Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site teldata.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!teltone!teldata!ted From: ted@teldata.UUCP Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women Subject: Re: Clearing it all up Message-ID: <435@teldata.UUCP> Date: Fri, 13-Jul-84 18:33:30 EDT Article-I.D.: teldata.435 Posted: Fri Jul 13 18:33:30 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jul-84 01:03:53 EDT References: <3787@fortune.UUCP> Organization: Teltone Corp., Kirkland, WA Lines: 106 ******************** Well Trish, I hope you realize this is a two way street. I would like to comment on your comments. Remember these are the opinions of one man, straight, 40 years old, one marriage of 19 years (still married), not necessarily typical, not a candidate for sainthood who is sensitive enough to take a diatribe against "men" personally. Your complaints seem to have one or both of two common elements. First is complaints about characteristics of male behavior and attitude which are responses to societal conditioning ie. environmental influences. These influences cannot be attributed specifically to men or women but are a combination. The second factor is your response to a limited sample or reacting to blatant examples which do not represent the norm. Point-by point comments. 1. A man usually doesn't date his platonic friends. My friends who like me and who I like for themselves (their minds) don't require "dates" for friendship. A traditional "date" ie dinner, dancing, a show, etc. is usually a romantic overture even when that date is with my wife. 2. Respect is earned. Respectful treatment is learned through example and reinforcement and is given or withdrawn based on the reaction and attitude or the respectee. 3. Education and communication. A man has one primary erogenous zone which provides him with complete satisfaction. A women has several erogenous zones and every woman has different patterns which provide her with satisfaction. It is ludicrous to assume a man is going automatically know what is going to please this particular woman. If a woman really cares about him or her own satisfaction she will show him what pleases her. 4. Ditto girls. I've also noticed a lot of women broadcasting bits of private information shared by their man quite often to the embarrassment of that man. 5&6. Right on! But you need to try get get to know a man well enough to get beneath the protective shell. Women help promote this attitude by admiring the macho-man and by assuming the role of needing a strong protector. This is not a man/woman issue by a societal one. Men are acting the way they perceive society wishes them to. 7. Recognize this for what it is. More facade related to the macho image. 8. Women should realize that men have affairs with no more emotional involvement than masturbating and the lasting emotional effects on him are no greater than wacking it off in the bathroom. If a man is in a committed monogamous relationship and he strays it is a sign of problems in the relationship and to assume the man to be at fault is dead wrong, there is an equal probability the woman is at fault. 9. Good! Also have the women stop believing they need the handsomest, most macho man in the place. 10. I think you misunderstand the man in that situation. It is more macho ego salving. More often than not the woman being paraded is also parading the beautiful man she caught. 11. Societal or peer pressure won't let him. In private most are and will admit it. Society seems to promote different public and private images. 12. PEOPLE are hard to understand and fickle, its just that a man cares more or has more at stake in understanding women. Women have played at this hard to understand and fickle image. 13. This is a man's reaction to prostitution. Many women will give a man something if he wines & dines her that she wouldn't if he didn't. The only difference in this kind of prostitution and the more obvious kind is the method of payment and prior negotiations. Women could stop promoting the image that they need to have a lot money spent on them to gain their favor (not just sex). 14. I get fed-up with women who wear tight sweaters, slit skirts, skin tight pants, open neck or sheer blouses and then complain about the extra attention they get from men. If you don't want a reaction don't provoke it. What justification is there to wearing slacks or sweaters that are too small or not buttoning the top three buttons of a blouse? There has been some discussion lately about biological determinism. It is real and it does exist. It doesn't account for most of a man's behavior but it does affect him. It is ludicrous to assume the human species has evolved beyond all instinctual actions. I for one can sense a difference in my reaction to visual sexual stimulus depending on how recently I've had sexual release or my state of health and can find no explanation other than biological. Granted, responses to stimulus are largely developed through environmental conditioning but this conditioning is just as much a part of us as is our purely biological responses and can no more be willed away than our need to breath, such conditioning can only be countered by equally strong and persistent counter conditioning. I cannot immediately abandon my lecherous thoughts any more readily than you can abandon you lesbianism, but I make an effort not to condemn anyone else for the way I am and I do try not to make anyone else uncomfortable. Men have a hell of a time being happy and many of them work themselves into an early grave trying to provide for their wives and children. Most men take a "grin and bear it" attitude and try to make the best of the current situation rather than settling for less. A lot of women take delight in making their men jump through hoops, making them beg for permission to do something enjoyable. The same society that developed the macho attitudes of men and the oppression of women has demanded that men be the bread winners and provide the 2 cars, color TV's, 3 bedroom house, microwave ovens, etc., etc. Maybe that's why women live longer that men.