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From: neal@fear.UUCP (Neal Bedard)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: My first posting to this group.
Message-ID: <183@fear.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 04:55:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: fear.183
Posted: Fri Jun  7 04:55:58 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Jun-85 01:22:09 EDT
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 75

I have been reading/'n' keying past stuff in this group now for a couple of
months now, and I would like to summarise my thoughts on some of the topics.
Excuse the terseness - I want to keep this reasonably short.

Lightweight stuff:

o	On Women and T.P. consumption:
	Who cares? Let 'em buy the extra that they need.

o	On Men and relieving themselves:
   	Men: Lift the damn seat (Lower it when you're done.)

Let's flush this discussion down the drain, where it belongs.

Medium weight:

o	On the Great Sexist Language Debate:
	For nouns of professions, I attempt to use a neutral term, if it isn't
	too awkward. If I blow it, and a sharp-eared feminist type points it
	out, I don't get upset. If she begins a verbal attack on me for being
	an MCP, I tell her to piss off.	I have little patience for people who
	are hunting for	inferences in my verbiage that I didn't imply.

	Let's not butcher English up too badly, please...

o	On Discrimination, etc.:
	It sucks. It should be fixed.

Heavyweight Stuff:

o	Why do men rape?
	Because there are men who are aroused at the thought of dominating
	and/or hurting women. If they were not aroused, they would commit
	simple violence, not rape. Real sickos can only experience sexual
	release *while committing rape*. The violent aspect of rape heightens
	the sexual act for these men. Rape is, then, sex in synergy with
	violence.

o	How do we solve the problem?
	Find out what makes these men tick, and try to help the ones we can,
	like is currently being done with child molesters. In the meantime,
	women will still have to be aware of the possibility of being raped.
	Its a sad fact of Real Life.

o	How could a man understand what rape is?
	I quote Arlyn Fox, fox@dec-ozone:
	> Rape is never talking about it again, after the first time you 
	> try, to even your closest, most feminist male friend. For fear
	> you'll glance down and see the bulge in his pants, too.

   Men:	Imagine being mistakenly arrested for for a violent crime (rape, say)
	and thrown into a `tiger cage' with hardened criminals. These guys 
	(rapists, probably) don't like you very much so they decide to
	gang-anal-rape you and beat the crap out of you for good measure. This
	is the general idea for a parallel male experience. I don't think many
	of you would be bulging at this point.

o	Our criminal justice system and rape:
	The wheels do grind slowly. See Discrimination, etc. above.

o	Guns for personal defense (BLOW 'EM AWAY, etc.):
	What if your attacker surprises you, or he takes your gun away from you
	(this happens to cops, too, who are ostensibly the best trained
	civilians to use firearms.) Guns create more problems than they solve.

o 	How do you defend yourself against a rapist?
	Depends on the woman. For some, submitting may be more apropriate,
	while others can use tactics to injure the attacker, if they are
	physically and emotionally able. There are tradeoffs. The point
	is to stay alive.

There, I've said it. Can we go on to something new now?

Neal B.
"One good thing about music, when it 'its you you feel no pain" (Bob Marley)