearly, this doesn't work for the long-term for anyone. It's exhausting and miserable after awhile. But its hard to resist the residue that such a pervasive attitude leaves on you and on those around you.
Successful relationships CAN and DO happen. But they only happen when both people have absolute genuine desire to love the other person more than themselves. Any aspirations to status, security, and other inherently selfish wants have to melt away in order for that relationship to last.
Ms. Dowd deserves much credit for being a staunch, self-determined, self-defined individual yet honestly wanting to love someone else so much and not letting that desire define her or best her.
