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Tuesday, June 11, 2002

More on Bikinis :-)

Welcome, Sarah, to the discussion.

Sarah elaborates on the feminist male-oppression argument, in terms of the expectations of (male?) society to either mother children or live in service to a husband, protector, etc. I won't argue feminist oppression theory here, simply because I'm not prepared, but Sarah goes on to some territory I do feel more comfortable discussing:

I'd contend that sex drives differ more between individuals than they do between the genders. [emphasis mine] But again, a strong sex drive is expected and praised in men, and is reviled and discouraged in women. Men are studs, women are sluts. So if you do believe that a strong sex drive relates to a strong creative drive, what would it mean to have that source of power questioned and denigrated and burned out of you on a matter of principle?
The underlined statement above has not been my experience, and though anecdotal evidence is of little use here, IMO there's a reason men are societally pilloried these days as "thinking with their crotches" and "only interested in one thing" and having "sex crossing their minds every seven seconds" and the like. Straight evolutionary reasoning suffices: successful individuals from the half of the species that's more likely to get itself killed fighting over territory, food and/or reproductive rights will have a sharper hormonal "spur" in order to get their DNA out and working sooner rather than later.

...And evidently I'm in the (male) minority in thinking that it'd be great if more women had high sex drives and paraded them around a bit. Then at least I'd be more likely to get some. :-D I've never understood the whole "sexually confident woman == slut" thing, though I see people who reduce themselves to self-denigrating parodies of sexuality as repulsive and "slutty" in both sexes. "Slut" is actually one of the nastier words left in the English language, IMO, and interestingly the only times I've heard it used on anyone (probably less than a dozen instances, lifetime), it's come from female lips.

-Rich

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