I see it as a kind of role-playing game. OK, fine, if you want to play "man," I've been known to play "woman" (usually under duress). I mostly agree with you -- but generalities and language make the conversation difficult at a distance. I suspect that I know what you mean about power -- remember the TV show, Do You Want to Marry a Millionaire? from a few years ago. All the man had to do was to be a millionaire, and 100s of women would apply to marry him. People think that money is power and it is, but it's not power over stupidity and it's not power over addictions. I used to think that the "power" in a relationship went to the person who had less sexual desire, because he or she controlled the rules of engagement, while the person who was more sexually frustrated had less power. One last thing: don't equate wearing a dress with feeling feminine. It might be a good idea to ask a woman - what makes you feel feminine -- instead of telling her. What does feminine feel like? Would you like to feel feminine? I hate wearing a dress - but note: the spousal unit thinks he wants me to wear a dress. He often suggests that I wear a dress -- maybe for reasons that you say. When I actually wear a dress, he usually doesn't notice. Okay - open season on me.Why does equality have to mean that we each do half of everything?
Agreed - the key thing is that the relationship feel fair and, when it doesn't, the parties can discuss what doesn't feel fair. Deals do need to be renegotiated from time to time. Even mine.Women, in my experience . . . are attracted to one thing and one thing only: power. Power means different things to different women, but in the end, each (let's focus on straight here for the time, I have no idea what lesbians desire) wants a man to be a man. There's nothing wrong with that. I want a woman to be a woman, even though I believe in the inherent equality of all people as a core principle. With sex, logic need not apply.
I read minimum wage's post before it was deleted. I don't recall what he objected to so strongly. Maybe it was that paragraph. I don't know what to make of your comment about power. I am certainly "attracted" to "power," but not "a man to be a man" kind of power, although that can be kind of cute sometimes.Make your wife dinner, then do the dishes, but when it's all done, pick her up and carry her to bed without asking permission.
I think that must have been the line that got m_w so mad. That's technically rape - You are talking about understood permission communicated via the secret telepathy of couples.
Its physics dictates that a man be aggressive. There's no other way of doing it, so far as I've discovered.
There are other ways of doing it.
C'mon, lil. Obviously I'm talking about the unspoken communication that can only exist between two people who have been with each other for a long time, a subtle body language that doesn't require, and in fact is lessened by, speaking. Anyone with a modicum of emotional sensitivity knows to what I'm referring. I didn't think that needed clarification, but I appreciate it, nonetheless. Money is a proxy for power for some people, typically the unimaginative sort, but it comes in all flavors. Are you not attracted to your husband's intellectual power? Power is an attractive thing, but it need not be the Wall Street type, and for thinking people is preferably not the Wall Street type. I was using the dress line in a literal and a metaphorical sense. I do like a woman in a pretty dress sometimes, but also I mean that it's often attractive for a woman to be unapologetically womanly, dress wearing being a superficial and stereotypical example of such behavior. Of course there are plenty of other ways in which a woman can let her femininity show without wearing any particular garment. Certainly one can just lay there, but even that still has the act of penetration, which is itself a violent act, as anyone who has had the displeasure of taking a woman's virginity can attest to. By no means does being aggressive mean being insensitive. Quite the contrary. In my experience, to be aggressive in a way that is satisfying requires a much deeper sensitivity than passivity does, as one needs to be keenly aware of how one's partner is responding, while also maintaining an often high level of physicality. Anyway, I agree with you on most of your points, and I think maybe I was crass and unclear in my original statement. One last thing I would add: sex is gender roles by it's very nature (at least two person, heterosexual sex), as it's the thing that people do with the parts that make them the gender they are. I don't think there's anything inherently unequal about acknowledging that.That's technically rape - You are talking about understood permission communicated via the secret telepathy of couples.
...don't equate wearing a dress with feeling feminine...I hate wearing a dress - but note: the spousal unit thinks he wants me to wear a dress.
There are other ways of doing it.