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From: dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women
Subject: Re: Trish revisited, calmly [comments on Jeff's article]
Message-ID: <3015@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-Aug-84 15:20:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.3015
Posted: Sat Aug 25 15:20:39 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Aug-84 00:41:48 EDT
References: <977@pucc-h>, <992@pucc-h>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
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I haven't seen any comments on Jeff's last two articles yet, and since I'm
on holidays anyway, I'll take the time to followup.


	From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)

	I suspect that many a (seemingly?) insensitive man may have a
	dream that some "perfect" woman is going to graciously, with
	incredible humility, take him as SO and thereby, shall we say,
	forgive him his sins and redeem him; that by submitting her
	(imagined) purity and perfection to the possible depredations
	of his impurity and imperfection, she would somehow relieve him
	of the gnawing pain that comes from knowing that no matter how
	much one grows as a person, one is never perfect; one always
	has sins.  In other words, men are looking for a woman to play
	the role of Christ in a visible, palpable manner.

I, personally, am not looking for someone to redeem my sins, either Christ
or a woman.  I have my own standards of right and wrong, but they seem
considerably easier to live within than the Christian ones (judging by the
difficulty Christians seem to have) and so I don't "sin", by my standards,
very often.  And when I do, I seem to be able to forgive myself eventually.
And I see very little sign of longing for redemption among my closer friends,
either.

	It is probably for this reason that a man takes it as such a
	special honor to be the first man to have sex with a particular
	woman -- that she cares so much for him that she sacrifices
	even her virginity for him -- a blood sacrifice, yet!

I don't consider virginity to be particularly precious.  And the loss of
virginity does not need to involve the shedding of blood!  What are you
going to do, Jeff, if you have sex with a virgin and she doesn't bleed?
Are you going to think she was lying about her virginity, or will you
believe her but feel less honoured because she didn't bleed?  And what
happens if you don't quite feel fully redeemed afterwards - do you have
to go out and find another virgin?  (I'm deliberately being facetious
here - I'm trying to illustrate why I think treating virginity as
a precious commodity is silly.)

	A darker possibility here is that a man may, at bottom, really
	have it in for women -- really, actually, hate them, or at
	least bear a grudge against that side of the human species.
	Thus, if his feelings of attraction to women, or to a
	particular woman, are carefully analyzed, he may actually be
	considering her to be pure and perfect with an eye to how good
	it would feel (emotionally as well as physically) to defile all
	that sweet purity.  Note that this entails, again, his
	considering himself as wondrously impure, so that he can be the
	defiling agent ...

You seem to be saying, basically, that the man is attracted to the woman
because he wants to hurt her.  Probably some men are, but I don't think
this is predominant in the attitudes of very many men.  And for this to
work, you still have to see the woman as "perfect" and thus subject to
being "defiled".  A woman is a human being, not a church!

	But it is astonishing what you find out when you "show God your
	dirty pictures", as one pastor friend of mine put it -- i.e. be
	appallingly honest about your sexual fantasies; Playboy can
	thus sometimes serve as a focusing device.

Honesty about yourself to yourself is usually a good thing....

	Anyway, returning to the theme of my earlier paragraphs, what
	would seem to be necessary for marriage or SO-ship is that a
	man become sufficiently accepting of his own and everyone
	else's sins/imperfections that he can be intimate with a woman
	who is just as sinful/imperfect as he is, and love her
	nevertheless.

	My only question is:  how on earth can anyone pull this off?

My reply is: It is possible to accept oneself.  And if you can accept
yourself, you probably can accept others too on the same terms.

And I really don't like your use of "nevertheless" - you seem to be
implying that love is associated with perfection, and that it may
require effort to learn to love someone even if they aren't perfect.
Rubbish.  Can't you love someone's faults as well as their good
features?  Wait, I'll make a yet stronger statement:  If you see
someone as perfect, you can worship them but you cannot really love
them at all.  It is only the real, imperfect people that you can love,
not the pedestalized perfect ones.

I would say that you, Jeff, need to learn to accept yourself for
yourself, rather than looking for a woman to accept you and thus make
everything alright.  And yes, I know it's difficult.  (I have a
difficult time seeing myself as lovable and desirable during the times
when there is no one that visibly sees me in that way.)  But looking
for a woman whose presence will change your life is, I think, the wrong
approach.

	Dave Martindale