dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (08/25/84)
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
phil@amd.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (08/27/84)
Well, Jeff, you could try treating women as human beings like you
and I instead of as sex objects or the path to salvation.
--
I'm a rice eater. Are you a rice eater?
Phil Ngai (408) 982-6554
UUCPnet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd!phil
ARPAnet: amd!phil@decwrl.ARPAchongo@nsc.UUCP (Landon C. Noll) (08/27/84)
>Well, Jeff, you could try treating women as human beings like you >and I instead of as sex objects or the path to salvation. A-men brother! :-) pardon if i seem blunt and harsh, but i think i need to take Jeff to task. so its time for this Christian to ask Jeff where on earth (or above it) are you comming from? try dealing with women as PEOPLE. remember that they are loved by God too. i dont see why Jeff needs to mix Freud with the bible. i try to treat people (male and female) as people. (thats the idea i get from the bible) sex is one of those wonderful things God placed in this world. dont you think Adam and Eve enjoyed it before the fall in Eden? it seems to me that only after the fall into sin that they started having guilt trips about sex... you got a extreme Madonna syndrome going. :-) chongo <even people are people> /\../\ -- 2 is the greatest odd prime because it is the least even prime. Dan Romulus Jurca Cal State Hayward