Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rtech.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!intelca!qantel!dual!unisoft!mtxinu!rtech!daveb From: daveb@rtech.UUCP (Dave Brower) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Collected Communication 101 - defense to kneejerk flames. Message-ID: <573@rtech.UUCP> Date: Sat, 27-Jul-85 17:13:39 EDT Article-I.D.: rtech.573 Posted: Sat Jul 27 17:13:39 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 08:16:20 EDT References: <610@unc.UUCP> <2@unc.UUCP> <371@oliven.UUCP> Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA Lines: 72 > >>> In order to be sexy, you must feel sexy. However, you cannot > >>> feel sexy AND simultaneously feel terrified... > > > >In article daveb@rtech.UUCP (Dave Brower) writes: > >> "Excitement and Fear are the same physical state. > >>It's your *attitude* that makes it feel one way or the other..." - an XSO [attribution omitted from followup] > > > >Why don't you try telling that to a rape victim -- that her fear > >was equivalent to sexual excitement, or would have been if only > >she had a better attitude. > > > >Sexual excitement and ordinary excitement are NOT AT ALL the same thing, > >physiologically. > > > > Frank Silbermann > > I have to lend my support to Frank in this. The above sentiment by > Dave Brower is one of the biggest stumbling blocks our legal system > has to makeing progress in prosecuting and preventing rape today. > -- It's bad enough being flamed for something you said yourself, but annoying to be castigated out of context. You *might* notice I was quoting someone else in my original article, and include the attribution in the quotation. I'm also compelled to ask where rape entered the discussion, unless all relations between sexes are presumed to degenerate to that level. (If so, we might rename this to net.existential.dread :-) We are NOT talking about physical fear (rape, wife-beating, abused children and worse). Was the 'terrified' of the original article intended to mean that the man was afraid of being maced in the store if he talked to the woman? I think not. We are talking about the desire for intimacy and the ensuing emotional conflicts. The 'offensive' statement was made by one of those aggressive females beloved of another discussion when she was trying to redirect energy I was putting into psychic defenses into more pleasurable areas. It was inserted into the original article to counter the statement that you can't be sexy and terrified. I *was* terrified, but that didn't stop the *right* person from finding me sexy :-). It is possible to be both sexually excited by someone and emotionally terrified at the same time. This is very often the case during the sort of initial encounters being addressed in the original article. Who has *not* felt fear talking to someone attractive for the first time? To some degree I use my fear-factor as an index of my attraction and emotional interest in someone. If I haven't got some fear, then I'm probably not very interesed in her: If I'm not willing to be vulnerable, how can I become truly intimate? And if I don't have some fear of being vulnerable to someone I hardly know, what kind of fool am I? (There's a song in there, somewhere :-) The mechanical advice of _How_to_Pickup_Girls_ et.al seems to want to deny the emotional content of early interactions. I find that self-defeating. When you are involved deeply with someone, there are going to be moments of real fear/dread/vulnerability when you are being open with each other. Sharing that experience, and being reciprocally comforted that there is nothing to fear from the other is one of the warmest parts of a relationship. -dB -- {amdahl|dual|sun|zehntel}\ | Our three main weapons are FEAR, {ucbvax|decvax}!mtxinu---->!rtech!daveb | SURPRISE, and an almost ihnp4!{phoenix|amdahl}___/ | fanatical DEVOTION to the pope!