Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr
From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.motss
Subject: Re: We aren't that simple.
Message-ID: <845@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Jul-84 19:58:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.845
Posted: Wed Jul 11 19:58:26 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jul-84 04:58:41 EDT
References: <2408@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 32

> Anyway,  the  point  of this article is that sex roles are deep-rooted,
> primary  parts  of  humanity, (we have been discussing how hard it can be to
> buck  them!).  They have to work in the general case. What if sex roles only
> worked  for  a given sub-population? One generation later, their descendants
> would  be  the  only  population. Hence, they work. They're ill fitting, and
> hurt  a  lot  these days, though.
>
> I haven't ever seen a gay or lesbian relationship that did not *most of the
> time*  exhibit differential 'sex roles.' They may swap or submerge, but from
> what I've seen, they surface daily.  They're so solidly a part of us that
> they persist when they're not relevant.
> 	Eirikur Hallgrimsson  

This assumes only one set of sex roles, involving two people, one male & one
female, with fixed societally prescribed roles.  A society where the roles
are more important than the people who have to fulfill them strikes me as
rather ridiculous.  People having relationships in which the relators relate
only in fixed predetermined ways is the surest way to stifle individuality.
It's akin to the "roles" described in transactional analysis---parent, child,
adult.  The roles don't imply that only particular people get to live them
out based on their having been labelled as "parent", "child", etc.  (I'm
not a big fan of transactional analysis precisely because it *labels* the
roles and idnetifies them with particular types of people.)  Roles of
"husband" and "wife" fit under the same umbrella.  Why is anyone, in any
type or relationship (heterosexual/homosexual) somehow expected to live
out a particular role?  Why is anyone expected to live out any such role,
and why are people in relationships expected to take on such pre-ordained
complimentary/contrary/antipodal roles?
-- 
"So, it was all a dream!" --Mr. Pither
"No, dear, this is the dream; you're still in the cell." --his mother
				Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr